Year 55 of the Firefolk Era, winter solstice.
The eternal night had come.
There was no sudden change in the heavens, no falling stars or splitting earth, but—cold seeped through the cracks of the Nine Provinces.
Beginning in the northern icefields, the cold spread silently like ink. Plants withered without a trace, streams froze without a sound, and even the flowing light of the Heart Flame River gradually slowed, like congealing blood in the veins. At the Starfire Hall observatory, the lamps of the Nine Provinces went out one after another on the map of the earth veins. Only a few faint lights remained, like guttering candles in the wind.
"The eternal night is upon us." Su Li stood on the lamp-watching platform, gazing toward the horizon. "This cold is no natural disaster. It is the breath of heaven and earth about to cease."
The Nine Provinces would sink into a lightless winter.
Yet at that very moment, in Ruin Abyss Lane in the Central Plains, one household's hearth still burned.
An old woman crouched before the hearth, adding wood and blowing on the flames. Porridge bubbled in the pot, filling the air with the fragrance of rice. As she cooked, she murmured, "The fire must not go out. The meals must not stop.
As long as people live, the hearth must burn."
She ladled out the porridge and brought it to her sick grandson, then filled an earthenware jar with hot porridge, wrapped it tightly in an old cloth, and carried it outside.
"Grandma, where are you going?"
"To take something hot to the old man sweeping snow at the end of the lane."
She walked through the snow, leaving deep footprints. With every step, the embers in her hearth flickered once in response to her thoughts, like a