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

195: The blue veins on the bottom of the pot lit up on their own.The night in the Northwest was cold enough to gnaw at one’s bones.

Inside the kitchen of the border village primary school, the wind crept in through the cracks in the wall, carrying sand grains that tapped against the tin chimney with a faint, crisp sound.

The child on duty crouched before the stove, their frostbitten little hands stuffing the last handful of camel thorn into the furnace. The dry wood crackled, but before the fire could even ignite, the bottom of the pot lit up first.

A ring of green patterns appeared, glowing faintly.

It looked as if someone had drawn a circle on the bottom of the iron pot with extremely pale ink, slowly spreading out like rippling water.

The old cook, who was scooping rice, suddenly froze. He rubbed his cloudy eyes, but when he looked again, the green patterns had vanished. Only for a fleeting moment, as steam rose, did a short arc form on the bottom of the pot before disappearing instantly.

His heart skipped a beat.

That arc... it was too similar.

It was so much like the first light that appeared when the yellow paper caught fire on the stall of the young Daoist who, ten years ago, used to carry a canvas bag and sell Talismans with a grin.

”Could it be the Kitchen God manifesting?” he muttered, his voice kept extremely low, fearing he might disturb something.

But the children just giggled as they added firewood and blew on the flames; no one looked up, and no one asked any questions.

To them, this was just another morning where the water would boil a little faster.

The teacher had taught them: ”Cut the meat three times, turn the firewood seven times, and whisper ’Time to cook’ while blowing on the fire.” They followed the instructions, and the fire appeared; it was as simple as that.

No one found it strange.

Just as no one would ask why the sun rises.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, deep in the heart of the city’s concrete jungle, on the third underground level, lay the core secret chamber of the Power Of Will Archives.

Su Qingzhu stood before the resonance induction platform, her fingertips gently brushing over a tattered piece of yellow paper.

That was the original piece of photocopy yellow paper, part of the first batch of goods Zhang Xuanyi sold when he first set up his stall at the foot of Mount Longhu.

Now, the ink was mottled, the edges weathered like dry leaves, and even the outline of the Talisman was blurred.

It should have been nothing more than dust of history, sealed away at the very bottom of the ”Elementary” anomalous item filing cabinet.

But she didn’t believe it.

She always felt that this piece of paper wasn’t dead yet.

The technician shook his head: ”The energy is zero, the frequency is silent, and even the molecular structure is decaying; it’s impossible to reactivate.”

Su Qingzhu didn’t speak; she simply laid the yellow paper flat on the induction platform, her movements so light as if she were afraid of waking an old dream.

The instrument screen remained dead silent.

Until the duty officer rushed in, clutching a report on thermal anomalies: ”Seventeen border villages have reported non-natural temperature increases in their stoves within the same minute, lasting for seven seconds. The peak temperature is highly similar to the residual fluctuations of ’Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid’... but there are no traces of spellcasting or human intervention at the scene.”

She took the report, her gaze sweeping over the seventeen red dots on the map, and suddenly paused.

Her fingers trembled slightly.

She remembered something.

She leaned over slowly and gently placed the weathered yellow paper over the report.

One second. Two seconds. Suddenly—

A faint, pale glow appeared on the surface of the paper. It wasn’t the reappearance of the Talisman, nor was it a return of energy; rather, the entire sheet began to peel away, as if ignited from within by an invisible fire.

The ashes fell softly, piling up on the metal surface into a ring of fine dust. The edges were uneven, yet they perfectly overlapped with the locations of the seventeen villages marked in the report.

Her breath hitched.

At that moment, she heard something waking up.

It wasn’t the System, nor was it a Divine Ability, but a deeper, long-silenced resonance.

It was as if... the phrase ”Time to cook” that simultaneously echoed in the hearts of thousands of people had finally been understood by the earth.