Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 344 The Dream Lamp Remains Unextinguished, Sincerity Remains Beneath the Flame

There are two kinds of fire—one that burns you, and one that lights you up.

—From *The Book of Dreams, Volume One: The Spark*

My name is "Rice".

No, to be more precise, my name used to be Rice, but ever since the day my name was crossed out of the horoscope register, I have no longer had a name that can be called.

I became an “unknown” in this foggy city, like a blurry afterimage after a line of writing has been erased.

Now, I'm just a night shift handyman at that old flour shop between Broken Tower Street and Hay Harbor.

Every day at four o'clock in the morning, I would get up half asleep, push open the damp and cold shop door, and begin the monotonous and mechanical work day after day: sifting the flour, pouring water and kneading it until my fingers ached and my arms were numb.

In the evening, I would push my cart full of fresh bread through the doors of those wealthy families who were still willing to pay for "real flour."

He bowed his head and silently delivered the goods and collected the money, then retreated into my shadow.

There was a time when I had another identity: "a student of Morning Star".

But now, the Church's Sacred Fire Act defines us students as "heretics"—a label as deep and indelible as a brand.

Flames were being set off more and more frequently in the streets, but the amount of light people could see was decreasing.

Those people, whom the church called "preaching teams," would appear like shadows, donning silver-white robes and walking from one end of the street to the other at dusk.

They would stamp stone seals bearing the holy emblem on the lintels of every house, claiming it was "the blessing of the Virgin Mary," but everyone knew it was just another form of surveillance and restraint.

Every day, children are forcibly taken from their homes and sent to orphanages that the church calls "re-education."

Every week, a small bakery that originally sold bread is transformed into a new church preaching site.

Even the elderly craftsmen in the port dared not speak of the words "fate lines" anymore, only sighing and muttering softly:
"If you want to live, don't remember too much."

I don't believe in the Virgin Mary who sits high in the heavens and whose face is unseen, as the church claims, but I believe in "fire."

I'm talking about the Dream Lamp, the kind of spark I heard Master Si Ming talk about during my morning star and evening lessons:

"Everyone should have a lamp in their heart, not to burn others, but only to illuminate their own shadow."

The day the church shut down the Morning Star newspaper office, I was grinding flour for a shop on the street corner, my hands still covered in sticky batter.

I saw a thin boy rush out of the Morning Star Courtyard, clutching a stack of yellowed old newspapers tightly in his arms, repeating in a panicked yet stubborn voice:

"It's not heresy, it's education... it's night classes..."

But he was eventually ruthlessly pushed into the mud by the soldiers, and the sounds of his struggle gradually faded away.

I never saw that child again, but his voice became a scar etched in my heart, reminding me that the words of this world have never been so heavy.

That night, I collected the old oil lamp stubs left over from the flour shop, carefully covered the vent with a rag stained with oil, and then lit it at the back door of the shop.

I don't have any cards, I've never had any life runes, and I haven't completed my nighttime studies.

But I remember Si Ming saying something:

"You don't need to have life marks to understand light."

The next morning, I was surprised to find that the delivery girl next door had also lit up a similar light on her back door.

On the third day, the same flames also broke out in the backyard of the blacksmith's shop near the street corner.

Soon after, our flour street quietly transformed into a fragile yet resilient "fire street" within the entire Broken Tower Street.

This is neither the sacred fire promoted by the church to burn heretics, nor the stage light used by nobles to illuminate their magnificent dramas.

This is a spark that the church has never allowed to ignite—the fire of the dream lamp.

It won't take anyone's life; instead, it can restore the original meaning of every name.

The children on the street gradually learned to recognize the lights.

They no longer pay attention to the golden cross held high by the church, nor to the silver flame statues exaggerated by the nobles.

Today, they only believe in those inconspicuous lights that are quietly lit.

There are three types of streetlights.

The first type is the fire "prescribed" by the church, symbolizing command;

The second type is the fire that the nobles "want you to see," symbolizing a series of hypocritical performances.
The fire we lit was the kind of fire that "no one ordered us to do, and no one asked us to do."

This kind of fire is called "Dream Lamp".

I am no hero, but merely a lowly handyman who failed to hand over his life-binding book in time and was contemptuously called "not fully converted" by the church.

But I know that some sparks cannot speak, cannot explode, and will not resist.

It simply burned quietly, neither extinguished nor shining.

Just like me, I chose to follow that glimmer of light and live on.

My name is Rihanna, I'm 62 years old, and I'm a widow. But I still remember clearly who you are.

They told me she had been "released" back home, but I know deep down that my granddaughter has never truly "returned."

When she was sent to the orphanage by the church, she was called Ella.

That was neither a noble surname nor a name recorded in the Book of the Gospels.
It's just a simple syllable pieced together by a cloth embroidery worker and a flour maker on Broken Tower Street, using poverty and love.

