112: Who is lighting the sky?

Stillness precedes a more violent roar.

Zhang Xuanyi stood in the center of this stillness, the ashes of the Primordial Ignition Sites covering his ankles, a warm sensation seeping through his shoes, as if the earth was still whispering.

At his feet lay the shattered remnants of the mountain root stones, once indestructible boulders, now like rubble smashed by a divine fist, with unextinguished green flames flickering at the fractures, like the last breaths of a dying beast.

The mountain wind swept through, kicking up a cloud of dust. The villagers knelt prostrate, their fear transforming into fervent worship.

Someone, trembling, was the first to cry out, and then it became a deafening roar: “A Celestial Master has descended! A Celestial Master has descended!”

These four words were once the glory that Mount Longhu yearned for, the pinnacle pursued by countless extraordinary individuals.

However, Zhang Xuanyi merely lowered his head, looking at their devout and humble faces, without a hint of self-satisfaction in his eyes.

He slowly bent down, ignoring the priceless fragments of mountain root stones, and picked up a charred, but still vaguely shaped, rubbing stick from among them.

Under the gaze of all, he gripped this unassuming stick and plunged it into the ground.

With a soft 'thump,' the stick deeply pierced the ashes and soil, like a solitary flag.

“Who says fire must be offered on an altar?” His voice was not loud, yet it clearly cut through the wind, entering everyone’s ears. “It is born in the palm, and dies in the ashes. It comes from man, and returns to man.”

He straightened up and pulled out the last bottle of Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid from his embrace.

This “divine item,” once hyped to exorbitant prices, was now just an ordinary glass bottle in his hand.

He unscrewed the cap and, under the horrified gazes of the villagers, poured the viscous, honey-like golden liquid onto the base of the rubbing stick he had just inserted.

Boom—!

Flames shot skyward, reaching three zhang high, intertwining in gold and green, illuminating half of his face crimson, his pupils flickering with a wild yet clear light.

“I sold fire, making you believe fire was a gift,” he bared his teeth, a hint of self-mockery and resolve in his smile. “Now, I will teach you to steal this heavenly fire—do not believe in gods, do not worship me, only believe in your own hands, capable of rubbing out the first spark in this world!”

As his words fell, the three-zhang-high flames seemed to come alive, scattering with a roar into countless sparks, drifting in all directions like dandelion seeds, landing on the shoulders and hair of every villager, yet not burning, only leaving a fleeting warmth.

The crowd erupted completely.

Almost simultaneously, a thousand li away in Lingnan, at the ruins of “Nuanju New City.”

Su Qingzhu, clad in black combat attire with her long hair tied in a neat ponytail, was directing a small excavator.

Behind her, several high-definition cameras were live-streaming across the entire network, their lenses fixed on the solitary stone foundation in the center of the ruins—where a merit monument inscribed with “Tianshi Mansion Reconstruction Monument” once stood, a symbol of old-era power.

“Dig,” she said only one word.

The excavator roared, and dirt flew.

Soon, three feet underground, countless broken pottery figurine fragments were unearthed.

Each fragment was densely inscribed with signatures, evidence of the “united effort” to rebuild the Tianshi Mansion back then.

Su Qingzhu stepped forward, personally picked up a fragment, and, facing the camera, her voice was cold: “Look closely, this is the chain forged from the will of the common people. They used this to prove their legitimacy, and to suppress the fire beneath the ground.”

With that, she tossed the pottery figurine fragment into a pre-prepared brazier.

The raging flames instantly devoured it, crackling loudly, and the names twisted and vanished in the fire.

“Before, they used monuments to suppress fire.”

She waved her hand, and a massive, uncarved black stone, entirely black, was hoisted and placed steadily upon the stone foundation.

“Now, we use fire to burn monuments.”

She took out an engraving knife and, at the very bottom of the blank black stone monument, forcefully carved a line of small characters: “This monument is nameless, yet gains its name from fire.”

Having completed all this, she turned to face the camera, her gaze sharp as a blade: “Remember, in this era, whoever ignites the fire, erects the monument!”

The live stream’s comments exploded instantly.

That night, from the ice city in the north to the Pearl of the South Sea, in seventeen city central squares across the country where extraordinary individuals spontaneously gathered, “nameless monuments” were quietly erected almost simultaneously.

Under the night sky, extraordinary individuals activated their own flames, letting tongues of fire dance across the surface of the black stone monuments, like dragons and snakes, like wild calligraphy, reflecting faces that had broken free from their shackles.

Deep in the Qinling Mountains, at a geological fault line.

Cui Wujiu moved like a phantom through the miasma and scattered rocks.

He crouched down, caressing the remains of the three black stones that Zhang Xuanyi had detonated.

Under the moonlight, his pupils contracted slightly as he discovered an even more unsettling truth.

These three black stones were slowly healing themselves!

Wisps of black mist permeated the fractured crevices, attracting and adhering to each other.

Even more bizarrely, on the healing stone surface, fine, almost imperceptible runes were slowly emerging. The trajectory and aura of these runes were clearly constructing an even more powerful seal than before, intending to “re-seal the fire veins”!

“Trying to stuff the extinguished fire back into the furnace?” Cui Wujiu let out a very low, cold laugh, chilling as ice.

He took a small cloth bag from his embrace and poured out a single “heavenly eye mung bean,” entirely green, as if containing a whole world within it.

