169: People have to know the way

Rain has been falling for seven days.

The small town on the southwest border is soaked in moisture, the mountain roads are muddy, and water drips from the eaves in lines.

Above the ruins, the photocopy yellow paper that once clung to the broken walls has long since turned into a paste, the ink smudged like clusters of black tear stains.

When the wind blows, it peels off in rustles, falling into the mud, never to be seen again.

Inside the ancestral hall, the firelight is weak.

Over a dozen villagers sit around an old, long table, their expressions grave.

In the center is a half-collapsed wild fire altar, the remnant fire in the heart of the altar flickering like a bean, as if it could swallow its last breath at any moment.

"We can't wait any longer," an old man leaning on a cane slams the table. "This fire is going to go out! We must choose a new auspicious location to rebuild the fire altar, pick a place with good Feng Shui that can suppress it, and invite a Great Master to consecrate it!"

"But after the Broken Contract Array, what Great Master would still be willing to come to our remote, impoverished village?" someone retorts in a low voice. "The Mount Longhu street stalls are closed, Tianshi Mansion has closed its doors to worldly matters, and the Old Ancestor of Quanxing is nowhere to be found... Who can we rely on?"

The sound of arguing buzzes, but no one stands up to take action.

Until a young man in the corner suddenly speaks: "The night before last, I dreamt of a man in plain clothes, barefoot in the mud, holding a blunt brush in his hand. He drew a circle on the ground and wrote the character 'Rest'."

Everyone goes quiet.

"What did he draw? A circle surrounding 'Rest'?"

"Yes, then he left without saying a word, but the fire... ignited itself."

Suddenly, all eyes turn to the only old tutor in the village who can read and write.

The old man rises shakily, finds a clean patch of ground, and uses a piece of charcoal to trace from memory—a circle with a 'Rest' character in the middle, the strokes crooked, yet revealing a strange sense of stability.

Just as he finishes drawing, footsteps suddenly break through the curtain of rain outside.

The door is pushed open, the wooden door creaking, bringing in a gust of damp, cold wind.

The man is wearing an old Daoist robe that has been washed until it turned white, with half a bag of ash slung over his shoulder, and a familiar, nonchalant smile on his face; it is none other than Zhang Xuanyi.

He stands at the doorway, shakes the rainwater off his shoulders, his gaze sweeping over the 'Rest' character on the ground, and the corners of his mouth lift: "Are you worshipping the character, or the idea?"

No one answers.

He walks straight over, squats down, picks up a charred wooden stick from the ground, gently pushes aside the ash and mud, and decisively adds a stroke and a dot to the right side of the 'Rest' character.

With a soft "clatter," the previously rigid symbol suddenly comes alive—it has become the character 'Bathe'.

"Fire needs to take turns resting, and people need to bathe themselves," he says in a low voice. His voice isn't loud, but it suppresses the noise in the hall. "Instead of worshipping it, you should learn from it—it has burned, and it has also been cold. Only after it cools down do you know how to relight it."

The ancestral hall is silent.

Someone murmurs: "So... we don't need to change locations? And we don't need to invite a Great Master?"

"The soil under your feet has buried incense ash, held Power Of Will, cooked meals, and raised people." Zhang Xuanyi stands up and claps his hands. "The fire was never in the sky; it has slept in the stove, crawled under the soup pot, and jumped in the palms of children's frozen hands. You aren't seeking fire; you've forgotten how to talk to it."

After speaking, he picks up the half-bag of cold ash, turns, and walks out the door, his figure disappearing into the curtain of rain.

Three days later, strange things begin to happen.

Zhang Xuanyi, carrying that half-bag of ash, walks through the surrounding seven villages and eight hamlets.

Every time he arrives at a place, he looks for an abandoned stove—some have collapsed on one side, some are covered in moss, and one family even used the furnace as a chicken coop.

He isn't annoyed; he just slowly pours the cold ash into the depths of the furnace, then squats down, dips his fingertips into stream water, and flicks three drops into the ash.

He whispers three times: "Borrow fire for a breath."

Once the words are spoken, usually within half a day, the stove will emit a faint light at night.

At first, it is just a faint layer, like mist or frost, but by early morning, it faintly pulses, as if an invisible flame is breathing inside.

Even stranger, almost every village has children running over to tell their dreams: "I dreamt of a man in an old Daoist robe who handed me a small torch, saying it was 'my own,' and told me to hide it well."

The adults don't believe it, so they secretly guard the stove at night and actually see a green glow floating in the furnace; the temperature is not high, but it persists without fading.

Gradually, people begin to imitate this.

They no longer stick talismans, no longer set up memorial tablets, and no longer burn expensive incense candles.

They just follow the method he described: take the cold ash accumulated in the home, mix in some old soil from the bottom of the stove, put it into the furnace, flick water on it, and silently repeat the three phrases.

It is extremely simple, yet remarkably effective.

An old man pulls on his sleeve and asks: "Where... does this fire actually come from?"

Zhang Xuanyi looks at the rising morning light on the distant mountain ridge and says softly: "From the day you remembered to send a bowl of warm soup to a neighbor, it was planted. You thought you were doing good, but actually, you were planting fire."

The old man is stunned, and for a long time, his eyes are slightly red.

Meanwhile, in the high-rise buildings of a city thousands of miles away, Su Qingzhu is hunched over a desk deep in the archives of the Huaxia Metropolis Daily.

On the computer screen, monitoring data for "wild fire altars" from all over the country continues to refresh.

