62: I don't sell life, I only sell Tao

The moment the golden flame collided with the black flame, there was no loud bang, but an extreme, piercing dead silence.

It was as if the air in the entire underground palace had been sucked dry, and everyone's eardrums were buzzing.

Immediately after, the tianshi cauldron, which had stood for a thousand years, let out an overburdened wail, and a three-foot-long hideous crack spread down from the mouth of the cauldron, a shocking sight.

The projection formed by the black flames in the center of the cauldron distorted violently, the light and shadow shattering into pieces.

The pale hand reaching out from within bore the three ancient seal script characters for "Ninth Successor," so clear it made one's heart palpitate.

But when the projection barely stabilized and revealed that face, everyone present gasped in unison.

It was not the face of Xuan Mingzi as they had expected, nor was it even a human face.

It was an empty shell of skin, its features as if molded from clay; there were no pupils in the eyes, only two clusters of golden flames flickering so weakly they seemed ready to go out at any moment.

"You're not human..." Zhang Xuanyi's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints. "You are... the previous Fireseed?"

His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a heavy hammer smashing hard against everyone's heart.

"Warning! No life signals scanned within the cauldron!" Su Qingzhu's voice carried a hint of a tremble born of fear as she stared intently at the data stream flashing across her wrist terminal. "There's only... only a continuously strengthening Dao resonance... Heavens, it's imitating the behavioral patterns of the 'Cloth Master'! It's learning!"

That pale hand, under the horrified gazes of the crowd, slowly withdrew back into the projection.

From within the cauldron, an empty, deathly whisper that was neither male nor female drifted out, sounding like wind passing through dry bones: "Not me... not him... the fire is not extinguished, the Dao shall not perish."

The moment the words fell, a sudden change occurred!

On the tattered cloth in Zhang Xuanyi's hand, the originally gentle golden flame surged three feet high without warning, producing a strong resonance with the two weak golden fires in the cauldron's eye, as if long-lost items of the same Origin were calling out to each other across time and space!

"Ah—!"

A shrill roar pulled everyone's attention back.

Cui Wujiu's eyes were bloodshot as he stumbled to the front of the tianshi cauldron, staring fixedly at the image flashing across the cauldron's projection.

In that image, a young child was being held down by a dignified-looking elder, and a shimmering golden Talisman was being forcibly pressed into his brow.

That child was none other than himself!

"I was told from a young age that I was the 'One Chosen by the Golden Talisman,' the successor destined by fate..." Cui Wujiu's voice was as raspy as sandpaper. He turned his head, eyes filled with bloodshot veins, and glared fixedly at Zhang Xuanyi. "But that Talisman... that Talisman is actually a venomous thing that grew by devouring Dragon Qi? It's a shackle used to keep me like livestock?!"

His questioning was filled with despair and madness, and he practically roared the last part: "Why?! Why is it that the crappy yellow papers you sell at your street stall never backfire on their owners?!"

Facing Cui Wujiu's breakdown, Zhang Xuanyi's gaze was as cold as ice.

He slowly raised the tattered cloth in his hand, the golden flames casting flickering light and shadow across his face.

"Because what I sell is a 'choice'," he said, enunciating each word as his voice echoed clearly through the underground palace. "While what Xuan Mingzi gave you was a 'command'."

Before his voice had even faded, he took a sudden step forward and pressed the tattered cloth in his hand precisely onto the three-foot-long crack on the tianshi cauldron!

Sizzle—

The golden flames, like living water, frantically seeped into the cauldron along the crack.

A horrifying scene unfolded—the black flames inside the cauldron, which were originally overbearing and all-consuming, retreated in panic the moment they touched the golden flames, letting out fearful hisses as if they had met their natural enemy!

What the black flames feared was not the power contained within the golden flames, but the free Dao resonance attached to them—the resonance of a "fair trade, neither side owing the other"!

"Roar—!"

From deep within the underground palace, the Old Earth Vein Turtle let out the final, earth-shaking roar of its life.

Its tortoise shell, as massive as a mountain, completely disintegrated in an instant, turning into a sky full of light specks.

The majestic Dragon Qi accumulated over a thousand years lost its final restraint and, like a river bursting its banks, found its only outlet, crashing down and pouring entirely into that small piece of tattered cloth!

"The Dragon Vein is burning itself to provide you with energy!" Su Qingzhu cried out urgently as she watched the energy index on her terminal instantly go off the charts. "Zhang Xuanyi, it won't last more than half an incense stick's time!"

Time was of the essence, a matter of life and death!

Zhang Xuanyi did not hesitate for a second; he suddenly bit his fingertip, and bright red blood instantly welled out.

Using his finger as a brush and blood as ink, he rapidly drew the final talismanic pattern of the "photocopy yellow paper" on the tattered cloth, which was already bulging to the point of bursting from the Dragon Qi!

