138: Spontaneous Combustion Hall

The night wind swept across the field ridges, making the grass rustle.

Zhang Xuanyi sat on the edge of the dirt, the torch in his hand, burnt to its very end, slowly slipped from his grip and fell into the cracked earth; the flame flickered once, then extinguished.

The rag stall dissipated along with the last glimmer of spiritual light, turning into ashes that drifted up with the wind, yet they solidified in mid-air without dispersing, faintly revealing three ancient seal characters: 'Xiao', 'Yao', 'Ling'.

He looked up at those three characters, the corners of his mouth lifting—not in triumph, nor in relief, but in a kind of childlike acceptance.

For three years, from setting up a stall to sell talismans at the foot of Mount Longhu, to being begged on his knees by the Old Ancestor of Quanxing for a piece of photocopy yellow paper; from seeing through the Under Heaven Society's death trap with heavenly eye mung beans, to reversing the battle with the Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid... He had relied on the System to sweep through everything, but now, the System was gone, and his heart felt empty and clear.

He did not stand up; instead, he fished a copper bell from his wide sleeve.

It was rusted and mottled, its clapper broken, yet it still exuded a heavy, oppressive aura.

That was the 'Fire Suppression Order' token handed to him personally by the Sect Head before the Tianshi Mansion went into seclusion a century ago—symbolizing the supreme authority of man conquering fire and using the Dao to control flames.

He once thought this was a responsibility, a mission, something a Daoist should carry.

But now, he suddenly laughed.

'Fire was never meant to be "suppressed" by anyone.' He said in a low voice, as if speaking to the bell, or perhaps to heaven and earth, 'It will burn on its own, and it will stop on its own.'

Before his voice faded, he flicked his wrist and threw the copper bell hard toward the dried-up irrigation ditch in the distance.

With a dull thud, the copper bell smashed into the cracked riverbed.

In an instant, a circle of dark red ripples radiated from the point of impact, silent and soundless, yet it made the air itself distort.

The withered grass along the way ignited without wind, flames rising but not spreading; instead, as if guided by an invisible force, they crawled along the ground, outlining a huge ancient seal character: 'Jin'.

That was the lingering power of the last man-made fire order, the final echo of humanity's thousand-year attempt to control fire.

The fire lasted no more than ten breaths before it extinguished on its own, as if it had completed some kind of ritual.

Zhang Xuanyi brushed the dust off his Daoist robe, stood up, swept his gaze across the wilderness, and said softly, 'From now on, no one can speak for fire.'

He turned and left, his steps light, as if he had unburdened himself of a thousand-jin weight.

He knew that the golden fire self-combustion was not a disaster, but an Awakening.

Those streetlights suddenly igniting, surveillance cameras catching fire for no reason, flames dancing out of thin air in city corners... none of this was loss of control, it was a response—fire was responding to the changes in this world, and to the deep-seated desire in human hearts to "light a fire."

Meanwhile, in an underground archive in Shanghai a thousand miles away, Su Qingzhu was hunched over a pile of yellowed files, her fingertips trembling slightly.

She had just cracked the final form of the "Golden Fire Network Map."

The trajectories of those self-combustion points erupting all over the world completely overlapped with ancient post roads, and what made her spine chill even more was that they were identical to the routes of the serial arson cases her father had investigated thirty years ago.

She flipped through dust-covered photos: old residential areas, abandoned granaries, under railway bridges... Every fire scene had one thing in common: the masses spontaneously put out the fires, but the leaders, without exception, all held the most primitive torches in their hands, their eyes exceptionally calm, even carrying a kind of... pilgrimage-like piety.

This was not a crime.

This was a ritual.

She suddenly remembered a scrawled line in her father's diary: "They say fire is a disaster, but looking at those people, it feels like they are waiting for fire to return."

She gripped the camera tightly in her palm, its metal edges digging in and causing pain.

She finally understood that what her father was investigating back then wasn't an arsonist, but a misunderstood enlightenment—an attempt at the quiet resurgence of fire's spiritual consciousness among the people.

And now, it had returned.

"This time," she stood up, her gaze burning, "I won't let you be treated like lunatics again."

Meanwhile, in the Northwest Gobi Desert, the galaxy was like a waterfall.

Cui Wujiu sat cross-legged on the ruins of an abandoned post station; the night was bone-chillingly cold, yet the ground beneath his feet was faintly scorching.

He brushed away the surface sand and was shocked to discover a golden vein of fire winding through the ground like a living snake, appearing and disappearing, seemingly possessing a rhythmic breath.

He hesitated for a moment, then placed his palm against the ground, silently practicing the "Flame Listening Technique" he had learned from the Fire Patrollers of his youth.

In an instant, images appeared in his mind—

A thousand years ago, a merchant caravan was trapped in a night of wind and sand; a child failed to make fire by rubbing wood together, his lips purple from the cold.

An old carriage driver silently crouched down, pulled a piece of charcoal wrapped in animal hide from his bosom, handed it over, and said only one thing: "Fire is not afraid of the cold, it only fears that no one wants to light it."

That single thought of persistence was like a seed buried deep underground, surviving a thousand years of wind and sand, only breaking through the soil today.

