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Little Grandma!!

Feng Shan didn’t feel sad right now, but rather a strange urge to both laugh and cry. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Although he had never met his grand-uncle, the man had left him the Crown Territory before he passed away. It was a debt of gratitude he could never repay.

And then there was Frank, who had traveled thousands of miles and gone through countless hardships to find him, deliver the Crown Territory into his hands, and had been selflessly helping him ever since. That was another debt he could never repay.

The weight of these two debts made it impossible to blame either of them.

He had no right to blame them, anyway.

Having come to terms with it, Feng Shan stood up and looked at the terrified Frank.

"Since you were married to my grand-uncle, that makes you my elder. In China, we kowtow to our elders. Even though we’ve met many times, I still have to follow tradition and kowtow to you."

As he spoke, Frank watched in astonishment.

Feng Shan slowly knelt, his knees making a soft sound as they touched the ground.

Frank’s eyes widened, his face a mixture of shock and emotion.

He quickly reached out to help Feng Shan up, saying, "Get up, get up! You don’t have to do this."

But Feng Shan insisted on staying on his knees and solemnly kowtowed once.

Then he stood up, his eyes filled with sincerity and respect as he looked at Frank.

"From now on, you’re my elder. I’ll respect your relationship with my grand-uncle. However, my grand-uncle just passed away not long ago, and you’re already messing around with other women in front of your junior... that’s..."

"What if I said that marriage is a free concept in the United States? I sleep with other women, but I still love Feng. He was my everything. Is that explanation acceptable?" Frank said candidly.

Feng Shan’s head throbbed.

’Back in China,’ he thought, ’you’d get beaten so badly your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.’

"Forget it. Let’s go back."

The two returned to the villa. Seeing them, the others secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The fight they had anticipated hadn’t happened.

"Let me reintroduce someone!" Feng Shan pointed at Frank with a sigh of resignation. "This is my grand-uncle’s widower... and also my little grandma."

!!!

Everyone was stunned. They had just been speculating on all sorts of backstories, but not a single one involved Frank being Feng Shan’s grandma.

Even in the United States, a plot twist like this was rare.

Maria covered her mouth, her eyes wide with disbelief.

Erica and Tammy exchanged a look, both seeing the shock in the other’s eyes.

David and Yves also wore expressions of utter disbelief.

Jenny frowned slightly, as if deep in thought.

Only Nash continued to pick meat out of the hot pot, as if nothing that happened outside could affect his loyalty to Khilla.

Frank, on the other hand, stood there awkwardly, unsure how to react to everyone’s expressions.

After a moment, Jenny was the first to break the silence. "This... this is so unexpected. But, since Feng Shan has accepted it, we should respect his decision."

The others nodded in agreement.

"Alright, let’s get back to the hot pot." Feng Shan walked calmly to the table, picked up a piece of meat from the pot with his chopsticks, and began chewing it heartily.

Frank also picked up a beer.

The next moment, Feng Shan stopped him and said with a straight face.

"Little Grandma, with your constitution, it’s best not to drink ice-cold beer while eating hot pot."

Frank’s expression immediately fell. He replied, exasperated.

"Buddy, can you please not use that title? It makes me sound like an old pervert."

"Okay, Little Grandma!" Feng Shan nodded.

Hearing their exchange, Erica was the first to burst out laughing, and the others soon joined in.

Cheerful laughter echoed through the villa, dispelling the earlier tension and gloom.

Maria was laughing so hard that tears streamed down her face. Wiping them away, she said, "Feng Shan, stop teasing Frank."

Tammy added with a laugh, "Yeah, that title is just devastating."

David and Yves shook their heads and chuckled, while Jenny also broke into a smile.

Meanwhile, Nash continued his assault on the hot pot. While everyone was chatting, he piled more meat onto his plate.

Frank looked at them helplessly. "You guys can stop laughing now. That name is driving me crazy."

However, his words only provoked another round of roaring laughter.

The steam from the hot pot and the sounds of laughter intertwined, filling the cold night with warmth and joy.

...

「The next morning.」

Sunlight crested the snow-capped mountains, casting its first rays on the new campsite and scattering across the vibrant green mossy ground.

Maria pushed open the villa door with a look of pleasant surprise and saw Feng Shan eating noodles.

"The Ice River outside the camp has melted!"

"Oh. Come have breakfast. The noodles are delicious in yesterday’s hot pot broth," Feng Shan said, slurping his noodles noisily from his plate.

"Ahem, the Ice River has melted!" Maria repeated, her tone more forceful. However, the aroma of the hot pot broth weakened her resolve. She darted into the kitchen, filled a plate with noodles for herself, and returned to the dining area to eat.

"Feng Shan, the Ice River outside has melted!" Erica shouted as she burst into the villa, pointing in the river’s direction.

Feng Shan continued to slurp his noodles. "Want some hot pot broth noodles?"

"Alright, I’ll just have a little. I’m on a diet lately!" Erica said, feigning reluctance, but she happily walked into the kitchen.

A short while later, David walked into the villa. Just as he was about to speak, Feng Shan cut him off. "I know, the Ice River melted. Go get some noodles."

Oh!

Having had his line stolen, David walked dejectedly into the kitchen.

Yves, Jenny, and Nash followed, and their opening lines were all basically the same.

Of course Feng Shan knew the Ice River had melted. ’How could I not know? I’m the one who did it.’

Last night, after finishing the hot pot, he had escorted his "Little Grandma" back to the bus camp to rest. On his way back to the new campsite, he had made a special stop by the tribe’s Fire Seed and poured his recently accumulated Soul Power into it.

