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

186: You ask me where I am? In the white steam rising from every mouthful of hot porridgeBefore dawn, Zhang Xuanyi’s footsteps stopped at the edge of a desolate border. There were no villages here, no lights, only a long-abandoned railway, like a grey spine, extending lonely into the distance.

The biting morning wind whistled past his ears, lifting a corner of his thin Daoist robe, bringing with it the scent of melting snow from afar.

He did not hesitate, walking straight to the center of the tracks, sitting cross-legged, and spreading out the blue cloth bag that had accompanied him for many years before him.

The cloth bag was empty, holding nothing, yet it snapped in the wind. That subtle sound eerily coincided with the electronic prompt that sounded in his ears when the myriad laws street vendor system first started, carrying a profound resonance and farewell.

He closed his eyes, feeling the last trace of connection to the System within his body. It was a lingering tie like a thin thread, and now it was time to cut it off completely.

Zhang Xuanyi slowly raised his right hand, palm upward, and a cluster of obscure spiritual light danced at his fingertips; that was the core energy that had once maintained the operation of the System.

A faint smile curled at the corners of his mouth as he whispered softly, his voice scattered by the wind but seemingly ringing clearly throughout the world: ”The transaction is complete, but the sentiments remain.”

As the words fell, the cluster of spiritual light in his palm suddenly contracted, turning into a searing pain as thin as a thread, flowing upstream along his meridians, and finally converging in the center of his palm before bursting violently.

That searing pain was not a physical torment, but a violent tremor from the depths of his Soul, where a certain connection was forcibly severed.

As this last searing pain completely dissipated, the green patterns engraved with complex textures at the bottom of the pots in the seventeen Ash-Returning Point communal stoves three hundred miles away flashed nine times simultaneously.

They required no instructions, nor did they have any visible source, as they spontaneously completed the ninth round of ”Stove Calibration.”

The embers remaining in the stove chambers were revitalized by this mysterious fluctuation, as if reignited by some invisible force, and the warm ashes emitted a faint, fragrant scent, signaling that the smoke and fire of the day were about to revive.

A few hours later, when the first ray of morning sun pierced the horizon, gilding the concrete jungle in gold, Su Qingzhu was standing on top of the city’s tallest building, overlooking the myriad lights waking up beneath her feet.

Her gaze was sharp and profound, penetrating the glass curtain walls of the high-rise, as if she could clearly see the Mortal smoke and fire rising behind every window.

She held a letter in her hand that had never been sent, the paper worn at the edges from being rubbed repeatedly.

Unfolding the letter, there were only two lines of words, yet each word carried immense weight, filled with her complex and profound feelings for that man: ”They all say you have left. I say you were never here—you have always been there, scalding the throat of everyone.”

She carefully folded the letter paper into a pure white paper crane and took a transparent lantern from the bag she carried.

The interior of the lantern was exquisitely designed, with a small candle embedded at the bottom.

She lit the candle, and the dim yellow light instantly illuminated the paper crane, making it appear exceptionally sacred inside the translucent lantern.

Su Qingzhu took a deep breath and slowly released her hand.

With the help of the rising heat and the wind at the top of the building, the paper crane lantern lightly left her fingertips, swaying as it ascended, and soon merged into the sky of the early morning twilight.

Just as the lantern rose into the sky, the entire city, and even all the Communal Cooking Workshops within tens of kilometers—those public stoves that had once been modified by Zhang Xuanyi—vibrated silently in unison.

Inside the pots and stoves, the steam remaining from yesterday was instantly stimulated by an invisible force, condensing into a gentle mist that outlined a faint, arching line spanning the sky in the morning light.