Cui Wujiu opened his eyes, looked at the starry sky, and sighed softly, "You should have burned on your own long ago."

He no longer tried to stop it, nor did he try to guide it; he just sat quietly, letting the fire vein flow beneath him like a river returning home.

In a small town in the south, the plaque of the "Self-Combustion Hall" still hung under the old eaves; it had once been the place where Zhang Xuanyi first set up his stall.

At this moment, in the open space outside the house, several children sat in a circle, palms facing each other, eyes closed, softly humming a tuneless song.

The night wind blew, raising fine dust; they focused intently on the tiny particles floating in the air, their breathing gradually syncing.

No one held matches, and no one used a lighter.

But in their eyes, firelight was dancing.

The night dew was heavy, and the mountain roads of Southern Anhui wound like snakes.

When Zhang Xuanyi returned to the "Self-Combustion Hall" under the moonlight, the wind chime under the old eaves rang softly, like a greeting after a long separation.

In the courtyard, several children sat in a circle, palms facing each other, eyes closed, their breathing slow and rhythmic.

The floating dust in the air rose slightly, shimmering with a faint golden light in the night.

They did not use matches, nor did they drill wood to make fire—these were the children of the new generation, attempting to awaken the fire in their own way.

The blind old grandmother sat on the threshold, her withered hand leaning on a cane, and suddenly shook her head: "Fire is not something you practice to achieve; it is something you wait for."

Before her words faded, a little girl opened her eyes and immediately saw Zhang Xuanyi standing at the doorway. Her eyes lit up, and she hopped over to tug on his sleeve: "Uncle Zhang! Do you think fire chooses people? Does it... only like powerful people?"

Zhang Xuanyi crouched down, his fingertips brushing her hair, but his gaze was cast toward the hearth inside the room—there, a ball of gentle golden flame was leaping, not like an ordinary fire, but rather like some sentient creature breathing.

He said softly, "It doesn't choose powerful people; it chooses people who 'want to illuminate'."

The children quieted down, even their breathing softening.

"If you only want to win competitions or get awards, the fire won't come." He smiled, "Because it knows that you have no darkness in your heart, and you don't care if others are cold."

As soon as he finished speaking—

The hearth fire suddenly contracted!

The ball of golden flame, as if pinched by an invisible hand, instantly solidified into the shape of a small bird about to take flight, its wings distinct, its eyes flickering, as if it would soar into the sky the next moment.

But after only a breath, it dissipated with a roar, turning into specks of starlight that drifted into the roof beams and vanished.

The whole courtyard gasped.

Only Zhang Xuanyi sat still, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

He knew who that was.

It was the final remnant of that rag stall, the final echo of the System's three-year companionship.

It hadn't gone far; it just stayed in a different way—no longer trading all methods, but witnessing the fire being passed on.

"It is no longer under my control." He looked up at the sky and whispered, "Now, it's time for them to burn on their own."

Meanwhile, on a national highway a thousand miles away, Su Qingzhu slammed on the brakes, the tires leaving screeching marks on the asphalt.

The car radio had turned on by itself, unknown to her; the static hummed like a swarm of bees, mixed with countless intermittent whispers: "...saw it... pass it on... don't turn off the lights... fire is coming home..."

She slammed the door and got out, cold wind hitting her face; she looked up—

Across the entire mountain pass, a massive ring of fire made of firefly-like golden dots was suspended in the air, slowly rotating in an ancient, arcane pattern, as if some long-lost altar was Awakening.

The air was filled with a burnt fragrance and warmth, yet there was no open flame, nor any heat wave.

She raised her camera and pressed the shutter repeatedly, only to find the viewfinder pitch black.

She couldn't capture it.

She couldn't record it.

Just as her father had faced twenty years ago.

Just as she was on the verge of breaking down, the old police badge on her chest suddenly became hot, almost burning her skin.

She took it off, trembling, and looked at it by the light of her flashlight—

On the back of the badge, a line of tiny engraved characters appeared, as if branded stroke by stroke with a red-hot iron rod: Southern Anhui · Old Site of Huailing Primary School.

The handwriting was crooked, yet it was so familiar that her heart stopped.

That was her father's handwriting.

But her father had been dead for many years.

She gripped the badge tightly, her knuckles turning white, but in her eyes, a fire burned like never before.

"This time," she looked up at the golden ring, her voice hoarse but firm, "I won't record fire anymore—I will become a part of the fire."

A few days later, an anonymous letter was quietly delivered to the foot of Mount Longhu.

There was no writing on the envelope, only the impression of a scorched maple leaf.

Zhang Xuanyi opened it; inside was only a single line of printed text: "We cordially invite you to attend a closed-door seminar on anomalous fire phenomena."

The address was blank, and the sender was unknown.

But when he flipped the letter over and shone it in the moonlight—

On the back, dozens of miniature fire seals appeared, arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper, faintly pointing to a coordinate that had not yet awakened.

He stared at that line of text for a long time without speaking.

Then he smiled.

"Finally," he folded the letter and tucked it into his sleeve, "it's their turn to ask about 'fire'."