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

147: We finally learned to waitThe morning mist, like gauze, shrouded the market at the foot of Mount Longhu.

The cries of vendors rose and fell, dough sticks crackled in the frying pans, and white steam billowed into the sky whenever a steamer was lifted.

The crowd surged, footsteps crushing fallen leaves, the clamor carrying the most grounded warmth of the mortal world.

Yet, in a corner of the market, a bamboo basket was turned upside down, and gray-black powder lay quietly in a burlap sack. Beside it stood a crooked wooden sign with sloppy but striking handwriting:

”Take it for free, but don’t ask about its origin.”

No one knew who had set up this stall.

Nor did anyone recognize the young man leaning against the old locust tree—Zhang Xuanyi.

He wore a faded Daoist robe with frayed cuffs and an empty cloth bag hanging at his waist. His gaze lazily swept across the crowd, like someone watching a play that had nothing to do with him.

Yet deep within those eyes, a fire that had been burning for three years without extinguishing was hidden.

At first, no one believed it.

”Free? Who are you trying to fool!”

An auntie selling roasted sweet potatoes pursed her lips as she walked by, but was tugged back by a little girl behind her: ”Mom, look at that bag... is it smoking?”

Everyone looked closely—

From that bag of gray powder, a faint golden light was actually seeping out from the opening, flickering like breathing, as if it weren’t dust inside, but some kind of sleeping living thing.

Someone tentatively stepped forward and grabbed a handful; it felt warm to the touch, and their palm tingled slightly, as if their Meridians had been brushed by a spring breeze.

”Hey? The issue I had with my Qi circulation just now has suddenly cleared up!”

”My chronic leg pain, why isn’t it aching anymore?”

”My child wouldn’t stop crying last night, but after feeding them some water with this ash, they slept like a little angel!”

Rumors spread like wildfire, instantly igniting the entire scene.

People swarmed in, scrambling, bidding, and pushing. Some even pulled out their phones to livestream: ”Family! Mount Longhu divine ash! Ancestral secret recipe! Free for those destined! Come and grab it now!”

Zhang Xuanyi simply leaned against the tree, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, neither explaining nor stopping them.

That was the first spark ignited by the Myriad Laws Street Stall in three years, the embers of the Talisman burning on the photocopy yellow paper, the traces of Qi from the fist soul candy melting into flesh and blood, the stardust scattered when the reverse fate altering compass reversed destiny—it was the hope that countless people had held and then released, the light seen by countless desperate souls when they turned back.

It belonged to no one, yet it could ignite everyone.

The last bag of ash was snatched away, and the bamboo basket was empty.

He bent down to pick it up and turned to walk toward the mountain stream.

The stream was clear, reflecting his blurry silhouette.

He tossed the bamboo basket into the water, his movements as light as letting go of the past.

In an instant—

The water surface turned golden!

A thread of gold, as thin as gossamer, split from the bottom of the basket and sped away along the current, like a Dragon entering a river, winding for over ten miles.

Wherever it passed, the stoves in the villages along the banks ignited without fire, the firewood bursting into golden flames that didn’t burn, but were as warm as the spring sun.

Farm women gasped in surprise, children clapped their hands, and the elderly knelt to burn incense, calling it an auspicious omen from heaven.

A toddler in split-crotch pants chased after him, looked up, and asked: ”Uncle, did the fire come from you? Where are you going?”

Zhang Xuanyi squatted down and tapped his fingertip on the water’s surface.

In the reflection, golden veins pulsed within the ripples, like living Meridians, quietly weaving into the Bloodline of the earth.

”Look,” he chuckled, ”the fire is already teaching you.”

The child looked at the water, bewildered, then suddenly grinned: ”It says... it wants to keep burning forever.”

Zhang Xuanyi nodded, stood up, brushed off the hem of his robe, and walked into the mountain forest without looking back.

Meanwhile, a city a thousand miles away did not sleep through the night.

