192: Every word she said was filled with anger.

The city was named "Nanzhan."

As Huaxia's newly completed "Power Of Will Co-Cooking" demonstration zone, everything in Nanzhan City represented the highest level of technology.

Three hundred large-scale community intelligent co-cooking centers, uniformly dispatched by the quantum AI "Zhurong," claimed to be able to satisfy the cooking needs of three million citizens within the same second, and its stability was hailed as the "Never-Failing Divine Fire."

At this moment, this never-failing Divine Fire had fallen into an unprecedented silence.

Fifteen minutes after the alarm sounded, Su Qingzhu's private plane tore through the night sky and hovered above the central control hub of Nanzhan City.

Before the cabin door had even stabilized, she leapt down, the hem of her trench coat snapping in the airflow, like a black blade unsheathed.

"Status!" Her voice was cold and sharp, without a word of nonsense.

Before her eyes was a scene of apocalyptic chaos.

Inside the control center hall, hundreds of technicians were frantic, and countless streams of code were crashing on the light screens like waterfalls.

In the very center of the hall, on the massive 3D urban sand table, three hundred light points representing the co-cooking centers were all locked in an ominous gray.

"Chief Steward!" The person in charge looked pale, and his voice was trembling. "Three minutes ago, all three hundred co-cooking centers across the city overloaded simultaneously. The stove cores all flashed with unknown cyan patterns before locking up! Now, the AI broadcast Systems in all centers are looping the same sentence..."

Before he could finish, a cold electronic voice rang out clearly amidst the shrill alarms in the hall, repeating over and over like a death-knell pendulum.

"Waiting for the Calibrator's instructions... Waiting for the Calibrator's instructions..."

"Who is the Calibrator?" Su Qingzhu frowned deeply.

"I-I don't know! There is no such identity setting in the System at all!"

Meanwhile, the internet had already exploded.

Videos filmed by citizens were spreading wildly: gleaming intelligent stoves had ancient and mysterious cyan patterns appearing on their surfaces, and no matter how they were operated, they were completely unresponsive, as if completely Sealed by some invisible force.

Panic was spreading, and the most widely circulated theory was: "This is the 'Co-Cooking Method' left behind by Celestial Master Zhang. We used it too casually, and the Ancestral Master is angry!"

Countless media reporters, like sharks smelling blood, surrounded the control center, making it impenetrable.

Amidst the camera flashes, a sharp question pierced Su Qingzhu: "Chief Steward Su, does this mean the 'Co-Cooking System' has a fundamental flaw? Do we need to invite back its founder, Mr. Zhang Xuanyi, to resolve this crisis?"

This question, like a poisonous needle, accurately struck the "Post-Zhang Xuanyi Era" System that Su Qingzhu had built with her own hands.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on her face, waiting for her answer.

Admitting it meant that all her hard work over the past two years was a joke; denying it, what could she use to resolve the deadlock before her?

Su Qingzhu ignored the reporters.

She walked step by step to the massive main console, which was the core of the entire "Zhurong" System in Nanzhan City.

Her fingertips swept rapidly across the cold light screen, and lines of underlying code were forcibly brought up.

When she saw a line of hidden code disguised as a System log, her pupils constricted suddenly.

It was a voice pack named "Easter Egg - The Cook's Ramblings."

A technician who worshipped Zhang Xuanyi had actually secretly embedded an original audio clip of Zhang Xuanyi explaining the principle of "Power Of Will Fire-Starting" at a street stall back in the day as an Easter egg into the underlying System!

In normal times, it was suppressed by the main System and was completely inconspicuous.

But just a moment ago, some unknown "Power Of Will fluctuation"—perhaps that stray lunchbox—had crossed thousands of miles and resonated with it.

Zhang Xuanyi's purest, most primitive "fire-starting" Power Of Will, like aqua regia, instantly contaminated the entire highly standardized "Zhurong" System, causing the Power Of Will base frequency of all stoves to become chaotic, collectively regressing to the most primitive state, waiting for a "Fire-Starter" to calibrate them!

"Madman!" The person in charge understood the reason and cursed aloud, "He stuffed the Ancestral Master's voice in there as a talisman!"

"Chief Steward Su, please answer our question!" The reporters kept pressing persistently.

Su Qingzhu slowly turned around, facing countless lenses and faces that were either worried or gloating.

Her gaze was as calm as a deep pool, but her voice carried a metallic coldness and determination, spreading throughout the hall:

"Fire does not need a master, it only needs a user."

Once these words were spoken, the entire hall fell into silence.

She turned back, no longer looking at anyone, and issued a series of orders to the dumbfounded person in charge: "Immediately! Cut off all preset audio templates! If you don't have the permission, perform a physical fuse break! Connect me to the real-time environmental sound collection System, target—every kitchen in the city that can still make sound! I don't care what method you use, within three minutes, I want to hear the most authentic smoke and fire of this city!"

The technicians were stunned, but Su Qingzhu's unquestionable gaze made them dare not hesitate in the slightest.

The order was executed frantically.