On the very day she first learned how to write her destiny lines and excitedly engraved her name into her yellowed exercise book, a cold "purification order" selected her.

The reason was simply because she wrote this sentence on the whiteboard on the street corner:

"Fire can be mine too."

They told me she underwent a three-month "reinvention course".

On the day she was released, a light drizzle was falling, and gray clouds shrouded the entire city in a gloomy veil.

When I opened the door, she stood there, her expression stiff and unfamiliar.

Her backpack was neat and new, and the white shawl provided by the church looked like a thin layer of frost covering her shoulders.
The "proof of return" she held in her hand seemed to indicate that she had been stripped of her memory.

I went up and hugged her, but she stood frozen in place, not responding, only softly reciting the verses the church had taught her:
"By the Holy Mother, heretical thoughts cannot enter my mind."

I tightened my arms around her, but my heart felt like it was sinking into an abyss—the girl I was holding was not my familiar granddaughter, but a clay doll sculpted by the hands of the Holy Mother.

Her soul was burned by the church into a lifeless, empty shell.

From that day on, she got up at four o'clock every morning and knelt down to pray at seven o'clock.
In the afternoon, she mechanically recited eight hadiths, and before going to bed at night, she would repeatedly listen to recordings of the Gospel through the prayer device the church had placed in her room. She always told me:
"This is so I won't become a 'person in the fire'."

However, sometimes, in the quiet and deep of midnight, when I quietly open my eyes, I see her hiding deep in the quilt, secretly pulling out a crumpled old piece of paper.

Those were her notes from a fortune-telling class. The paper was yellowed and faded, and the edges were tattered, but one sentence was still clearly written on it:
“Fate lines are not the language of the gods.”

"It's the voice you want the 'future' to hear."

I stood quietly behind her, speechless. I saw her fingers gently pressing on the words, her eyes closed, as if she were devoutly recalling her true faith.

I didn't disturb her. At that moment, I knew that my granddaughter was still alive—not in physical form, but as someone who still remembered "who she was," and had not been completely burned.

The next day, when I went to the market to buy vegetables, I saw Old Zhao on Flour Street.

He squatted at the entrance of his shop and silently lit an inconspicuous dream lamp.

The lights were faint, like the whispers of fireflies, yet they shone with unwavering determination.

He told me:

"This is how children remember who lit up their lives."

When I got home, I also turned on a lamp for my granddaughter and placed it in the darkest part of her desk.

I didn't say anything, but when she saw it, she simply held a book gently in front of the lamp, as if afraid that a breeze would extinguish that little bit of light.

We are not capable of arguing with the Church, much less reasoning with the Virgin Mary who sits high in the church.

But we can choose to do one simple and stubborn thing:
Light a lamp for yourself.

If one day she truly forgets who she once was, forgets the life lines she learned and the faint spark that the Morning Star gave her...

So this little lamp of dreams will remember for her—that she once wished to speak in her own language, not the gospel forcibly instilled by the church. They say the flame can burn away heretics, but they forget to tell us:
Who can say we can't ignite our own fire?
My last name is Hunter, and I don't have a given name.

People used to call me "Hunter the Plumber," but after I lost my eyesight, they started calling me "Blind Uncle."

I unloaded cargo in the foggy harbor at the end of the dock, and in my youth I also guided lost ships.

Now, all I can perceive is the sound of the wind in my ears and the hurried footsteps of those who have passed by.

Even so, I still understand that the fire in this city has never been extinguished.

That year, church members shut down the Morning Star newspaper and vilified it as a "heretic troupe."

But I clearly remember that I once ferried someone named "Si Ming" across the river.

He sat quietly in my nephew's little boat and asked me a question:
What are your thoughts on the night?

I was stunned for a moment, and said:
"Night? How can a blind person distinguish between day and night?"

He chuckled softly, his voice like a whisper in a dream:
"Perhaps, sometimes you understand better than those who have eyes—where there was light, there is always darkness."

I was speechless, but he took out a small "dream lamp" from his pocket and told me that it was something he had brought back from the depths of the "Sea of ​​Dreams".

I am illiterate and have never learned any mysterious spells, but when I lit it, I felt even the wind obediently circling around me—

It wasn't out of fear, but rather more of a sense of respect, as if the very position of this lamp seemed to be acknowledged even by the laws of the world:
It shouldn't be extinguished.

So I hung the Dream Lantern outside the oldest warehouse at the dock.

People around me said I was crazy, and asked me with mockery, "What can a small oil lamp block?"
But since then, more and more young people have been coming to me to repair water pumps, and they tell me in hushed tones:

"Only under your lamp can we speak with peace of mind."

They talked about the morning star, their life lines, and the dreams and stories they dared not tell outsiders.

Though I couldn't see them as they whispered, I could sense a gentle yet resolute light shining on their faces—

Just as in their hearts, each of them harbors a small flame.

