179: Even if the scholar does not receive the talisman, the bottom of the pot can still connect to the earth veins.

Morning mist, like gauze, enveloped a fishing village in a corner of the South Sea.

The sea breeze, thick with the smell of salt and fish, blew in, and waves crashed against the reefs, breaking into white foam before receding, leaving behind a damp beach and scattered shells.

Zhang Xuanyi sat at the edge of the tide line, his pant legs rolled up to his calves, bare feet in the cool sand, holding a broken piece of pottery, teaching a few naked children to arrange a crooked circle.

“The fire must be stable on three legs, and the Qi must flow freely on all four sides,” he said in a low voice, as if talking to himself or reciting an incantation. “You see, three blue shells form the legs, one circle contains the Qi, a second circle nourishes the spirit, and a third—connects the pulse.”

The children didn’t understand, but they played earnestly.

A little girl dug out a groove with her finger, embedding the shells one by one, mumbling, “Three legs stable… four sides flowing…” Another boy simply lay on the ground, using a small stick to complete the lines, looking exactly like a sand table formation.

No one knew that this was merely a simplified “Stove Settling and Qi Guiding Formation,” simplified to its utmost.

Nor was it some profound talisman, or a golden light incantation; it merely hid the laws of earth vein circulation within the children’s doodles.

But after a night of sea breeze, as the fine sand shifted, those originally crooked patterns were quietly smoothed out, their arcs natural, their nodes precise, as if the earth itself had recognized a long-lost rhythm.

Su Qingzhu came ashore at this time.

She stepped from a swaying fishing boat onto the shallow beach, her reporter’s bag heavy on her shoulder, clutching an encrypted telegram that had just leaked from internal channels.

The corner of the paper was already wrinkled from the seawater, but the headline was still clearly visible:

“Tianshi Mansion Officially Launches ‘Hundred Stoves Project’: Three Hundred Abandoned Kitchens Converted into Mutual Aid Stoves, Guiding Votive Power to Flow, Protecting Earth Vein Tranquility.”

Below it, a quote from an article she had published five days earlier was cited: “True protection is someone willing to cook an extra pot of porridge on the coldest night.”

She had intended to immediately find Zhang Xuanyi and ask him his thoughts on this “fireworks revolution” he had ignited—after all, the core concept of this plan was almost verbatim what he had casually said while squatting in front of ruins, cooking porridge.

But as she passed through the low-lying cluster of fishing houses, she saw the Daoist priest, rumored to be able to alter fate and destiny, sitting on a small stool in front of Old Fisherman Chen’s house, head bent, threading a needle and mending a fishing net that was beyond repair.

“My son has been working outside for five years and hasn’t returned…” Old Man Chen smoked his pipe, his eyes cloudy amidst the swirling smoke. “Last night I dreamed our stove was smoking, the firebox was glowing red, and the smell of food was delicious. You say, does this mean he’s coming back?”

Zhang Xuanyi’s fingers paused, the needle tip picking up a thin hemp thread, gently tying a knot.

He looked up and smiled, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes: “Dreams are false, but your longing for him is real—with that longing, the fire won’t go out.”

Su Qingzhu stood at the alley entrance, neither approaching nor speaking.

She watched his back, his worn Daoist robe faded white, the cuffs frayed, but his spine was ramrod straight, like an iron nail driven into the earth, silently, yet supporting the entire collapsing sky.

That night, a storm suddenly arrived.

First, muffled thunder rolled across the sea, followed by a fierce wind tearing through the clouds, and torrential rain poured down.

Seawater surged in, instantly flooding several low-lying houses, short-circuiting the electricity, plunging everything into darkness.

Villagers panicked, rushing towards the ancestral hall at the village entrance.

It was on higher ground, historically a place of refuge.

But when they pushed open the door, they found the usually empty kitchen lit by a faint candlelight.

Dry firewood was neatly stacked in the corner, rice bags arranged in a square, the stove covered with waterproof cloth, still retaining residual warmth inside.

Well water had already been drawn, and a large pot of ginger-sugar brown rice porridge was bubbling, its steam filling the entire hall.

Zhang Xuanyi squatted in front of the stove, adding firewood without looking up: “Come in and sit down, take off your wet clothes, and have something hot to drink.”

No one asked when he had prepared it, nor where these supplies came from.

Children gathered around to help him stir the porridge, women spontaneously distributed bowls and chopsticks, and men went to check the drainage ditches.

Amidst the chaos, a strange order was quietly forming.

Su Qingzhu sat in a corner, holding a bowl of porridge, watching his profile in the dim lamplight.

The flickering firelight illuminated the tranquility in his brows, and that hint of imperceptible fatigue.

Just as everyone sat together warming themselves and conversing in low voices, Zhang Xuanyi discreetly mixed the remaining ash from his bowl with a handful of coarse sea salt and sprinkled it on the muddy ground outside the threshold.

No one noticed—it was the ash from the last photocopy yellow paper after it had burned out, plus a trace amount of crystals scraped from the bottom of the Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid bottle.

Its efficacy had long since diminished to almost nothing, but in this extreme environment, it could still briefly awaken the dormant “collective memory resonance” in the soil.

At that moment, the crying children quieted, the trembling old people stopped their twitching, and even the most anxious young people slowly closed their mouths, listening only to the wind and rain beating against the windows, and the soft bubbling of the remaining pot.

Their hearts settled.

Three days later, in the early morning, the wind and rain ceased.

The fishing village regained its vitality, and cooking smoke rose once more.

People began to clear mud, repair houses, and talk about the life-saving porridge from last night.

