154: A sign of a national awakening?

The night wind swept through the ancient plateau path, whipping up yellow sand and residual snow, slapping against the mottled wooden door of the post station.

The door was unlocked; a gentle push opened it.

The firewood in the bonfire was still burning, crackling and popping, with sparks dancing like stars falling to the human world.

Zhang Xuanyi stood at the entrance, his Daoist robe worn and tattered, his shoulders covered in frost and dust, as if he had walked all the way from a land of extreme cold.

He gazed at the undying flame, stunned for a moment, before slowly walking inside.

There was no one in the room.

On the corner of the table sat a pair of mended work shoes, the stitches fine and dense, with a circle of red rope wrapped around the toe—the very pair he had lost at the foot of Mount Longhu three years ago.

He remembered that day when the rain poured down in torrents; he had run ten miles of mountain road barefoot, just to deliver a photocopy yellow paper to a child suffering an asthma attack.

Later, the shoes were lost, and he never went to look for them.

But now, they had returned.

He crouched down, his fingers stroking the surface of the shoes, feeling a trace of warmth.

This was not the residual warmth from the furnace fire, but... as if they had just been worn and warmed by someone.

"Old man?" he called out in a low voice.

There was no response.

Only the wind lingered outside, blowing against the copper bell under the eaves, ringing with a clatter, as if saying goodbye.

He sat down silently and added a piece of firewood to the bonfire.

The flame jumped suddenly, illuminating half of his face in a deep red.

Just then, his palm suddenly felt burning hot.

He looked down, and the golden patterns that had long since dissipated were actually reappearing!

At first, they were just a few intermittent lines, like chaotic electrical circuits, but in the blink of an eye, they came alive, winding up along his Bloodline, traveling along his arm, and climbing all the way to his heart.

He wanted to channel his Qi to suppress it, but discovered that the true Qi within him was resonating with the golden patterns, not only not hindering it but actively guiding it forward.

Eventually, the patterns merged with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

Thump, thump, thump.

Every beat felt like thousands of people whispering at once—

"We warm you."

The voice was not clear, but it was vast and mighty, surging from all directions, as if countless people between heaven and earth whom he had never met were pouring their intentions into his Bloodline at this moment.

Zhang Xuanyi closed his eyes.

He saw someone in a northern town using photocopy yellow paper to cover windows and block the wind; children in a southern fishing village sharing heavenly eye mung beans like candy; a caravan in the western desert sitting together, passing around a piece of iron inscribed with "Xiaoyao Token," laughing and saying it was a divine Talisman...

Those things he once thought had long disappeared had never vanished.

They had simply detached from the System, broken free from the rules, and become sparks spontaneously circulating among the people.

He opened his eyes and smiled.

He took out a charred-edged booklet from his bosom—the final edition of the myriad laws street vendor system User Guide.

The cover had yellowed, the page corners were curled, and it still bore the annotations Su Qingzhu had written in red pen years ago: "Suggestion to the stall owner: cheat customers fifty cents less."

He tore off the first page and threw it into the fire.

The flame suddenly leaped high, and amidst the flying ashes, it briefly formed a character in the air—

Then it dissipated, leaving no trace.

It was the human heart burning.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, deep in the city.

Su Qingzhu sat in her study, neon lights flickering outside the window, the city lights as brilliant as a river.

Before her lay piles of reports from the past decade: "Myriad Laws Street Stall Reveals Grandmaster-level Talisman"

"Old Ancestor of Quanxing Queues Up to Buy Mung Beans? Truth Exposed"

"Xiaoyao Token Storm: A Sign of Nationwide Awakening?"...

She flipped through them one by one, her eyes calm, but she could not hide the slight trembling at the corners of her eyes.

Finally, she threw all the materials into the fireplace.

The pages curled, charred, and turned to ash.

She took out a USB drive, inserted it into the computer, selected all backup files, and clicked delete.

The moment the progress bar reached the end, a prompt suddenly popped up on the screen:

[Are you sure you want to erase the "Zhang Xuanyi" entry?]

Her fingertips hovered there.

After a long while, she gently pressed "Confirm."

The next second, the streetlights along the entire street all went out at once.

Three seconds later, they lit up again.

But the angle of the lights had changed—they no longer shone directly at the ground, but were tilted slightly upward, like countless hands holding up the light, paying tribute to the night sky.

She stood up, pulled back the curtains, gazed at this strange scene, and said softly: "Now, it is your turn to write the story."

Meanwhile, at the northern foothills of Kunlun, the blizzard had just ceased.

Zhang Xuanyi stood on an ice ridge, beneath his feet was the energy peak point marked by geological satellites.

The scene before him was eerie and magnificent—dark golden veins shone through the cracks in the earth, extending like blood vessels to the horizon, fully merging with the artifact spirit golden threads left behind by Cui Wujiu years ago, weaving an invisible web that spanned the continental plates.

