94: Who is stealing the fire?

On the giant light screen in Su Qingzhu's office, three glaring red alerts were flashing at a breathtaking frequency.

Each alert corresponded to a location: East Sea Fishing Village, Southwest Miao Ridge, and the Northwest Wasteland.

Real-time meteorological and Power Of Will fluctuation data for the national Blue Flame markets showed that the spiritual energy entropy values in these three locations were rising in a bizarre, reverse manner, as if the flames were not burning matter, but consuming the Void Realm.

She pulled up the historical data, and her pupils constricted sharply—these three locations were actually the areas where the 'remnants of the All-Nature' were last wiped out fifty years ago!

A sense of foreboding gripped her throat.

She immediately dialed the internal special line of the Tianshi Mansion technical department, her voice cold and hurried: 'Immediately perform a deep scan of the underlying runes of the national Blue Flame seeds. The fluctuation models of three coordinate points are seventy percent similar to the 'Triple Inverse Life' of the All-Nature monsters!'

The voice on the other end of the phone, however, carried a hint of stylized perfunctoriness: 'Supervisor Su, the System has self-checked thirty-six thousand times, and everything is normal. Perhaps it is regional geomagnetic disturbance.'

Normal?

Su Qingzhu hung up the communication, her eyes as cold as ice.

The System was no longer something she could fully trust.

She grabbed an inconspicuous trench coat, put on her disguise spectacles, and set her target—the East Sea Fishing Village.

In the fishy, salty sea breeze of the fishing village, the charred aroma of grilled seafood mingled with the gentle, moist scent unique to Blue Flame.

Su Qingzhu, using the alias Reporter Li, moved through the bustling night market stalls under the pretext of writing about folk customs.

The fishermen were enthusiastic and simple, and every household's grill was dancing with that familiar blue flame.

However, when she walked to a seaside stall, her footsteps suddenly stopped.

The stall owner was flipping a skewer of sea fish, and the Blue Flame in the stove was burning vigorously. The firelight leaped, reflecting red on his weathered face.

But strangely, on the shimmering sea surface, only the stall, the grill, and the stall owner's figure were reflected—the only thing missing was that ball of blue firelight that should have been the most dazzling!

The flame had no reflection!

It was as if what was burning did not exist in this dimension at all.

Su Qingzhu's heart shook violently, but her expression remained calm. She smiled and bought a skewer of grilled squid. Taking advantage of the moment the stall owner turned to get seasoning, her fingertips moved slightly, and a trace of imperceptible Qi energy rolled up a few grains of stove ash from the bottom of the stove, silently collecting them into a special sample bag.

Returning to her temporary residence, she closed the doors and windows, held her breath, and took out a crystal-clear mung bean from her bag.

This was the clumsy method Zhang Xuanyi had taught her, yet it was the most direct 'heavenly eye mung beans' test.

She placed the stove ash sample on a white porcelain plate and gently added the mung bean.

In an instant, the mung bean, symbolizing vitality, seemed infected by an invisible, highly toxic substance. Its emerald green skin quickly turned pitch black, and then, a tiny crack split open on the bean's body. A drop of black liquid oozed out, resembling an eye silently weeping.

Meanwhile, in the Law Enforcement Hall thousands of miles away, Cui Wujiu received an unsigned letter.

The letter paper was special rune paper from the Power Of Will Notary Office, which had been out of production for many years.

He unfolded the letter, and a familiar scent of ink mixed with the scorched smell of fire rushed towards him. The handwriting on it made his hand holding the pen tremble slightly—it was the handwriting of Xiao Qi, an apprentice who had disappeared in that great fire at the Notary Office thirty years ago.

There were only two lines on the letter: 'Fire can ferry people, but it can also devour them. We are learning to light fires from you, but no one taught us... how not to be burned to death.'

Cui Wujiu closed his eyes, and Xiao Qi's face, full of thirst for knowledge, seemed to be right before him.

He did not notify anyone. Relying solely on the faint, lingering scent of herbs on the letter, he followed the trail and headed straight into the thousands of mountains of the Southwest Miao Ridge.

