162: This is not how you spend your change at Tianshi Mansion.

The thunderstorm had not yet subsided, and the mountain wind, carrying moisture, swept through the forest, cutting like a knife on the face.

Zhang Xuanyi squatted in the muddy water, his fingertips still retaining the scorching warmth of the fiery coin.

That strange coin, forged from charred ash and golden patterns, was now half-buried in the soil, like a heart sinking into the earth, pulsating with an ancient and hidden rhythm.

“You’re in a hurry—I’m not,” he repeated in a low voice, a nearly cynical smile playing on his lips.

As his voice faded, a faint, almost imperceptible golden light suddenly shimmered beneath the mud.

Three thin streams seeped from the edges of the fiery coin, extending silently like blood vessels, following the earth’s pulse and splitting into three directions: the remaining charcoal beneath the old stove in the east of the village glowed faintly red; in the abandoned ash shop on North Ridge, a piece of talisman paper, crushed by a child, suddenly moved without wind; deep within the West River kiln cave, the crooked Bagua diagram drawn on the wall with a fire poker, actually revealed a faint golden border as it was soaked by the rain.

Zhang Xuanyi narrowed his eyes, his smile deepening.

They were not customers.

They were “debt payers.”

And this fiery coin was never a pass, but a proof of contract—using aspiration as ink, heart fire as a seal, borrowing the hands of the common people to repay the karma promised by a sect that had been in seclusion for three hundred years.

He slowly stood up, brushed the mud from his trousers, and looked up at the mountaintop.

The bronze gate, cracked open a sliver, had not yet fully opened, but thunderclouds churned above the sky, and golden lightning bolts struck the ridge, as if invisible chains were breaking inch by inch.

But he also knew that this round could not be forced.

At the same time, in the underground archives of a small city library hundreds of miles away, Su Qingzhu was bent over her desk, writing furiously.

Spread out before her was a yellowed handwritten copy—“Record of Incense and Fire Loans · Appendix Three: Regulations on Underworld Contracts.”

The dim lamplight highlighted her tightly furrowed brow.

As she turned page after page, her breathing grew heavier.

“...Those who borrow True Qi must establish both a Yin and Yang seal. The Yang seal is the Tianshi Mansion’s jade seal, suppressing the Dragon and Tiger earth pulse; the Yin seal is the heart fire token, carried by the flow of gratitude from the beneficiaries...”

She suddenly stopped.

“‘Heart fire token’ is not a physical object? But ‘the first object touched when aspiration flows back’?”

Her pupils constricted, and countless images flashed through her mind like lightning—

The empty clay pot Zhang Xuanyi buried, with a yellow talisman sticker that read “Where All Dharmas Return”;

The note clutched in the miner’s hand before he died, which read “The child can go to school now”;

On a stormy night, the little girl squatted in a pile of ash, drawing a smiling face with a charcoal stick... These were not souvenirs.

They were seals!

It was hundreds of millions of ordinary people, unknowingly, using their “heart fire,” touching those objects carrying hope again and again, thereby fulfilling the silent performance of their debt to the Tianshi Mansion!

Her fingers trembled violently, almost unable to hold the pen.

Three thousand bundles of fire? That was a deceptive number!

The true debt was thirty million “I am willing to repay”!

It was the obsession of hundreds of millions of mortals who, in suffering, still chose to believe that good would be rewarded, piling up into this prairie fire of today!

She snatched up her phone, dialed, but there was still no signal.

Outside the window, the night was deep, with only a faint glow emanating from the direction of a small town’s ancestral hall in the distance.

She stared at the mark on the map, murmuring, “Ash Repayment Banquet... Shop No. 37...”

In the early morning, the rain stopped.

Mist hung thick before the last stone step at the foot of Mount Longhu.

Two mountain-guarding disciples stood with talismans held horizontally, the forbidden talismans drawn with yellow paper and cinnabar glowing faintly in the morning light, warding off all outsiders.

“No unsealed person may enter the forbidden area,” one of them said coldly.

Zhang Xuanyi walked leisurely, hands behind his back, his clothes still creased from last night’s rain, his shoe soles muddy, looking exactly like a country Taoist who had just returned from the market.

He said nothing, only took out the fiery coin from his bosom, placed it in his palm, and rubbed it gently.

“Hiss—”

The charred gray outer shell flaked off, revealing the golden patterns intertwined within.

The patterns were extremely peculiar, resembling both the flowing brushwork of talismans and the encoded structure of some ancient ledger. Upon closer inspection, one could even discern the texture of photocopy yellow paper beneath, perfectly integrated with the starting and ending strokes of an Anzhai Talisman.

He casually pressed the fiery coin against the bronze ring of the mountain gate.

“Clink.”

A soft sound, clear as a bell.

The entire Mount Longhu suddenly trembled.

A deep hum came from deep underground, like rusted chains of a thousand years slowly loosening, or like a long-dormant Dragon and Tiger pulse being awakened, beginning to pulsate.

The faces of the two mountain-guarding disciples changed dramatically, their talismans flying from their hands, only to spontaneously burn to ash in mid-air.

