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

127: The moment you burn, it’s brighter than anyone elseThat sheet of letter paper, thin as a cicada’s wing, seemed to carry a scorching temperature, curling slightly at Zhang Xuanyi’s fingertips.

The handwriting was slanted and deeply carved, revealing a desperate panic: ”They want to turn the fire into scripture.”

Scripture meant commandments, meant the right of interpretation, meant high-and-mighty definitions.

A chill flashed across Zhang Xuanyi’s eyes. The fire he had passed down was a struggle in a desperate situation, a roar in the dark night, the first sword a Mortal thrust toward the firmament; how could it be locked into a cage carved from gold and jade?

Following the scent of the special incense ash remaining on the letter, he snuck into a newly completed ancestral hall.

On the plaque were four gilded characters—”Orthodox Heart Fire”—exuding a bluffing air that was eager to announce itself to the world.

Inside the hall, sandalwood incense curled; hundreds of believers knelt on the ground, chanting, but they were not chanting about the Dao following nature, but rather tedious rules on how to ”correctly” ignite fire.

Zhang Xuanyi’s gaze swept across the center of the main hall, and his heart sank abruptly.

There, a row of so-called ”Igniters Through the Ages” portraits were displayed, and in the most prominent position stood a wax statue identical to him.

The wax statue was draped in a ceremonial robe, a dot of crimson cinnabar marked on its forehead, its hands forming a complex hand seal he had never used. The plaque below was engraved with eight large characters: ”Inheritor of Heavenly Fire · True Person Zhang.”

How absurd!

He, Zhang Xuanyi, a Mortal who once relied on a few broken pieces of wood on street corners to trade for a bowl of porridge, when did he become an ”Immortal Master” sitting high on a lotus throne?

High on the platform, the presiding Daoist held a whisk, his voice as loud as a bell: ”Heavenly Fire has descended to the world; it cannot be obtained by those without affinity, nor transmitted by those who are not orthodox! Only by taking refuge in our Orthodox Heart Fire, chanting day and night, and cleansing your Mortal heart, can the fire seed last forever without extinguishing!”

Upon hearing this, the believers kowtowed even more piously, their foreheads colliding with the cold bluestone floor tiles, making dull thuds.

Zhang Xuanyi watched coldly from the sidelines; there was no anger in his eyes, only a bottomless sorrow.

He saw the fanatical faith in those people’s eyes, but the object of that faith was his own shadow, twisted and enshrined.

Taking advantage of the gap while the young Daoist changed the incense and candles, the crowd shifted slightly, and Zhang Xuanyi drifted to the front of the offering table like a wisp of blue smoke.

He bent his fingers like a knife and quickly carved a line of small characters under the heavy mahogany table.

The handwriting was light, yet it seemed to carry the weight of a thousand jun.

After doing all this, he quietly faded into the shadows, as if he had never appeared.

The ceremony ended, and the believers filed out, their faces bearing the satisfaction of having been ”purified.”

Only one raggedly dressed youth, with a hint of suspicion in his eyes that did not match his age, lingered and did not leave.

He sneaked behind the wax statue, and while no one was around, carefully scraped a little bit of crimson lacquer from the wax statue’s hand-sealing fingers with his fingernails.

Returning to his dilapidated house with nothing but bare walls, the youth opened his palm; that speck of red lacquer was exceptionally glaring in the dim light.

He stared at it intensely, as if it were some sacred Magical Artifact.

Then, he picked up two ordinary dry sticks and, imitating the way he had seen at the ceremony—which he had never been able to succeed at—began to rub them together clumsily.

Once, twice, ten times... Sweat soaked his bangs, his arms ached as if they were splitting, but the wood still showed no reaction.

The youth felt a bit discouraged, and just as he was about to give up, he inadvertently glanced in the direction of the offering table.

He remembered the only figure standing straight in the crowd of kneeling people, and remembered the barely visible carved line under the True Person Zhang wax statue.

”I never asked you to kneel.”

The youth’s heart shook, as if a bolt of lightning had split the Chaos.