Deep in the mist-shrouded valley, a group of mountain youths sat around a bonfire, their expressions fanatical and devout.

They called themselves the 'Fire Cultivation Society,' believing that through Blue Flame, they could communicate with heaven and earth and awaken supernatural powers not possessed by ordinary people.

Whenever night fell, they would meditate around the stove here, and even forcibly ingest a special herb mixed with fire seed powder to accelerate their 'evolution'.

Cui Wujiu hid in the shadows and saw that one person's eyes had already turned completely crimson, as if two ghost fires were burning in their pupils, and they were unconsciously whispering obscure, ancient incantations.

His body was trembling slightly, and under his skin, firelight seemed to be moving.

This was a sign of fire poison invading the heart, just one step away from becoming a fire demon that only knew how to burn.

A flash of murderous intent crossed Cui Wujiu's mind, but seeing their young faces twisted by desire and confusion, it finally turned into a sigh.

He walked out slowly, without releasing any pressure.

The youths were startled by someone approaching and immediately stood up vigilantly.

Cui Wujiu ignored their hostile gazes and sat down by the fire on his own. He took out half a roasted sweet potato wrapped in oil paper from his bosom, took a slow bite, and then spoke hoarsely: 'Back then, I also wanted to reach the sky in one step, but in the end... I burned my conscience.'

He did not preach or judge; he just recounted in a tone bordering on confession how, in his youth, he had pursued ultimate rules and power, step by step, from a law enforcer to a prisoner bred by his own Heart Demon.

The firelight flickered, reflecting on his weathered face. The fanaticism in the youths' eyes gradually faded, replaced by confusion, pain, and finally, someone was the first to put down the herbs in their hands and silently shed tears.

In the Northwest's vast yellow sand, Zhang Xuanyi had already arrived.

He disguised himself as a traveling doctor, and relying on his superb massage skills and a few herbs specifically for rheumatism, he soon blended into an isolated nomadic tribe.

He discovered that the 'Ancestral Spirit Fire' that this tribe worshipped every day had a burning form and Power Of Will fluctuation frequency that was exactly the reverse-burning Blue Flame he had been tracking.

What shocked him even more was that beneath the altar, it was vaguely connected to a broken rune array buried deep underground.

He remained calm. Taking the opportunity to diagnose the Clan Chief's young son, he seemingly casually fished a colorful candy out of his medical kit and handed it to the child: 'Come, little guy, eat this, and your fists will have the strength to beat away the sand wolves.'

That candy was called 'Fist Soul', refined by him using the Fist Intent of Eight Extremities Fist and several medicinal herbs, capable of stimulating the body's most primitive musculoskeletal strength.

The child ate the candy and felt full of strength. He excitedly waved his little fists by the altar, unintentionally performing a plausible opening move of the Eight Extremities Fist—'Standing Sky-Piercing Cannon'.

A tender yet pure fist wind swept across a corner of the altar, blowing away the dust that had covered it for years, revealing a line of deliberately hidden tiny inscriptions: 'Borrow the fire of ten thousand people, refine the spirit of one person'.

Zhang Xuanyi's eyes narrowed, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth: 'A truly vicious business of 'collective fire supply, one person achieves Dao'.'

That night, he held the last 'heavenly eye mung beans' capable of temporarily seeing through delusions under his tongue, avoided all guards, and snuck into the cave under the altar like a ghost.

The medicinal power of the mung bean dissolved in his mouth, and the scene before him changed suddenly. The broken rune array instantly presented its complete form in his eyes—blood-red array patterns like dense blood vessels, crazily extracting something from the Ancestral Spirit Fire. Its layout and structure were clearly based on the 'Burning Wish Grand Formation', which had been listed as the number one forbidden technique by the Tianshi Mansion three hundred years ago, but it had been forcibly modified by someone to be even more incomplete and vicious!

