Shen Hui held the Control Fire Chapter scroll in his hands and sat on the edge of the bed for a long while.
These past days, he had been learning to read and write from Senior Sister Jingming, and his progress had been far faster than expected. He recognized every character on the Silk Scroll.
After all, the writing systems of the two worlds had several things in common. Besides, after crossing over, his memory seemed to have improved considerably. Words that had once been obscure only needed to be read a few times before he remembered them.
He spread the Silk Scroll across his knees and read it intently.
The very first line made his brows rise slightly. "There are two kinds of fire in this world: mortal fire and Nature Fire. This art does not refine external elixirs of yellow and white, but specializes in cultivating Nature Fire."
Nature Fire?
He continued reading. "Nature Fire relies upon the seven emotions and six desires as firewood, uses the consciousness spirit as kindling, and ignites the Life Gate True Fire."
Below was a cultivation method: first close the five senses and observe the Dantian within. Visualize a cluster of Heartfire in the chest, weak as a bean at first. Then use one's own spiritual energy as fuel, feeding it in without end and gradually strengthening the blaze. If one could keep this fire from going out at all times and freely control its heat as one wished, that counted as entry-level mastery.
Just as he was absorbed in the text, something in the depths of his consciousness suddenly stirred.
The familiar Parchment Interface appeared, and a line of clear writing entered his sea of consciousness:
[Consume 100 Dao Xing points to learn the Minor Five Elements Art: Fire Control (Beginner)?]
Shen Hui froze.
A hundred points?
He lowered his head to look at the Silk Scroll, then at the prompt, his thoughts turning.
It seemed that different texts required different amounts of Dao Xing points to learn.
First Record of Hundred Herbs had only required ten points, while this Control Fire Chapter required a hundred. Presumably, cultivating arts was much more complicated than simply acquiring knowledge.
He glanced at the [Dao Xing: 0 (Unassignable)] in the bottom-right corner of the interface and tentatively murmured in his heart, "Confirm."
Nothing happened.
The words on the interface flickered, then faded away, leaving behind only a cold notification:
[Insufficient Dao Xing points]
Shen Hui was not disappointed.
A hundred points was neither much nor little.
At his current cultivation speed, he would probably save up enough in around ten days.
Yet a faint thought lingered in his mind. He wanted to try cultivating this art himself first.
After all, if he relied on the "interface" to force knowledge into him for everything, would cultivation not lose much of its enjoyment?
He unfolded the Silk Scroll again and began studying it word by word.
The more he read, the more startled he became—and the more excited.
This Control Fire Chapter was completely different from what he had imagined.
It was not a fixed set of formulas to be followed step by step. Rather, it was more like a foundational theory concerning "fire."
A foundational method that could allow someone to carve out their own path from it.
The opening discussion of "Nature Fire" had already made it clear that this art emphasized seeking inward rather than borrowing from without.
Shen Hui sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and observed within.
The quiet current deep in his Dantian slowly circulated. Following the Silk Scroll's instructions, he focused his mind on his chest and visualized a ball of Heartfire.
At first, there was only emptiness. Nothing stirred.
He patiently tried again and again.
Spiritual energy circulated through his body, but he could never condense it into that "weak-as-a-bean" flame.
Occasionally, his Dantian would grow faintly warm for an instant, but before he could rejoice, the warmth would dissipate as though it had been an illusion.
He did not lose heart.
If once did not work, then ten times.
If ten times did not work, then a hundred.
There was no water clock in the room, so he could only judge the time by the light beyond the window paper.
Day turned to night, and night turned to day.
Shen Hui did not step outside. He skipped meals and morning lessons as well. Perhaps at their master's instruction, his senior brothers and sisters did not come call for him either.
Two days later, he finally grasped a trace of the method.
A faint glimmer lit up deep within his Dantian.
Shen Hui opened his eyes and let out a long breath.
Though he had not ignited a flame, he knew he was no longer far from entry-level mastery.
It was only that this final step might require deeper accumulation and greater insight.
He did not rush to continue contemplating it. Instead, he rose and left the room.