Su Qingzhu sat in front of the computer, her fingertip hovering over the ”Publish” button, unable to press it for a long time.

On the screen was the final post of the chronicles of vows:

I will no longer write stories of fire, because I have become its punctuation.

She pressed Enter.

The official account was permanently closed.

Outside the window, the night was thick. She brought out a box of yellowed interview notes—those pages that had once recorded the Quanxing riots, the conspiracies of the Under Heaven Society, and the slaughter of superhumans, every page soaked in blood and mystery.

She returned to her old family home and threw them all into the stove.

Flames rose, intertwined with deep gold.

Strangely, the ashes did not scatter but instead slowly arranged themselves in the air into an ancient seal script symbol—the complete pattern of the Xiaoyao Token, which lasted for seven seconds before dissolving into the wind.

She closed her eyes and heard her father’s voice passing through twenty years of time: ”Sister, you said the lamp must be lit for others to see...”

The next morning, she found that wandering boy near the substation.

The boy was thin and frail, but his eyes were startlingly bright.

She squatted down, opened an old book, and pointed to the words of the first lesson:

”Light must shine into the darkness.”

The boy frowned: ”Why not take a picture? Didn’t you always carry a camera before?”

Su Qingzhu shook her head and gently held his hand: ”Some things, when remembered in the heart, will never be extinguished.”

At the same moment, in an East Sea fishing village.

A dilapidated fishing boat lay quietly at the pier, its hull mottled and the keel full of cracks, waiting to be dismantled for firewood.

An old fisherman finished applying the last coat of paint and muttered: ”This wood is strange; why does it feel a bit hot to the touch?”

No one noticed that embedded in the gap of the keel at the bottom of the boat was a rusty metal fragment, its edge engraved with half a blurry inscription:

”Fire moves without trace, returning to heaven and earth.”

On the night of the full moon, a storm struck the sea, with monstrous waves.

The fishing boat was forced to set sail and became separated from the other vessels.

Gale winds tore the sails, lightning split the sky, and the crew knelt, weeping in pain.

Just then—

At the top of the mast, a cluster of golden flames ignited silently.

It did not flicker or extinguish, like a star falling, illuminating the entire sea area.

The captain steered with tears in his eyes, following the light, and actually passed through the storm safely.

And deep on the seabed, golden threads slowly seeped from the cracks in the keel, surging with the ocean currents, quietly connecting ancient volcanic craters, sunken ruins, and ley line nodes... like a sleeping Fire Dragon that had opened its eyes once again.

There is no concept of time in the mountains.

Seven days later, in front of the ruins of the ancestral hall on Mount Longhu, shrouded in clouds and mist, fallen leaves had piled up a foot deep.

A figure sat cross-legged beneath the giant bronze pillar, his robes stained with dew, his face calm.

He took a tattered strip of cloth from his bosom; it was dim and lusterless, with only a single thread of gold remaining wrapped around his finger.

The wind stopped, leaves fell, and the world was silent.

He raised his hand and gently wrapped that golden thread around the bronze pillar.

The earth—

Trembled suddenly. The moment the earth trembled, the thousand peaks of Mount Longhu rang in unison, and a hundred streams flowed backward.

The giant bronze pillar roared to life, not burning, but pulsating—like the heart of an ancient beast Awakening. Every beat set off an invisible wave of Qi, shaking the fallen leaves three feet into the air, where they hovered slowly, as if time were holding its breath at this moment.

That thread of gold had long since vanished, but billions of golden threads came breaking through the air from all directions, tearing through clouds, piercing through the earth’s veins, surging from the most inconspicuous corners of the mortal world:

A touch of vermilion flame on a child’s doodle suddenly glowed, and warmth seeped from the back of the paper;

The accumulated ash in an old man’s pipe spun without wind, a spark leaped out, turning into a thin line pointing straight to the southwest;

The cooled slag from a factory welding torch suddenly became hot, melting into a golden teardrop that rolled along the tracks toward the deep mountains;

The Talisman by a baby’s cradle became hot for no reason, and half a Talisman pattern emerged from the scorched corner of the cloth...

