Gu Hao did not call it a launch.
He called it a test.
Only five sacks were prepared.
No more.
Each sack contained compressed grain portions sealed in plain waxed paper. No clan mark. No special name. No embellishment.
Gu Qing looked at the inventory twice.
"That's all?" he asked.
"Yes," Gu Hao replied. "If five sacks cause trouble, fifty will cause disaster."
Gu Qing nodded slowly.
The release was quiet.
Not to markets.
Not to stalls.
To three buyers only.
A Luo River Sect patrol captain
A caravan escort leader
A mercenary cultivator group guarding a long trade route
All Qi Condensation.
All without storage rings.
All exhausted often.
The terms were strict.
Limited quantity
No resale
Feedback required
Payment upfront
Price: one low-grade spirit stone per ten portions
Expensive.
Intentionally so.
The first response arrived two days later.
Not praise.
Confusion.
The patrol captain sent a short message.
We finished the route without stopping.
No instability.
Is this grain… safe?
Gu Hao read it once.
Then archived it.
The caravan escort leader came in person.
He looked wary.
"This isn't a pill," the man said. "But it acts like one."
Gu Hao shook his head. "It doesn't act. It supports."
The man hesitated. "Then why isn't everyone selling this?"
Gu Hao met his gaze calmly.
"Because most people don't wait long enough to know what breaks."
Within a week, all five sacks were gone.
Not consumed.
Reserved.
No one rushed to buy more.
That worried Gu Qing.
"They're holding back," he said.
Gu Hao nodded. "Good."
The second week brought data.
Patrol endurance increased by 30–40%
No reported qi disruption
No digestive backlash
Users respected portion limits
One report included a warning.
One of my men tried eating two portions in a day. He felt hollow the next morning.
Gu Hao underlined that sentence twice.
He halted further sales immediately.
No explanation given.
No apology.
Just a pause.
Gu Jian frowned. "We could sell more now."
"Yes," Gu Hao replied. "And then sell regret later."
Money had already arrived.
Five sacks.
Total revenue: 8 low-grade spirit stones.
Trivial.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was behavior.
No one complained.
No one threatened.
That told Gu Hao everything.
Gu Hao convened a small internal meeting.
"External sale continues," he said. "But capped."
"How capped?" Gu Qing asked.
"By people, not volume," Gu Hao replied.
He laid out the rules.
Fasting Grain External Policy (Initial)
Sold only to identified cultivator groups
No bulk contracts
Usage guidelines included
Violation results in permanent cutoff
No branding for now
"This is not food," Gu Hao repeated. "It's discipline."
That night, Gu Hao stood alone again.
He felt no rush.
That worried him less than excitement ever had.
On Earth, he had seen products ruin companies because they scaled faster than ethics.
Here, it would ruin lives.
He wrote one line in his private notes:
If a product changes how people endure hardship, you become responsible for their hardship.
The Gu Clan had stepped into a dangerous market.
Not because of money.
Because of influence.