141: The fire has started to spread

Mount Longhu, Welcoming Truth Bridge.

Morning mist had not yet dispersed, the stream babbled, and golden specks scattered like stardust behind the peaks; the entire mountain range seemed to be awakened by some ancient will.

The aftermath of the Ancestral Master's hall's eternal lamp explosion had not yet subsided, and over a hundred figures had already gathered outside the mountain gate—the Sword-Wielding Elder of Wudang stood at the front, followed by envoys from the Kunlun, Emei, and Qingcheng sects, as well as officials in black suits from the special department, everyone looking solemn, their burning gazes fixed on the mountain.

The person they were waiting for was leaning against the bridge railing, cracking melon seeds.

Zhang Xuanyi was wearing a washed-out Daoist robe and tattered cloth shoes, his mouth making crunching sounds, yet his eyes were startlingly clear.

He spat out a melon seed shell and glanced sideways at the Wudang Elder holding a jade tablet: "So you all came early in the morning just to tell me—the fire is in chaos, and a new Heavenly Master must be established?"

The Elder said sternly: "Today, strange phenomena occur frequently; the eternal lamp has self-detonated, the stone tablet's names have been incinerated, and the fire spirits across the globe are restless. Without an orthodox suppression, it fears to lead to chaos under heaven! Only by the Heavenly Master succeeding to the throne can the Qi and Meridians be stabilized!"

"Suppression?" Zhang Xuanyi laughed, his shoulders shaking, "You call this 'chaos'? Why do I feel... it has finally caught its breath?"

Before he finished speaking, he suddenly raised his hand, grabbed a handful of ashes from his sleeve, and tossed them into the wind.

The furnace ashes should have scattered with the wind, but as soon as they left his palm, they all ignited!

Each grain turned into a golden speck of light, spiraling into the sky like living things, weaving and dancing above everyone's heads—in just three breaths, they spelled out four large characters: Who seals, who opens?

"Boom—" An invisible wave of Qi erupted from under the bridge, the stream suddenly turned golden, ripples formed rings, as if the entire Mount Longhu was resonating.

The crowd retreated in shock, some stumbled and fell, and several Innate-stage mutants had their expressions change drastically, their internal Qi uncontrollably shaking.

The Wudang Elder gripped the jade tablet tightly, his knuckles turning white: "You... how can you let the fire of heaven and earth act as your pen? This is... the appearance of Heaven's Question!"

Zhang Xuanyi clapped his hands, the melon seed shells fell into the stream and instantly burned into flying smoke: "The fire has even learned how to write, and you still want to point the way? Want to find the Ancestral Master? Go dig three feet underground; the bronze pillar is still hot."

After he finished speaking, he turned and left, his gait light, like a vendor who had just finished the morning market.

Yet with every step he took, the bridge deck vibrated slightly, and golden threads as thin as hair seeped out from the stone cracks under his feet, flashing and then vanishing.

No one dared to stop him.

Until his back disappeared around the corner of the mountain path, a high-ranking official from the special department spoke with a trembling voice: "Didn't he refuse to succeed? Why... does the fire recognize him, but not the tablet?"

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away.

On the edge of the Hexi Corridor, the lights of an abandoned studio flickered on.

Su Qingzhu sat in front of an old projector, her fingertips trembling slightly.

The image on the screen was blurry and shaking. In the black-and-white footage, a group of researchers in white coats surrounded a comatose youth, and the instrument panel displayed horrifying data: "Body surface temperature: 1037°C, skin tissue undamaged." The lens slowly zoomed in—the youth's face was stained with blood, his eyelashes fluttering; it was the young Cui Wujiu.

"Subject No. 17, successfully activated fire spirit consciousness resonance." The voiceover was as cold as a knife, "As long as the first spontaneous combustion body is controlled, all sources of fire veins can be mastered."

Su Qingzhu pressed the stop button abruptly.

She stared at that frozen frame—the person in charge had a badge visible on their cuff: a gear surrounding a flame, with "National Energy Research Institute No. 7" written below.

That was the predecessor of a current energy giant.

"Human thermal energy project..." She whispered the term that had been crossed out with a red pen in the file, "You knew long ago that the fire would wake up, so you wanted to lock it up and turn it into electricity?"

She gripped her police badge tightly on her chest, her eyes turning from shock to anger, and then from anger to determination.

The next morning, she boarded a train heading west with the videotape.

Destination: Hexi Observation Station—the place where Cui Wujiu last appeared.

At the same time, deep in the Northwest Gobi Desert.

Scorched earth stretched for ten thousand miles, with not a blade of grass growing. The wind and sand swept across the ground, making a metallic friction sound.

Cui Wujiu walked barefoot on it, his steps slow but firm.

With every step he took, the sandy ground cracked with fine lines, and dark red fire lines snaked out from within, as if the earth's blood vessels were reviving.

He knew what was ahead.

The "Fire Control Formation" buried by the military thirty years ago, a metal cube disguised as the base of a weather monitoring station, but actually extracting free-roaming fire spirit consciousness day and night, converting it into stable electrical energy to supply a secret project.

And its core frequency was designed based on his brain waves from back then.

He walked to the center of the Formation, sat cross-legged, and tore open the sleeve of his left arm.

A scar running through his elbow appeared, twisted like a snake, the skin and flesh long since necrotic.

That was a brand, and also a key.

He bit his finger, blood dripped onto the yellow sand, drawing an incomplete Talisman—the Flame Returning Talisman.

It was not to activate it, but to sacrifice.

Sacrificing his own memories, pain, obsessions, and even his life.

"You said I was a failed product." He whispered, his voice as light as the wind, "You said I was uncontrollable and a hidden danger... But you never understood—fire should not be 'controlled'."