Zhang Xuanyi walked alone to the seashore, his bare feet treading on the wet sand, gazing at the sea, calm as a mirror.

Suddenly, an old scar on his palm began to burn without warning—it was the brand left three years ago when he touched the “Sea-Land Interconnected Vein Map” in the Mount Longhu grotto.

Now, the pain was like needle pricks piercing his bones, and it seemed as if a low-frequency vibration emanated from deep within the earth, climbing up through the soles of his feet.

He slowly lowered his head, looking at the sand beneath his feet.

The sand patterns stilled for a moment.

Immediately, from beneath the distant sea level, came a dull tremor, like a giant beast turning over, or the first crack opening in the earth.

His pupils contracted slightly.

The wind suddenly stopped. Chapter 180: Stove Fire Unextinguished, Human Voices Resound

The tremor beneath the sea did not stop but sank into deeper geological folds, like a hibernating giant beast slowly adjusting its breath.

The brand on Zhang Xuanyi’s palm was still burning, throbbing like a pulse, transmitting a warning from deep within the earth’s core—the sea-land interconnected veins were shifting.

This was not a natural earthquake, but a “dislocation” of the spiritual energy crust.

Once it completely fractured, the cultivators within a hundred li of the South Sea coast would fall into Qi instability, ranging from cultivation deviation to bursting and dying.

Even more terrifying, ancient remnants sleeping in the deep-sea rifts might return to the human world by leveraging the chaotic Qi.

He closed his eyes, calculating the opportune time and place.

In fact, he had long been prepared.

For days, the three hundred households of the fishing village had cooked hot meals together and shared a single pot of porridge, already accumulating an invisible yet resilient “fireworks momentum”—that was the aggregation of the simplest human desires: to eat their fill, to be reunited, to have their loved ones safe.

If he were to activate this votive power now, with the reverse fate altering compass as a guide, it might not be impossible to forcibly recalibrate the earth vein nodes.

But he didn’t do that.

Because it was too smooth.

The more perfect a solution, the more likely it was to incur the backlash of the laws of heaven and earth.

He had once seen his master suppress a landslide with a talisman array, only for a plague to sweep through the entire town three years later—Heaven’s Dao never accepted favors for free.

“Why not… stir things up a bit,” he suddenly smiled, his lips curving into his usual devil-may-care expression.

He stood up, brushed the sand from his Daoist robe, and strode towards the village ancestral hall.

“Uncle! Children!” His voice was clear, penetrating the morning mist, “Last night we cooked a life-saving pot of porridge, today, shall we hold a stove-thanking ceremony? Our ancestors said the Stove God loves a lively scene; if it’s too quiet, he holds a grudge!”

The villagers exchanged glances.

“Do we have to sing? Bang pots and bowls?” someone hesitated.

“Of course!” Zhang Xuanyi grinned, “The worse it sounds, the better! The noisier, the better! Hopefully, we’ll even wake up the Dragon King of the Sea!”

And so, on a morning when the wind and rain had just ceased, and the landscape was ravaged, an extremely absurd “stove-thanking ceremony” unfolded in the fishing village.

Old people tremblingly wrote “Laba porridge,” the taste his deceased wife cooked every year; children crookedly drew a dumpling, saying Dad promised to come home for New Year to eat it; young men gritted their teeth and wrote “braised pork,” the last dish his mother ever cooked… Each slip of paper was thrown into the bottom of the stove, ignited, turning to ash and mixing with the soot at the bottom of the pot.

Then—

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Iron basins were struck, broken gongs were swung, erhu played tunes like pigs being slaughtered, children screamed, old people howled dryly, and women cried and laughed as they sang childhood nursery rhymes.

There was no rhythm, no melody, only the most primal emotional release, converging into a chaotic yet fervent “human clamor stream.”

Zhang Xuanyi stood in the center of the crowd, eyes closed in concentration.

He felt it.

That earth vein, on the verge of fracturing, under the impact of this chaotic noise, was suddenly plucked like a string, emitting a low, inaudible “hum.”

It wasn’t repair, it wasn’t connection, but breaking stillness with chaos, disturbing stability with noise!

Just like two clashing torrents that were about to burst their banks, but were deflected by a sudden mudslide—the deviation, though small, was enough to create a glimmer of hope in a dead end.

Deep beneath the earth, that restless energy flow paused slightly, then took an almost impossible arc, reconnecting with the main vein with a faint link.

Though like a wisp of silk, it was not broken.

It was done.

He opened his eyes, a trace of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth—forcibly guiding collective emotions to counter the earth vein had damaged his foundation.

But he didn’t care.

True Daoist magic was never in golden light incantations, but in this pot of slightly burnt brown rice porridge; it was not in Tianshi talismans, but in the uninhibited roars of these people.

The wind and rain ceased, and the morning sun rose.

On the beach, the residual stove ash from last night was swept away by the tide, leaving only a simple stove made of charred stones in a circle.

Someone, using coral fragments, carved four words nearby:

“Your turn to make fire.”

Zhang Xuanyi stood for a long time, then took out the unopened golden light talisman from his Pregnant—the Tianshi Mansion Consecration Order, a symbol of power and orthodox identity.

He gently placed it on the hearthstone.

The sunlight fell, and the talisman paper ignited without fire, turning into an extremely faint golden glow, like threads, seeping into the earth.

This was not a response, but a mutual confirmation:

He did not join the system, but he did not reject its good deeds;

He did not perform magic, yet he was everywhere magic.

And behind the distant reef, Su Qingzhu pressed the shutter.

In the lens, that wisp of golden light overlapped with the rising sun, as if some ancient covenant was being rewritten in the human world.