That dead wheat field was like an ugly scar branded onto the fertile earth, with clear edges and a deathly still interior.

The crops were drained of all life overnight, turning scorched and withered, while the soil beneath their roots hardened into clumps, as hard as iron.

Using state-of-the-art instruments, the soil was found to be non-toxic, the crops disease-free, and the air composition normal.

This inexplicable strangeness is more unsettling than any known disaster.

Lin Yi stood at the edge of the wheat field with his group of young but experienced students, the air thick with a tense atmosphere of dust and despair.

Several agricultural experts were at a loss, surrounded by the "dead end." Theories and data were as pale as a piece of waste paper in the face of this unreasonable reality.

“Teacher Lin, this…this is completely beyond our comprehension.” A student murmured to himself, his voice trembling with a hint of frustration at the unknown.

While everyone else was anxious and restless, Lin Yi remained unusually calm.

His gaze went beyond the withered wheat stalks, as if it could penetrate the hardened earth and see something deeper.

He ignored the complicated instruments and turned to walk towards the nearby farm tool shed, where he picked up a very ordinary hoe.

Under the astonished gazes of everyone, Lin Yi rolled up his sleeves and walked to the very center of the deadly circle.

He gripped the hoe handle tightly, his arm muscles bulging slightly, and then swung it down with a vengeance!

With a crisp "clang," the hoe blade struck the hard ground, leaving only a shallow white dot, which made his hand go numb.

The students looked at each other, puzzled. They couldn't even turn over the ground; how could they possibly conduct a survey?

Lin Yi, however, seemed determined to fight this deadly place.

He remained silent, adjusted his breathing, and poured all his strength into his arms.

The second shovel, the third shovel... He was like a tireless statue, using the most primitive and clumsy methods to fight against this eerie silence.

Sweat trickled down his forehead, soaking his clothes, but his rhythm remained perfectly steady.

The surrounding chatter gradually subsided, and everyone was awestruck by his almost obsessive focus.

They didn't understand the point of such brute-force digging in an era where technology could detect trace elements hundreds of meters underground.

After an unknown amount of time, when the hoe had dug down nearly half a meter, the soil at the bottom of the pit was no longer a solid block and began to loosen.

With another strike of the hoe, a muffled clang rang out, completely different from the previous sound; it wasn't stone, but some kind of metal.

Lin Yi's movements came to an abrupt halt.

He threw down the hoe, bent down, and carefully dug away the soil with his hands.

Soon, a rusty metal piece with broken edges appeared before everyone's eyes.

It was a medal, only half of it. The patterns on it were blurred by rust, but the relief of wheat ears and gears could still be vaguely discerned.

Some of the older people present changed their expressions slightly; they recognized the object.

This medal, awarded decades ago to a hero who died on this land, was once enshrined at the village entrance and worshipped by the people.

Later, a vigorous "de-heroization" movement swept in, and all objects related to hero worship were regarded as spiritual shackles. This medal also disappeared during that chaotic period, and it turned out that it was buried deep here.

Lin Yi silently held the medal in his palm; the cold, earthy metal seemed to weigh a ton.

He could sense a faint yet incredibly persistent echo of consciousness clinging to this forgotten glory.

He did not make any public statements, but simply returned to the school with the medal.

He spent an afternoon using water and a soft cloth to carefully wipe away the dirt and rust from the medal, revealing its original brass color.

The next day, a strange "lost item" appeared on the clothesline outside the school kitchen.

Lin Yi strung the half of the medal on a red string and hung it in the most conspicuous place.

Beside it, a white slip of paper had a line written in charcoal: "Found in a wheat field, please claim it."

The news spread like wildfire.

People watched from afar, whispering among themselves, but no one dared to step forward.

That medal is like a silent interrogation, questioning everyone's conscience and cowardice.

To worship it was once an honor; to abandon it was the "right" thing to do back then; but now, to claim it back requires facing the guilt that has been buried in the past.

That night, it was late and quiet.

Lin Yi didn't sleep; he just sat by the window and watched quietly.

Under the moonlight, a dark figure crept closer and placed a chipped old bowl under the medal, containing half a bowl of already cold white rice.

Immediately afterwards, another dark figure quietly arrived and placed down a pair of worn-out cloth shoes with soles almost completely worn through.

They put down their things, bowed deeply in the direction of the medals, and then hurriedly disappeared into the darkness, never daring to look up from beginning to end.

A barely perceptible smile appeared on Lin Yi's lips.

He waited until everyone had gone far away before getting up and walking out.

He poured the cold rice into his pot and slowly warmed it over a low flame; then he found a needle, thread, and scraps of cloth, and by the light of the lamp, carefully mended the worn-out shoes.

The next morning, the medal was still hanging at the kitchen door, but below it was a bowl of steaming rice and a pair of neatly repaired shoes.

On this day, there were even more people coming and going, and their eyes no longer held only fear, but also a hint of complex emotions.

On the third day, just as dawn was breaking, an elderly woman with faltering steps and trembling hands took away the shoes.

She didn't say anything, but simply placed a basket full of freshly picked vegetables gently where it was.

She raised her head, her cloudy eyes taking a deep look at the medal, and tears streamed down her face.

At that very moment, Chu Yao, who was in another room, suddenly opened her eyes.

On the brainwave monitor in front of her, the waveform representing the collective unconsciousness of this area underwent a dramatic shift.

The sharp curve representing "worship-escape" was instantly replaced by a smooth yet powerful "guilt-compensation" cyclical waveform.

