143: Tao is like a prairie fire without fire

In the southwest borderlands, the morning mist was like gauze.

As dawn just began to break, the small town market was already bustling with noise.

Vegetable vendors set up bamboo stalls, deep-fried dough sticks sizzled in the pots, and the steam carrying the scent of daily life rushed towards one's face.

A man walked slowly into the crowd, carrying an old bamboo basket on his shoulder. The bottom of the basket was covered in gray-black stove ash, faintly emitting warmth, as if sleeping charcoal embers had not yet fully awakened.

He wore washed-out work clothes with frayed cuffs, muddy rubber shoes, and his hat brim was pulled low, obscuring his eyes.

No one recognized who he was—until he spoke.

"Ash from the old fire pit, to ward off cold and evil; a pinch in exchange for three eggs."

His voice was not loud, but it was like a pebble thrown into a still lake, causing ripples to rise suddenly.

Someone hesitantly approached: "This... can it light a stove?"

The man did not answer, only grabbing a handful of ash from the basket and gently pouring it into the person's palm.

The ash was not hot to the touch; instead, a strange warmth seeped into the skin, as if a faint heartbeat were hidden within it.

"Do not touch an open flame for three days." After saying this, he spoke no more, lowering his head to tidy the remaining ash in the basket.

Yet that very night, nine households that had bought the ash experienced a strange phenomenon almost simultaneously—the stove fires ignited without a flame, the flames clear gold as if cast from molten metal, their form identical to the "Seal of Passing Fire" that had appeared simultaneously across the country several months ago!

It lasted for seven seconds, then extinguished silently; the stoves were undamaged, and the pots and bowls did not crack.

The news exploded.

It wasn't the fleeting popularity of a trending internet topic, but a viral spread in the true sense.

Undercurrents surged in the Jianghu of heterodox practitioners; some drove thousands of miles overnight to rush to the small town; remnants of the Quánxìng sent spies to investigate traces; there were even overseas sorcerers who came in groups to seek the "True Seed of Golden Flame."

But the next morning, the market was empty, and the stall was already deserted.

Only half a bag of stove ash remained, sitting quietly in place, topped with a yellowed slip of paper with scrawled yet powerful handwriting: "Fire is not for sale; it comes to those with sincere hearts."

From then on, Zhang Xuanyi disappeared.

Some said he was in a northern fishing village, crouching in the snow teaching children to rub dry grass to start a fire, saying "Fire is your first friend"; others said he was at a high-altitude post station, adding firewood for frozen old herdsmen, staying awake all night, while the bonfire beside him never extinguished, nor did it flare up, rhythmic like breathing.

Still others said that on a night of torrential rain, with flash floods approaching, a family suddenly saw a circle of warm stove ash piled at their door; the next morning, the mudslide bypassed their house, leaving them unharmed.

But regardless of where the rumors came from, there was no concrete proof.

He no longer walked under his name, no longer taught the Dharma, and no longer accepted kowtows.

He had once been a slacker Daoist at the Myriad Laws Street Stall, turning his life around by selling Talismanic Incantations via the System; he had also been the Torchbearer of the prairie fire, revered by thousands as the "Folk Fire Master."

Now, he had burned himself into ashes and scattered them into the winds of the Mortal world.

And the fire had learned to walk on its own.

Southern Anhui, an autumn night in a mountain village.

Su Qingzhu sat by the attic window, an old-fashioned film camera resting on her lap.

Outside the window, the curtain of rain was like weaving, the whole village was without power, and only her corner glowed with a faint, warm light.

A neighbor came up with an umbrella to check, pushing the door open to see her sitting quietly, motionless, a fist-sized golden flame resting in her palm.

The flame light was soft, reflecting the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and illuminating the photos plastered all over the wall: the dancing shadows of stove fire when a mother coaxed a baby to sleep, the spark in a pipe when an old man kept vigil, the smiling faces of children chasing fireflies...

"How... did you light it?" the neighbor asked in surprise.

She shook her head, the corners of her lips lifting slightly: "I didn't light this; it came on its own."

At that moment, the golden flame flickered gently, as if in response.

