115: The fire is going up in the sky

The morning mist in Lingnan had not yet dissipated, and the mountain wind, laden with humidity, swept across the broken walls and ruined structures.

Zhang Xuanyi stood in the old spot, grinding the gravel on the ground with his toe. A familiar hint of rust—the scent left behind from three years ago when he had set up an iron pot to boil syrup—wafted into his nostrils.

This place was no longer the site of his old street stall.

The broken walls had been repaired into a low, semi-circular altar, where dozens of youths sat on the ground, heads lowered, rubbing pieces of wood together.

Some had worn the skin off their palms, blood dripping down mixed with wood shavings; others had split their fingernails but still refused to stop.

Sparks leaped at their fingertips, like dying fireflies struggling, refusing to be extinguished.

In the distance, a few bamboo poles held up faded cloth strips, on which a few words were scrawled crookedly: First Flame Academy · Lesson One.

He watched quietly for a while, saying nothing, not smiling either.

When he took the last few pieces of photocopy yellow paper from his bosom, his fingertips rubbed against them with extra slowness.

These papers had once sold for 100,000 spirit coins each; the Old Ancestor of Quanxing had knelt to beg for them, and the Under Heaven Society had sent assassins to intercept them.

Now they were yellowed and curled at the edges, the ink blurred, and even the talisman patterns were becoming hard to see.

"It's time to burn them," he said softly.

His fingers tore—

The paper scraps flew like snow, catching fire the moment they left his palm, transforming into dots of blue, firefly-like light that scattered with the wind.

Some drifted toward the mountain peak, some fell into the stream, but most spiraled down to land beside the hands of those youths rubbing wood.

The sparks flared upon contact, and with a crackle, a ball of flame ignited steadily.

The entire scene fell silent for an instant.

Then, cheers erupted.

A little girl ran over barefoot, her braids crooked, her face smudged with ash.

She looked up at Zhang Xuanyi, her eyes shining scarily bright: "Immortal Grandpa! How are you so amazing? I want to become strong too!"

Zhang Xuanyi grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth, and reached out to poke her forehead: "Don't call me an immortal yet."

The girl was stunned.

"Wait until you can scrape sparks out with your fingernails before you talk." He patted his backside and stood up, turning to leave, his steps as light as when he used to carry bamboo poles to the early market.

But just as he took a step, a piece of burning paper ash landed gently on his left shoulder.

Tongues of fire licked his coarse cloth clothing, the smell of burning arose, and the fabric quickly blackened and curled.

Others might have exclaimed and brushed it off, but he only paused, allowing that bit of fire to burn through three layers of cloth and scorch his flesh, still not brushing, not avoiding, not moving.

He knew this fire should not be extinguished.

And it could not be extinguished.

Because this was not his fire.

It was the fire that millions of people had suppressed in their hearts for three hundred years; it was the fire that had been held down since the moment the order to seal Mount Longhu was issued; it was the echo of that "The fire must live" when Cui Wujiu released the fire seed.

It had finally burned its way back.

Meanwhile, in front of the Wordless Stele in Lingnan, Su Qingzhu removed her press pass.

The silver chain fell to the dust, and she picked up that old video camera, aiming the lens at the more than three hundred colleagues from all over the country before her.

Among them were investigative journalists who had nearly lost their lives digging into dark secrets, intern editors who had been threatened by supernatural organizations to delete their articles, and old writers who had silently recorded folk anomalies for ten years without publishing a word.

No one spoke.

But everyone raised the film canisters in their hands.

"You ask me where the truth is?" Su Qingzhu's voice was not loud, but it pierced through the morning wind, "I say, it's in the fire."

She pressed the play button, and the images flickered: A herdsman drilling for fire with ox bones in a blizzard, not stopping even though his hands were frozen raw, until the Qi flow within his body suddenly connected through his Meridians; a welder in the ruins of an earthquake using a welding torch to draw upon the residual Qi of heaven and earth, forcefully holding up a collapsed building for three minutes to save twelve people; and a high school student who, upon witnessing classmates being abducted by Quanxing, was consumed by rage, and primitive fire patterns actually emerged on his palms...

Scene after scene flashed, connecting to the public screens of Seventeen City, the title scarlet as blood:

《Fire Source Archive: Records of the Nameless Self-Ignition》

"Starting tonight," Su Qingzhu closed the machine and scanned the crowd, "nine hundred schools nationwide will offer 'Fire Classes.' The textbook is "Fifty Methods of Simple Fire-Making" that a Daoist sold at a street stall three years ago."