Without hesitation, he crushed it into powder with two fingers, then grabbed a handful of old furnace ash, stored for who knows how many years, mixed the two, muttered incantations, and finally, blended it with a bit of saliva to create a small ball of “fire-starting mud” emitting a peculiar fragrance.

He carefully and evenly smeared this fire-starting mud into the healing cracks of the three black stones.

Having done all this, he quietly retreated, leaving no trace like the wind.

The next morning, the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds.

Deep in the Qinling Mountains, the three black stone remnants spontaneously combusted simultaneously, without any warning!

But this time, the flames did not shoot skyward; instead, they eerily contracted inward, then followed the flow of the earth veins, like a vengeful fire dragon, furiously surging back!

The fire traveled a hundred li underground, finally erupting from the earth in a secluded ancestral hall hidden in a mountain hollow, unmarked on any map!

The ancestral hall was ancient and solemn, with a golden nanmu plaque above the lintel, bearing eight bold characters, powerfully written, sweeping across mountains and rivers— “Tianshi Orthodoxy, Hall of Inherited Fire”!

The surging fire dragon crashed through the main door, and tongues of fire greedily licked the rows of neatly arranged spirit tablets inside the ancestral hall.

The lowest tablets were indistinct, while the names became more prominent higher up.

When the tongues of fire licked the topmost, first tablet, the green flames actually entwined around it like vines, lingering for a long time.

That tablet was originally inscribed with— “Seat of Zhang Jingqing, 72nd Generation Celestial Master.”

Under the scorching green flames, the characters “Celestial Master” were actually burned into two completely different characters— “Human Fire”!

Mount Longhu, Tianshi Mansion.

An urgent message, delivered by a mountain-guarding disciple, was placed at the old village site where Zhang Xuanyi was temporarily staying.

The letter’s tone was earnest, stating that “enlightened individuals within the sect” were willing to exchange the true “Three Caverns True Transmission” for his visit to the mansion to discuss important matters.

This was both an offer of amnesty and a test.

Zhang Xuanyi didn't even open the envelope, casually tossing it into the fire.

He set up a large iron pot at the site of his former street stall, in which he was simmering a syrup made from a mixture of herbs and bone powder from exotic beasts, its aroma spreading for ten li.

He named this syrup — “fist soul syrup.”

Children lined up, and each received a piece for free.

Zhang Xuanyi taught them to hold the candy in their mouths, then perform the opening stances of Eight Extremities Fist — Ding, Bao, Dan, Ti, Kua, Chan.

A sturdy, bright-eyed child punched out, the fist wind whistling, and a tiny flame actually sprayed from his mouth with the airflow, flashing and disappearing in mid-air.

“Wow!” The children gasped in surprise, then each imitated him, holding the candy and punching with all their might.

For a moment, sparks flew everywhere, and laughter shook the heavens.

A reporter who had accompanied them couldn't help but ask: “Mr. Zhang, are you cultivating new fire masters?”

Zhang Xuanyi grinned, revealing his teeth illuminated by the firelight: “No, I am making every child remember one thing with their bodies—strength is their own, and so is fire.”

That night, centered around the Primordial Ignition Sites, in thirty-seven villages within a hundred li radius, thousands of children, as if by prior agreement, simultaneously practiced their fists at their doorsteps.

The sparks they spat out converged into streaks of light under the night sky, eventually connecting into a vast expanse, like a river of stars on the ground, subtly echoing the constellations in the firmament.

At dawn, the sky began to lighten.

At the Longhu Mountain Tianshi Mansion, inside the main hall, reputed to be immune to all spells, the atmosphere was as heavy as iron.

A figure so stooped that his face was almost indistinguishable, held an ancient green flame lamp with trembling hands.

The flickering lamplight symbolized the entire Tianshi Mansion's destiny.

Suddenly, the green flame lamp began to flicker violently, the flame being frantically pulled by an invisible force, its direction, startlingly, due south!

An old Taoist standing nearby exclaimed in alarm: “Oh no, the power of vows is being lost!”

The camera seemed to be violently pushed closer by an invisible hand, right to the wick.

The structure of the wick was revealed in extreme clarity—it was actually formed by countless strands of votive power from billions of believers, intertwined!

At this moment, these strands were being forcibly pulled by a larger, more primal, and wilder force from the south, almost to the point of breaking!

Just then, a slender but incredibly tenacious wild fire actually forced its way through a tightly closed window crack.

This fire, without root or source, unquenchable by wind or water, carrying the simplest thoughts of thousands of people, directly rushed towards the wick of that votive lamp!

“Stop it!” The stooped figure roared hoarsely.

However, it was too late.

The wild fire and the votive lamp’s wick crashed into each other.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a momentary flash of light that consumed everything.

The votive lamp shattered into pieces, and among the exploding fragments, half of a burnt “photocopy yellow paper” talisman faintly appeared—that was precisely the first and most basic item sold when the mysterious system descended three years ago!

The next second, that wild fire lost its target, suddenly expanded, and swept through the entire wall of spirit tablets like a sea of fire.

From the first generation Celestial Master to the seventy-first generation, all names twisted and blurred in the firelight. Finally, the flames converged into a single stream, rushing towards the topmost blank tablet, which symbolized the future.

The green wild fire, on the blank tablet, stroke by stroke, branded four illusory and scorching characters.

Fire is not in heaven—it is in the wild.