82: The power of will is like water, silently penetrating

Su Qingzhu's slender fingers gripped the carrier pigeon notes of varying textures, her fingertips turning slightly white from the force.

The bustling night markets of Chang'an, the humid rainforests of Lingnan, the endless yellow sands of the Western Regions... scene after bizarre scene exploded in her mind, merging into a torrent that made her heart race.

These seemingly unrelated anomalies all vaguely pointed toward a single source—this market stall at the village entrance, and this seemingly lazy and casual man.

She could no longer sit peacefully in her study, organizing the manuscript for "self-salvation" that was about to become famous throughout the world.

Compared to everything happening before her eyes, the publication of the manuscript no longer seemed so urgent.

Lifting her skirt, she almost ran out of the courtyard, the wind she stirred up scattering the papers on the table.

At the village entrance, the faint light of dawn plated everything in a soft golden edge.

Zhang Xuanyi was squatting on the ground, a blade of grass plucked from who-knows-where dangling from his mouth, boredly using another stalk to poke at an earthy-yellow wild dog that had just approached.

The wild dog wasn't shy either; its tail wagged like a rattle as it stuck out its tongue to lick the grass stalk in his hand.

One man and one dog, on the eve of this great worldly upheaval, actually exuded an absurd sense of peaceful, quiet years.

"Zhang Xuanyi!" Su Qingzhu's voice carried a hint of a tremor she hadn't even noticed herself.

The man looked up at the sound, gave her a lazy glance, and curled his lip: "What, is the book printed? Did you come to ask for an autograph?"

"You can still laugh!" Su Qingzhu strode up to him and slammed several notes down hard onto the worn stall cloth in front of him. "Chang'an, Lingnan, the Western Regions... are these your doing?"

Zhang Xuanyi's gaze moved from her flushed face to the notes. With just a glance, he withdrew his gaze and resumed teasing the wild dog, replying nonchalantly, "I didn't open them."

Su Qingzhu choked, about to snap, but then heard him slowly finish the sentence: "They wanted to set them up themselves."

He finally put down the grass stalk, extended a finger, and tapped a corner of the weathered stall cloth.

Su Qingzhu followed his guidance, and her heart suddenly jolted.

The line of words condensed from Power Of Will, "You are not the starting point, you are the spark," had at some point dimmed until it was almost invisible, as if it had fulfilled its mission.

And beneath that line, three brand-new words had emerged, as if growing naturally from the warp and weft of the fabric, appearing clearly and resolutely—

Stalls Grow Themselves.

These three words seemed to contain some ultimate truth of heaven and earth, causing Su Qingzhu's heart full of questions to be instantly replaced by a deeper horror.

Meanwhile, far away in the capital, Cui Wujiu was facing a flurry of secret reports, having stayed awake all night.

As the highest official secretly in charge of paranormal affairs for the imperial court, he felt a sense of things spiraling out of control for the first time.

After his most elite scouts investigated through the night, the results made even this powerful official, accustomed to great storms, feel a chill down his spine.

Every newly appeared "Stall Shadow," without exception, had its original stall owner indirectly linked in countless ways to Zhang Xuanyi's Yuanli Market.

The stall owner in Chang'an who learned to "photocopy yellow paper" overnight had asked a traveling merchant to buy a talisman for business prosperity half a month ago; the group of children in Lingnan who summoned three days of sweet rain lived in a village downstream and had always drunk water from the old well near the Yuanli Market; and that veteran in the Western Regions with the fragrant skewers—his only son had seen a ball of blue flame in a dream and, upon waking, no longer felt depressed over his wartime disability.

Power Of Will is like water, silent seepage.

What Cui Wujiu found even more troublesome was that wherever a "Stall Shadow" appeared, it was as if a magnet had been thrown into iron filings. Local or passing paranormal individuals of all kinds seemed to receive some invisible calling, flocking there to spontaneously set up their own stalls around the "Stall Shadow," quickly forming brand-new, small-scale markets that were beyond any jurisdiction.

"We must manage this! Immediately draft the 'Management Measures for Extraordinary Stall Markets,' demarcate their range, register them, and bring them under control!" Cui Wujiu's command was decisive and stern.

He knew well that uncontrolled power, whether good or evil, was the greatest threat to order.

However, when the messenger he sent brought this vigorous will back to the village entrance, Zhang Xuanyi simply threw the last piece of dried meat meant for the dog into the broken pot, letting the flames lick it into charcoal.

"Manage?" He looked up at the serious messenger and smiled—a smile carrying a hint of mockery from someone who had seen through the world. "When the spring breeze blows, grass grows everywhere. You tell me, how do you manage that? Send people to pull them out one by one, or issue an imperial edict forbidding the spring breeze from blowing?"

He stood up and pulled from his robes the ashes left behind after the System remnant page had burned.

That had once been the source that both bound him and made him.

He walked to the windward side and opened his hand, letting that last trace scatter with the wind and merge into heaven and earth.

"If the Dao could be boxed in by your rules and regulations, would it still be worthy of being called the Dao?"

The messenger was speechless, feeling as if the man before him wasn't a person, but the formless, omnipresent spring breeze itself.