Since he had already felt out the threshold, he might as well ask someone who had traveled this road before.
He went first to find Third Senior Brother Qingyi.
Qingyi was tending several stalks of Spirit Nourishing Grass in the eastern courtyard. Seeing Shen Hui come by, he smiled and invited him to sit.
After hearing Shen Hui explain his purpose, he pondered for a moment before saying, "The fire-control art I cultivate follows the path of Civil and Martial Fire. Martial Fire is fierce and violent, used for attack; Civil Fire is gentle and enduring, used for refining and nurturing. Only when the two complement one another can they fulfill their purpose. The 'Heartfire' you have sensed differs from my path, so I fear I cannot be of much help."
So he went to find Second Senior Sister Jingming.
Jingming was copying scriptures in her room. After hearing Shen Hui out, she set down her brush and thought for a moment before speaking.
"My path is Yin Fire Yang Water, the path of Water-Fire Harmony. Yin Fire cannot be seen by mortal eyes; it is formed from true yin. Yang Water is not the water of rivers and lakes; it is condensed from true yang. Only when the two clash can transformations arise. Your path differs from mine. Saying more would be useless."
Shen Hui was somewhat disappointed, yet he also gained a faint realization.
This Lesser Five Elements Art truly was as his master had said. Each person's aptitude and comprehension differed, and thus the methods they cultivated were likewise different.
The two people he had asked were far removed from his own method, so naturally they could not offer specific guidance.
After thinking it over, he turned and went to his master's meditation chamber.
Old Taoist Ji Chen was meditating. When Shen Hui finished recounting his experiences over the past two days, he opened his eyes, stroked his beard, and smiled.
"You naturally could not learn anything by asking them. Every person has their own fate, every person their own cultivation. The path they walk may not suit you."
Shen Hui lowered his head. "This disciple understands. It is only that this disciple does not know where his own path lies."
He added half a sentence in his heart: And I also want to save those hundred Dao Xing points.
Old Taoist Ji Chen did not even look at him. In an indifferent tone, he asked, "Since you wish to cultivate a fire art, do you know what fire is?"
Shen Hui froze, then answered uncertainly, "That which receives life from the Dao is called nature. Nature resides in qi, qi resides in fire. Fire is the splendor of the Dao."
"That is the fire described in Daoist texts." The Old Taoist shook his head. "It is not the fire in your heart."
"The fire in my heart?" Shen Hui murmured blankly, unable to understand what his master meant.
"Go help in the kitchen for a few days."
The Old Taoist waved him away. "Make fires and cook every day. Watch how that firewood ignites, how it burns, and how it goes out. If you understand that, perhaps you will understand."
Shen Hui paused, then rose and bowed.
"This disciple obeys."
He left the meditation chamber and went straight to find Fifth Senior Brother Qing Shi.
Qing Shi was busy in the kitchen. When he saw Shen Hui enter, he was briefly startled. "Why are you here, Junior Brother? Hungry? Dinner isn't ready yet."
Shen Hui shook his head and said earnestly, "Fifth Senior Brother, I want to ask you for a favor."
"What is it? Go ahead."
"I want to cultivate a fire art. Master told me to come help tend the kitchen fires. He said that if I understood how firewood burned, perhaps I would understand. Do you think... you could let me tend the stove for a few days?"
Qing Shi immediately laughed and patted his shoulder. "Why call that a favor? Come whenever you want! But tending a fire may look simple, yet there are plenty of tricks to it. When to add wood, when to draw back the fire, how to control whether the blaze is large or small—all of it matters."
Warmth rose in Shen Hui's heart, and he smiled. "Thank you, Fifth Senior Brother."
Qing Shi waved a hand, pulled out a fire poker from beside the stove, and passed it to him. "Come, watch me light the fire first. Look carefully—where the fire starts, how to make it burn bigger, how to make it slowly catch..."
Fifth Senior Brother Qing Shi squatted before the stove, holding a fire poker of his own, yet he did not hurry to poke into the furnace.
