128: Orthodox Fire-Starting Technique

The familiar alley from the past had long since changed its appearance; the bluestone path had been replaced by polished marble, and the houses on both sides had been freshly painted.

Zhang Xuanyi walked to the end of the alley and paused.

The old locust tree was still there, but it was enclosed in a massive temperature-controlled glass dome, its branches and leaves meticulously trimmed, as if it were a fragile artifact.

And in the corner where he used to set up his street stall, a three-story modern building now stood, with gilded characters in a bold, sweeping calligraphy at the entrance: Fire Dao Museum.

An electronic screen displayed the scrolling ticket price: eighty yuan.

At the entrance, a guide in a uniform was reciting to tourists in a monotonous tone: "Here is the starting point of that great transformation. Three years ago, the Ancestor of the Fire Dao, Mr. Zhang Xuanyi, first demonstrated here the miracle that even a Mortal could create fire..."

Zhang Xuanyi listened in silence; the voice sounded as if it were coming from another distant world.

He did not go inside, but sat for a moment on the steps opposite the museum.

He pulled the last friction stick from his polished pocket—the stick that had accompanied him through countless days and nights, now smoothed to a jade-like luster by the sweat of his palms.

He walked over to the glass dome and gently inserted the stick into the only small patch of exposed soil, as if planting a seed of hope.

Immediately after, he took out his small water pouch and slowly poured the remaining half-bowl of clear well water over the base of the stick.

Three days later, a miracle occurred.

The old neighbors nearby were the first to notice that the bare piece of wood beside the museum had actually sprouted a trembling bit of tender green.

This was simply incredible in the harsh ecological environment next to the temperature-controlled dome.

Even more mysteriously, whenever night fell, the new branches would emit a faint red glow, and if a curious child reached out to touch them, harmless yet brilliant sparks would burst from their fingertips.

The children were no longer afraid; they danced around the glowing little tree, singing a rhyme someone had made up. The singing was crisp and loud, drowning out the hymns playing on a loop inside the museum: "The pot is broken, the fire has run away, the Daoist didn't come back, we'll burn it ourselves!"

At the same time, Su Qingzhu typed the final word at her computer.

The public account she had created herself, "chronicles of vows," which had hundreds of millions of followers, had reached its final chapter today.

She published her final post, with a title consisting of only one sentence: "I will no longer record fire, because I have become fire."

At the same time as the post was published, she handed over all the interview materials, video footage, and historical records she had accumulated over the past ten years to the National Archives, free of charge.

The moment the server was cleared, she felt no attachment, except for one piece of footage she had never shown to anyone.

It was an ordinary afternoon three years ago, when Zhang Xuanyi was still squatting by his street stall.

A thin, frail boy had stolen money from home to buy an expensive "fire-starting talisman," and he had caught the boy on the spot.

In the footage, Zhang Xuanyi did not scold him, but instead placed a Heavenly Eye Mung Bean with a strange luster into the boy's palm, smiled, and ruffled his hair. His voice was gentle yet carried the power to pierce through the heart: "Do not fear the dark, but do not trust the light either."

Su Qingzhu edited this few-seconds-long video and, through all the channels she had built over the past decade, turned it into street projections covering a hundred cities across the country.

At midnight, whether it was the curtain walls of skyscrapers in bustling cities or the white walls of squares in remote towns, the man squatting by his stall and that profound sentence appeared simultaneously.

Countless passersby getting off late shifts, homeless people on the street, and students returning home stopped to watch.

After a brief silence, not knowing who started it, a man silently took out a lighter and pressed the switch; a small flame flickered in the night.

Immediately after, a girl scraped the tip of her key hard against the sole of her shoe, sending out scattered sparks.

Further away, a drunkard bit his fingertip hard and flicked a drop of blood onto a rough wall, and to his surprise, it sparked a tiny, scarlet glimmer.

In the most inconspicuous corners of the city, specks of fire light lit up one by one, growing more numerous, merging into a silent ocean.

Viewed from high above, it was as if the sleeping earth was slowly opening its billions of burning eyes.

In the distant northern permafrost zone, Cui Wujiu wrapped his coat tightly around himself; the wind and snow were like knives.

Not far away, a group of shivering herdsmen were huddled around a broken-down heavy truck, trying in vain to keep warm.

Loaded on the truck was a batch of expensive "Advanced Fire Control Textbooks" destined for overseas, with the cover prominently featuring the "Orthodox Fire-Starting Manual" authorized for publication by Tianshi Mansion.

Ironically, in this minus forty-degree blizzard, these textbooks, which contained the "most profound" theories, could not even spark a single flame.

The herdsmen could only huddle together and shiver in despair, watching as they were about to freeze to death there.