The crowd was shaken.

Some choked with sobs, some knelt and wept bitterly, and more people ignited the backup film in their hands.

Flames soared into the air, reflecting on every face.

They took turns speaking, telling of the first self-ignition they had witnessed—no Cultivation Technique, no Legacy, only a heart that refused to endure any longer.

In the firelight, Su Qingzhu looked toward the southern mountains.

It was as if she saw that figure carrying bamboo poles walking step by step into the morning sun.

And in the Forbidden Ground behind Mount Longhu, the night mist was thick as ink.

Cui Wujiu stepped across the thousand stone steps, his footsteps silent.

He did not enter the hall door, but simply pressed his hand to his chest and gave a gentle push.

That fire seed, originating from the Power Of Will of the 72nd Generation Celestial Master, slowly peeled away from his chest and rolled onto the first stone step.

In an instant, withered leaves self-ignited, moss caught flame, and even the talisman ash that had accumulated for centuries in the rock crevices was ignited, turning into a winding line of fire that traveled all the way up the steps!

The fire was fierce but did not destroy things.

It swept past the portraits of the Ancestral Masters, the eyes on the walls lighting up one by one as if they had come to life; it bypassed the incense burners and scriptures without causing any harm; and finally, it converged on the wall of memorial tablets deep in the main hall, where the names of the 72nd Generation Celestial Masters emerged in light one by one, finally settling on the blank space at the top.

Blue flames rose, outlining four new words:

The Fire Has Returned to the Wild

When the mountain-guarding Disciples rushed over, they saw the entire hall brilliantly lit, yet not a single thing was damaged.

They wanted to splash water, but the water turned into steam upon hitting the ground; they wanted to paste suppression talismans, but the talisman paper burned on its own.

The old Supervisor knelt down, trembling, tears streaming down his face: "...The Ancestral teachings say the fire is passed on unceasingly. But who understands that the true fire was never in the temple?"

Moonlight spilled down, and the stone steps were empty and silent.

Cui Wujiu was long gone.

That night, Zhang Xuanyi stayed in a ruined temple on the mountainside.

The oil lamp was about to go out, and the chirping of insects outside the window gradually ceased. Suddenly, a very light sound of flapping wings swept over the eaves.

A piece of paper ash drifted down leisurely and stopped before his desk.

He stared at it for a long time before slowly reaching out to tuck it between the pages of an old book.

Outside, the wind grew intense.

And in the direction of the First Flame Academy, a group of youths was still repeatedly practicing rubbing wood to make fire, their laughter crisp, the flames dancing.

No one noticed that under the tree shadows outside the temple, the soil slightly bulged, and hundreds of mud pellets were quietly being buried underground, each core wrapped in a drop of near-forbidden liquid—Pseudo-Three Caves True Qi Concentrate.

The night wind blew through the forest, bringing humid, hot air into the ruined temple.

Zhang Xuanyi leaned against the corner of the wall, peeling a wrinkled orange, the juice splashing onto the old book pages and soaking the piece of paper ash tucked inside.

He did not move.

But his eyes had already turned cold.

The anonymous letter from three days ago was still pressed under the incense burner—yellow paper, black ink, no signature, only one sentence: "Remnants of the Under Heaven Society, night raid on First Flame Academy, leave no seed of fire." The handwriting was crooked like a snake's path, as if written with the left hand, but the ink was steady, clearly a deliberate disguise by an expert.

He had laughed when he read it and casually crumpled the letter to feed the chickens.

But this morning, the mountain sparrows were startled into flight three times, the stream flowed backward for a moment, and even the shadow of the old locust tree in the courtyard shifted by seven inches—this was a sign of "Earth Qi agitation," someone was planning a lethal trap.

Zhang Xuanyi lit a low-quality cigarette, exhaled a cloud of turbid smoke, and stood up to brush off the dust.

He knew who it was.

Three years ago, the Under Heaven Society sent seven Great Grandmasters to intercept and kill him, just to snatch a piece of photocopy yellow paper capable of replicating the "Five Thunders Orthodox Method Talisman."

At that time, he had just unlocked the "Pseudo-Three Caves True Qi Concentrate," and a single drop could allow a Mortal to briefly step into the Grandmaster realm.