The moment the blood seeped into the sand, a muffled humming came from underground.

The iron shell cracked, black smoke surged from the cracks, condensing into a distorted human face, roaring: "Cui Wujiu! You could have been the King of Fire! Rule over all flames, burn the old world to ashes! Why come back to die?!"

He looked up, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth: "Because I only want to be the one who lights the fire."

As his words landed, golden flames suddenly rose within his body.

That fire ignited from his heart, spread throughout his body along his Meridians, yet did not harm him in the slightest.

There was no pain, only the warmth of a long-awaited reunion.

That was his own fire, which had never been extinguished, only stolen for thirty years.

At this moment, it had come home.

The golden flames shot into the sky, turning into a pillar of fire that tore through the firmament.

At the same time, in a small town in the south.

On the wall of the "Self-Combustion Hall" old house, a line of ink that had not yet dried—"Where the master exists, the fire shall go"—suddenly had golden threads drilling out, winding and swallowing like living things, disappearing in an instant.

Inside the house, children sat in a circle, listening to a blind old grandmother telling ancient stories.

"...Once there was a foolish Daoist who didn't believe that gods controlled the fire." The old woman shook her cattail fan, her voice hoarse, "He said, fire is the food in the common people's stove, the warmth on the heated brick bed in winter nights, and the incense stick in a child's hand that is about to go out."

Outside the window, the morning light was faint.

And in a corner that no one noticed, a wisp of extremely fine golden flame was quietly climbing up the window lattice, taking a light leap, and falling into the hearth.

The morning mist, like gauze, gently covered the mottled walls of the "Self-Combustion Hall".

Under the eaves, a wisp of golden flame slid down quietly, like a tear of fire, seeping into the cracks of the threshold, silently and soundlessly.

Zhang Xuanyi stood still.

He looked at that line of ink he had written not long ago—"Where the master exists, the fire shall go"—now only a circle of scorched marks remained, as if it had been gnawed away by some living creature.

The cattail fan shook lightly in the corner, the blind old grandmother was still telling the story of that "foolish Daoist", the children giggled, rolling moon cakes into small dumplings and throwing them at each other.

A little girl jumped over and grabbed the corner of his Daoist robe: "Uncle Zhang! Are you daydreaming? Are we not roasting moon cakes tonight?"

"Roasting." He bent down and touched her head, his fingertips still carrying the lingering warmth of last night's stove fire, "Of course we are roasting."

But he knew this was no ordinary fire.

In the corner of the kitchen, that piece of charred charcoal had long since disappeared.

But he remembered it—it was irregularly shaped on four sides, with a crack in the center like a forked lightning bolt, almost exactly the same as the tattered cloth remnant left behind when the System's street stall disintegrated back then.

He didn't speak when he buried it in the ash pile, nor did he use a shred of Qi.

But right at the third quarter of the Zi hour, the stove suddenly churned on its own, ashes rose into the air, golden flames ignited from the void, transforming into a carefree bird about to spread its wings, its feathers outlined by flames, its eyes like stars, circling the room once before diving into the ground, disappearing deep into the foundation.

In that instant, the entire old house shook.

It wasn't a fluctuation of Spiritual Qi, nor was it the activation of a Formation, it was more like... the earth blinked.

Zhang Xuanyi leaned against the door frame, chewing on a blade of wild grass, but his eyes had already drifted far away.

The System had long since dispersed, the mall was closed, the spirit coins were zeroed out.

But this fire, why did it insist on learning to "fly"?

What was it imitating? Who was it pursuing?

Or rather—was it creating something itself?

He suddenly laughed.

"Interesting... Even fire has started setting up stalls?"

Meanwhile, on the edge of the Gobi Desert thousands of miles away, the sand dunes were silent as iron.

Su Qingzhu's car was parked in the distance, the engine off, the dust slowly settling.

She stood before the golden flame ring, the wind whipping up the corners of her clothes, the videotape clutched tightly in her palm.

The ring of light rotated ceaselessly, like the entrance to some ancient ritual, or like a pair of waiting eyes.

Then, the ground became hot.

The sand grains crackled, a line of scorch marks spread out from under her feet, the handwriting clear, the heat not yet dispersed:

"Do not give it to anyone."

Her heart jolted.

It was not a threat, not a warning, but a refusal that was almost gentle.

This fire did not need evidence, did not need to be spread, did not need to be proven to exist.

It only recognized those who experienced it, only believed in those who ignited it.

She remained silent for a long time, finally turned around, and walked back along the way she came.

Passing a rusty, abandoned mailbox, she stopped and stuffed the videotape inside.

She pulled a sticky note from her bag and wrote three words:

"For those who remember."

The wind swept by, and the note trembled slightly.

The next dawn, the moment no one saw—

The mailbox suddenly self-combusted.

There was no explosion, no sound, it just turned completely golden, as if a life had awakened inside.

The flame burned quietly until the metal melted and collapsed, finally turning into a slender wisp of golden smoke that rose straight up, piercing the clouds and shooting into the high heavens.

And in the southern town, the chimney of the "Self-Combustion Hall" emitted golden mist for the first time at dawn.

In the embers of the stove, a piece of ash slowly pieced together an incomplete symbol—neither quite a Talisman nor quite a character, flickering in and out of existence, like the first stroke of some new language.

Inside the house, Zhang Xuanyi opened his eyes.

He didn't get up, just stared at the roof and whispered:

"If you want to pass on a message, you have to learn how to write first."

Outside the window, the first ray of sunlight fell.

But arriving earlier than the light were the footsteps coming from afar.

Very light, yet growing more numerous.