She said nothing more.

She only remembered many years ago, that slacker Daoist crouching in front of the street stall eating melon seeds, mocking her for "writing articles that are faker than drawing Talismanic Incantations," while secretly stuffing a heavenly eye mung bean into her thermos.

Later, she followed him through ruins and raging flames, writing the "chronicles of vows," recording how a prairie fire ignited from the marketplace.

And now, she no longer chased after grand truths, only wishing to record how every inch of glimmer fell upon the faces of Mortals.

Because she finally understood—the true Dao is not in scriptures, not on altars, but in the wisp of white steam breathed out when a mother cools a bowl of rice porridge, in the flick of red dancing in a child's eyes when they light a lantern.

Fire remembers everything.

Northwest, Spring Equinox.

Between the sand dunes, the cold wind cut across the face.

A group of herdsmen gathered around a spring that had been dry for years, their faces full of disbelief—after a light rain last night, the spring was actually bubbling with warm water, enough to quench thirst and treat the freezing cold.

Several lambs whose hooves had originally been necrotic miraculously regained sensation after soaking in the water for a moment.

Children sat around a bonfire, singing the ancient "Ballad of the Flame."

The old people listened and suddenly fell silent.

Someone looked toward the horizon and murmured: "The Fire Patroller has returned."

But no one had seen Cui Wujiu again.

The last time official files mentioned him was in an earthquake rescue report, which read: "Suspected individual with abnormal body temperature consecutively rescued over a dozen trapped victims; high-temperature scorch marks left at the scene; identity unknown."

After that, there were no more records.

In fact, he was no longer a "person."

After that great fire, his obsession dissipated, and his Physical Body merged into the veins of the earth's fire, becoming a wandering heat current deep within the earth.

Every Spring Equinox, when the earth fire naturally rose to awaken the sleeping spring, it was merely him using his final way to walk across the land he had once sworn to protect with his life.

There is song in the wind, and warmth beneath the sand.

The fire no longer needs a spokesperson.

Three months later, Mount Longhu.

The bell tower of Tianshi Mansion had been silent for three hundred years, but it finally rang out again.

One toll, two tolls, three tolls, piercing the clouds and splitting the mist, shaking the eight-hundred-mile Jianghu.

The mansion gates swung wide open, and an Elder stood upon the jade steps, announcing to the world:

"The position of Tianshi is henceforth left vacant. All secret manuals of past generations are open to all living beings starting today."

The crowd was in an uproar.

Who could succeed him? Why leave it vacant? Could it be true as the rumors said, that the old era had ended?

Countless heterodox practitioners surged into the Scripture Pavilion, flipping through dust-covered ancient scrolls.

Some looked for the Longevity Formula, some sought the Demon Suppression Map, and others only wanted to catch a glimpse of the legendary "Three Caverns True Scripture."

Until late at night, a young Daoist trembled as he opened a tattered classic—

"Incomplete Manual of Fire Records: Part One."

The title page had only a line of ancient vermilion seal script, the ink like blood, the brushwork appearing to burn:

"Fire has no master; only those with heart may possess it."

At the hour of midnight on Qingming, the cold wind on the barren slopes of North China was like a knife.

A cold moon hung in the sky, and the cracks in the frozen earth spread like a spider web.

A wandering youth curled up in a recess of a cliff, ragged and tattered, his fingers frozen purple.

He shivered as he fished out a half-length pencil and a crumpled piece of homework paper, gritting his teeth to write three crooked characters—"I want to live."

The pen tip paused, tears splashing onto the paper, blurring the ink.

He gave a bitter smile and lit the corner of the paper.

The flame was weak, like a firefly gasping in the wind, on the verge of extinguishing.

Yet just as the paper was about to finish burning, the ashes did not scatter; instead, they were lifted by an invisible force, condensing in the air into a fleeting pattern of light—not a Talismanic Incantation, not a mantra, but the phantom of a golden bird about to spread its wings, its feathers flowing, appearing to breathe.

The youth widened his eyes, his throat tightening, unable to say a word.

The next instant, the withered grass beside his feet ignited without a fire, and a fist-sized golden flame rose quietly.

