The Flame centers on a traditional Yi funeral in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan, approaching fire as ritual presence, ancestral symbol, and spiritual axis within Yi cosmology. In Yi cultural memory, fire carries meanings far beyond warmth or combustion; it is a totem, a source of lineage, a medium of purification, and a sign of continuity between the living and the dead. Within the funeral rite, flame becomes the visible form of passage, gathering grief, reverence, kinship, and collective memory into a shared ceremonial space. This work follows the emotional and symbolic gravity of that moment, where mourning is inseparable from ritual order, and where death is held within a larger structure of belief, inheritance, and return. The images attend to the dignity of the ceremony and to the enduring cultural consciousness embedded within it, revealing how fire continues to illuminate the Yi people’s understanding of origin, departure, and spiritual belonging.