“This... this isn’t a talisman order! Nor is it a token! How could you possibly...”

“How could I possibly?” Zhang Xuanyi grinned, rainwater sliding down a lock of black hair on his forehead. “You’ve forgotten, the Tianshi Mansion’s loose change has always come from the common people’s stoves, kang beds, and hearts.”

He lifted his foot and stepped onto the mountain gate steps.

Behind him, the fiery coin in the muddy water completely melted, transforming into a golden thread that burrowed into the earth, connecting directly to the four surrounding villages.

Meanwhile, deep within an ancestral hall in a remote southern town, a century-old cauldron stood silently.

After a light rain last night, the moss at the bottom of the cauldron peeled off, revealing a line of damp carvings:

Shop No. 37, Repaid.

No one knew who left it.

Nor did anyone see a faint golden glow slowly seeping from the edges of the inscription.

When Su Qingzhu arrived at the southern town, treading on the morning dew, the sky was just turning a fish-belly white.

The ancestral hall stood quietly beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, its mottled wall plaster peeling like scales. Only the century-old bronze cauldron squatted heavily behind the incense table, like an awakened ancient beast.

She didn't rush into the hall. Instead, she walked around to the back of the cauldron, crouched down, and gently traced the damp inscription at the bottom of the cauldron with her fingertips—"Shop No. 37, Repaid."

The moment her hand touched it, a faint but clear tremor emanated from her fingertips, as if a pulse was hidden deep within the metal.

She sharply withdrew her hand, her pupils contracting: This cauldron... is alive?

“It couldn’t be modern carving,” said the accompanying expert from the provincial archaeological institute, pushing up his glasses, his voice trembling. “The brushwork starts and turns against the grain, the structure contains the essence of seal script; this is not something a modern person could imitate. Even stranger is the folded stroke in the upper right corner of the character ‘ return’ (huan, repay)—” He pointed to the detail under the magnifying glass. “This variant only appeared in the contract seals of the ‘Record of Incense and Fire Loans’ three hundred years ago! That was a secret seal of the Tianshi Mansion, outsiders have never seen it!”

Su Qingzhu’s heart jolted, and her mind exploded with realization.

It wasn’t someone responding.

The system itself had awakened.

She abruptly stood up, rushed out of the ancestral hall, and ran through the light rain towards the dilapidated temple outside the town.

On the muddy path, her heartbeat was faster than her footsteps.

The dilapidated temple had long collapsed, leaving only half a crumbling wall and a leaning stone pillar, but when she looked up—

On the base of the stone pillar, a golden line clearly emerged, as if carved by knife and chiseled by axe, winding into words: “Shop No. 48, Repaid.”

Her breath hitched.

There was absolutely nothing here yesterday!

She tremblingly pulled out her voice recorder and slowly read into the air: “Repaid.”

As her voice faded, the ground suddenly vibrated slightly.

A new golden mark broke through the soil, moving like a living thing, quickly outlining the words: “Shop No. 59, Repaid.”

One character, one mark, automatically recorded.

A chill ran up her spine, yet a burning fire ignited within her.

Zhang Xuanyi was right... the fiery coin wasn't money, it was a token; the roadside stall wasn't a business, it was a sermon; those miners who bought talismans, the old soldiers who swallowed candies, the children who drew Bagua... they weren't consumers, they were hundreds of millions of aspiration nodes, the most silent yet most magnificent force in this karmic reckoning!

And now, the incense ledger, dormant for three hundred years, was, through the hands of mortals and with heart fire as ink, turning page after page, one transaction at a time, automatically!

She turned and rushed back to the ancestral hall, dialing her satellite phone, her voice hoarse but firm: “Zhang Xuanyi, do you remember the first photocopy yellow paper you sold? Its ashes were collected in a clay pot and offered at an old stove in someone’s hometown—now, beneath the foundation of that village, golden lines have already formed a network.”

At the same time, at the foot of Mount Longhu.

Zhang Xuanyi still sat before the stone steps, an old cloth spread out, three “defective items” quietly displayed: an empty bottle, a charred shell, a yellowed strip of paper.

The wind blew, the corners of the cloth curled, like the beginning of some ancient ritual.

Half an hour later, a wisp of green smoke drifted from the crack in the mountain gate, light as mist, yet precisely circled the stall three times, finally settling at the mouth of the empty bottle of Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid, condensing without dispersing, gradually transforming into a miniature talisman—its patterns archaic, it was actually the Tianshi Mansion’s long-lost “Aspiration Contract Seal.”

He opened his eyes, gazed at the talisman that had appeared out of thin air, and a slight smile played on his lips.

“It seems,” he chuckled softly, “they recognize this receipt.”

Before dawn on the seventh day, when the mountain mist was thickest, a white figure quietly stepped out of the giant bronze gate.

The white-haired old Taoist held a scroll of gilded names, his steps silent.

He looked at the young Taoist sitting cross-legged before the old cloth, slowly bowed, and offered the scroll.

Zhang Xuanyi reached out and took it, and the moment his fingertips touched the cover, a vast wave of aspiration surged forth.

He opened the first page, only to see the ink still wet, four large characters prominently entering his sight—