37: Chapter 37: I spent the whole night making up history, and I almost cried while lying to myself.

Su Chen walked down from the stone steps.

"You are the hacker 'Zero'."

Lin Xiaoman's pupils constricted, then she nodded.

"How did you find this place?"

"The Sun Family."

Lin Xiaoman's voice softened by half a degree.

"I took a job from Sun Bonian to investigate the truth behind Elder Liu's recovery from cancer.

By cross-referencing hospital records, the Sun Family's financial anomalies, and the military lockdown timeline of the Eastern Chemical Plant, I locked onto this location."

Su Chen nodded.

As expected, without the Sun Family's job as a starting point, the direction wouldn't have narrowed down so quickly.

The main thing is that the direction was right.

Take Section Chief Han Zheng for example; if he had locked onto me the night I rode in Wang Hao's vehicle from the start, he might have been able to find out too.

Unfortunately, in the end, I diverted his attention with that stunt involving the bronze piece and the scroll.

Often, if the direction is off, the ending will be different.

Su Chen did not continue this topic.

He was silent for a few seconds.

"The story of Kindling, you only saw a cross-section of it just now."

His voice dropped by half a degree.

"Decide whether or not to leave after you finish listening."

Lin Xiaoman didn't speak.

"Since civilization began on the Blue Planet, this hasn't been the first extinction-level crisis."

Su Chen's voice was not loud, but the structure of the altar plaza carried every syllable far away.

"Facing extinction-level threats, a very small number of individuals among humanity are always chosen by heaven and earth.

Their bodies undergo mutations. Strength, speed, perception, manipulation of certain elements... each person is different, but the essence is the same.

Abilities that transcend ordinary people, used to fight things that ordinary people cannot fight."

Lin Xiaoman's brain automatically began to model.

Extraordinary awakening mechanism. Random trigger? Genetic encoding? Environmental induction?

"These people are scattered all over the world. Initially, they had no organization and no coordination. They fought alone and died alone."

"Until during a certain extinction-level catastrophe, someone realized—loose sand cannot defeat the tide."

"They gathered together; this was the prototype of Kindling."

"The initial members of Kindling fought relying on their own awakened talents, which was barely enough to deal with the strange beasts and anomalies of that era."

Su Chen's speaking speed slowed down.

"But the problem is—the strange beasts are evolving too."

"With every extinction-level catastrophe, the anomalies and strange beasts that pour in are stronger, more numerous, and harder to kill than the last. No matter how strong Kindling's extraordinary individuals are, they are constrained by the limits of their lifespan."

"As the fighting went on, each generation was worse than the last. It wasn't that the members weren't fighting hard enough—it was that the enemy's evolution speed exceeded humanity's growth speed."

Liu Yuyan's hand curled up.

Those images on the murals surfaced again.

Warriors with broken shields, priests with blood streaming from their noses, Taoists using shattered talisman swords to summon lightning.

Every scene was a desperate struggle.

Behind every scene was this increasingly desperate trend.

"What's even more cruel is," Su Chen's voice was very low, "members of Kindling are also mortals."

"When the catastrophe comes, they awaken, fight, and sacrifice. When the catastrophe passes, the survivors seal away their power and retire into the mortal world."

"They live until old age and die in some unknown corner. Their combat experience, their understanding of the weaknesses of strange beasts bought with their lives, and the extraordinary techniques they spent their whole lives exploring are all taken to the grave."

Lin Xiaoman opened her mouth.

She was a programmer, she understood this too well.

A project worked on for ten years, the core developer retires, no documentation left, no handover done. New people start from zero. Then the project collapses.

It's just that what Kindling faces isn't a project collapse. It is the extinction of civilization.

"Until the next extinction comes, a new generation of Kindling starts from zero, but faces enemies that have become stronger."

"This is the biggest dilemma for Kindling in the early stages."

Silence for three seconds. On the altar plaza, there was only the sound of the ancient tree breathing.

"Until one time."

"That extinction-level catastrophe was exceptionally tragic. By the end of the battle, only one person remained in Kindling."

"All other members died in battle."

"This person withstood the last wave of impact, sealed the rift, the world was at peace, and civilization was preserved."

Su Chen paused for a long time. The golden light of the ancient tree flickered twice during this silence.

"Surviving alone and surviving with everyone else are two completely different things."

"He could not retire. Because his companions were all dead, where would he retire to? To which home? Pushing open the door, who is waiting for him?"

Liu Yuyan's nails dug into her palms, thinking of those eyes when Su Chen first appeared in the hospital room.

The silence after everything has burned out. No wind, no waves, no joy, no sorrow.