"Look, Junior Brother." He pointed the tip of the poker at the firewood already arranged inside. "The first thing about building a fire isn't lighting it. It's stacking the wood."
Shen Hui leaned closer and followed the poker's tip with his gaze.
"You cannot stack the wood too tightly. If it is too tight, air cannot pass through, and the fire will be smothered before it can rise. But you cannot stack it too loosely either. If it is too loose, it cannot hold the heat, and the fire will flare up and pass right through."
As Qing Shi spoke, he lightly shifted several pieces of firewood of different thicknesses with the poker. "Leave the bottom hollow and keep an opening for ventilation. That is called, 'When the stove has a path, smoke and fire come of themselves.' Leave gaps between the wood, and only then can the tongues of flame lick through."
Then he took a handful of dry grass and several thin twigs from beside him. "There are tricks to kindling too. Start with this soft grass—it catches at a touch, and the flames leap up fast. Once the grass is burning strongly, add thin branches. When the thin branches catch, then stack on thicker wood. If you stuff large logs in from the start, the fire simply will not light."
Shen Hui nodded thoughtfully.
"And this firewood." Qing Shi casually pulled one stick from the pile. "Look at this one. It is pine—rich in resin, it burns fiercely and produces lots of smoke. Good for stir-frying over high heat. This one is elm—hard, long-burning, and steady in heat. It is good for stewing and can burn for a whole shichen without dying out. This one is poplar—it burns quickly, but its flame is mild. Good for steaming buns."
He laid the three pieces of wood side by side on the ground as though he were giving Shen Hui a proper lesson.
"A large or small fire is not controlled just by adding or removing wood. Blow a breath into the furnace, and the flame will leap higher. Half-close the stove door, and the fire will settle down. Fire is something you must follow according to its nature. When it is strong, do not forcibly suppress it. When it is weak, do not wildly add fuel. Add too much, and you may instead smother it out."
As Qing Shi spoke, he suddenly smiled. His honest face carried a trace of self-mockery. "I am no good at cultivation. Master says my aptitude is dull and my comprehension poor. But I have been making fires and cooking for nearly ten years, so I have managed to figure out a few things."
He raised his head to look at the ceiling beams, blackened by smoke and fire, his voice tinged with emotion.
"The fire in this stove is the smoke and fire of the mortal world. It is a pity that those with high cultivation do not partake of mortal smoke and fire. Master has already fasted from food. Though our senior brothers and sisters still eat, that is only for now. When the day comes that they too fast from food, this kitchen will probably have only me left."
Shen Hui was stunned.
Looking at Fifth Senior Brother's honest profile, he suddenly felt that this senior brother, who usually spoke little and always worked with his head down, actually hid many things in his heart.
"Senior Brother," he said, "the smoke and fire of the mortal world seems quite good to me too."
Qing Shi turned around and grinned. "Exactly. Without the smoke and fire of the mortal world, what would you all eat? All right, sit here and think it over slowly. I'll go wash the rice first."
He rose, dusted the ash from his backside, and walked to the rice jar to scoop out rice.
Shen Hui sat before the stove, staring at the dancing flames in the furnace.
Fifth Senior Brother's words churned through his mind, sentence after sentence.
Leave gaps when stacking wood, so the fire has a path to travel.
Kindling must go from shallow to deep, step by step.
Different types of wood had different natures and burned into different fires.
The strength of the fire had to be followed, not forced...
Suddenly, he recalled a line from the Control Fire Chapter: rely upon the seven emotions and six desires as firewood, use the consciousness spirit as kindling, and ignite the Life Gate True Fire.
The seven emotions and six desires as firewood.
In his more than twenty years of life, he had lacked food, lacked clothing, lacked peace and stability—but he had never lacked the seven emotions and six desires.
Joy, anger, sorrow, delight, love, hatred, desire—was not every one of them filled to the brim?
He stared into the stove, watching how the flames leaped from dry grass to thin branches, how they licked from thin branches to thick logs, how they surged when fuel was added, and how they gentled when the stove door was half-closed.
Fire was alive.
Fire had a temper.
