101: Fireman

In the southern winter, the air was damp and cold, and the town's stone-paved roads shimmered with a layer of water.

Su Qingzhu wrapped her cloak tightly around herself, squatting in the shadow under the eaves like an out-of-place statue.

The hearth fire inside was burning brightly, illuminating the rosy faces of a group of children, their crisp voices seemingly able to pierce through the annoying chill.

A little girl with pigtails spoke up eagerly: "My grandma says that the Daoist who chewed on a grass root taught everyone how to light a fire, but he himself always ate cold rice balls and never tasted anything warm in his whole life."

As soon as she finished speaking, a sturdy, round-faced boy immediately retorted: "Wrong! My grandpa says he wasn't a Daoist at all; he was the first person in the world who wasn't afraid of the cold! He gave us the fire and then went back into the snowy mountains!"

"He ate cold rice!"

"He wasn't afraid of the cold!"

The children argued until their faces were red, neither willing to yield to the other.

Su Qingzhu listened quietly, the cold seeming to seep from the stone slabs beneath her feet into her very bones, yet a scorching warm current surged within her heart.

She suddenly understood.

Zhang Xuanyi, the man who once set up a stall at the foot of Mount Longhu and used a scrap of tattered cloth to ignite a blue flame, was no longer just a specific individual.

He was not in the legends, not in the stories, and not even in the arguments of these children.

He lived within everyone—in that moment of hesitation and persistence when they reached out on a winter night to light the first handful of fire.

A thousand miles away, in a town in the Northwest.

The wind and sand, mixed with snowflakes, scraped against people's faces like knives.

Inside the Changfeng Tavern, Cui Wujiu was slumped half-drunk over a table, a jar of strong liquor already drained to the bottom.

At the next table, an old man with ice crystals in his beard was telling stories while snacking on a plate of shriveled peanuts: "Come to think of it, that's ancient history. Back then, there was a stall owner at the foot of Mount Longhu. The fire that guy lit was blue—so blue it could illuminate the ghosts hidden in the depths of a person's heart!"

Cui Wujiu's eyelids twitched, and he lifted his head, breaking into a drunken grin: "Oh? And then what happened?"

The old man smacked his lips and sighed deeply: "After that? No one ever saw him again. But the strange thing is, ever since then, in our northern lands, if anyone's hearth fire won't burn bright, they only need to look down near the stove, and they'll always find a grass root that appeared from nowhere. Isn't that strange?"

Cui Wujiu suddenly sat up straight, the hazy drunkenness in his eyes swept away, leaving only two raging fires burning within.

He threw his head back and drained the last of the wine in his bowl, then slammed the earthenware bowl onto the ground, shattering it with a sharp crack.

Amidst the stunned gazes of the entire room, he laughed loudly: "Good! A fine 'stove-side grass'! Then tonight, I, Cui Wujiu, shall also play the part of a stall owner!"

Before his voice had even faded, he pulled the last half of a charred sweet potato from his tunic; it was his last bit of rations.

Without the slightest hesitation, he swung his arm, and the half sweet potato traced a scorching arc through the air, landing precisely into the dying fire in the center of the tavern.

"Boom!"

With a dull thud, the dying flames at the heart of the stove were as if splashed with a ladle of boiling oil, instantly exploding!

A blue flame erupted more than half a person's height, and a wave of heat rushed forward, illuminating the entire tavern and dispelling all the chill.

The tavern guests were stunned at first, then erupted into thunderous cheers!

Further east, on the shores of the East Sea.

Zhang Xuanyi stood barefoot on a reef polished smooth by the ocean waves, the sea breeze fluttering his already tattered clothes.

On the beach not far away, a few fisher children were screaming with excitement; using a shard of mirror they had found, they focused the thin winter sunlight onto dry grass, and a wisp of blue smoke rose, followed by the ignition of a warm bonfire.

At the very moment the fire flared up, deep within Zhang Xuanyi's calm, rippleless pupils, reflected in the vast expanse of the sea, inexplicable phantoms appeared out of thin air.

The phantoms became increasingly clear, eventually forming three hundred and seventy thousand blurry human figures—old and young, male and female—traversing mountains, rivers, and seas, each sitting around their own hearth fire.

Strangely, each person held a tiny blue flame, and at the heart of every flame, a faint, ethereal scrap of tattered cloth fluttered gently.

A faint, almost imperceptible smile finally curled at the corners of Zhang Xuanyi's mouth.

He slowly removed the grass root, long since moistened by his body heat, from his lips; it was the last one he had.

He did not put it back in his mouth but instead released his fingers, letting the sea breeze catch it and blow it toward the distance, where it eventually disappeared into the vast expanse of the sky and sea.

The firelight reflected in his pupils, and the reflections of those three hundred and seventy thousand people quietly dissipated, leaving only a pure, pulsating heart of flame.

Several days later, at the foot of Mount Longhu.

Su Qingzhu dropped her last copper coin into the clear stream, considering it repayment for the debt of that meal long ago.

She turned to leave, but her gaze was firmly caught by a large rock beside the stream.

Someone, perhaps unknown, had used a piece of black charcoal to draw a scrap of tattered cloth fluttering in the wind on the stone, the brushstrokes childish yet powerful.

Below the tattered cloth were three crooked characters: The Fire Starter.

She stared at it for a long, long time, a myriad of emotions swirling in her heart.

Finally, she took pen and ink from her bag and added a line of elegant, firm, small characters next to the crude drawing:

He does not preach the Dao, takes no disciples, and erects no monuments, but the pain when you rub wood, the anticipation when you strike a fire, and the shivering when you fear the cold—all of these are his Dao.

After writing, she put away her pen, turned, and walked into the bustling market at the foot of the mountain, never looking back.

On New Year's Eve of that year, an unprecedented miracle occurred across the land.

From the southern water towns to the northern border towns, from the fishing villages of the East Sea to the passes of the Western Regions, all cities and markets spontaneously held a "Spontaneous Combustion Festival."

There was no unified command, no main sacrificial hearth, and certainly no sung fire ballads.

The moment night fell, countless people silently walked out of their homes, on streets, in alleys, and in squares, using the most primitive and clumsy methods to light their own handful of fire.

In an instant, three hundred and seventy thousand blue flames, like stars falling to the earth or rivers overturning, rose simultaneously in every corner of the land.

The firelight soared to the sky, converging into a sea, and in the pitch-black night sky, it slowly pieced together a line of enormous, phantom characters.

The handwriting was neither talisman nor spell; it was the simplest five characters that anyone who could read would understand:

You can too.

On a street corner in the Northwest town, Cui Wujiu also lit a fire and was leisurely gnawing on a freshly bought roasted sweet potato.

He gazed up at the characters in the sky formed by the lights of ten thousand homes, the heat blurring his vision.

He murmured to himself: "This time, we really don't need anyone."

The camera pulled back infinitely, and the lights of ten thousand homes were like a galaxy pouring down, dazzling and brilliant.

And that scrap of tattered cloth that had once ignited the world was no longer on the fire, nor in the sky, but only between the slightly trembling fingers of every person who bowed their head to light a fire.

When the sky full of firelight faded and the New Year's bell rang, the harsh winter had also come to an end.

It was just that no one knew whether, when the spring breeze turned the southern banks green and blew over that old, trampled-flat stall site at Mount Longhu, someone would follow the long-extinguished embers to return and seek an answer.