"It's a success..." Chu Yao said softly, her tone full of disbelief.

Almost simultaneously, Ivan's voice, seemingly from the depths of the earth, whispered in Lin Yi's mind: "It has sensed the change... It is searching for a new host... Remember, it is hidden in 'The Betrayed Effort'."

Lin Yi suddenly felt enlightened!

He understood.

That powerful, lingering consciousness, that "it" that feeds on the human spirit, is no longer simply attached to the worship of heroes.

Because worship brings fear and avoidance, this energy is impure and mixed.

It evolved; it found a more stable and continuous source of energy—the resentment born from those betrayed efforts!

Those farmers who toiled day and night to cultivate wasteland, only to reap nothing and be ridiculed as reckless laborers; those sentinels who patrolled the border day and night, yet whose names were unknown, growing old in silence; those builders who devoted their entire lives to the cause, only to be easily swept away by the tides of time, leaving no trace of their names... Their grievances, their resentment, their fruitless labor, converged into a deeper, more hidden negative energy.

This energy became its perfect nest.

Having figured this out, Lin Yi immediately took action.

He announced the establishment of an "unnamed ledger" at the school.

The rule is simple: anyone who does a good deed for this group can anonymously write it down on a piece of paper and drop it into the ledger box.

Every morning, the youngest child randomly selects three cards, reads them aloud in front of the entire school, and everyone expresses their gratitude in unison.

This seemingly childish act touched the softest spot in everyone's heart.

On the first day, there were only a few slips of paper in the box.

A child read in a clear, childlike voice, "Last...last night, someone fixed the drainpipe on the east wall."

"Thank you!" the entire school responded in unison, their voices loud and clear.

"Someone... helped Wu Xiaopang, a third-grader, mend three pairs of socks."

"Thank you!" This time, the response was filled with smiles and warmth.

Gradually, more and more slips of paper were put into the box.

"The silt in the well has been cleared."

"The pages of the old books in the library have been glued back together."

"I fed the stray cat on the back hill."

Every single thing that is mentioned, no matter how small, will receive the sincerest gratitude.

Those acts of kindness that were once overlooked now shine brightly in the sunlight.

One day, when a child read aloud, "I saw someone cleaning the leaf-covered path on the west side of the school before dawn every day," everyone's eyes instinctively turned to Lin Yi.

Because he was the only one who would walk back from the west every morning, leaning on his cane.

Under everyone's gaze, Lin Yi did not deny it, but simply smiled and raised his hand: "This one, I wrote it."

A burst of enthusiastic applause and cheers erupted from the crowd.

That very night, a miracle occurred.

The menacing circle of dead wheat in the field shrank dramatically without warning, revealing a ring of soil within that was now teeming with life again.

Lin Yi knew that the time had come.

He seized the opportunity and led hundreds of volunteer teachers, students, and villagers in a grand "returning to farming ceremony".

They retrieved all the medals, battle flag fragments, certificates of honor, and other items that had been buried, hidden, or forgotten over the past decades.

Lin Yi announced that no new monument would be erected and no ancestral hall would be built.

He set up a stone mill and personally ground those objects that bore the marks of glory and pain into golden, silver, and crimson powder, bit by bit.

“Past glories need not be enshrined on cold stone tablets,” his voice echoed across the fields, “let them return to the earth and become nourishment for the future!”

People carefully mixed the shimmering powder into the new soil and then sowed the plump wheat seeds.

Finally, Lin Yi personally pushed the heavy wooden plow, refusing everyone's help.

Step by step, he carved out the first furrow on the site of the dead circle.

The furrows, deep and straight, seemed to be cutting open the scars of this land and then stitching them back together.

As he pushed the plow forward, Ivan's voice rang out again, carrying a rare tremor: "The eighty-third leyline node... is being purified... a crack has appeared." The leyline then trembled slightly seven times, as if in response to this rebirth.

By the time the ceremony ended, it was already late.

Lin Yi deliberately left the wooden plow, soaked with his sweat, in the middle of the field, and then, leaning on his crutch, turned and walked away wearily.

Many people saw this and felt sorry for the victims, but no one did anything.

In the middle of the night, a tall, thin figure sneaked into the fields under the moonlight.

He bent down, trying to straighten and place the heavy plow properly.

As he moved the plow, he found a small note under the blade, written in Lin Yi's handwriting: "Don't let it get cold."

The man shuddered and stood silently for a long time.

He didn't try to move the plow again. Instead, he found a clean cloth, wiped the mud off the plow, and then quietly left.

The next morning, Lin Yi came to the field again.

The wooden plow had been wiped clean and stood upright at the edge of the field.

Beside the plow was a cup of hot tea in a rough porcelain bowl, steaming gently.

Lin Yi picked up the cup of tea, which was still warm, and looked at the mountain silhouettes in the distance, which were becoming clearer in the morning light. He said softly, "It can't hide anymore."

The moment the words fell, deep within the distant mountains, unnoticed by anyone, an invisible, bone-deep underground fissure, as if soothed by a warm force, was slowly closing.

Just like this ancient land, it finally swallowed the last bit of resentment that had accumulated for a hundred years, and is preparing to welcome a long-awaited peace.

Lin Yi drank the cup of tea, and a warm current rose from his stomach, instantly spreading to his limbs and bones.

He let out a long sigh of relief, feeling all the fatigue of the past few days vanish, and his mind had never been so clear.

The dawn of victory seems to be just around the corner.