You had to follow it. You could not force it.
All at once, he understood.
He did not need to forcibly "create" a ball of fire in his Dantian. He needed to find that spark which had always existed in his heart, yet had long been overlooked.
Then he needed to use those seven emotions and six desires as firewood, feeding them to it bit by bit and letting it burn on its own.
Shen Hui closed his eyes.
He no longer forced himself to visualize as he had before. Instead, he emptied his mind and let the emotions buried deep within his heart slowly rise to the surface.
First came joy.
He remembered the summer when he was eighteen. The sun had baked the earth until it scorched, and he had been squatting in the yard, helping his grandfather chop firewood.
The sound of the postman's motorcycle came from the village entrance. He paid it no mind and continued swinging his axe.
Until the sound came closer and closer, finally stopping at the entrance to his home.
"Shen Hui! Is Shen Hui home? Your university acceptance letter!"
The axe in his hand nearly struck his foot.
The envelope was bright red, its lettering stamped in gold. His fingertips trembled as he took it.
He opened it and read it three times before he dared believe it was real—he had gotten into university.
When his grandfather came back from the fields, he squatted on the threshold and turned the letter over and over in his hands for a long time. He knocked the bowl of his pipe against the sole of his shoe again and again, but in the end, he said only one word.
"Good."
Then he rose, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced back and forth around the yard several times. Whenever he saw anyone, he pulled out the letter to show it off.
"Look, look! My grandson got into university—a top-tier one."
His grandmother rummaged through every box and cabinet, then felt around in a clay jar full of rice husks until she found several eggs. She counted them twice before choosing the largest one and cooking Shen Hui a bowl of egg noodles.
That night, as he sat in the yard beneath a sky full of stars, he felt for the first time that all those years of chewing steamed buns, wearing patched clothes, and suffering through hands cracked by the cold had been worth it.
Then came anger.
When he returned home during the summer vacation of his sophomore year, he found his grandmother's eyes red. No matter what he asked, she would not say a word.
Only later did he learn from the neighbors that a local thug had bullied the two old people because they had neither son nor daughter. He had insisted that the trees in his grandfather's field had grown onto his own land, then called people over to cut them down and sell them.
Shen Hui trembled with rage. He grabbed a stick and was about to go fight the man to the death.
But his grandfather held tightly around his waist, while his grandmother wiped her tears beside them and kept saying, "Forget it, forget it. Don't make trouble. So what if a few trees were cut down? It's not as though only cypress can be used for coffin wood."
"Why should we forget it?"
He roared, his voice shaking. "Why do they get to bully people? Why should we forget it?"
His grandfather said nothing. He only held Shen Hui and refused to let go.
That night, Shen Hui lay in bed without sleeping at all.
Listening to his grandparents' suppressed coughing from the room next door, he clenched his fists.
He swore that he would make something of himself and let those dog bastards who bullied them see clearly.
Sorrow came the heaviest, like a stone neither large nor small digging painfully into his back and pressing down until he could not breathe.
In the autumn of his junior year, the phone rang at four in the morning.
His grandfather's voice was heavy. "Your grandmother isn't going to make it. She wants to see you. If you can take leave..."
He bought a train ticket overnight and stood for more than ten hours. By the time he reached the hospital, his grandmother could no longer speak.
But she could still move. Her withered hand held his, and her thumb stroked the back of his hand again and again, just as she had when soothing him to sleep as a child.
He knelt beside the bed, holding that hand and saying over and over, "Grandma, I'm back. I'm here."
She held on for three days.
On the final night, the person keeping watch grew sleepy and dozed off for a while.
When he woke up, Grandma was already gone.
Her hand was still warm, but it would never move again.
Never again.
He knelt beside the hospital bed. He made no sound, yet tears streamed down his face without end.
He remembered Grandma pulling him up from the mud.
Remembered her patting the dust from the seat of his pants.
Remembered her mending the hole in his schoolbag.
Remembered her gathering his feet into her arms to warm them in winter.
Remembered how she always said, "When my grandson makes something of himself, I'll finally enjoy the good life."