"He stayed at the base." Su Chen's gaze fell on the ancient tree.

"Guarding the Kindling. Waiting."

"Waiting for the signs of the next extinction to appear. Then handing over the Kindling, gathering newcomers, and starting all over again."

He turned his head.

"This is—the Flame Keeper."

Liu Yuyan's breath hitched. The Flame Keeper. The person who lived to the end in the previous apocalypse. Guarding the Kindling alone, walking in the human world for a thousand years. A thousand years.

Watching the mortals around him be born, grow old, fall ill, and die. Watching cities built and destroyed, destroyed and rebuilt. Watching the seasons rotate, flowers bloom and fall, the sun rise and set. Everyone is living. Only he is waiting to die.

Not waiting for his own death, but waiting for the next extinction to arrive, waiting for the new generation of warriors he personally trained to rush forward...

Liu Yuyan's eyes felt hot. She bit her lip, pressing so hard her lip line turned white. Images flashed frantically in her mind frame by frame—

Him eating instant noodles in a rental apartment? No, the Flame Keeper is enduring life in the mortal world.

That sigh he let out behind the old wooden door? That was the weight of a thousand years being unloaded for a moment.

The fact that he didn't even glance at the murals when looking at them? Because he knew those people.

That twenty-five-year-old face when he took off his mask?

Liu Yuyan's hands were shaking. She finally understood what was pressed beneath those eyes. It was the calm that a person who had sent off all his companions had to maintain when he had to force himself to pass the Kindling to the next person.

"The first generation Flame Keeper waited for the second extinction. He gathered the new generation of Kindling and taught them everything he knew—the weaknesses of the strange beasts, the application of extraordinary powers, and the experience bought by the previous generation with their lives."

"This time, Kindling was stronger than the last, because there was inheritance."

"But the Flame Keeper was old too, his body had reached its limit."

"He made a decision."

"To merge himself into the ancient tree."

"He sealed the Flame Keeper sequence inside, and from then on, the ancient tree was no longer just a tree—it became the memory bank for Kindling."

Su Chen withdrew his hand. His fingertips still carried the lingering warmth of the golden light.

"Not just his own sequence, but all the Kindling members who had fought, sacrificed, and lived in that generation, their extraordinary sequences, combat experience, and the paths they walked in their lives were all sealed in the ancient tree along with him."

Liu Yuyan's body trembled slightly. She remembered Elena from the trial. Eight points of light were still pulsing there. Mercy, Humility, Honor, Sacrifice, Awe, Loyalty, Bravery, Justice. Each one carried Elena's body heat.

"Since then, every generation of Kindling has been repeating the same thing." Su Chen's voice was very flat.

"The extinction comes, the Flame Keeper awakens the newcomers, the newcomers pass the ancient tree's trial, and obtain the extraordinary sequences sealed by the predecessors. They fight, sacrifice, survive, and then one of the survivors becomes the new Flame Keeper, and the others retire. The Flame Keeper merges himself into the ancient tree again, adding all the experience of this generation to it."

"Generation after generation."

"Each generation's extraordinary sequence is perfected, iterated, and evolved based on the predecessors."

"The strange beasts are getting stronger, but Kindling's inheritance is also getting stronger."

Lin Xiaoman's brain clicked. She was a programmer. This was an iterative model.

Each generation of Kindling was a version update. New combat data, new ability modules, new bug fixes, all merged into the main codebase for the next generation to call upon.

Strange beasts were the continuously strengthening opponent algorithm. Kindling was the continuously upgrading defense system. This wasn't a battle of a group of people. This was the evolutionary chain of an entire civilization.

"Everyone's trial is different." Su Chen brought the conversation back.

"The ancient tree will match you with a predecessor based on your talent and soul."

"You must live through what he lived through, carry what he carried. Only when he acknowledges you will the sequence be passed to you."

Lin Xiaoman lowered her head, thinking of that night when she was six years old, moving a chair to climb onto the computer desk and typing the first line of code following a textbook.

The living room light had been broken for three days and no one had changed it. That was the first light she had lit herself.

What if the predecessor the ancient tree matched her with was also someone who found light for themselves in the darkness?

"I want to join." She took a step forward and stood in front of Su Chen. Her voice was soft, matching the tone of her face. But the light in her pupils was not soft.

"The extinction is in three years; code cannot outrun the rifts, and firewalls cannot block the strange beasts. Keyboards cannot save the world."

"But Kindling can! You can! I want to stand on this line!"

Su Chen looked at her for three seconds. Then he took out a bronze piece from the inner pocket of his trench coat.

"From now on, you are a probationary member of Kindling."

"Once you pass the ancient tree's trial, you will be an official member."