Cui Wujiu walked up expressionlessly, snatched a copy of the "Orthodox Fire-Starting Manual" from a young man's hand, and without even looking at it, stuffed it directly into the gap of the truck's tire, then barked at the driver: "Crush it!"

The tires spun wildly on the ice, the pages were ground until wisps of black smoke rose, but they could not ignite a flame.

An old woman with a wrinkled face could not bear it any longer; she suddenly tore off the lining of her tattered cotton-padded jacket—the driest and warmest cotton wadding.

She wrapped the cotton wadding around an iron rod and slammed it hard against an ice ridge on the ground that had been pressed by the truck wheels.

"Sizzle!"

Sparks flew everywhere, instantly igniting the cotton wadding.

The old woman immediately brought the flame close to the waste oil leaking from the truck, and a ball of warm fire "whooshed" up into the air.

She looked back at the pile of waste paper emitting black smoke, spat on the ground, and said in a hoarse but resonant voice: "Books burn slowly, but lives burn quickly!"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, then burst into uproarious laughter.

Amidst the laughter, piles of the "Orthodox Fire-Starting Manual" were thrown into the fire, serving as the most primitive fuel.

The blazing fire broke through the wind and snow, illuminating every face on the snowy plain that was overflowing with the joy of rebirth.

Tianshi Mansion, the Great Hall.

Zhang Xuanyi was invited to attend the "First Ten Thousand People Fire Ceremony."

The new Sect Head personally presented him with a "Fire Dao Co-Governance Order" crafted from thousand-year-old warm jade, and announced to the public that, starting from today, Tianshi Mansion would dissolve the exclusive Legacy system that had continued for a thousand years and open the transcription rights of all secret texts to the world.

The ceremony was solemn and dignified, and it was about to reach its climax.

Suddenly, a Disciple scrambled into the Great Hall, his voice trembling with fear: "It's bad! Sect Head! That piece of red jade under the foundation of the hall... it, it flew out on its own!"

Before the words had even faded, the floor tiles in the center of the Great Hall split open silently, and a piece of jade, entirely crimson and shimmering with brilliant light, slowly emerged and hovered in mid-air.

Amidst the horrified gazes of the crowd, spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface of the red jade, and finally, with a "crack," it shattered completely.

There was no earth-shattering explosion; the shattered jade transformed into countless tiny specks of light, like fireflies filling the sky, drifting lightly in all directions, passing through the walls and flying towards the wider world outside the hall.

The whole place was deathly silent.

Zhang Xuanyi stood up. He did not look at the token that represented supreme power, but simply looked up at the points of light that were about to vanish, and said softly to the Void Realm: "You have waited for three hundred years, and all you wanted was—that anyone could burn."

His voice was very soft, yet it clearly reached everyone's ears.

As soon as he finished speaking, a speck of light that was about to dissipate seemed to understand his words; it changed direction and slowly landed in his palm.

The speck of light was as gentle as a newborn baby, lingering in his palm for a moment before dissipating completely.

Inside the Great Hall, it was silent; only the sound of melting snow from the eaves outside dripping onto the bluestone could be heard clearly.

Seven days later, Zhang Xuanyi climbed to the top of Mount Longhu alone.

The Daoist temple, which had once been bustling with incense and solemn, was now empty, with no trace of incense left.

He pushed open the heavy doors of the main hall, and accumulated dust rushed to meet him; sunlight filtered through the gaps in the doors, illuminating the dust dancing in the air.

The statues in the hall had all been covered with white cloth, appearing desolate and lonely.

He walked to the offering table, crouched down, and pulled half a piece of charred wood he had picked up on the snowy plain from his tattered sleeve, placing it gently on the empty offering table.

He stared at the black charred wood and said in a low voice, as if saying goodbye to some unseen presence: "I am no longer going to be an immortal."

Having said that, he turned and walked out of the hall.

Just as he took a step, a trace of warmth suddenly came from behind him.

He paused in his steps but did not look back.

That piece of charred wood had quietly ignited on its own at some point; the flame was not high and made no sound, yet it was steady and bright, illuminating the entire empty and deathly silent hall all by itself.

The corners of Zhang Xuanyi's mouth lifted slightly, almost imperceptibly.

He stepped out of the threshold, letting the biting wind on the mountaintop whip up his robes.

At that very same moment, down the mountain, in towns and the countryside, in the hearths of thousands of households, those pieces of firewood that were either extinguished or weak "crackled" in unison, suddenly shooting up a vigorous flame, as if responding to an ancient promise that needed no words.

The wind at the summit blew his robes until they fluttered loudly, but he did not linger there.

The winding mountain ridge path, in the faint light of dawn, seemed to have no end, quietly waiting for solitary footsteps.