She did not live to see it.
Grandpa left the following year.
After Grandma passed, Grandpa was like an old tree hollowed out by worms.
He no longer squatted on the doorstep smoking, no longer went out to work the fields, no longer chatted with the villagers.
He simply sat there all day, staring at the road beyond the door, though no one knew what he was looking for.
On the day he left, he sat before Grandma's grave for half the day. When he returned, he lay down and never got back up.
By the time the village chief called to tell him, Grandpa had already been buried.
He took the call in the library, sat alone in a corner until it closed, then went to the stands by the sports field and remained there until dawn.
The village chief had said over the phone, "It's all right. Focus on your studies. Your grandpa was still talking about you before he went. He said you'd made something of yourself, that you sent money home every month. He left without regrets."
But Grandpa, if you could still talk to the villagers before you left, why couldn't you tell your own grandson?
Didn't you want to see your grandson? Or were you afraid he would take leave and delay his studies?
Then came fear.
The instant the car hit him, his mind went blank. All he saw were those two blinding beams drawing closer and closer, followed by the world spinning around him.
When he woke, he was lying in the grass, his whole body aching as if it had fallen apart.
He did not know where he was or what had happened. He struggled to his feet and walked for a long time before he saw a ruined temple.
Before entering it, he was targeted by two vagrants.
The pair were disheveled and ragged. On a frost-bitten day, they wore only a few scraps of cloth, and hunger gleamed in their eyes like that of wolves as they kept sizing him up.
One of them came over and reached out to strip him of his clothes.
He fought with all his strength, howling, punching, and kicking. In the end, only because he was bigger than them did the two men leave with curses on their lips.
He curled up in a corner of the temple, huddled into a ball, trembling all over.
Not from the cold, but because he had realized that those two wanted more than his clothes. They wanted his life too.
Over the next two days, hunger left him dizzy and seeing stars. He could barely walk straight.
He stole sweet potatoes from the fields and was chased by dogs snapping at him; he drank river water and had diarrhea until his calves went weak.
Every night, he slept fitfully, terrified that someone would slit his throat while he slept.
Shen Hui had lived for all these years, yet he had never known that staying alive could be so difficult.
Then came love.
During his second year of high school, under a gentle spring breeze, a girl transferred into his class.
She sat two rows ahead of him. Every class, he could not help watching her back.
She wore a ponytail, with two tiny pom-poms on her hair tie that bobbed back and forth.
When she smiled, her eyes curved like crescents, and her voice was lovely to hear.
But he had never spoken to her.
During breaks, he would deliberately walk past her seat. When she was on cleaning duty, he would linger to help arrange the desks. He secretly remembered what snacks she liked, though he never had the money to buy them for her.
Once, she turned around and smiled at him, saying out of nowhere, "You're my type."
His heart beat as if it were about to leap out of his throat, and he spent the entire day in a daze.
But he said nothing.
Because he knew what kind of person he was.
With no father or mother, relying on his grandparents' farming to support his schooling, wearing pants patched over the seat, always buying nothing but rice in the cafeteria, even unwilling to throw away the chili stems in bean paste.
He was not worthy of her.
That winter, she transferred away again.
He stood at the classroom door, watching her back vanish at the end of the corridor, his heart hollow and empty.
Many years later, he still thought of her now and then.
He remembered her smile, the two tiny pom-poms on her ponytail, and that sentence: "You're my type."
Then came hatred.
He hated those who mocked him.
In elementary school, someone pointed at his nose and called him, "A wild bastard with no father or mother."
He said nothing, clenching his fists until his nails dug into his flesh.
In middle school, someone rummaged through his schoolbag, threw his corn bread to the ground, and stomped on it, saying, "What's a poor bastard studying for?"
He still said nothing. He crouched down and picked up the crushed corn bread piece by piece.
In high school, someone said before the entire class, "Both his parents are dead, and his grandparents are dirt farmers. What good are good grades? Even if he gets in, he still won't have the money to study."
At last, he struck back, pinning that person to the ground and beating him.