Without the System's auxiliary calibration, this talismanic pattern was drawn crookedly, even with multiple breaks; it was simply a pathetic sight.

But the moment he forcefully threw this corner of cloth, carrying his essence blood and will, into the crack of the cauldron—a miracle happened!

Inside the cauldron, the golden flames that had seeped in seemed to have found their king and suddenly enveloped it.

Under the repair of the golden flames, the broken talismanic pattern was instantly reconstructed into a complete, flawless, and radiant Daoist sigil!

"So..." Zhang Xuanyi's whole body shook, and a look of unprecedented realization erupted in his eyes. He muttered to himself, "It was never the System that allowed me to print Talismans, but rather that original heart of 'willing buyer, willing seller' that is the most primal true Talisman in this world!"

As if sensing the threat of this newborn will, the black flames inside the cauldron went completely berserk, turning into thousands of pitch-black chains that frantically coiled toward the crack, attempting to completely seal this lone flaw!

However, it was already too late.

The Daoist sigil drawn with Zhang Xuanyi's blood let out a thunderous tremor in the heart of the cauldron.

Following that, all the golden flames that had seeped into the cauldron suddenly split, turning into tens of thousands of tiny sparks of Talisman fire, like the myriad lights of the mortal world, instantly scattering throughout the pitch-black space within the cauldron!

Every spark of light clearly reflected a face.

Among them was an old farmer who, while being hunted by demons, had traded all his belongings for an Earth Escape Talisman to save his life; a dejected martial artist who had been stuck at a Bottleneck for decades and traded a leftover stick of candied haws for inspiration, finally breaking through; a filial young girl who traded ten years of her own lifespan for a Life-Prolonging Talisman for her seriously ill father... every face represented a transaction, a piece of the past.

Cui Wujiu was completely stunned. He watched those familiar and unfamiliar faces drifting in the flames and muttered absentmindedly, "These... are all the transaction records of the Dao Market?"

"They're not records!" Zhang Xuanyi shouted with all his might, his voice resounding through the underground palace. "They are the 'price'! It is the sincerity they paid that earned the assistance of the Heavenly Dao! This is the true Return of All Methods to the Heart!"

BOOM—!!!

As his last word fell, those tens of thousands of golden lights within the cauldron exploded simultaneously!

It wasn't a simple explosion of power, but a complete overturning at the level of rules!

The wills of tens of thousands of "choices" converged into an unstoppable torrent, instantly crushing those black chains that represented "commands."

The black flames let out an extremely shrill wail. In the sky full of golden light, they quickly melted and dissipated like ice and snow under a blazing sun, finally returning to nothingness.

Clang—!

Losing the support of the black flames, the tianshi cauldron could no longer maintain its form. The massive body of the cauldron crashed down, shattering into a pile of debris.

Inside the underground palace, all the clamor returned to silence.

Only a single, grain-sized, incredibly pure golden flame quietly floated in the air. Then, as if drawn by some attraction, it slowly drifted down and finally merged into the tattered cloth in Zhang Xuanyi's hand.

A cold mechanical voice with strong electromagnetic interference sounded in his mind for the last time:

"Lv. 7.9—Fireseed returned to position, Dao Bearer... authentication... bzzzt... complete."

The System went completely silent.

"Look! At the bottom of the cauldron... there are words at the bottom!" Su Qingzhu suddenly let out a scream, breaking the dead silence.

Everyone hurriedly looked over to see four ancient seal script characters, looking like they were forged from iron and silver, slowly emerging on a scorched fragment of the cauldron's bottom as the dust slid off.

The Cloth Master is dead, the Fireseed burns forever.

As for that so-called "Ninth Successor's" hand, it had long since turned to ash along with the destruction of the black flames.

Zhang Xuanyi slowly tightened his grip on the tattered cloth, which had returned to its simple and ancient appearance. That newborn Fireseed was burning quietly within it, warm and gentle.

He looked at those eight characters and suddenly began to laugh softly, his laughter carrying a hint of relief, a hint of exhaustion, and a hint of indefinable self-deprecation.

"So, from beginning to end, where was there ever some high and mighty Cloth Master?"

He said softly, as if announcing it to himself and to these ruins that had witnessed everything.

"There is only... a stall that refuses to be extinguished."

As the words fell, his tense nerves finally relaxed, and an unprecedented sense of weakness surged over him like a tide.

However, the moment his body swayed, a completely different sensation came from the tattered cloth.

It wasn't power, nor was it energy, but a kind of... weight.

An invisible, heavy weight, as if the Karma of the entire world was pressing down on his Divine Soul through this small piece of cloth.

This weight was so real that it even gave him an illusion—he was no longer alone. Behind him stood those tens of thousands of faces that had flashed by in the golden flames, silently watching him, waiting for him to continue running this stall.

At this moment, Zhang Xuanyi's expression changed slightly.