Later, that battle stained the blue stone steps with blood; he burned their soul-chasing formation with a single fire, and from then on, the Under Heaven Society was removed from the list.

But rats would always crawl out of their holes.

That night at midnight, the moon hid behind the clouds.

At the end of the mountain path outside the First Flame Academy, seventeen black shadows moved swiftly along the ground, wearing black-scaled cloaks and holding fire-thunder boxes.

The leader's mask had a split, revealing half a burnt tongue—it was "Blast Heart" Luo Jiu, who had been countered by Zhang Xuanyi's heavenly eye mung beans years ago and had his Meridians self-combust, yet miraculously survived.

"Ignite!" he hissed the order.

Boom—!!!

Three fire-thunders exploded simultaneously, flames soared into the sky, and the shockwave overturned half of the low altar.

Amidst the scattering sparks, the children screamed and fell down, but in the next instant, a sudden change occurred!

The ground shook.

Hundreds of mud pellets buried in the soil suddenly resonated, pulsing like a heartbeat.

The drop of forbidden liquid wrapped in each core—Pseudo-Three Caves True Qi Concentrate—was instantly activated by the explosion's impact!

The flames did not spread to hurt anyone; instead, they were guided by an invisible force, rapidly retracting and spiraling upward, forming a huge ring-shaped fire shield, firmly protecting all the children in the center.

And the intruders were all trapped within.

With flames wrapping around them, they screamed and rolled, only to find their flesh not scorched, their bones not broken—on the contrary, the Qi sense within their bodies, which had long been exhausted or dormant for many years, was actually slowly reviving in this fire!

Some trembled and raised their hands, pale golden fire patterns appearing on their palms; some burst into loud tears because their Dantian, which had been blocked by Qi Deviation thirty years ago, now had warm currents surging...

This fire did not kill.

It enlightened.

The next morning, the morning sun shone for the first time.

Eighteen captives knelt outside the academy gate, their scorched cloaks dragging on the ground, their hands holding the broken fire-thunder boxes.

Zhang Xuanyi walked out with a grass root in his mouth, a gray-feathered mountain sparrow perched on his shoulder.

He didn't even look at them, squatting by the wall, calmly breaking open a wooden rubbing stick and throwing it in front of each person.

"Want to live?" He grinned, but there was no smile in his eyes, "Learn to burn yourself first."

Only the wind blew across the broken stele, stirring up a few pieces of scorched paper.

—That was the talisman ash remaining from last night, now faintly showing a line of small characters:

The fire does not recognize steles, only hearts.

Several days later, on the night of the full moon.

In the Seventeen City nationwide, the wordless steles ignited simultaneously.

Blue flames soared, piercing the clouds, and actually echoed from afar with the Big Dipper, forming a strange connection.

The clouds in the high sky split, projecting a magnificent spectacle—thousands of ordinary people standing shoulder to shoulder, holding fire in their palms, the flames connecting with each other, weaving into a grand formation, which was none other than the lost for a thousand years—

Ten Thousand Methods Return to Source · Carefree Fire Chart

And in the main hall of the Longhu Mountain Tianshi Mansion, the blue flame lampstand that had been sealed for three hundred years had long since extinguished.

Wild vines climbed all over the beams and pillars, and spiderwebs hung like curtains.

On the central offering table, a scorched wooden rubbing stick lay quietly.

Suddenly.

A spark ignited quietly from the tip of the stick.

Spreading silently.

The camera faded to black, with only one whisper lingering, echoing in the Void Realm:

"A Carefree Dao Heart is inherently the Heavenly Dao."

The next morning, no cooking smoke rose from the First Flame Academy, but the children were already lined up in the corner, heads lowered, rubbing wood.

Sparks flickered on and off, laughter mixed with coughing floating in the morning mist.

Zhang Xuanyi squatted in the shadow of the broken wall, chewing on orange peel, squinting at the sun.

Suddenly, his movements paused.

At the end of the mountain path, an old Daoist with washed-white clothes walked slowly, leaning on a bamboo staff, followed by several youths, each with bright eyes and steady steps.

The old Daoist looked up at the plaque, his lips moving slightly, as if about to speak—

Zhang Xuanyi remained calm, gently flicking the orange peel in his hand into the fire pile.

The sparks leaped.