184: Guiding the Breath Back to the Heart

The stream water was clear and cold, reflecting Zhang Xuanyi's blurry silhouette.

He crouched down and cupped a handful of water to wash his face; the icy touch refreshed his spirit.

He did not notice that when the seventeen Ash-Returning Points across the vast land of China resonated last night, an invisible and intangible "Will Foundation Flow" had, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, traced back to its source and silently branded a faint green mark on the Yongquan acupoint at the soles of his feet.

This green mark was not true Qi, nor was it any remnant of power; it was more like a mark, a collective memory formed by the thousands of ignited stove fires and warmed hearts, an instinctive recognition of the "source."

Just as he was about to stand up, the corner of his eye caught a strange sight.

In the originally clear stream, a school of finger-sized stream fish had gathered at some point; they were not afraid of people, but instead affectionately circled his fingertips submerged in the water, gently pecking and kissing them, as if welcoming an old friend reunited after a long separation.

Zhang Xuanyi was slightly stunned, but then he felt relieved.

He had closed his Myriad Laws Street Stall, withdrawn from the System, and dispersed his earth-shattering cultivation, yet these mountains, these waters, and these plants and creatures seemed to remember his original aura better than humans did.

The mountain was still the same mountain, but it no longer needed him to guard it.

Yet human hearts seemed to still have a thread of obsession that had not been severed.

He shook his head and smiled, flicked the water droplets off his hands, and followed the stream toward the bustling town ten miles away outside the mountains.

The bustle of the morning market came rushing toward him like a pot of boiling water.

Zhang Xuanyi's footsteps stopped in front of a porridge stall.

The stall owner was a plump auntie in her fifties, who was cooking sweet potato rice porridge in an old, shiny iron pot; the chipped edges of the pot spoke of the traces of time.

The wooden spoon in her hand stirred unhurriedly, and she hummed a tuneless little song.

It was an ordinary scene, yet Zhang Xuanyi's gaze fell upon the bottom of the pot.

Where the firewood licked the blackened surface, a dark green stove fire pattern appeared and disappeared, moving slightly like a living thing as the rice porridge in the pot rolled.

The auntie naturally did not understand anything about "Will Foundation Patterns"; she only knew that her daughter had returned after learning the craft from a place in the city called the "Communal Cooking Workshop" and had mysteriously told her: "Mom, the fire must burn slowly, and the heart must be settled; only then will the porridge have a human touch." She tried it, and hey, the porridge she cooked was indeed more fragrant and thicker than before.

Several white-haired old men sat around on small stools holding bowls; one of them slurped the scalding rice porridge, smacked his lips, and said: "Auntie Liu, your porridge is becoming more and more authentic. It's strange to say, but I had a dream last night. I dreamed of a young Daoist in a blue cloth jacket who was also serving porridge here. I couldn't see what he looked like, but when he stirred the pot with his spoon, wow, the whole pot of porridge seemed to come alive, glowing with golden light!"

"Get lost, Old Li!" Auntie Liu was amused and scolded with a laugh, "You must be delirious from gluttony, drinking porridge even in your dreams!"

Before the words faded, three crisp "clang! clang! clang!" sounds were heard.

The heavy iron pot lid seemed to be pushed by the heat inside the pot, and it lightly jumped three times on its own.

A rich rice fragrance mixed with the sweet, sticky scent of sweet potatoes turned into a white whirlwind that shot up into the sky, only to be dispersed by the noise of the morning market.

This was the natural manifestation of one of the forms in the ancient method "Nine Steps to Settling the Stove" — "Guiding Breath Back to the Stove."

When the spirituality of the stove fire and the Origin Qi of the food merged perfectly, such a strange phenomenon would occur.

Everyone present was stunned, except for Old Li who had the dream, who had a smug expression on his face that said, "Didn't I tell you?"

Zhang Xuanyi stood outside the crowd, a helpless yet gratified smile on his face.

He did not explain, just watched quietly.

He saw that after the diners' surprise, they drank the porridge with even more relish, and Auntie Liu's shouting became even louder.

This was enough.

He turned to leave, his gaze sweeping over the wall of the small restaurant next door, where a faded and yellowed notice was posted.

That was a bounty order issued three years ago by the then-thriving Under Heaven Society, wanting the mysterious owner of the "Myriad Laws Street Stall," with a terrifyingly high bounty.

But now, this notice that had once driven countless superhumans crazy had its top half torn off to start a fire, and its bottom half cut into a circle, placed under Auntie Liu's pot lid to prevent steam from leaking.

The majesty of a generation's hero could not, after all, withstand a wisp of cooking smoke in an ordinary alley.

He shook his head and laughed, walking into the grocery store next door.

"Boss lady, a bag of salt, please."

"Coming right up."

The boss lady was a crisp and efficient middle-aged woman who turned to get the salt from the shelf.