One minute later, the audio input of the main console was flooded with countless chaotic yet vivid sounds.

The crisp sound of a kitchen knife mincing garlic, the dull thud of an egg being cracked on the edge of a bowl, the sizzling sound of a spatula scraping hard against the bottom of a wok, and deep in a certain alley, the long, drawn-out sound of an old person using all their strength to blow air onto damp firewood...

These sounds were disorganized, yet filled with the most simple, primal desire for "a meal."

Su Qingzhu closed her eyes, her slender fingers tapping lightly on the console, like a musician tuning an instrument.

She filtered, reorganized, and amplified these chaotic "stove sounds," eventually merging them into a massive, nameless "Power Of Will of Cooking Fire" that belonged to the masses, and fiercely poured it into the core of the "Zhurong" System!

Hum—!

The entire control center shuddered violently.

On the sand table, the three hundred dead-gray light points, starting from the center and moving outward, one by one, lit up again with the warm orange light that represented normalcy!

Three minutes, not a second more, not a second less.

Nanzhan City, the Divine Fire was rekindled!

Cheers erupted like a tsunami.

Countless technicians hugged each other and wept, while reporters frantically recorded this miraculous scene.

No one noticed that on the first community stove that regained its light on the sand table, the first wisp of white steam that rose up briefly condensed in the air into an extremely faint, extremely faint "Xuan" character, and then dissipated into the ecstatic air.

On the high-speed train back, the night was like ink.

The assistant lowered his voice and reported to Su Qingzhu: "Chief Steward, after the crisis was resolved, twelve newly established 'Mutual Aid Stoves' in the Northwest region jointly requested to be named after you as a permanent memorial."

Su Qingzhu's gaze fell on the boundless fields rapidly receding outside the window, and she shook her head slightly.

"The louder the name, the more fragile the fire." She said indifferently, "Tell them, the name of the fire is simply 'Fire'."

She opened her private terminal and pulled up a piece of video material that had been encrypted layer by layer.

The footage was rough and shaky; it was an original record from many years ago of Zhang Xuanyi sitting on the deck of a broken fishing boat, slowly cutting sweet potatoes with a rusty knife.

His movements were not fast, but they possessed a strange, uniform, and peaceful rhythm.

Su Qingzhu imported this video into the public database of the "Power Of Will Archives," labeled it as "Basic Uniform Object Sample A001," set the source to "Anonymous," and opened access to everyone.

She wanted everyone to know that the source of this great power was not some god, but just a Cook who was earnestly cutting sweet potatoes.

A week later, good news came from the Northwest pastoral area.

Without any guidance from technicians, the first "Mentor-less Mutual Aid Stove" was successfully ignited and running stably.

The members were all illiterate elderly people who couldn't even read the operation manual, but by imitating the gestures and rhythm in "Uniform Object Sample A001," they had managed to figure out the most primitive way to start a fire on their own.

That night, they sang a newly composed "Ballad of the Cook" by the bonfire.

The assistant played the recording for Su Qingzhu; the lyrics were simple, consisting of only two lines, repeated in a desolate tune:

"Who lit the fire? ...Don't know."

"But it warmed... my heart."

Listening to the simple singing, Su Qingzhu's tightly pursed lips finally relaxed completely, turning into a genuine smile.

She casually picked up an exquisite, miniature golden light talisman on the table; it was the "Proxy Offering Order" specially granted by the Tianshi Mansion last year to commend her achievements, an honor that countless extraordinary people dreamed of.

Without even looking at it, she tossed it into the shredder next to her.

Late at night, Su Qingzhu returned to her home in the old city district of the capital.

Just as she reached the entrance of the alley, her footsteps paused.

On the steps at her doorway, a photocopy of an old newspaper wrapped in kraft paper lay quietly.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she stepped forward quickly to open it.

It was exactly the "Huaxia Metropolis Daily" that Zhang Xuanyi had bought from her many years ago.

In the corner of the front-page article she had written criticizing the chaotic phenomena of extraordinary people, there was a line of small text written in pencil, the handwriting scrawled yet familiar:

"She is right."

Su Qingzhu's heart shook violently, and she suddenly looked up and rushed out the door.

The alley was empty, save for a dim street lamp.

Under the light, a sparrow was pecking at a few grains of millet scattered on the ground by someone unknown.

Eerily, with every peck, the moment its tiny beak touched the ground, a faint, imperceptible cyan light flashed by.

Su Qingzhu stood in the cold wind for a long time, and finally, facing the empty alley entrance, she asked in a voice only she could hear: "You've been here?"

As soon as she spoke, it was as if a silent command had been given.

Along the entire long street, inside the windows of the sleeping residents on both sides, the slight metallic clinking of pot lids being lifted rang out in unison.

One after another, they merged into a single sound.

They weren't getting up in the middle of the night to Cook; they were just, in their dreams, subconsciously wanting to confirm—whether the fire in the stove was still burning safely.

The whole city was full of smoke and fire; the warmth of the human world was just like this.

Only no one knew that at the source of this warmth, the first wisp of chill was quietly piercing the firmament.