The Bonfire That Ignites the Night Sky

Strangely enough, though, none of the households had gotten around to heating their kangs over the past two days.

The original residents of several villages gathered together as if by unspoken agreement. After comparing notes, they discovered that every household was the same.

The answer was obvious.

The immortals of the Lingxian Sect must have cast a warming spell over their homes while building the city!

As for why the entire city of Xiushui had not been warmed, the common folk did not question it either.

Why would they? Casting spells surely consumed the immortals’ magical power. The fact that they could keep the houses throughout the city warm was already more than enough.

Even so, standing on the broad, level streets of the city, they still felt that this year seemed much warmer than usual for this time of winter.

On New Year’s Eve, the head of every household prepared a sumptuous feast early in the day.

Life had been getting better with every passing year, and the people’s New Year’s Eve dinners had improved along with it. There was not only more meat and a greater variety of dishes; everyone now had the spare energy to fuss over all kinds of seasonings and spices, striving to make every dish pleasing to the eye, fragrant, and delicious.

The days when meat appeared only during festivals, when people relied on plain, unseasoned pork to replenish their bodies’ oils, seemed to have happened just yesterday—and yet also to belong to a distant past.

At times like this, the elders, finally free from their usual labors, would sit around the dinner table and reminisce to the younger generation about life in the old days. They did not expect the children to understand much, but they hoped that the youngsters would remember, at least, how good the Lingxian Sect had been to them.

Ordinary people could not speak of lofty benevolence or grand principles, but they understood better than anyone how difficult it was to get through each day.

Whether the immortals were truly immortal had little to do with them. But immortals who treated them well and remembered the lives of humble commoners were different.

After the New Year’s Eve dinner, the people, stuffed and content, went outside for a stroll to aid their digestion.

Xiushui City was brightly lit even at night, far more so than Xiushui Village had ever been. Two streetlamps stood every twenty paces.

Young and old alike carried plenty of sweets and pastries in their pockets. Whenever they met someone, they would hand some over, sharing the joy of welcoming the coming year.

Some of the wealthy households who had moved here earlier even sent their servants to drag several baskets of copper coins to the intersections near their homes. Wrapped in red paper, the coins were handed out to children frolicking along the roads with little lanterns made from pomelo peel and candles. In return, the children offered their delighted New Year’s greetings.

At the inn where he was staying, Venerable Xunfang had just finished circulating his qi through a great heavenly cycle. He was planning to give further thought to the details of opening a shop for their sect in Xiushui City when, out of habit, he swept his spiritual sense across the surrounding area.

Although cultivators inside Xiushui City could not cast spells at will, their spiritual sense could still spread normally. It was simply unable to penetrate many places within the city.

The inn where their sect was staying, however, was not subject to such restrictions. He could even set up an isolation formation in his own room.

He had tested it before: formations with offensive properties could not be established.

It seemed that Xiushui City was very serious about preventing cultivators from fighting.

His spiritual sense had only been sweeping the area casually. Venerable Xunfang assumed that, as during the past two days, he would find nothing more than the daily activities of ordinary mortals. Yet he discovered that the streets, which should have been growing quiet as the night deepened, were instead more lively than ever.

In the heart of the night, hundreds of lanterns suddenly appeared at every major intersection in the city, forming great arrays of lights.

Bonfires blazed at the centers of the formations, their towering flames dyeing the sky in intertwining shades of black and crimson.

The people of the city had gathered around the lantern arrays, admiring and praising them, cheering with delight.

Many of the visiting cultivators secretly marveled at how little these villagers had seen. The lantern formations were certainly more extravagant than anything ordinary mortals could make, but in the eyes of high-level cultivators from the mortal world, they were nothing special.

Creating such a display would be effortless for them. It was simply that they would never waste spiritual power on something like this.

A few of the visiting cultivators mingled among the crowd, sincerely wishing to join in the simple, genuine merriment of the common folk.

Suddenly, the enormous lantern formations began to move.

Lanterns of every shape and color slowly rose into the night sky.

They constantly shifted into different formations, coming together to form a variety of images.

Auspicious clouds. Five bats. A hundred flowers. Plum blossoms, orchids, chrysanthemums, and bamboo…

The bonfires continued to burn fiercely below.

At some point, the people nearest the centers of the formations suddenly began joining hands. They shouted simple slogans around the fires and started dancing simple steps.

The atmosphere quickly spread outward, layer by layer, through the crowd. With the bonfires as their centers, men and women, young and old, joined hands in widening circles, shouting and dancing together.

As everyone moved and cheered beneath the dazzling lantern formations, the bonfires at the centers seemed to be stoked by their enthusiasm. With a thunderous roar, the flames swelled, their vigorous tongues of fire shooting straight into the night sky.

At midnight, after the lantern formations above the various intersections had shifted through countless auspicious patterns, they suddenly rose even higher. They converged directly above Xiushui City, joining together to form four enormous characters:

Happy New Year.

The four characters shone brilliantly in the sky, their lights constantly changing.

Even the original villagers, most of whom could not read, recognized those characters. Shortly before the New Year, disciples from the Lingxian Academy had visited the surrounding villages to distribute red slips and explain the words and their meanings. The same four characters had been written on those slips.

In the next instant, the four enormous characters exploded.

Every lantern burst into a brilliant firework, turning the entire sky above Xiushui City into a multicolored daylight.

For that brief moment, even the visiting cultivators watching from the sidelines felt that Xiushui City must be the most dazzling pearl upon the earth.

The dancing people gradually came to a stop. They gazed up at the radiant night sky and cheered with those around them. Near or far, familiar or strange, everyone exchanged the same greeting:

“Happy New Year!”

There was no elaborate ornamentation to the words. They were the simplest and most sincere blessing—for others, and for themselves.

…

The visiting cultivators watched it all.

Some were puzzled. Some were confused. Some were surprised.

But at that moment, all of those feelings were overwhelmed by a yearning quietly rising within their hearts.

This simple, unadorned happiness… It seemed they truly had not experienced it in a very long time.

How long had it been?

They could not remember.

At some point, their lives had come to consist solely of longing for greater cultivation. They had begun to look down on the simple lives of mortals. They had abandoned many of the habits of ordinary people, taking satisfaction in being different from them.

Gradually, as they raced against the limits of their lifespans in pursuit of higher cultivation, they seemed to have lost their happiness.

All that remained was urgency and anxiety.

They were anxious over the speed of their cultivation and worried about their lack of resources.

Actually…

Perhaps it was not so bad to occasionally set everything aside, make some noise, and simply enjoy themselves…?

These mortals had such short lifespans, yet in this moment, they seemed to be living far better than the cultivators themselves…