The child ran over, shoved the crayon into his hand, and ran away.

Chen Hao looked down at the red crayon, his fingers clenching it, but he didn't move. The exhibition area was still crowded; some people were taking photos, some were squatting down copying notes from sticky notes, and two children were drawing spaceships on a table. The projection on the wall was still playing footage from the storm, and the clip of Susan squatting on the ground picking up paint cans was playing for the third time.

He walked to the corner display board and pointed to the drawing of the duty room by a night shift worker. "Nobody knows who drew this."

Susan walked over and looked in the direction he was pointing. "Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it."

“It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that nobody asks.” Chen Hao put the crayons in his pocket. “We put on exhibitions, show videos, and post stickers. It’s lively enough, but the story just keeps going in circles. The artists don’t know that others have seen it, and the viewers don’t know who the paintings are. It just doesn’t spread.”

Carl, who was inspecting the back cover of the speaker, paused upon hearing this. "You don't think that's enough?"

"It's not that there aren't enough, it's that we're stuck." Chen Hao turned around. "Most of the people who came today have participated in the cultural festival before. How many new faces are there? There are only six or seven, including the children. Nana, do you have any data?"

Nana stood at the edge of the projection, and the optical module flashed. "In the past 72 hours, the exhibition area has recorded 1,214 visits. Among them, the group under the age of 18 accounted for 12.3%, and 307 people were participating in cultural activities for the first time. The average stay time was 6 minutes and 18 seconds."

"Six minutes," Chen Hao repeated. "Not even enough time to finish a glass of water. The children wanted to draw, but they could only look. They passed notes and wrote words, but what could they do besides stick them on? We gave them an entrance, but not a way out."

Susan frowned. "You mean none of this counts now?"

“That’s not what I meant.” Chen Hao shook his head. “I mean, just showing things off isn’t enough. We need to let people come in, get involved, and leave something behind. It can’t just be ‘you look at me,’ it has to become ‘we do it together.’”

Carl closed the speaker's back cover and stood up. "Resources are limited. To create an interactive installation, you need equipment and maintenance. We can't even gather two spare screens right now."

“Who said we need equipment?” Chen Hao pulled a crayon from his pocket and held it up. “A pen and a piece of paper, is that enough? The key isn’t the hardware, it’s the design. For example, this blank wall, we can show videos now, but tomorrow we can just paint it into a graffiti wall. Anyone can draw on it, and they don’t have to erase it. And those sticky notes, why not make portable copies? Keep one, take one, and pass it on.”

Nana's explanation: "There are 27 types of portable information carrier solutions, with the lowest cost being 0.4 units of material per document. If biodegradable paper is used, combined with a fixed collection box, weekly updates can be achieved."

Susan stared at the projection wall in the center of the exhibition area. "You want to bring the exhibition to life?"

“He was alive to begin with.” Chen Hao pointed to the comments section. “That guy who repaired the radio station wrote his message and left; nobody knows him. But if his story is read aloud, drawn, or even made into an audio clip and placed in some corner, wouldn’t someone passing by hear it and want to do something about it?”

Carl was silent for a moment. “The maintenance team has shifts every day. If we could set up a ‘one-sentence story corner’ in the handover area, with stories written on the blackboard in chalk, which the next shift could erase and rewrite, that would count as participation.”

“Yes.” Chen Hao nodded. “It doesn’t have to be permanent, but people have to feel that this isn’t over.”

Susan looked down at her painting tube. "But art isn't fast food. Some things take time, they need quiet, and not everyone is willing to participate in a noisy, disruptive way."

“Nobody asked you to make a scene,” Chen Hao’s tone softened. “But you can choose to let others get close. Your father wrote next to the graffiti because he was moved. But he left after he finished writing, and nobody knew. If we had had a small box where he could have put that sentence in, and then it was put out next week, wouldn’t someone else have followed suit?”

Susan didn't say anything.

Nana suddenly spoke up: "Emotional continuity is positively correlated with participation density. Historical data shows that individuals who continuously engage more than three times have an 80% or higher probability of producing cultural behaviors. The impact of a single demonstration diminishes over a period of four days."

"Four days?" Chen Hao chuckled. "Then we're basically distributing near-expiry food right now."

Carl twitched the corner of his mouth. "That's a really depressing analogy."

"That's just how depressing it is." Chen Hao sat down against the edge of the podium. "We put so much effort into organizing the exhibition, moved a lot of people, and received a lot of applause, but three days later everyone went back to work, slept, and complained about the food. Culture has become just an ornament again. We have to find a way to make it stick to people, even if it's just staying for one more minute a day or writing one more sentence at a time."

Susan slowly placed the drawing tube on the table. "If we're going to make it participatory, the format has to be open-ended. It can't just be drawings; there have to be words, sound, movement, even mundane things. For example... has anyone recorded the sound of their own footsteps? Or the rhythm of tapping a lunchbox?"