Zhang Xuanyi fished a coin out of his pocket and gently placed it on the counter.

It was a spirit coin, its edges smoothed from being rubbed, the very first spirit coin rewarded by the System when he set up his Myriad Laws Street Stall and sold his first piece of photocopy yellow paper.

He did not use it to pay; it was more like a "fulfillment of a vow."

When the boss lady returned with the salt wrapped in a paper bag, Zhang Xuanyi had already walked far away.

She picked up the salt bag and only then noticed the antique-looking coin on the counter.

"Huh? This person didn't take their change..." Just as she was about to chase after him, she found the spirit coin lying quietly on a pinch of dust mixed with wood ash that had appeared from nowhere.

And right where the gray soil and the coin touched, a small patch of tender green moss had grown out of thin air; when touched, it even carried a hint of warm comfort.

The boss lady was stunned; although she did not know what this was, she instinctively felt that it was extraordinary.

She carefully picked up the spirit coin with the warm moss along with the gray soil, thought for a moment, and instead of putting it into the cash box, she respectfully placed it in the corner of her kitchen stove.

It was as if she were worshipping a household god whose name she could not name, but who could bless her family with health and peace.

In the afternoon, Zhang Xuanyi was walking along the ancient forest path connecting the town to the deep mountains when he suddenly felt the sound of light, fragmented footsteps behind him.

He looked back, but the forest was deep and dense, empty of people, with only a few fallen leaves rustling in the wind.

The corner of his mouth curled up, and he continued on his way, appearing unmoved.

Until he reached a broken bridge, he flashed his figure and quietly hid behind a huge rock.

Sure enough, a moment later, two young men in their early twenties came panting in pursuit.

One of them held up a mobile phone, comparing it with a blurry old photo, while the other looked around.

"It can't be wrong, this is the road! The post online said that the last time the 'stall owner' was sighted was on this ancient path in the back ridge of Mount Longhu!" The young man holding the phone whispered excitedly.

The other one was a bit discouraged: "But I asked, and Mount Longhu withdrew all the guarding Disciples a few years ago, saying 'Dao follows nature, no need for people to guard it.' Could this news be fake? We've been chasing for three days."

Zhang Xuanyi, behind the rock, listened to their conversation and took out the last stove structure diagram he had drawn by hand from the coarse cloth bag on his back, which was embroidered with a "stove flower pattern."

He carefully rolled up the diagram, stuffed it into an inconspicuous tree hole by the side of the road, and then casually picked up a pebble and drew a crooked arrow in the mud, pointing to another fork in the road in the southeast direction.

After doing all this, his figure flickered and he disappeared into the depths of the dense forest.

Not long after, the two young men indeed found this place.

"Look! What is this?" They discovered the diagram in the tree hole, unfolded it, and were immediately overjoyed, "My God! Is this a hand-drawn Talisman diagram? No, it looks like the structure of some Magical Artifact... Look at this style, this brushwork! It must be a clue left by him!"

"And this arrow! He must have gone that way!"

The two treated it like a treasure, their spirits soared, and without a shred of doubt, they happily followed the wrong guidance left by Zhang Xuanyi and ran wildly toward the southeast, never looking back.

Twilight gathered, and a thin layer of mist rose on the river surface.

Zhang Xuanyi sat alone on the stone steps of a long-abandoned ferry crossing, watching the slowly flowing river water.

He took the tattered ledger out of his cloth bag and turned to the last page, which was still blank.

He had wanted to write something here to summarize this strange journey of his.

But when he raised his pen and hovered it over the paper, he couldn't write a single word after all.

All the past events were like smoke, like flowing water; since they had already flowed by, why remember them?

A river breeze blew, rustling the ledger open automatically, and a long-dried "heart-burning stamen" petal tucked between the pages was rolled up by the wind, spinning as it drifted down onto the river surface.

Just at the moment the petal touched the water's surface, an incredible scene occurred.

The tiny petal was like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, sending out a circle of invisible ripples.

On the river in the distance, on several fishing boats, inside the kitchens where lights were on, the small stoves all lit up slightly in unison, their flames jumping up an inch.

Zhang Xuanyi watched this scene and completely let go of the pen in his hand, as well as everything in his heart.

But he, or rather the Dao he had ignited, had never truly been lost.

Just like the fire of this world, it never asks for the name of the firewood, only recognizing who is willing to breathe that warm breath for it.

He closed the ledger, placed it casually on the stone steps, and stood up to walk along the riverbank, slowly walking into the increasingly heavy night, his figure gradually merging with the mountains and waters, becoming indistinguishable.

And just as he completely disappeared into this world, in a bustling city thousands of miles away, the engine of a hard-core off-road vehicle was suddenly ignited in the silence before dawn.

Two bright headlights pierced through the final darkness, and without the slightest hesitation, it firmly turned around and sped toward the endless mountains in the southwest.