On a night of wind and snow, in the far north of the Nine Provinces, heaven and earth blurred into chaos. Snow hung like a curtain, and no light shone for ten thousand miles. Only the cold wind cut at faces, like a blade shaving bone. A traveler, three days without food, lay frozen beneath a dead tree, his lips blue and his face purple. His consciousness slowly unraveled; he felt his soul about to leave his body and return to eternal silence. Just then, the curtain of snow stirred. Three figures came walking through it, their footsteps soundless, yet each step brought warmth, breaking through the wind and snow.
At the front was a blind woman named A Mian, carrying a battered copper pot on her back. Its surface was mottled, its cracks spread like a net, yet the breath of fire flowed through it. On its base, the words "Fire returns to the people" glimmered in the snowlight, brightening and dimming like a heartbeat, as though keeping time with heaven and earth. She could not see, yet seemed able to "hear" the pulse of fire. With every step, a ring of warmth spread across the snow. Frost flowers melted of their own accord, and grass roots stirred faintly, as though the earth were answering her footsteps. She said nothing, yet put hearts at ease.
In the middle was a youth named Zhao Yu, holding half a roll of bamboo slips. These were remnants of the Fragmentary Fire Principles Scroll, most of which the Fire Smith Alliance had burned, but which he had recovered from the ashes. The pages were charred black, their writing blurred, yet patterns of fire flickered within them like a pulsing bloodline. Without a word, he gently pressed the bamboo slips against the frozen earth.