91: You are not worshipping me, but yourself who wanted to set up a stall

That bone-chilling cold seemed to seep in from another era, standing in stark contrast to the world before her, which was gradually warming up due to the fires of Mortals.

Su Qingzhu snapped back to reality, the rough texture of the letter paper still lingering on her fingertips.

It was a letter without any signature, the postmark blurred, as if it had traveled through many hands from some forgotten corner.

Inside the envelope, there was only a faded black-and-white photograph.

She was all too familiar with the background of the photo—the old site of the main stall at Mount Longhu, that natural stone ring formed by giant boulders.

Yet, in the center of the stone ring, where there should have been nothing, a crooked wooden sign stood abruptly.

The shot was very close, and the handwriting on the sign was written in some kind of charcoal, scribbled and jarring: "The Remnants of Zhang Xuanyi's Garments."

In front of the sign were three bizarre "offerings": a skewer of obviously burnt meat, a small handful of mung beans, and a few withered grass roots.

What was this? An insult? Or some twisted form of commemoration?

Su Qingzhu stared at the photo, the anger in her eyes igniting and then dying out, finally turning into a long, bitter laugh, filled with endless exhaustion and sorrow.

"You won't even let the grave stay empty..." she muttered to herself.

They didn't understand; that man hated these formalistic tombs more than anything.

If he had a spirit, he would probably be the first to jump out of the ground and chop this broken wooden sign into firewood.

Her anger could not suppress the doubts in her heart. Who did this? For what purpose?

The night was as dark as ink; she didn't notify anyone and drove to Mount Longhu alone.

When she stepped into that familiar stone ring, her footsteps uneven, her heart suddenly sank.

The wooden sign was gone, and those ridiculous offerings had also vanished without a trace, leaving only a circle of black scorch marks, the outline as regular as a spread-out stall cloth.

The air was filled with a faint smell of wood ash.

Su Qingzhu slowly crouched down, reached out with a trembling hand, and gently touched the warm scorched earth.

The moment her fingertips touched the scorched earth, a scorching hot current surged into her palm like an electric shock, instantly flooding into her mind!

Countless fragmented images exploded before her eyes, light and shadow interweaving, voices clamoring.

She saw someone in a snowstorm that reached above the knees, using frozen fingers to arduously trace the outline of a stall in the snow, the white breath exhaled like a fire igniting hope; she saw someone in a hospital ward filled with the smell of disinfectant, guarding a small electric stove, silently humming the calls to solicit customers, as if it were not a hospital bed, but his bustling market where he reigned supreme; she also saw a tall figure, kneeling on both knees, hands trembling, respectfully handing the first skewer of grilled food to a ragged old man...

Scene after scene, event after event, were all the most simple and pure memories about lighting a fire, food, and people.

These memories did not belong to her, yet they burned her Soul so vividly.

Su Qingzhu woke up with a start, the scorching heat in her palm gradually fading, but the shock in her heart was like crashing waves.

She finally understood.

True worship was never before cold stone monuments, nor on those hypocritical spirit tablets.

It was in the persistence of lighting the first flame in the wind and snow, in the calls to maintain a livelihood amidst hardship, and in the humility of bending down to hand out food every single time.

It was in that second of lighting the fire, in the heart of that unyielding Mortal!

Meanwhile, in a small southern city thousands of miles away, under a bridge.

Zhang Xuanyi curled up in a corner, watching a homeless man with great interest.

The man was using a few pieces of rusty scrap metal he had picked up to clumsily yet incredibly earnestly build a rudimentary stove, every action exuding a sense of almost sacred ritual.

He leaned over, his chapped lips moving: "What are you selling?"

The homeless man didn't even look up, focused on his work, his voice raspy as it squeezed out from his throat: "Selling dignity."

Zhang Xuanyi grinned, that smile like the only warm sun in winter.

He fumbled in his tattered clothes for a long time, pulling out the last grass root warmed by his body temperature, and carefully inserted it beside the stove the homeless man had just built.

"When you light the fire, hold it in your mouth," he said softly. "The fire does not deceive people."

After speaking, he turned and merged into the deeper darkness.

In the middle of the night, under the bridge, a faint cyan flame quietly ignited, swaying stubbornly in the cold wind.

A passing patrol officer walked over with a frown, just about to speak to drive them away, but suddenly froze.

On that rudimentary stove, there was a skewer of golden-roasted potatoes, with a crumpled note pressed underneath, on which were three words written in charcoal: "It's cold, but it has been hot."

The patrol officer stood in silence for a long time, eventually not saying a word.

He silently picked up the skewer of potatoes and turned to leave.

The potatoes were already cold, but upon biting into them, one could seemingly still taste a trace of the fire's lingering warmth.

The next morning, the patrol officer passed by the bridge again and gently placed a neatly folded old cotton coat beside the sleeping homeless man.

Mohe, the north of the border.

Cui Wujiu, dressed in black, stood at the entrance of the bustling market.