He took out a shriveled heavenly eye mung beans shell—one of the last tokens left behind before the System disintegrated.

He gently tossed it into the air.

Before the shell even hit the ground, the entire mountain range suddenly lit up with a faint glow!

Countless tiny symbols appeared deep within the rock layers—Yin and Yang embedded in a circle, surrounded by twelve hexagram positions, which was exactly a simplified version of the "Xiaoyao Token."

They flickered like breathing, rising and falling with the earth's veins, then slowly sank into the earth, as if being absorbed by the world itself.

Or rather, he was already everywhere.

He had become a part of the Dao of fire, the pulse of this new era.

The wind picked up, and the snow fell.

Zhang Xuanyi turned and left, not looking back.

In a small village nestled in the mountains in the north, the candlelight in the ancestral hall was faint. Dozens of villagers sat in a circle, each holding a small pinch of ashes, passing them to one another, borrowing the residual warmth to keep warm.

The eldest Granny asked in a low voice: "Can these ashes... really protect people?"

The child, clutching his mother's arm, murmured in his sleep: "Of course, this is what the 'Igniter' left behind..."

Outside, cold clouds pressed down, and a once-in-a-century cold front was quietly moving south.

The night wind, carrying snow particles, hit the mottled window paper of the ancestral hall, making a rustling sound.

Zhang Xuanyi sat cross-legged in the corner, his old Daoist robe long since faded, its original color unrecognizable, the cuffs frayed, looking just like the hemp rope used to hang scrap items at his stall back in the day.

He looked down at his palm—it was empty, with no golden patterns flowing, and no humming of System notifications.

But when he looked up at the circle of seated figures, his heart suddenly trembled.

Every villager held a small pinch of ash, passing it from the oldest Granny to the youngest infant, circle after circle, as if passing down some ancient oath.

Only embers remained in the fire pit, yet in this room, it was not cold.

A child wrapped in a cotton-padded jacket nudged up to him and looked up, asking: "Uncle, are you here to fix the stove?"

Zhang Xuanyi was stunned.

He was once the master of the Myriad Laws Street Stall, capable of selling Talismans to change fate, selling spiritual liquid to connect with the divine; he had once made the Old Ancestor of Quanxing lower his head and queue up, and forced the Under Heaven Society to personally visit and beg for a photocopy yellow paper.

But now—he was just a passerby carrying a tattered bundle, having walked through the snow to arrive here.

He shook his head, his voice so low it sounded like he was talking to himself: "I am not here to fix the stove... I am here to find the fire."

The child blinked and suddenly smiled: "You don't need to find the fire; it has always followed those who believe in it."

The words were like a thunderclap to his ears.

Zhang Xuanyi froze in place, then couldn't help but laugh out loud; his laughter grew louder and louder, startling the accumulated snow on the eaves to fall with a rustle.

He laughed until he was rocking back and forth, until tears seeped from the corners of his eyes, as if he wanted to laugh away all the loneliness and obsession that had been weighing on his heart for all these years.

So, it wasn't him lighting the fire.

It was the things he had ignited that, in turn, illuminated him.

That night, he did not pinch fingers to chant spells, did not use a shred of true Qi, nor did he summon any exotic treasures.

He simply sat with the villagers, took that handful of warm ash, and listened to one story after another—

"I heard that Daoist loved eating melon seeds, cursing customers for being stupid while eating, but in the end, someone bought ten heavenly eye mung beans and went back to defeat a Grandmaster."

"Once, when a rainstorm flooded the village, he ran over roofs and walls in straw sandals, sticking Talismans on every household, and even swiped a basket of sweet potatoes from someone's home before leaving."

"He even wrote a book called 'Thirty-Six Taboos of Stall-Keeping,' and the first rule was: Don't fall for a reporter, otherwise you'll be exposed sooner or later."

Amidst the laughter, when Su Qingzhu's name was mentioned, he fell silent for a moment, his fingers gently rubbing a small patch on his cuff—one she had secretly sewn on years ago.

Until late at night, someone asked softly: "Are these stories... true?"

Zhang Xuanyi stood up and pushed open the half-closed door.

The wind and snow hit his face; the world was vast and desolate.

But he saw, through the cracks in the windows of a few houses not far away, a faint yet firm red light shining—it was the small charcoal basins the people had lit with the warm ashes, burning quietly.

"Truth or falsehood is not important," he said, his voice scattering into the wind. "As long as you keep telling them, he lives."

The next morning, the snow stopped.

Cooking smoke rose again, children built snowmen at the doorways, with charred Talisman paper sticks inserted on top, like holding a tattered flag.

And Zhang Xuanyi had quietly left, his figure melting into the morning mist.

No one knew where he went, only remembering the legend of that Daoist who loved eating melon seeds, which, from that day on, began to spread westward along the ancient Yellow River path.

And at the moment he stepped out of the village entrance, in the stove of a certain house behind him, a piece of charcoal that had long since extinguished jumped without warning.