One Person: I, the Dragon Tiger Stall King! I Won!

140: Burn away obsessions and see the true selfJust past midnight, the wind deep within Mount Longhu suddenly stopped.

The Fire-Locking Cliff resembled a giant, inverted bell, wedged pitch-black between the cracks of heaven and earth.

The great Seal that had shaken the Nine Provinces three hundred years ago was buried right here—a bronze pillar covered from top to bottom with Prison-Suppressing Talismanic Incantation, deeply inserted into the earth’s veins, entwined with unextinguished dark red threads of fire, still pulsating slightly like the blood vessels of a sleeping giant beast.

Zhang Xuanyi stood at the edge of the pit, moonlight slanting onto his worn Daoist robe.

He carried no sword, nor had he drawn any Talisman; he merely took a yellowed, hand-copied book from his bosom: ”Record of Freedom and Ease”.

The pages were already worn, the corners curled, and the handwriting was taught to him stroke by stroke by the Master, with the last line of ink still fresh: ”If the fire is reborn, then I am reborn.”

He had once not understood its meaning.

Back then, before going into seclusion, the Master handed the book to him and said: ”When you feel it is time to burn it, then burn it.”

He asked why.

The Master smiled without answering, merely patted the shoulder, turned, and walked into the mist, never looking back.

Over these years, he had set up a Myriad Laws Street Stall, sold Talisman water, helped the Old Ancestor of Quanxing change his fate, and temporarily imparted Eight Extremities Fist Fist Intent to big shots of the Under Heaven Society, stirring up winds and clouds with just a tattered street stall.

Yet whenever the night was deep and quiet, he would always take out this book, looking through it page by page, as if he could still hear that voice chattering in his ear: ”The Dao follows nature; freedom and ease are paramount.”

But in this world, who can truly be free and unfettered?

Until that night, when the kitchen fires of the whole village shone in unison, golden flames like stars, neither warm nor scorching; until Su Qingzhu cut out ”Fire Remembers,” making thousands sit in a circle whispering, with tears and smiles; until the handle of the Big Dipper shifted, pointing to this forgotten Forbidden Ground—

And the one who guards the fire should let go.

”Master,” he said in a low voice, ”I am not here to save you.”

The wind brushed past his ears, carrying a hint of scorched scent.

He opened the last page, stared for a long time, then suddenly smiled: ”You once said that the most disobedient one is the true successor.”

As the words fell, his hand loosened.

”Record of Freedom and Ease” fluttered down.

The threads of fire suddenly contracted, as if encountering a natural enemy, retreating in droves.

The bronze pillar trembled violently, emitting a low, whimpering sound, as if pleading, warning, and resisting this destined fate.

But that book had already fallen into the center of the pit, and the moment the pages touched the first wisp of lingering fire, it exploded into flames!

It was not black smoke, nor was it raging fire.

It was pure golden flame.

Scorching but not hot, dazzling but not blinding, it rose like a swimming Dragon spiraling straight up, tearing through the thick clouds, actually illuminating the entire night sky into an amber color.

In the firelight, a phantom slowly emerged—wide sleeves and long robes, hair and beard slightly white; it was exactly the old headmaster of the Tianshi Mansion who had not appeared for thirty years.

He looked at Zhang Xuanyi, his lips moving slightly.

No one heard a sound.

But Zhang Xuanyi understood.

He was smiling.

He said: ”Good child, you are finally disobedient.”

The next instant, the phantom dissipated, the golden flames converged, turning into specks of stardust falling into the abyss.

The Talismanic Incantation on the bronze pillar dimmed one by one, cracked with fine lines, and finally, with a ”click,” snapped in the middle.

The Seal was broken.

Outside the mountain, thunder rolled faintly.

And on a city balcony a thousand miles away, Su Qingzhu was playing ”Fire Remembers” for the last time.

The faint light of the projector reflected on her face, the image freezing on the frame where her father’s police badge shone.