“I saved a segment,” Nana said. “When sampling the resonant frequency of the pipeline in section C, the beats made by the worker tapping the support with a wrench were recorded, lasting for four minutes and thirty-six seconds, which has a basic melodic structure.”

“Broadcast it,” Chen Hao said. “Just put it here, titled ‘Pre-dinner Sonata.’ Whoever likes it can sing along. The next person can tap their bowl with a spoon, that’s fine too. It doesn’t have to be fancy, as long as it’s real.”

Carl touched the side of his toolbox. "I can free up an old recording module and mount it at the entrance to the maintenance passage. Anyone who wants to talk can record as they pass by. We can select a clip each day to play in the exhibition area."

"Don't hold a selection process." Chen Hao waved his hand. "Let's broadcast it randomly. Be fair, it doesn't matter who comes. No ratings, no likes, just let it exist."

Susan looked at the densely packed sticky notes in the comments section. "We can make a 'trading book.' Put a hardcover booklet where anyone can flip through it and write in it. After writing, they don't have to hand it in; they can just leave it in the exhibition area. After a while, we'll collect it, make copies, and return the originals to their owners."

"The copier hasn't been fixed since it jammed last time," Carl reminded him.

“Then let’s copy it by hand.” Chen Hao stood up. “Each person copies one page, and we’ll distribute them as part of the shift work. It’ll also be a good opportunity to practice calligraphy. Our base’s literacy level can’t rely solely on robots.”

Nana's optical module flickers slightly. "A basic execution framework has been generated: four participatory cultural nodes are recommended, namely a sound corner, a graffiti wall, a booklet, and an impromptu performance area. The preliminary bill of materials contains thirty-nine items, of which twenty-one are alternative materials."

"It sounds like a huge project," Susan said with a wry smile. "But we have so few people and so much fragmented time. Can we really get it moving?"

“It’s the lack of action that’s truly fatal.” Chen Hao slapped the podium. “You think culture is a big deal? It’s built up from countless small things. We’re afraid of trouble, we find it too much work, and in the end, all we have left is an exhibition, a few videos, and a bunch of unclaimed paintings. Then at the next meeting, we still have to say, ‘The response last time was good,’ but everyone knows that after the excitement, nothing is left.”

No one responded.

At the other end of the exhibition area, a child was tiptoeing to stick his drawing onto the graffiti wall. The tape wasn't long enough, and the corner of the paper was sticking up. He looked back, and seeing that no one was paying attention, he simply pressed it down with his hand and waited a few seconds before letting go.

Chen Hao watched that scene. "We don't lack content, we lack an outlet. Everyone has something to say, something to do, and feelings to share, but we've only opened one door, and we don't open it often."

Susan took a deep breath. "If we're going to do it, we have to accept the mess. The graffiti wall will get dirty, the travel guide will lose pages, and the sound corner might get people yelling at the boss. It's uncontrollable."

“We couldn’t control it to begin with.” Chen Hao chuckled. “We’re not setting up standard procedures. If culture could be standardized, robots would have replaced us long ago.”

Carl looked down at the crayon box he had just pushed back onto the corner of the table. "I can make a simple stand and fix it next to the children's area. It can hold ten pens and a recycling bin. We can take inventory once a day."

“Add a sign,” Chen Hao said. “It’s okay if the drawing is ruined.”

Susan nodded. "The theme for the first issue of the 'Drifting Book' will be 'What I Didn't Finish Saying'."

Nana brought up the virtual interface. "All suggestions have been entered into the temporary solution library and marked as 'to be optimized'. Do you want to start the feedback collection process?"

"Open it now." Chen Hao took out the smoothed-out piece of paper from his pocket and stuffed it into the ballot box at the entrance of the exhibition area. "Let everyone vote on what they want to see, what they want to do, and what they don't want to see. Anonymous, no word limit."

Carl looked at the ballot box that had been made from an old cookie tin. "This thing will be full tomorrow."

"When it's full, pour it out," Chen Hao said. "After you've finished reading, burn it and start over. Leave no records, only the actions."

Susan walked to the projection wall and turned off the looping video. The screen went black for two seconds, then she opened another folder containing several unexhibited sketches: the back of a maintenance worker, the window of a late-night diner, and a child in an old spacesuit.

“These can be displayed too,” she said. “No embellishment, no explanation, just hang them there. Whoever is interested can look at them themselves.”

Chen Hao walked over and pointed to one of them. "You can stick a note on the bottom of this one. The title is 'Do you remember this back view?'"

Carl suddenly spoke up: "I've left markings on the back wall of the tool shed. I mark one line every time I finish repairing an emergency line. There are thirty-seven lines now. If we're going to make a participation wall... I can take a picture and put it on."

"Let's put it out," Chen Hao said. "The title will be 'Whoever fixed it knows.'"

Nana's optical module continued to flash, and deep within the system, above the unnamed log folder, a new label appeared: "Pending Update".

Susan gently pressed the last sticky note flat.

Carl crouched down to check the speaker's power cord, and casually pushed the crayon box further to the corner of the table.