That night, the moonlight was like water.

The afterimage of the old dog guarding the stall condensed into form one last time under the moonlight.

It didn't lie down as usual. Instead, it raised its head, gave Zhang Xuanyi a silent bark, then turned and walked toward a spot near the roots of the old locust tree deep within the stall area.

Zhang Xuanyi followed.

The dog's afterimage stopped before a patch of soft soil—the place where he had originally buried that broken dog leash.

The dog shadow looked back at him, its eyes carrying a hint of gratification and liberation, then slowly dissipated, turning into specks of moonlight that never appeared again.

Zhang Xuanyi remained silent for a moment, then knelt down and dug into the soil with his hands.

There was no Treasure Trove, no Secret Manual. Beneath the soil, there had grown... a miniature market stall.

Its stem was the twisted texture of stall cloth, and its leaves were tiny stall spaces, where one could even see the blurry outlines of goods.

At the top of the "plant," a small piece of charred charcoal was pulsing like a heart, slightly hot and radiating the warmth of a roasting furnace.

Facing such a wondrous sight, there wasn't a hint of surprise on Zhang Xuanyi's face, as if everything was as it should be.

He simply fished a roasted, golden-brown mung bean from his pocket and carefully placed it upon the charred wood that served as the "furnace fire."

The next morning, the light of day broke.

When Su Qingzhu pushed open her door, she saw that strange "stall plant" floating quietly in mid-air.

It moved without wind, slowly drifting up like a ripe dandelion seed, wobbling higher and higher, finally heading toward some unknown mountain in the distance with the breeze.

Su Qingzhu gazed at the direction it disappeared for a long time before softly murmuring, "It's going to find its own mountain."

Seven days later, the general trend of the world had begun to manifest.

Across the north and south of the Great River, a total of thirty-seven "Stall Shadow Markets" of various sizes had appeared.

Some opened near ancient temples deep in the mountains, some stood on busy street corners, and some even appeared on the decks of warships.

They took different forms, had different stall owners, and sold bizarre goods, but they all shared a common creed—unwritten, yet deeply ingrained: 'The willing shall find freedom.'

This prairie fire-like momentum finally alarmed the Tianshi Mansion, which considered itself the orthodox authority over the world's paranormal individuals.

Several white-haired Elders, carrying a personal letter from the Mansion Master, traveled through the night to reach this remote village. They adopted an extremely humble posture, wishing to invite Zhang Xuanyi to "travel the world, preach the Dao, and resolve doubts" to return to the source and clear the stream.

When they found Zhang Xuanyi, he was sprawled out on a bamboo chair, holding a sizzling skewer in one hand, eating until his mouth was covered in grease, without even looking up.

"Preach what?" he said indistinctly. "I haven't taught them anything."

The leading Elder grew anxious and bowed: "Grandmaster Zhang is too modest! All the ten thousand stalls in the world look to you as their leader and revere you as the founder! If you do not step forward, I fear chaos will ensue in the future!"

"Leader?" Zhang Xuanyi finally sat up straight and grinned, revealing a row of white teeth. "I don't even have a business license; what kind of leader am I?"

He casually handed a freshly grilled Chive Pocket to a drooling little brat passing by. "Eat up, kid. When you're done, if you want to set up a stall, find a place yourself. If you don't, then get lost and go home. Don't get in the way here."

The child happily took it, while the Elders looked at each other, choked into silence by his crude yet infinitely free-spirited words.

The moon reached the middle of the sky, and all was silent.

The lantern of the main stall was lit as usual, but Zhang Xuanyi, contrary to his normal behavior, began to slowly pack his things.

The bamboo chair that had accompanied him through countless days and nights, the soot-blackened broken pot, the unremarkable roasting furnace... he moved them one by one into the small hut behind him.

Su Qingzhu stood to the side, watching quietly, and finally couldn't help but ask, "Are you really stopping?"

The grass stalk in Zhang Xuanyi's mouth wobbled as he gave a light chuckle: "Stopping what? The Dao is already running forward on its own. Do I still need to follow behind its ass beating a gong and shouting, 'Everyone, come look at the Dao'?"

The next morning, when the first ray of sunlight illuminated the village entrance, the stall that had once ignited the entire world was empty.

The bamboo chair, the pot and furnace, and Zhang Xuanyi had all vanished.

Only that weathered stall cloth still lay quietly on the original ground.

A morning breeze blew, and the leaf patterns on the cloth trembled slightly.

Suddenly, it moved without wind, and the texture of the entire cloth began to flow slowly, as if ten thousand thoughts were collectively holding a pen, condensing a new line of words upon it.

Not carved by man, not written with ink.

You are gone, but the stall remains.

The camera slowly pulled back, passing over the village, passing over the mountains.

Deep within the earth, the Old Earth Vein Turtle that had slept for untold ages had a long breath, like a great bell. Each breath caused the Earth Qi to fluctuate slightly.

And on that empty stall cloth, amidst the morning sun, the shadow of the Old Market-Stall Dog emerged one last time in the dawn light.

It was no longer in the form of a dog; instead, it gently stretched and shifted, finally condensing into an ancient and heavy character, imprinted between heaven and earth.