She stared at it for a long time, then suddenly got up, walked to the corner of the balcony, and picked up a pottery jar.

She put the hard drive into the jar, covered it with soil, and buried it under the roots of the old locust tree.

The wind blew the hem of her clothes.

She looked back at the pitch-black screen and said softly: ”I used to want the world to see the truth, but now I just want the truth to grow up on its own.”

The phone rang.

The editor-in-chief’s urgent voice came through: ”Many media outlets want to buy the copyright! The bid has already reached seven figures! What is your reply?”

She was silent for two seconds and said: ”It does not belong to anyone.”

After hanging up, she looked up at the starry sky and found that the Big Dipper was exceptionally bright tonight, the handle pointing directly to the southeast.

At the same moment, at the end of the Hexi Corridor, sandstorms filled the sky.

Cui Wujiu stood on the last remnant of the ancient post road, behind him were the remains of civilization swallowed by the wind and sand.

He took off the ash coat that had been with him for ten years, spread it on the ground, and took out the only remaining fragments of the fire crystal core from his bosom—this was the core of the ”Fire Patrol Order” he had once used to suppress wild fires among the people, now broken into three pieces.

He looked down at it with calm eyes.

”We always think fire needs to be controlled,” he murmured, ”actually, it is we who need to be purified by fire.”

The wind rose.

The hem of his clothes fluttered, the broken crystals rose with the sand, disappearing into the vastness like stardust.

He no longer looked back and stepped into the center of the storm.

Three days later, herdsmen discovered a miracle on the edge of the sandstorm: warm water gushed from a spring that had been dry for thirty years, and hot tears slid from the corners of the eyes of a camel that had frozen to death.

Some said they saw a red figure walking on the wind, feet not touching the dust, resembling the traces of the legendary Fire God.

From then on, every spring equinox, children would always find a row of footprints on the highest sand dune, shallow, extending all the way to the horizon, as if someone had just walked by.

When Zhang Xuanyi left the Fire-Locking Cliff, the sky was already showing the white of a fish’s belly.

He did not look back.

The mountain behind him vibrated faintly, the stone tablets spontaneously combusted, and the ashes rose with the wind like a silent snow.

He walked slowly down the old steps, his Daoist robe stained with dust, but his steps were unprecedentedly light.

The System interface had long since disappeared—ever since he burned the ”Record of Freedom and Ease,” the Myriad Laws Street Stall no longer existed.

Those rare treasures, spirit coins, missions... all had become a part of this prairie fire.

That was fine.

Anyway, he never thought about attaining the Dao by relying on the System.

It was just that as he walked, he suddenly felt hungry.

The mountain wind brought a sweet fragrance, the scent of caramel mixed with earth, making one’s mouth water.

At the corner ahead, there was the faint sound of children laughing.

And an old person’s voice, kind and hoarse: ”Come, eat while it’s hot.”

Just past midnight, the wind deep within Mount Longhu suddenly stopped.

But the human world outside the mountain began to move.

The road for Zhang Xuanyi to go down the mountain was not long, but every step felt like treading in the cracks of time.

The vibration of the Fire-Locking Cliff behind him gradually faded, heaven and earth returned to silence, but the fire in his heart was clearer than ever.

There were no System notification sounds, no mission countdowns, not even a trace of Qi flow fluctuation—but he knew that some things had completely changed.

Turning past a mountain ridge, the morning mist had not yet dispersed when a wisp of sweet fragrance suddenly drilled into his nostrils.

Caramel, earth, charcoal fire... and a bit of indescribable divine aura.

He looked up and saw a dilapidated small temple standing by the road, with a wooden plaque hanging crookedly on the lintel, the handwriting eroded by wind and rain until it was blurry, with three faint traces vaguely discernible: ”Self-Combustion Hall.”

In the wild mountains, how could there be a Hall?

What was even stranger was that a group of children were gathered in front of the hall, chattering as they roasted sweet potatoes around a fire.