Su Qingzhu sent the test results of the stove ash and the bizarre phenomenon of 'flame without shadow' to Cui Wujiu and Zhang Xuanyi simultaneously via an encrypted channel.

For the first time, the three avatars 'met' in virtual space.

Cui Wujiu looked at the weeping mung bean pattern and said in a deep voice: 'It's not the All-Nature. The monsters of the All-Nature are arrogant, but they aren't this vicious. This is a remnant of the long-lost 'Ascension Sect'. They believe in 'ten thousand people burn fire, one person achieves Ascension', viewing all living beings as firewood.'

Su Qingzhu immediately added: 'I understand! They tampered with the inheritance runes of the Blue Flame seeds, turning the originally voluntary sharing of Power Of Will connection into a hidden, mandatory extraction! The users unknowingly became their Cauldron!'

In the channel, Zhang Xuanyi's avatar was silent for a moment. Just when Su Qingzhu thought his signal was interrupted, he suddenly spoke, his tone surprisingly calm: 'Let them continue to burn.'

Su Qingzhu and Cui Wujiu were both shocked.

Only to hear Zhang Xuanyi chuckle: 'Fire is never afraid of burning; what it fears is that no one dares to light it. Let them burn, burn to the brightest, burn until they themselves cannot control it. When they have absorbed enough public grievances, swallowed enough Karma, burned until they feel guilty, burned until they feel remorse, burned until they themselves begin to doubt... they will naturally understand that the Dao is not in the sky, but right here at these smoky stalls.'

Three days later, in the Northwest, East Sea, and Southwest, anomalies occurred simultaneously!

The three reverse-burning fires that had been tampered with seemed to reach a certain critical point and suddenly went out of control!

The raging blue flames no longer settled for the stoves and furnaces, but turned into three ferocious fire dragons, rushing into the sky. In their respective night skies, they twisted and combined into three huge, ancient runes. Their shapes were exactly the three core curse seals of the 'Burning Wish Grand Formation'!

The evil aura shrouded the earth like dark clouds, and everyone felt the extraction and coldness from the depths of their Soul.

But at this moment, an unexpected scene occurred.

The people in the markets of the three places seemed to have a tacit understanding. They did not panic and flee, but instead walked out of their homes in unison, carrying their own small, ordinary stove fires, and formed one warm circle after another on the open ground.

Immediately after, a crisp, childish children's voice rang out, followed by a chorus that gathered like a tide. They were singing the same simple and warm nursery rhyme—it was the 'Tan Huo Yao' that Zhang Xuanyi had taught the local children when he traveled around.

'A stick of firewood, burning a faint light, you have one, I have one, warming the soup...'

The singing was simple, but it contained the purest desire for sharing and protection.

The light of ten thousand homes merged, and the children's voices gathered like a tide. That warm and majestic power rushed into the sky and slammed into the three evil runes in the air!

The evil runes trembled violently, as if ice and snow had encountered a blazing sun. Finally, under the gaze of countless people, with a 'bang', they exploded and scattered!

Blue ashes filled the sky, like a sudden heavy snow, falling gracefully to the world.

On a high slope in the Northwest Wasteland, Zhang Xuanyi stood against the wind, watching this miracle created by the lights of ten thousand homes, and whispered to himself: 'You are stealing fire, but this fire... was originally lit by yourselves.'

The ashes fell slowly, carrying the warmth of surviving a disaster.

In the wasteland, the old Clan Chief of that tribe walked out of the tent. He did not look at the anomalies that were gradually dissipating, but bowed his head, picked up a pinch of blue ash that still had residual warmth from the ground, and sniffed it.

There was no fear in his aged eyes, only an unprecedented solemnity.

He raised his head and looked towards the East and the South, the directions where the anomalies had also occurred, as if he could penetrate thousands of mountains and rivers and see the people on the other two lands.

For a long time, he turned around and said a legendary ancient order to his clansmen behind him, who were also full of confusion, in an incomparably solemn tone.

Some debts need to be settled.

Some fires need to be redefined.

The fire-holders on this land, and on even more distant lands, need a dialogue.