He was disciplined, made to write a self-criticism, and had his guardian summoned.
Grandpa came, back bent with age, bowing and scraping as he apologized to the teacher.
Watching that person's back, Shen Hui hated him until his teeth itched.
Later, after he started working, he thought all of that was behind him.
Until one day, after he had stayed up for days preparing a proposal, his supervisor took it to a meeting and presented it, saying, "This is the result of our team's joint efforts. I mainly handled..."
He sat below, looking at his supervisor's smiling face, and in a daze, he seemed to see that back from years ago.
He did not make a scene. He knew that if he did, he would lose his job. He needed that salary, needed to repay his student loans, needed to stay alive.
Last came desire.
He was human too.
He had also imagined what it was like to have money.
No longer having to calculate every penny, no longer living in an urban village with terrible soundproofing, no longer eating steamed buns with pickled vegetables.
He had also imagined what it was like to have power.
To let those who had bullied him see, to make the supervisor who stole his proposal regret it, to give his grandparents' graves the best spots and erect the finest tombstones for them.
He had also imagined what it was like to have a Household.
Someone waiting for him after work, someone to talk to while eating, Spring Festival couplets pasted up during the New Year, someone to check whether he had pasted them crooked.
He had also imagined what it was like to have a wife.
Someone who would smile at him, tease him, and tell him, "It's okay. I'm with you," when he needed it.
He wanted pleasure too.
He wanted to gorge himself on meat, sleep well, eat a filling meal without calculating the days, stretch lazily beneath the sun, and think of nothing at all.
He wanted many things.
The desires of life, death, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose—he lacked none of them.
He wanted to live. He did not want to die.
He wanted to hear pleasing sounds, see beautiful scenery, eat delicious food, and smell fragrant scents.
He liked watching sunsets, listening to rain, seeing the white steam rising from freshly steamed buns, and the warm sunshine clinging to quilts dried in autumn.
They were all such small, small things, yet it was precisely these tiny things that made him feel that being alive was not so bad.
Shen Hui opened his eyes and found that, at some point, his face had become soaked with tears.
The fire in the stove was still dancing, reflected in his pupils like two clusters of warm light.
The things that had weighed on his heart for so, so long, the things he thought he had forgotten but had merely been too afraid to touch, surged forth like a tide at this moment. Like firewood in the stove, they were lit one by one.
Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, desire.
Life, death, ears, eyes, mouth, nose.
The seven emotions and six desires—none were missing. They were all firewood.
He suddenly understood.
The seven emotions and six desires were firewood. It was not about forcibly "giving rise" to a certain emotion, but about acknowledging the things that had always truly existed.
Joy, anger, sorrow, delight, love, hatred, longing—was any one of them not the truest kindling? Could any one of them not burn to ash in the depths of the heart?
He looked at the flames in the stove and slowly spoke. His voice was soft, as though consoling himself, yet also as though murmuring quietly to the fire:
"That which is called fire is the spirit of qi. The eye of heaven and earth, the authority of creation. Wherever the heart stirs, there fire rises."
The moment his words fell, the flames in the stove surged violently, nearly bursting free beneath the iron pot.
The flames became several times stronger than before, as though they had come alive, gained a spirit of their own. They leaped and danced joyfully in the stove, dyeing the entire kitchen red.
At the same time, a line of writing appeared automatically in the depths of his consciousness:
[Minor Five Elements Art: Fire Control (Beginner)]
Shen Hui stared blankly at the flames in the stove, the corners of his mouth slowly spreading into a grin.
He had succeeded.
He turned to look at Fifth Senior Brother by the chopping board. Qing Shi had long since stopped working, staring at him with wide eyes, his face full of shock.
"Junior Brother... you... why are you crying?"
Shen Hui answered with a smile, "The smoke got in my eyes by accident."
Then he rose and gave Fifth Senior Brother a deep bow.
"I must also thank Senior Brother for clearing away my confusion."
Qing Shi froze for a moment, then laughed and waved his hand. "What guidance? I only taught you how to light a fire..."