The fire was not red or orange, but a faint gold, the flame core like liquid, flowing quietly, as if it were not burning, but breathing.

A blind old grandmother sat on the threshold, her gray hair tied up with a bamboo hairpin, her face lined with wrinkles, but she wore a peaceful smile.

Her ears moved slightly, and she suddenly beckoned in the direction of Zhang Xuanyi: ”Come, eat while it’s hot.”

The children turned their heads and looked over in unison.

A little girl skipped forward and handed him a sweet potato that had just been turned over, its skin charred black, amber syrup oozing from the cracks, and in the swirling heat, two ancient Seal script characters naturally cracked on the skin—Freedom and Ease.

Zhang Xuanyi was stunned.

This was not a Talisman, not a Formation, and not a product of the System.

This was fire... words written by itself.

He took it, his fingertips trembling slightly.

He took a bite, the sweet and glutinous taste going straight to his heart and spleen, and a warm current traveled along his Meridians, actually causing the remaining Qi in his body to resonate slightly.

In that instant, he seemed to hear the Master’s voice again: ”Fire is the manifestation of the Dao; burn away obsessions, and only then will you see the true self.”

”Uncle Zhang,” the little girl asked, looking up, ”will you come back in the future?”

He looked down at her and smiled, his eyes gentle but not lingering: ”I will not come back.”

He paused, then raised his hand and pointed to the golden flame, ”But the fire will come to find you.”

After speaking, he turned and walked to the wall, picked up half a piece of charcoal, and wrote a line on the mottled mud wall:

Where the Master resides, the fire goes.

The ink was not yet dry when golden threads suddenly drilled out from the cracks in the wall, winding up like living things, gently rolling up, and swallowing the line of words entirely.

The flames leaped silently, then hid into the stone cracks, as if they had never appeared.

He did not linger and walked on with his hands behind his back.

The sky was already showing the white of a fish’s belly, the plants on both sides of the mountain road were covered in dew, and birds were beginning to chirp.

But just in this moment of tranquility—

An invisible loud noise, not coming from his ears, but striking directly at his soul.

Zhang Xuanyi paused his steps and looked back sharply.

He saw that in the direction of the ancestral hall of Mount Longhu, that ”Ever-Bright Lamp” that had not been extinguished for a thousand years, originally deep blue like a cold star, suddenly turned golden!

The radiance surged, seemingly containing ten thousand jun of power, and in an instant it exploded—turning into thousands of golden light spots, falling like a star shower onto the peaks, each grain carrying a faint bell chime, falling into the forests, by the streams, and on the eaves of ancient pagodas, quietly falling asleep.

At the same time, all over the world—

The shaman on the Siberian snowfield suddenly woke up, seeing the pattern of Mount Longhu appear in the bonfire;

The old Daoist priest in seclusion on an isolated island in the East China Sea opened his eyes, the tortoise shell in his hand spontaneously combusting without fire;

In an underground boxing ring in New York, a mixed-race inhuman was punching his opponent violently when he suddenly knelt on both knees, tears streaming down his face, murmuring: ”I heard the bell... the bell from the East.”

And in the deepest part of the Tianshi Mansion, in front of the stele of the names of past Tianshi, flames were slowly spreading from the edges.

One name after another was swallowed by the golden flames, turning into nothingness.

Only the last column—the three characters ”Zhang Xuanyi”—remained as solid as a rock, immune to the raging fire.

Until the first ray of the morning sun pierced through the sea of clouds and shone on the top of the stele.

The flames suddenly leaped up lightly, as if they had consciousness, gently rolling up the three characters, carrying them into the air, flying into the vast sea of clouds, heading towards the unknown.

The mountain wind blew, and the stele finally became blank.

As if no one had ever reached the summit, and no one had ever attained the Dao.

But at this very moment, as Zhang Xuanyi had just walked to the mid-mountain pavilion, he suddenly felt heaven and earth go silent.

At the corner of the mountain road ahead, shadows flickered, and footsteps could already be heard coming.