This time, he had the Fire Seed envelop the entire new campsite, including the two Ice Rivers that surrounded it.

Feng Shan had realized something very important: the new campsite had no water source.

Back at the bus camp, they could draw water directly from Gem Lake. But here on the Glacial River Beach, all the rivers were frozen solid. Their only option was to melt snow or ice.

「After breakfast.」

Feng Shan wiped his mouth and stood up. As the others waited anxiously, he said, "Let’s go. We’ll go out and see what’s going on with the river."

They left the villa and walked to the bank of the Ice River.

The new campsite was on a highland river beach carved out by meltwater from the snow-capped mountains. Two frozen rivers, each over four meters wide and two meters deep, encircled the camp. Previously, when the rivers were frozen, they could simply walk across the ice.

Not anymore.

The once-frozen rivers had begun to thaw. The meter-thick layer of ice on the surface was breaking apart, and the chunks collided with crisp cracks under the force of the flowing water.

The water rushed downstream, churning up white foam and carrying a fresh scent.

"It’s so beautiful!" the women couldn’t help but exclaim as they gazed at the river.

David frowned in confusion. What he was seeing now was completely different from what he had learned in college.

Logically, for a glacial-type river like this, the surface ice should be almost permanently frozen. Even if there was water flowing underneath, it would be impossible for it to melt overnight—unless the subterranean temperature had risen dramatically.

He had taken a snowmobile to the other end of the new campsite this morning, and it seemed only the two Ice Rivers around the camp were melting. Farther away, the rivers were still frozen solid.

If the ground temperature was rising, the culprit had to be geothermal activity. It was possible that underground shale gas was undergoing large-scale combustion.

At this thought, David’s expression turned grim. He walked over to Feng Shan. "Khilla, the Ice River melting isn’t a good thing for the camp. I think there’s a problem with the underground shale gas. Why don’t we leave the new camp for now and have a professional survey team conduct a safety assessment of this area?"

’A survey team, my ass!’

’I know exactly what’s going on.’

Feng Shan could only feign ignorance. "What’s the problem?"

David gestured wildly, trying to explain with a bunch of technical jargon, but he only confused everyone. Finally, he stomped his foot. "I’ll just show you!"

The group rode their snowmobiles along the riverbank to the other end of the camp. Here, the Ice River wasn’t melted, but they could clearly see a fault line where the thaw began. Clear meltwater was surging out from beneath the meter-thick ice sheet.

Everyone stared in amazement at the peculiar sight. David pointed at the fault line and the surging water. "This is highly abnormal. Ice should melt over a wide area, not in a sharp line like this. It means the temperature beneath the camp is rising, causing the nearby Ice River to thaw."

"Isn’t a rising temperature a good thing?" Erica said nonchalantly.

’A good thing?’

David gave the unscholarly Erica a speechless look and said with a grave expression, "It is not a good thing. The temperature is rising so fast that even the Ice River is melting. This indicates large-scale combustion of underground shale gas. If the combustion reaches its peak... BOOM! The entire camp will explode."

Hearing this, everyone’s expression instantly tensed up.

Feng Shan’s mouth twitched. ’Having an intellectual in the camp is such a pain in the ass.’

’He had simply used the Fire Seed to melt the Ice River, but in David’s mouth, it had turned into a ticking time bomb.’

But he couldn’t just tell them the truth, so he had to change the subject.

He cleared his throat. "Let’s not get too nervous. Maybe the situation isn’t that bad. Let’s observe our surroundings first and see if there are any other anomalies."

After speaking, Feng Shan got on his snowmobile and rode off, following the riverbank until he reached the back of the wooden villa. This area, where the two Ice Rivers converged, was originally a frozen ice lake.

When the others arrived at the edge of the Ice Lake, they found that its ice layer also showed varying signs of melting.

In some places, the ice had become so thin that they could even see the water flowing beneath it.

It probably wouldn’t be long before this entire Ice Lake melted completely, becoming a small lake.

David’s brow furrowed tightly. "The situation is even more serious than I thought. It seems the ice all around the camp is being affected."

"How about this: I’ll have Tom send over some detection equipment, and you can be in charge of testing and analysis." Feng Shan had to find an excuse to brush the matter aside for now.

"Khilla, we can’t cross!" Nash pointed at the river. With the Ice River’s ice layer melted, leaving the camp had become their biggest problem.

Nash’s interruption made everyone realize that the new campsite had now become an isolated island.

The over four-meter-wide Ice River had melted, surrounding the new camp.

"To work, to work! Let’s build a wooden bridge first. How else are we going to cross the river?" Feng Shan deliberately ignored David’s suggestion and called the men to start building.

Some time ago, Old Swanage had left behind leftover lumber from his hangar project, which was piled up at the new campsite. Feng Shan had planned to use it as firewood for the winter, but now it had a perfect use.

The river was about four meters wide, so any log over ten meters long could easily span the banks.

They first selected two thick logs to serve as the main beams of the bridge. Feng Shan and the others managed to position them across the river and then secured both ends.

Next, they used a chainsaw to cut the remaining logs into sections of the same length, laid them one by one across the two beams, and fastened them with nails and wire.

By the time the wooden bridge was finished, the Ice River had completely thawed. The current had calmed, and the clear water flowed slowly under the bridge with a pleasant sound as it emptied into the Ice Lake.

"Uncle Flack was right. This is the Land of Angels, a place that can save souls," Tammy murmured to herself, looking at the mossy ground, the river, and the distant snow-capped mountains.

...