She discovers that after the "Broken Contract Array" was lifted, about sixty percent of the wild fire altars had briefly extinguished, with the flames completely disappearing for more than twelve hours.

But among them, thirty-seven locations automatically relit within three days, and the color of the flames changed from a blazing red to a calm, pale blue, with the fluctuation curve stable and no longer rising and falling violently with the emotions of the crowd.

She pulls up the backend records and compares the locations of these stabilized fire altars one by one—and is shocked to find that, without exception, they have all been registered in the "Ash Ledger" System for more than ninety days.

"It's not the strength of the Power Of Will that determines whether the fire can continue..." Her fingertips stop on the keyboard, her heartbeat suddenly accelerating. "It's the habit of Repay the Debt that forms a kind of collective tacit understanding."

Just like Repay the Debt, it isn't something you can redeem with a one-time lavish expenditure, but day after day, bowing your head and personally placing that pinch of cold ash into the furnace—this action itself becomes the ritual.

She suddenly remembers what Zhang Xuanyi once said: "Incense fire isn't burned; it's repaid."

In that instant, she seems to see the figures of countless ordinary people bending down in front of the stove, lighting up the earth like stars.

She opens a document and types out the title: "Fire Remembers Those Who Bow to Return Ash."

Outside the window, twilight gathers.

And in another quiet residence, the owner of a wealthy household who once hired someone to handle the cold ash is kneeling alone before a small fire altar in the courtyard.

He is wearing a plain robe, his expression solemn, and he slowly pours a small bowl of ash into the furnace, his movements as pious as a ritual.

The headlights of Su Qingzhu's car are approaching from afar.

She does not yet know that this man will fall silent for a long time after she asks her question, and finally say the words that will change everything—

"My son had a high fever the night before..." Su Qingzhu's pen tip pauses on the paper, the ink slightly smudging like an unshed tear.

She closes her notebook without playing back the recording—because she didn't dare press that button at all.

She is afraid that her voice would reveal her trembling, and afraid that the machine would record the noise of her faith collapsing and rebuilding.

The courtyard of the wealthy household is quiet enough to hear the faint sound of ash falling into the furnace.

The man is still kneeling, his hands on his knees, as if that soul-baring statement just now was merely the wind blowing through the bells on the eaves.

But Su Qingzhu knows that the pain and regret that flashed in his eyes in that instant were real.

It was not a performance, not an Epiphany, but a clarity after being slapped by fate.

"Is your son... better now?" She finally asks, her voice even hoarser than she expected.

The man nods, his Adam's apple moving: "The fever is gone, he broke out in a sweat, as if he had expelled all the fire-Qi he owed over the years." He smiles bitterly, "I used to think that burning incense was spending money to buy peace, and returning ash was just going through the motions. I hired someone to do it for peace of mind. But now I understand... Fire doesn't recognize money, and it doesn't recognize status; it only recognizes 'sincerity'."

Su Qingzhu rises to leave, but her steps are much heavier than when she arrived.

She walks through the long corridor and sees the small fire altar in the corner of the courtyard still burning quietly, the blue flame low and crouching, as soft as breathing.

She suddenly remembers the way Zhang Xuanyi looked when he was squatting in the mud, drawing the character 'Bathe' with a charred wooden stick—slouching, but with eyes hiding the light of a mountain fire about to start.

She smiles and almost cries at the same time.

So, freedom is not escaping, but facing it.

Night deepens, the mountain roads are like ink.

Zhang Xuanyi walks the journey home alone, his shoulders empty, the Myriad Laws Street Stall having long been packed away, and the System having fallen into silence.

But his steps are light, as if treading to some invisible rhythm.

He knows that something has changed.

It is not heaven and earth that have changed, but human hearts that have begun to light the fire themselves.

Suddenly, the ground under his feet grows warm.

His eyebrows lift slightly, and he stops.

It is not an illusion—the soil is faintly hot, as if a molten flow is slowly waking up underground.

He squats down, pushes aside layers of wet leaves and rotting soil, and his fingertips touch a very thin golden line, which is snaking out from the ground, crawling along the surface like a living snake, actually chasing his shadow!

"Oh?" He chuckles, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes, "You still remember the way?"

He takes out a shard of pottery from his bosom—that was left by the inverted clay pot, which once suppressed the source of a Power Of Will rampage.

It is now dilapidated and full of cracks, but it still retains a trace of ancient Restriction.

He calmly presses the pottery shard onto the golden line.

In an instant, the golden line stops as if encountering a natural enemy, trembling slightly in fear.

Then, it slowly twists and coils, as if possessing sentience, avoids the pottery shard, turns to another mountain road, and quietly hides in the darkness.

Zhang Xuanyi stands up, claps his hands, and a smile that is almost mischievous lifts the corners of his mouth: "Before, you sought me out, thinking I could lead you to power; now... I am letting you know who is the 'Way' in this world."

As the words fall, at the entrance of a distant village, the stove of a household suddenly lights up with a cluster of blue flame.

Silent and soundless, neither high nor hot, but jumping steadily, as if in response, or perhaps a greeting.

He looks at that tiny glimmer, his gaze deepening.

And at the same time as this blue flame ignites, thousands of miles away, deep in a narrow alley of an emerging town, the first wisp of source-less fire quietly appears in midair—

A faint blue glow, suspended without falling, not illuminating any faces, but reflecting the tears in the corners of the eyes of a child who has just woken from a dream.