Ou Tao made a simple deduction: Ke Er was suspicious. But what trouble could such a tiny loli possibly cause? She was only level one—it couldn’t be learned magic. Only one explanation remained: she possessed some innate power.

Yet how could two peasants birth a daughter with absurdly overpowered magical talent? Ou Tao suspected Mai Qiu had cheated on Rod—the character he controlled—with another man, making Ke Er someone else’s child.

But the test results flipped everything: Ke Er was Rod’s biological daughter… yet not Mai Qiu’s. Husband and mistress had an affair, yet the child appeared in the wife’s womb? What was this—a cuckoo’s egg?

“Am I playing a horror mystery game?” Ou Tao muttered, the situation growing eerier.

“Sir, what now? I found no magic that transfers a fetus from one womb to another!”

“Play it by ear. She’s my daughter—that’s confirmed. Who the other parent is? Don’t care. Leveling up and grabbing stronger gear matters. And what’s in this grave? Extremely useful.”

Ou Tao drew a rapier. It hosted a spirit too—but as mere freebie blue-grade loot from an unboxing, he’d only bound an N-rated spirit to it. Only SSR spirits took human form; lower tiers kept their original shapes.

Here, a Level 2 Frost Goblin materialized: scrawny, grinning slyly, clutching a frozen dagger. At Ou Tao’s glance, she lunged toward Mai Qiu’s corpse.

Ou Tao silently turned away. Five minutes later, the goblin returned with a pouch. Mai Qiu’s grave was refilled, restored.

Inside: thirteen Blood Ices of Resentment.

“Ou the Three Cleans strikes again!” Hamiyou onlookers whispered.

“Ou the Three Cleans” was Ou Tao’s nickname. In gaming slang, “Three Cleans” meant he left nothing behind—valuable or not, if it could be taken, it vanished. Corpses? Graves eight years old? If loot existed, he’d dig it up.

Ou Tao saw it as sportsmanship: “In-game, I go all out. That’s respect, not insult.”

He placed Ke Er’s thirteen companion crystals on the Mechanic’s alchemy station, poured river water into a bottle. Grayish-brown mushrooms became crude potion. Added redstone dust, blue silver powder—refined potion. Fermented Bamboo Boar King eyes forged deadly poison. Finally, Blood Ices of Resentment.

Thirteen orange potions crafted. After explosive fruit powder refinement: Splash Frost Despair Potions. Effect: freezing suppression in a 5-meter radius for 30 seconds, 45 true damage per second (true damage ignores armor, drains HP directly).

“Pretty terrifying,” Ou Tao shook the bottle. Total 1,350 damage—one-shot Bamboo Boar King. Below level 20? Certain death without a support cleanse. Highly useful until level 40.

Thirteen bottles—just enough with perfect timing. The village doctor never knew how precious Ke Er’s birth ice crystals were; he’d buried them with her mother years ago. Only Bika’s search through Hamiyou’s intel network revealed it.

Home, Ke Er had everything ready. Dimensional storage pouches made bulky luggage unnecessary.

Still, Ou Tao hung his orange-grade weapons—including Yami—and four blue-grade blades at his waist, ready for surprises.

He commissioned a carpenter: a wooden cart with a cloth canopy. Villagers frowned.

“Rod, heading to town? Why a cart?”

“In this freeze, only city nobles own horses. Our village has none. Plains herds have none either!”

Ou Tao smiled. “No horse? But I’ve got a donkey.”

He pressed the sword hilt. Yami burst into the air, cheerfully hitching the cart. “Swordmaster! Retreating!”

Yami shot forward like a released arrow, cart speeding between village brick walls. At an iron gate turn, she executed a sharp drift, dust swirling as she vanished down the mountain dirt road.