I am not afraid of the church arresting me, because I have never possessed any life runes, nor have I ever come into contact with those dangerous cards, nor do I have any secrets that can be registered.

All I did was light a lamp:

A lamp that is not allowed, a lamp that one can easily forget to turn on if one is not careful.

But as long as even one child says to me:

"Grandpa, that lamp is still on."

I then knew that those flames had never been completely extinguished.

They did not come from the "sacred fire" that hung high in the sky and was used to judge heretics.
Rather, it is deeply hidden in the soil beneath our feet, hidden in every silent street and alley, in every dimly lit house—our own fire.

One night, I was sitting in front of that lamp when someone quietly took my hand.

Those hands were cold, yet they steadily handed me a small wick.

I asked her name softly, and she only left me with one sentence:

"The Keeper of Dreams, Lilia Nightlight Guide".

I don't understand what kind of name this is, but I feel that there is a quiet yet powerful force in this voice.

I know that from now on, this flame will be passed down from generation to generation.

The church is trying to block all the light that belongs to us, but we all understand:
True light cannot be contained.

Even if you don't speak, it exists quietly.

Even with your eyes closed, it continues to burn quietly.

If you tear off the first page, it will stubbornly light up again on the last page.

My name is Halley, and I used to be a newsboy for Morning Star.

Back then, the Morning Star newspaper office was a beacon on Broken Tower Street.

Every morning at dawn, I would carry fresh newspapers through the thin mist of daybreak, handing the still-warm ink from the pages to everyone waiting for the truth.

Morning Star's newspaper was never late, because the teacher would often stand on the second-floor windowsill and remind me in a hoarse but firm voice:
"Harley, don't be late. Every word of the truth must be spoken within a moment's notice."

Later, the newspaper office was shut down, and I had no more newspapers to deliver.

The city was soon flooded with church "gospel bulletins," with ornate silver-edged covers and resounding platinum lettering, five pages a day, telling stories of the sacred fire, purification, and blessing.

But these words did not illuminate anyone's soul. It's not that people can't read, it's just that no one is willing to read lies.

I was forced to become a cleaner, sweeping dust every day at the western end of Broken Tower Street, in that alleyway least frequented by the church patrol.

Although there are no more newspapers to deliver, I have never forgotten the smell of newspapers: the slightly bitter scent of printing ink, the tactile sensation of the paper edges curling slightly from being pressed.

And every time I hand the newspaper to a reader, a glimmer of longing quietly rises in their eyes.

However, this city has become too quiet now.

Everyone's dreams seemed to be squeezed tightly by an invisible hand. Adults kept silent, and children dared not draw any more lines on their destiny.

The front of the used bookstore was covered with newly posted prayer notices. An elderly gentleman selling calligraphy and paintings was forcibly taken away simply because one of his works contained the following:

"Even if the gods are silent, I will still write my own story."

The church's sacred fire burned fiercely, reducing all "heretic" voices to ashes.

But I witnessed firsthand that some flames were never consumed by the sacred fire.

One late night, as I was sweeping the alleyway at the entrance of Third Street, I saw a girl dressed in a white church student uniform, carrying a schoolbag, standing in the shadow of the statue of the Virgin Mary.

She looked around cautiously, then took a small lamp out of her pocket.

She lit it, gently placed it at the statue's feet, and then turned and quickly left—not to run away, but to rush towards a future that belonged to her.

I slowly approached the lamp. It was small, with a thin wick, and the faint flame was almost blown out by the wind.

I used the broom in my hand to block the wind and protect the small flame.

The next day, I also lit a lamp and placed it at the familiar intersection where I used to deliver newspapers.

Gradually, a second, a third, a fifth... appeared there until the thirteenth lamp was lit.
I heard people whispering that a similar fire had broken out at the entrance of the alleyway to the dock.

Some even say that in the Sea of ​​Dreams, there is a ship sailing for the flame of the Dream Lamp.

We dare not speak aloud about our dreams, but we have never forgotten them.

I still clearly remember the first evening class when the teacher solemnly told us:

"Life lines are letters written to the future."

He said that even if you can't put pen to paper right now, that's okay.

As long as you turn on the light, this letter will remain quietly inside the envelope, and someone will pick it up and continue writing the unfinished parts.

From that day on, every time I swept the streets, I would carry a lamp wick and a small bottle of oil in my pocket.

Perhaps I won't light it today, but I know the next person to see it will understand—

This lamp was not lit by me alone.

This fire doesn't just belong to me.

It belongs to all of us, to those who still remember their names in the darkness.

We have no life lines, no morning star, and no right to loudly proclaim anything to the world.

But we have the Dream Lamp.

It's still lit up.

And we still remember.

"It wasn't anyone who started the fire."
It is we—who will no longer hide the fire.

—A message left on the base of the nameless dream lamp
(End of this chapter)