79: A reconciliation decades late

That wildfire spread within the hearts of people, and in just one night, the black market at dawn had taken on a completely different appearance.

In the most prominent part of the market, over a dozen crude stalls had appeared out of thin air.

The stall owners looked solemn; they didn't hawk or shout, but simply worked in silence.

They had once been the black market's most devout 'Wishers,' but now they had become its most silent 'Repayers.'

A man who had once wished to destroy his neighbor's fertile fields out of jealousy was now drenched in sweat, carrying water for others. The shoulder pole bent his back like a fully drawn bow, yet his steps were exceptionally steady.

A woman who had once sought a folk remedy to 'open the mind' of her child, nearly costing them their life, was kneeling on the ground, meticulously scrubbing every greasy stone slab that had been stepped on.

They all wore crude wooden plaques around their necks, with the same sentence crookedly written in charcoal: 'I do not seek redemption; I come to repay.'

They did not accept any Power Of Will crystals; their only payment was 'one day of labor.'

Sweeping floors, carrying water, or simply silently tending a stall for half a day to give the owner a chance to catch their breath.

In Cui Wujiu's eyes, this scene was a state of chaos he had never seen before.

The black market had its own rules, and Power Of Will crystals were the only hard currency. Now, these people were trading with the most primitive form of labor—wasn't this a joke?

He frowned deeply, the saber at his waist humming softly. Just as he was about to step forward to restore order, a fair hand lightly pressed against his arm.

It was Su Qingzhu.

'Don't go,' she said softly, her gaze passing over Cui Wujiu's shoulder to look at those people buried in their work. 'Look at their eyes.'

Cui Wujiu followed her gaze.

On those faces once distorted by desire, regret, and resentment, only sweat and exhaustion remained. But in those eyes, there was a light he had never seen before.

It wasn't the ecstasy of liberation, nor the weight of atonement, but a kind of peace.

'The resentment is gone.' Su Qingzhu's voice was soft, but every word struck Cui Wujiu's heart.

Not far away, Zhang Xuanyi was sitting leisurely on his small stool, one hand turning sizzling skewers of sauce-grilled meat, the other pinching a mung bean, as if everything before him had nothing to do with him.

Hearing their conversation, he didn't even look up as he brushed a layer of shimmering honey oil onto the skewers. He nodded and said, 'This is true fate-changing. It's not about giving you a better path to walk, but giving you the courage to dare to walk your own path.'

No sooner had he spoken than the atmosphere of the market suddenly froze.

On the seventh day, a figure stumbled through the crowd and knelt straight down in front of Zhang Xuanyi's stall.

The newcomer had disheveled hair and tattered clothes, and his entire body emitted a burnt smell of Spiritual Qi spiraling out of control.

Everyone recognized him at a glance; he was the Loose Cultivator from seven days ago who had spared no expense to buy the last bottle of Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid in an attempt to force a Breakthrough.

Clearly, he had failed. Now his Meridians were shattered and his breath was erratic; he was on the brink of Qi Deviation.

'Save me!' he rasped, his eyes bloodshot as he stared intently at Zhang Xuanyi. 'Give me a Qi Restoration Talisman! Any amount of Power Of Will crystals will do!'

Zhang Xuanyi slowly flipped a skewer of grilled meat, watching the fat drip into the charcoal fire, sparking a tiny flame.

He blew on the heat of the skewer before lazily replying, 'Sold out.'

These two words were like three ice picks stabbing ruthlessly into the Loose Cultivator's heart.

He snapped his head up, his face full of unbelievable madness. 'You save others, why won't you save me? Didn't you say everything can be traded? My Power Of Will crystals are enough to buy your entire stall!'

'I've never saved anyone.' Zhang Xuanyi finally looked him in the eye, his gaze as calm as a deep well. 'You decided to eat the mung bean yourself, you paid for the Talisman yourself, and the Qi Deviation is because you were too greedy. How many saviors are there in this world? You walked the path yourself; if you fall into a pit, you have to climb out yourself.'

The Loose Cultivator's body trembled violently. He wanted to roar, to scream, but Zhang Xuanyi's eyes were like a mirror, reflecting the deepest greed and opportunism in his heart.

All his anger was instantly replaced by a deeper despair.

That night, the Loose Cultivator did not leave.

Dragging his broken body, he struggled to a corner of the market near an abandoned well.

He didn't beg anyone else.

Under the suspicious gazes of the crowd, he actually used the last trace of broken True Qi in his body to ignite several discarded pieces of Heart-Clearing Charcoal on the ground.

As the flames flickered dimly, he actually tore open his shirt and pressed the red-hot charcoal ruthlessly against his chaotic Meridians!

'Ah—!'

A shrill, inhuman scream pierced the night sky, and the nauseating smell of scorched flesh spread through the air.

Like a beast trapped in a desperate situation, he used the most tragic method to burn away the wrong path he had taken.

Su Qingzhu turned pale and couldn't help but want to step forward to help.

But a hand blocked her path.

Zhang Xuanyi had stood by the window at some point, quietly watching the scene across the crowd.

'What he's burning now isn't his Meridians,' he said in a low voice, but with an unquestionable decisiveness. 'It's his opportunism. If this fire of opportunism isn't burned away, no one can save him. If it doesn't burn him to death, he will live.'

