90: Fire does not burn people, people burn themselves

Capital City, Su Residence, late at night.

In the brightly lit study, Su Qingzhu put down her last stroke and set aside her wolf-hair brush.

Her face, usually as calm as water, was now a mixture of astonishment and excitement.

In half a month, she had visited thirty-seven markets of various sizes, from the horse markets of the Northern Border to the tea markets of the Southern Frontier, and what she saw and heard completely overturned her understanding of the "Xiao" Legacy.

Those "Still Water Altars" spread throughout the world were no longer mirrors of the Dao.

In the past, the water surface in the altars reflected the ancient fabric patterns that had remained unchanged for thousands of years; it was the mark of "Xiao" and the collective memory left behind by Zhang Xuanyi.

But now, the water surface had become a stage for the vast Mortal World.

In Luocheng, she saw with her own eyes a widow selling skewers weeping uncontrollably before a water altar, simply because her long-deceased husband, who had died in battle, appeared in the water, smiling as he handed her a skewer of her favorite chive pockets.

In Shu, a youth who had been lame due to an accident in his childhood saw himself with sound legs in the water, setting up a thriving small stall in the most crowded part of the market.

Scene after scene, case after case, all were the deepest obsessions and desires within the hearts of the stall owners.

The still water was no longer a mirror reflecting the Dao, but had become a "Heart-Fire Projector"!

What did this change mean?

Su Qingzhu's heart beat rapidly.

The Legacy was no longer a top-down bestowal, but a bottom-up awakening.

It was not Zhang Xuanyi's memory that was continuing, but the "self" of every Mortal who refused to be ordinary that was being ignited.

She wrote down this observation note overnight, titling it "Fire Does Not Illuminate People, People Ignite Themselves."

At the end, with trembling handwriting, she wrote a question that struck at the core: "If one day, no one in this world remembers Zhang Xuanyi, will that fire still come?"

Thousands of miles away, in a long-abandoned post station.

Zhang Xuanyi looked at the blind old woman sitting in front of a cold stove in a daze; the broken door of the post station creaked in the evening wind, making it seem even more desolate.

He crouched down and asked in a gentle voice, "It's cold. Why don't you light a fire?"

The old woman's cloudy eyes moved, as if she were "looking" at him, and after a long while, she let out a long sigh: "The stove is still here, but the fire is gone."

Gone?

Zhang Xuanyi chewed on these words and did not ask further.

He silently took out the last half-piece of dried dog meat wrapped in oil paper from his bosom and carefully tucked it into the cold ashes at the bottom of the stove.

Then, he casually picked up a piece of withered yellow grass root from the ground and drew a profound, mysterious talisman mark in the ashes, seemingly at random.

After doing all this, he rose and left, his figure quickly blending into the thickening night.

That night, a snowstorm suddenly arose.

The blind old woman was enveloped in a sudden warmth while in her sleep; she opened her eyes groggily, only to see that a cluster of flames had risen in the cold stone stove at some unknown time.

The fire was neither green nor red, but a soft, milky white; it was warm but not scorching, illuminating the entire dilapidated house as if it were broad daylight.

In the flickering firelight, the old woman saw her younger self setting up a stall in a bustling mountain market, hawking the handmade flatbreads she had made herself, her laughter crisp and hearty, ringing through the sky.

The next day at dawn, the snowstorm had stopped.

The old woman told everyone she met: "The fire has returned! The fire has returned! And it brought a message for me!"

Passing merchants and fleeing refugees all thought she was a madwoman; no one believed her.

But everyone saw the strange occurrence—regardless of day or night, regardless of how heavy the snowstorm was, the milky-white flame in her stove remained as steady as a rock, burning day and night without extinguishing.

Meanwhile, deep within the earth.

An ancient giant turtle, bearing the patterns of mountains and rivers on its back, slowly turned its body, which was as heavy as a mountain range.

On its tortoise shell, countless profound and mysterious patterns flickered on and off, and the frequency of their pulsing was perfectly synchronized with the hidden furnace fire veins scattered throughout the country.

With one exhale, a highly condensed stream of Earth Qi surged out along a deep, dark underground river, passed through layers of rock, and finally condensed into a crystal-clear drop of "Fire-Seed Dew" at the bottom of a dry well in a remote, desolate village.

In the early morning, a cowherd boy of about seven or eight years old came to the well to fetch water.

As the rope swayed, the drop of dew quietly splashed up and landed right on his rough little hand.

"Ouch!"

The cowherd boy felt a searing heat in his palm, as if branded by a hot coal, and hurriedly shook his hand.

After returning home, he seemed possessed; he clumsily wove a palm-sized small stove out of dried straw and scooped a handful of stove ash from the cold kitchen range to put inside.

After finishing all this, he felt it was ridiculous himself.

