A hundred years later, another Spring Equinox came.
That day, there were no earth-shaking prophecies, no revelations from ancient inscriptions, only a simple, gentle message that spread quietly across the Nine Provinces like the wind—
"At midnight tonight, light a lamp. For those you hold dear, for the things you remember, for the undying light within your heart."
It came from a nameless old man at a lantern festival in a fishing village in the Southern Sea; children wrote it on paper kites and sent them soaring over the Western Desert; it fell with showers of stardust light upon the Northern Border Snowfield; it flowed through the Light Net of the cities' towering buildings, becoming whisper after whisper: "Light a lamp. Let the lights join as one."
No one gave an order, no one organized it, yet when night fell, the lamps of countless homes lit up as though by unspoken agreement.
Not only in cities, not only in villages, not only in the mortal world. Lighthouses in the deep sea, bonfires on the wastelands, ever-burning lamps in graveyards, little candles beside children's beds, oil lamps in temples, fireflies above the broken walls of battlefields... every light, large or small, bright or dim, gently flickered at the same moment.
Once, twice, three times.
After those three flickers, the lights no longer went out. Instead, they began to breathe in resonance—
Like heartbeats, like tides, like the pulsing of a river of stars.
At that moment, deep within the Source of Starfire, the lamp core formed from countless motes of light slowly opened its "eyes."
It no longer merely revolved. It resonated.
Deep within the earth, the lamp core released a soundless wave of light. Like a ripple, it passed through rock strata, rivers, cities, and dreams, reaching every burning lamp.