That heart-wrenching wailing lasted for an entire night.

From the initial rage, to the sobbing in the middle, to the final weak moans.

At the third watch, the screams finally ceased.

The Loose Cultivator was charred all over, lying unconscious by the well.

Cui Wujiu couldn't bear it and went forward to investigate, only to find something in the Loose Cultivator's tightly clenched right hand.

It was a handful of cooled charcoal ash, but eerily, under the agony of his struggle to survive and the torment of his will, the ash had miraculously condensed into the shape of half a Talisman, with a faint, incomplete character for 'Settle' visible on it.

Cui Wujiu gasped. He checked repeatedly and was shocked to find that no external Qi had been injected into this partial Talisman; it was purely brought to life by the Loose Cultivator's powerful 'will to survive'!

As the news spread, the entire black market was shaken.

Zhang Xuanyi struck while the iron was hot. The next day, in the center of the market, he used a few wooden planks to build a crude high platform, with a sign next to it that read three large characters: 'Self-Salvation Arena.'

The rules were simple: anyone with a mental barrier or difficulty achieving a Breakthrough could take the stage, recount their past in front of everyone, analyze their Heart Demon, and accept questioning from the crowd below.

If, in the end, no one spat at you, you could receive a piece of blank yellow paper from Zhang Xuanyi to draw your own Talisman and achieve your own self-salvation.

The first to take the stage was actually the Lame Old Man.

Leaning on his cane, he moved onto the high platform step by step, his cloudy eyes scanning the faces below—some sympathetic, some curious, some numb.

He took a deep breath and used all his strength to speak in a raspy voice: 'I... I confess. I knew a long time ago that the government had already cleared my son's case and that he was framed. But I... I was unwilling to believe it.'

The crowd was in an uproar.

'I hated that wealthy merchant, I hated those neighbors who gave false testimony, I hated those bailiffs who took bribes. I hated them my whole life,' the old man's tears flowed through the wrinkles on his face. 'Only later did I realize that it wasn't that I was unwilling to let go of the hatred, but that I didn't dare to. Because besides hatred, I have nothing left in my life... I needed a place for my hatred so I could feel that my crippled life still had some meaning.'

The crowd was dead silent.

That deeply buried, humble, and pathetic obsession resonated with many people.

Just then, an old woman who had once been swindled out of her family fortune by the old man's false information stood up tremblingly from the crowd.

Everyone thought she was going to curse him, but she just looked at the old man on the stage and gave a long sigh: 'You burned my money... but looking back, I also burned my own stupidity. I believed you only because I wanted to get things cheap and easy... Let's neither of us blame the other anymore.'

Having said that, the old woman's face was covered in tears.

The Lame Old Man on the stage also finally burst into loud wailing.

Across the crowd, the two of them looked at each other and wept.

That reconciliation, decades overdue, finally arrived at this moment.

At dawn, the light of day was faint.

With trembling hands, the Lame Old Man used clear water mixed with tears to draw a simple character for 'Release' on that blank yellow paper.

The Talisman paper did not spontaneously combust as usual, but instead flew up lightly, passed over the crowd, and landed on the ruins of the Atonement Tower in the distance, gently covering a patch of scorched earth.

In an instant, a miracle occurred.

Right where the Talisman paper landed, a bright green sprout actually broke through the scorched earth and stubbornly poked its head out.

On the leaves of that sprout, the naturally growing veins were like mysterious talismanic patterns.

Zhang Xuanyi pulled out another mung bean from somewhere—the very fruit of that new sprout. He tossed it into his mouth, crunched it, and was filled with a refreshing fragrance.

He caught a glimpse of something by chance and noticed that on the corner of the cloth he used for his stall, a new line of small characters had appeared at some point:

'The Dao does not save people; they achieve self-salvation.'

He grinned, casually tossing the chewed bean shell into the charcoal fire beside him, and the flame flickered slightly.

The camera slowly pulled back and up.

A full view of the black market was visible, and deep underground, the Old Earth Vein Turtle, which had slept for untold ages, suddenly blew two imperceptible breaths from its giant nostrils.

A trace of long-dormant Dragon Qi, like a startled water snake, moved rapidly through the earth veins, as if sounding a silent alarm.

The morning light stretched the shadows of all things long and thin.

Beside Zhang Xuanyi's stall, the shadow of the old yellow dog that had been dozing all along twisted and stretched strangely in the faint light, finally silently forming a clear character on the ground—

The daytime bustle gradually faded, and night once again shrouded the black market.

Having experienced a day of turbulence, the market seemed exceptionally exhausted and quiet.

In the past, even late at night, there were always whispers and stealthy footsteps, but tonight, it was unnervingly quiet.

The wind stopped, the insects were silent, and even the night owls in the distant mountain forests went quiet.

The air seemed to solidify into a heavy piece of amber, sealing the entire market within it.

An invisible pressure slowly squeezed from all directions, making people's chests feel tight and their breathing difficult.

The stall owners closed up early and hid in their respective shacks, but they tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

The old yellow dog also stopped dozing and stood up uneasily, letting out a low whimper from its throat as it looked warily into the depths of the darkness.

Amidst the absolute silence, a strange sensation quietly arose in everyone's heart.

It was as if... something had woken up.