It did not burn people, did not raise the temperature, yet it illuminated the entire barren slope, making even the distant mountain shadows tremble slightly.

The flame danced gently, as if saying: You have been seen.

The youth trembled as he reached out his hand, carefully cupping this ball of fire.

It was as light as a dream, as warm as tears.

He did not ask where it came from, nor was he afraid anymore—he simply turned around and walked, step by step, toward the few dim yellow lights of the distant village.

That same night, quiet movements occurred all across the country.

In front of the ancestral hall of an old mansion in Jiangnan, an old woman who had been a widow for thirty years swept the threshold as usual and set out a bowl of clear water.

But when the dew evaporated this morning, tiny golden dots appeared on the surface of the water, gathering without scattering, shaped like a palm print.

She knelt and kowtowed, old tears streaming down her face: "Old man... is it you who has returned?"

No one told her that it was not the return of a dead Soul, but the Awakening of fire's memory.

In the pastoral areas of the Northwest, a shepherd boy with a broken leg had been trapped in a snow valley for two days.

In despair, he dreamed that someone handed him a pinch of warm stove ash.

When he woke up, there was indeed a bag of ash in his arms; after lighting it, a bonfire generated itself, burning for three days without extinguishing.

When the rescue team arrived, they only saw the child safe and sound, with a circle of scorch marks in the shape of a Bagua around him.

And deep in the Scripture Pavilion of Mount Longhu, a young Daoist was trembling as he closed the "Incomplete Manual of Fire Records."

Just a moment ago, he had witnessed it with his own eyes—beside that line of ancient vermilion seal script, new ink had appeared, the brushwork wild and unrestrained, as if laughing, as if sighing: "A master is not one who teaches the Dharma, but one who ignites the fire of the heart. Now that the fire has illuminated itself, why is there a need to light it again?"

The ink was not yet dry, and according to testing, the time of its formation was exactly the night the eternal lamp shattered three months ago!

But that night, Tianshi Mansion was heavily guarded, isolated from inside and out, with absolutely no one entering or leaving!

The news exploded like thunder in the Jianghu of heterodox practitioners.

The remnants of the Quánxìng held a secret meeting overnight, suspecting the "descent of the Fire God"; the overseas sorcerer Alliance urgently launched the "Candle Dragon Project," attempting to capture this spontaneous spiritual fire phenomenon; even more radical factions clamored to dig three feet deep to find the "manipulator behind the scenes."

But they did not know that the true answer was no longer in the scriptures, not in the center of power, and no longer belonged to any single person.

Fire has already learned to choose.

It skips over the hands of the greedy, bypasses practitioners with deep obsessions, and only rises quietly before those Souls who are the most humble, most desperate, yet refuse to bow their heads—as if responding to a silent scream, a faint heartbeat, an unspoken prayer.

This night, countless people looked up at the sky and found the stars unusually bright.

Some began to whisper: "Is it... has something returned?"

No one knew where Zhang Xuanyi had gone, and no one had seen his figure again.

Some said he had turned into the wind, some said he had sunk into the earth's veins, and others firmly believed that he had just changed his name, blended into the crowd of a small town's morning market, and continued selling his worthless stove ash.

But one thing was quietly changing—

From this day on, every first and fifteenth day of the lunar month, a small dish of gray-black stove ash quietly appeared in front of thousands of households across the land of China.

No incense was burned, no prayers were offered; they only waited for the moment the morning dew evaporated, and if tiny golden lights appeared, it was regarded as an auspicious omen, a "Heart Fire Resonance."

This was not superstition, but the prologue to Awakening.

And at this moment, in the distant southwest, among the mountains where the rainy season was about to arrive, a muddy path wound its way toward the sleeping market.

The morning mist had not yet dispersed, and the air was humid and heavy.

A man wearing washed-out work clothes walked slowly, his hat brim pulled low, carrying an empty bamboo basket on his shoulder.

He crouched in a corner and silently set down the basket; inside, there was only a bag of gray-black stove ash.

The label was handwritten by him, the script scrawled, yet it revealed a familiar, lazy smile.