These lights, this heat, these ”traces of fire” forgotten in the folds of the mortal world, all converged at this moment, pouring into the heart of the bronze pillar.

Zhang Xuanyi remained sitting in place, eyes tightly closed, but he perceived that the last trace of the System’s fluctuation within him was dissipating—the Myriad Laws Street Stall had completely ended.

But he knew this was not the end.

This was stripping away.

It was returning ”divine miracles” to heaven and earth, and handing ”miracles” back to the mortal world.

Three years ago, he relied on the System to open his stall, selling exotic treasures; later, he ignited the fire to pass on the torch, delivering hope; but now, he did nothing, simply letting go.

The fire was no longer bestowed by him, no longer driven by Talisman, no longer dependent on spirit coin and tasks—it began to choose its own host, find its own path, and grow on its own.

Just like wild grass piercing through stone, like a seed breaking through soil, like a child clenching their fist for the first time and saying: ”I can do it too.”

The light of the bronze pillar gradually stabilized, turning from violent to gentle, from blinding to restrained, and finally flowed quietly like moonlight, illuminating the entire ruin.

Those broken monuments and tiles faintly revealed old patterns in the golden light—it was the Talisman, the incantations, the full text of the long-lost Xiaoyao Token, stroke by stroke, appearing automatically, as if the earth itself were writing scriptures.

The wind rose, and the stone walls peeled away.

Dust and sand fell with a rustle, revealing eight ancient seal script characters that had not been seen for a thousand years:

Fire does not rise from the hand, but is born when the heart dies.

Zhang Xuanyi opened his eyes and chuckled.

”The heart dies?” He stood up and brushed the dew off his Daoist robe. ”They don’t understand... the death of the heart is the true Awakening.”

He had once thought that Xiaoyao meant wandering through Jianghu, being sharp-tongued and defiant, or setting up a street stall to earn some spirit coin to upgrade equipment.

But now he understood—

True Xiaoyao is letting the fire burn on its own, letting the Dao walk its own path, letting every ordinary person—even if they are illiterate, cannot cultivate, or have no sense of Qi—wait before a cold stove for a self-igniting fire, believing it will come.

He turned and left, his footsteps as light as a falling leaf.

Behind him, the light of the bronze pillar gradually faded, as if falling into slumber.

But deep underground, a golden vein was slowly extending, silent and soundless, yet it had already connected the northern and southern Dragon veins.

—Half a year later.

A ”Cold Stove Festival” emerged nationwide.

Every new moon, thousands of households extinguished their fires, quietly waiting for spontaneous ignition.

Most had no results, and the cooking smoke was sparse; in a few households, golden spots appeared in the heart of the stove, and neighbors knelt and bowed, calling it heaven-sent auspicious fire.

Su Qingzhu visited a hundred households and wrote a long report titled ”We Have Finally Learned to Wait”.

Attached to the end of the article was a blurry film photograph: on a snowy night, a group of children gathered around an unlit bonfire, holding up graffiti boards, all covered in firebirds about to spread their wings and fly.

The photographer insisted—at the very moment the shutter was pressed, all the drawings became hot simultaneously, their edges curling slightly, as if flames were about to burst out of the paper.

But what was developed was just a silent white light.

No one knew that on that night, a thousand miles away at the bottom of the East Sea, a volcanic crater that had been sunken for a thousand years had quietly opened a crack.

And at this moment, the market at the foot of Mount Longhu reopened for the spring fair; the mud had not yet dried, and the cooking smoke was sparse.

An old woman squatted in the spot where Zhang Xuanyi used to set up his stall, took out half a bag of black ash, and sprinkled it into a cold stove, muttering to herself: