78: You take a step back, the road takes a step forward

The character projected by the shadow was like a branding iron, deeply imprinted in the depths of Zhang Xuanyi's eyes.

The laziness in his eyes instantly faded, replaced by a bottomless calm, like an ancient well without waves, yet capable of reflecting the entire starry sky.

The old yellow dog remained lying down, as if everything just now was merely an illusion amidst the flickering firelight.

As dawn broke, the bustle of the Ghost Market did not dissipate with the morning; instead, it was ignited by a strange kind of enthusiasm.

Before the regret lamp, the queue stretched from the head of the street to the end of the alley, winding like a Dragon.

"Crack!"

A Power of Will Crystal was tossed into the wick, shattering upon impact.

A light screen projected into the air, showing an image of a middle-aged man beating his chest: "I regret it! I actually believed in that damn 'Fate-Changing Talisman' and pawned my family heirloom jade pendant. In the end, my wife ran off with someone else, and my illness didn't even get better!"

Before his voice could fade, another crystal shattered.

This time it was a woman's tearful complaint: "I only wanted some peace of mind. I burned incense every day and offered my wishes every night, but why did my son still fail to get into the immortal sect... I don't want this ethereal Power Of Will anymore, give me back my incense money!"

Power of Will Crystals shattered like raindrops, as memories filled with regret and resentment intertwined under the lamplight, like an absurd yet real human tragicomedy.

Su Qingzhu set up a specialized Shadow-Recording Magical Artifact, the lens switching between the long queue and the lamp fire. She lowered her voice, her tone filled with excitement and worry she couldn't hide: "I've already thought of the livestream room title—'Today, We Learn to Regret'. Old Zhang, you're playing such a big game, aren't you afraid you'll crash the Ghost Market's credit System?"

Zhang Xuanyi was squatting in front of his stall, unhurriedly stirring mung bean porridge with an old black pot.

The morning light gilded him with a golden edge. He didn't even look up, his voice as steady as if he were talking about a trivial matter that had nothing to do with him: "It won't collapse. Those who truly believe won't come to retract; those who do were only half-believing to begin with, just joining in for the excitement. This lamp was never meant to fulfill wishes; what it illuminates is that small spark of light in the depths of everyone's heart that hasn't been completely submerged by greed."

Meanwhile, inside the Notary Office in the west of the city, Cui Wujiu's eyes were bloodshot as he stared fixedly at the mountain of data Jade Slips before him.

He hadn't closed his eyes for three days and three nights.

Finally, he extracted a key thread from the massive amount of information, his expression incredibly solemn.

"Within three days, over seventy percent of all wish-retractors had sacrificed part of their Lifespan or Qi and blood at the 'Atonement Tower' in the Northwest corner," he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse. "And these people, without exception, are all the orphaned, the elderly, the sick, and the weak... They weren't just scammed; they... were just too desperate to grasp at a lifesaving straw."

At this moment, the scales named 'Rules' in Cui Wujiu's heart tilted violently for the first time.

The next morning, dressed in his black robe, he stood sternly upon the Notary Platform in the center of the Ghost Market.

The crowd below was bustling, mostly there to watch the excitement.

Cui Wujiu's voice was like a great bell, resounding in all directions: "I announce in the name of the Notary Office that from this day forward, anyone who sets up an altar, preaches Daoist teachings, or sells visions on a Ghost Market platform must first stand silently before the 'Wall of Wishes' for three sticks of incense! If there are selfish desires in your heart and distracting thoughts arise, the lamp fire will extinguish itself!"

Before his words finished, a commotion broke out in the crowd.

Everyone's eyes instinctively turned toward the Northwest corner.

There, on a newly built high platform called the 'Calamity Crossing Altar', a lame Daoist claiming to be able to cross people over their misfortunes was speaking eloquently.

Under the gaze of the crowd, the oil lamp in front of his altar, claimed to be an 'Eternal Divine Fire', flickered twice abruptly and, with a puff, completely extinguished.

The crowd was first dead silent, then erupted into a sky-shaking uproar.

And in the center of this chaos, Zhang Xuanyi unhurriedly pushed his broken pot and introduced a brand new service—'Atonement Recast'.

"Fellow elders and neighbors, although the retracted Power of Will Crystals no longer hold hope, there is still a trace of pure residual Power Of Will Qi inside." He wore a smile, pointing at a half-person-tall Pill Furnace. "It's a pity to throw them away, so why not give them to me and recast them into 'Heart-Clearing Charcoal'. This charcoal is smokeless and dust-free with pure heat; it can keep you warm when it's cold and even grill skewers when you're hungry. High quality at a low price, honest with all!"

Having said that, he grabbed a large handful of the recently recycled, shattered Power of Will Crystals and tossed them into the furnace fire in public.

"Boom!"

The flames suddenly shot up more than three feet high, their color a strange, pale white.

What was even more hair-raising was that whispers and murmurs came from the flames, as if thousands of thoughts of regret, resentment, and pain were intertwining and roaring.

A white-haired old woman tremblingly squeezed through the crowd; she was the same person who had cried yesterday about her son's wrongful death.

She personally placed the crystal fragments she had just retracted, still warm from her touch, into the blazing furnace fire.

"My son died a wrongful death. I believed that lame man's words, thinking he could help my son get justice in the Underworld..." The old woman's cloudy eyes reflected the firelight as tears fell. "But now, I don't want to beg anyone. I want to personally burn a warm fire for my grandson."

These words were like a needle, piercing the last bit of false hope in many people's hearts.

Night deepened.

The bustle of the Ghost Market finally quieted down.

Zhang Xuanyi sat alone guarding his tea stall, the 'Heart-Clearing Charcoal' in the furnace emitting a warm orange-red light.

Suddenly, the old yellow dog lying at his feet shuddered violently. Its shadow cast on the wall lunged forward without warning, and like a physical entity, it knocked over the teacup Zhang Xuanyi had placed on the corner of the table with a 'clang'!

Tea spilled all over the ground.

Zhang Xuanyi's eyes narrowed. Following the direction the shadow pointed, he walked to the deepest corner of the street stall.

He pushed aside some clutter and flipped over a loose floor tile; underneath was a pile of ashes of remnant pages that the System had buried in the soil.

The moment his fingertips touched them, a faint light lit up within the ashes, slowly reassembling into lines of golden text:

"Power Of Will closed loop initially stabilized, Power of Faith backflow. Warning: Faith Fire is too intense; the people's thoughts are too concentrated on you, fearing it will burn away your Dao Foundation and attract the prying of the Heavenly Dao."

Zhang Xuanyi remained silent for a long time. The wind blew through the stray hairs on his forehead, and his eyes held an unprecedented solemnity.

He slowly stood up and reached into the deepest part of his robes, pulling out a small object wrapped in oil paper.

Opening it, it was the source of his Heavenly Eye Divine Ability that he had relied on to start his business—now only the last half of a mung bean remained.

Without the slightest hesitation, he placed this half mung bean into a stone mortar, ground it finely into powder, and then mixed it all into the raw materials for the yet-to-be-formed 'Heart-Clearing Charcoal'.

The next day, the first batch of 'Heart-Clearing Charcoal' was distributed to those wish-retractors.

A wonderful thing happened.

Everyone who used this charcoal for warmth or cooking unknowingly fell into a brief dreamscape.

In the dream, there were no gods or Buddhas, no savior, only their original, most simple wishes.

Some dreamed that their original reason for setting up a stall was just to save up for a new set of clothes for their daughter. Upon waking, they silently tossed the various 'Luck-Turning Talismans' hidden in their homes into the fire, burning them to ashes.

Others dreamed that they had only made a wish to one day be able to pay off their debts in an upright and honorable way. Upon waking, they silently polished their long-neglected tools and set up their small stalls in the Ghost Market once again.

Three days later.

A youth who had once retracted his wish for 'Success on the Golden Rankings' was using 'Heart-Clearing Charcoal' to start a fire at his family's newly opened baked cake stall.

As the charcoal fire burned out, a wisp of blue smoke carrying charcoal ash drifted slowly onto the yellow paper he used to wrap the cakes.

A strange scene appeared.

The charcoal ash fell onto the yellow paper and surprisingly did not scatter, but instead automatically outlined and moved, finally forming a complete and clear Talisman pattern—it was exactly the 'Heart-Guarding Talisman' that Zhang Xuanyi had originally drawn.

"Heavens! It's manifested! The charcoal fire has manifested!" the youth cried out in surprise.

The people around instantly crowded in, each face showing wonder and awe.

Zhang Xuanyi happened to be passing by. Looking at the fanatical crowd, he just shook his head and gave a faint smile: "It's not the charcoal manifesting; it's your own hearts finally daring to tell yourselves the truth."

Having said that, he turned and left, leaving behind a crowd of gazes that were either in awe, shocked, or thoughtful.

The camera slowly pulled back, rising above the eaves of the Ghost Market and passing through the wreathing mist.

In the invisible depths of the Ghost Market's earth veins, the Old Earth Vein Turtle that suppresses everything let out a low breath. A faint, ethereal Dragon-shaped Earth Qi quietly split off a strand and coiled around the pillar of the 'regret lamp'.

And under Zhang Xuanyi's tea stall, the old yellow dog's shadow, illuminated by the firelight, slowly distorted once again, finally forming a character on the wall.

This time, it seemed that Zhang Xuanyi wasn't the only one waking up.

Something in the air of the Ghost Market began to change.

That murky aura once mixed with greed, despair, and false hope was quietly receding.

In its place was a brand new silence, like the one before a prairie fire.

In the eyes of those who had just 'woken from the dream', what burned was no longer the incense for begging gods and Buddhas, but a resilient, resolute flame that relied on their own hands.

This flame had no direction for the time being, yet it already possessed the momentum of a prairie fire.