But just as he was stunned, a spark of fire appeared out of thin air in the palm of the hand that had been splashed by the dew.

The spark fell into the straw stove, and with a boom, a green-and-gold flame shot up!

The whole village was alarmed, thinking it was a divine manifestation, and they all crowded around to see the miracle.

The cowherd boy scratched his head and said to the crowd with a blank expression: "I didn't light it, it... it crawled from my hand by itself."

Zhang Xuanyi strolled to a market in a small town, where the air was filled with the smell of cheap spices and the sour, rotten odor of food.

He saw a ragged child crouching on the ground, using pebbles to draw the appearance of a stall, shouting earnestly: "Mung bean soup, three wen a bowl, cools you down and relieves the heat!"

However, there was no one in front of his "stall."

Zhang Xuanyi walked over, crouched down beside him, and asked with great interest: "Your stall is nice, but... where is the fire?"

The child raised his mud-stained face, scratched his head, and said somewhat embarrassedly: "Fire... I haven't learned how to light it yet."

Zhang Xuanyi grinned, took the grass root from his mouth, and handed it to the child: "Here, hold this in your mouth, face your drawn stove, and shout 'Business Opens Auspiciously' three times."

The child skeptically took the grass root and, imitating him, held it in his mouth; a faint, spicy taste spread across his tongue.

He took a deep breath, faced the stone drawing on the ground, and shouted with all his might: "Business Opens Auspiciously!"

The moment the third "auspiciously" left his lips, a sudden change occurred!

A tiny green flame shot out without warning from the crack of a bluestone brick beneath his feet!

The flame seemed alive; it first affectionately circled his lower leg, then lightly leaped and landed steadily in the center of the stove he had drawn.

The adults around were frightened and backed away, exclaiming in surprise.

The child, however, was not afraid but delighted; watching the lively green flame, he smiled, revealing his gap-toothed grin: "It recognizes me! The fire recognizes me!"

Zhang Xuanyi stood up, patted his shoulder, and said softly: "Silly boy, it doesn't recognize you; it recognizes that spirit in your heart that refuses to live on its knees."

That night, Zhang Xuanyi stayed in a dilapidated temple that was drafty on all sides.

In the second half of the night, while he was dozing, he suddenly felt a subtle sense of warmth spreading throughout his body.

He slowly opened his eyes, and the scene before him was enough to make anyone with a weak will Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering.

He saw countless grain-sized green flames emerging continuously from the cracks in the walls, the broken floor tiles, and the holes in the roof tiles, converging toward him like a torrent formed by thousands of fireflies.

They circled and danced around him, but always maintained a distance of three feet, not daring to get close.

They were paying homage to their king.

Zhang Xuanyi did not even blink an eyelid; looking at these "subjects" filling the air, he simply said calmly in a voice that was almost a whisper: "You have found the wrong person."

As his voice fell, the circling torrent of fire paused slightly, as if falling into a brief confusion.

A few breaths later, they seemed to understand something; they no longer circled him but suddenly split into dozens of fire streams of varying sizes, whistling out through the cracks in the doors and windows of the broken temple, flying toward the heavy night in all directions like meteors.

Zhang Xuanyi watched the direction they disappeared and whispered to himself: "Fine, from now on, you pick your own masters."

The night wind blew, and the temple returned to dead silence.

In the distance, those scattered lights of fire fell into the simple thatched cottages of farmers, some crept into the workshops where artisans were sweating profusely, and some drifted into the bridge underpasses where beggars took shelter...

Anyone who still harbored a shred of desire to not go with the flow and refused to bow their heads to fate—the stove fires, candlelight, or even a handful of dying stove ash beside them—at this moment, quietly emitted a faint yet resilient glow.

The entire world seemed to have become somewhat different on this night.

Capital City, Su Residence.

The lights in Su Qingzhu's study were still on; she was still repeatedly refining her notes.

This transformation sweeping across the world had come too suddenly; she had to clear her thoughts and prepare for the unknown that was about to come.

Just at this moment, in the quiet courtyard, a very light, yet exceptionally clear sound of footsteps in the deep night rang out.

The footsteps were unhurried and stopped outside her study door.

Su Qingzhu frowned; the Su Residence was heavily guarded, and it was absolutely impossible for any outsider to approach her core study so easily in the middle of the night.

She did not rise, but asked in a deep voice: "Who is it?"

There was no answer from outside the door, only a slight "click" sound, as if something had been pushed in from under the door crack.

Subsequently, the footsteps quickly moved away and disappeared into the night.

Su Qingzhu walked to the door and saw a thin, hard envelope lying quietly on the ground.

She bent down to pick it up; there was no signature on the envelope, but as she touched it, an unusual coldness came through, as if she were not holding paper, but a piece of thin ice fished out from a deep winter cold pool.

This chill seemed completely incompatible with the world outside the window, which was being quietly changed by the flames.