He watched one of the most unruly Guidance Envoys who used to be under his command, now wearing a greasy apron, smiling broadly as he handed a skewer of grilled gluten to a customer.

"Why stay?" Cui Wujiu's voice was like the cold wind of this place.

The man turned around, and seeing it was him, chuckled, revealing two rows of teeth yellowed by smoke: "Boss, you're here. When I first came here, it was because the higher-ups sent me to manage people, to manage how these fires burn, and how these human hearts move. But now I understand—" He pointed to his own heart with greasy fingers, "I am here to learn how not to be managed."

Cui Wujiu did not speak, only silently unfolding a scroll in his hand.

It was a flow chart of the Power Of Will, composed of countless points of light.

He was shocked to find that the thirty-seven markets across the country represented on the map had long since formed stable and independent energy closed loops.

They no longer needed central regulation; good thoughts would naturally spawn cyan flames, nourishing the region; evil thoughts would attract turbid breath, backfiring on the perpetrator.

He even saw a strange scene that had just happened on the chart: at a market in Lingnan, a stall owner overcharged a customer by three yuan, and almost instantly, the fires of a dozen or so stalls around him dimmed in unison, an invisible pressure enveloping the entire scene, forcing the stall owner to return the money in a cold sweat.

They called it, "Collective Punishment of Greedy Stalls."

This system had come alive.

It had its own breath, its own rules, its own rewards and punishments.

Cui Wujiu slowly rolled up the chart, a wisp of cyan flame igniting at his fingertips, burning this last page of the inspection record into ashes.

"It's not that there is no one in charge," he said softly to the sky full of snow, "it's that everyone is in charge of everyone."

The storm was ignited by an article by Su Qingzhu.

She launched an initiative on the internet called the "Extinguish Monument Campaign," calling on all those who had fire in their hearts to personally dismantle the monuments and memorial plaques erected for Zhang Xuanyi.

She wrote in the article: "If he were still here, the first thing he would smash would be these cold stones. What he passed down was the fire, not a tombstone. The true Dao is not on high offering tables, but in that second when you are hungry and cold, and you decide to light a fire for yourself and for others!"

Responders gathered in droves.

In Lingnan, a child with an upright ponytail smeared mud over the stone tablet at the village entrance carved with "Ancestral Master Xuanyi," then turned around and drew a brand new stall on the spot with stones, writing in childish handwriting beside it: "I'm in charge today."

A breeze blew by, and a passing slovenly man stopped, glanced at the smeared tablet and the graffiti on the ground, nodded with satisfaction, and muttered in a low voice: "Well smashed, saves me from doing it myself."

New Year's Eve, at the hour of the Rat.

The thirty-seven markets across the country, regardless of size, regardless of north or south, simultaneously held an unprecedented "Nameless Sacrifice."

No spirit tablets, no chanting of names, no asking about the past.

The moment the time arrived, thousands upon thousands of stove fires, in the same instant, ignited with quiet and warm cyan flames.

People, without prior agreement, handed the first skewer of grilled food to the most inconspicuous person beside them—the beggar at the street corner, the lonely old man, or the disabled supernatural being who had lost their ability in an accident.

In a small southern town, Zhang Xuanyi was sitting on a stone by the roadside.

A mute girl with pigtails walked timidly in front of him and handed over a skewer of freshly grilled rice cakes.

He took it and took a bite.

It was sweet, with a hint of the smoky aroma of fire.

He raised his head and looked at the sky.

Ten thousand families' lights, fireworks filling the city, dazzling and eye-catching.

But in his eyes, all this brilliance could not compare to the small cyan fire before him, and the temperature of the rice cake in his palm.

"That's enough," he said softly, as if speaking to the mute girl, and as if speaking to the entire human world.

"From now on, you can call it whatever you like. I... am going back to the stall."

The moment his voice fell, no one noticed that the wisp of cyan flame reflected in the puddle by the roadside in the small town, its frequency of flickering, had actually reached perfect synchronization with the breathing in the dream of the old turtle that had been sleeping for ten thousand years deep within the veins of the earth.

One exhale, one inhale, like the heartbeat of the earth.

This brand new order composed of the fires of Mortals seemed to have finally received the recognition of the entire world.

Su Qingzhu stood on a distant high-rise building, feeling this warm Power Of Will sweeping across the country, and a smile finally appeared on the corner of her mouth.

However, just as this warm current reached its peak, a trace of extremely subtle yet extremely ancient coldness surged from the depths of her heart without any warning.

This coldness did not come from the winter night, but originated from beneath her feet, from the depths of the earth that resonated with the fires of ten thousand families.

It was as if beneath this land's rebirth and joy, there was buried a more distant, heavier old debt, which was being... quietly disturbed by this fire of universal celebration.

Her gaze, involuntarily, was cast once again in the direction of Mount Longhu.

The darkness there seemed to be thicker than elsewhere.