In the cinders' fading light, the ashes had yet to cool. The wind passed like a lament, sweeping up scattered ash to trace dim arcs through the air, like dead souls whispering of the inferno that had burned all hope to nothing. Before the Civilization Furnace, every fire had fallen silent. The Heart Flame that had once surged like a river now held only lingering warmth, and silence settled over the Nine Provinces. Only deep within the furnace's heart did a battered copper pot stand upside down upon the scorched earth. Its surface was mottled, its cracks crisscrossed, yet it remained steady, like a stele that refused to fall. On its base, the words "Fire Returns to the People" had been scorched again and again, black as ink, yet each word seemed carved deep into the copper's bones, refusing to be erased.
The blind girl A Mian knelt in the ashes. Embers had scorched all ten of her fingers, and blood mingled with ash into mud, but she felt none of it. She only clung desperately to the copper pot, as though holding the last breath that had not yet ceased. She could not see this world, but she could "hear"—within the pot, lingering fire whispered, faint yet stubborn, weeping and pleading, like Nian Sheng's unfinished words, like the unextinguished hearts of the people. That voice did not enter her heart through her ears. It flowed directly through her blood and echoed in her marrow.
"Who... are you?" she asked softly, her voice like wind brushing ash.
The pot did not answer, but the fire stirred.
An exceedingly fine strand of fire rose from the pot's heart, thin as a thread, as though it had come from ancient times. It wound around her wrist and slipped into her blood. In