The data on my screen exploded.

A deep, dark gold spread across the world's plant communities, and with it came... this.

The familiar white text on my screen became blurry and fragmented.

My pupils contracted; I sensed something was wrong.

I ripped off the headset and started breathing rapidly.

This is not a malfunction, nor is the system broken; rather, it is... unusual.

I got back to work, my fingers flying across the keyboard, bringing up every data stream I could find, including light paths, energy signals, and every aspect of the interconnected life of the city.

Then I saw it.

The human perspective, the standard perspective I'm familiar with... has been covered up.

What flickers in the same data stream is no longer just the familiar human perspective.

This is dizzying.

One moment, I was staring at the normal street scene; the next, I was on the ground, as if I were on the surface of the asphalt road, and the world became a strange olfactory feast.

The city is presented through the eyes of a dog, and the impact is dizzying.

Then the perspective shifts to a bird's-eye view, making the buildings appear tiny, as if viewed from a mile above.

Then comes the worm's perspective, which is truly dizzying.

The plants have now become a vibrant, dazzling golden ocean, full of perspectives I can't even comprehend.

These are all animal memories, interwoven with the flow of information.

This is shocking; it's not a side effect, nor is it a vulnerability.

Data streams, plants, the entire network—they are all living things.

“They are not bystanders…they are the foundation stones of the road,” I said softly.

Just then, the old woman arrived.

Grandma Chen is a regular in the old neighborhood. She appeared at the station entrance, clutching a worn and yellowed book tightly in her hand.

Her ancient and wise eyes held no trace of the fear or confusion that troubled me.

She opened the book, which was filled with faded ink and childish illustrations; it was a collection of nursery rhymes.

She pointed to the book, her rough fingers moving along the pages until she reached a page with dog paw prints.

“These dogs,” her voice was hoarse with age, “those dogs from the shelter… when they get lost, they don’t bark, they paw at the ground, they’re guiding the way.” A chill ran down my spine.

I need to verify this.

I immediately pulled up the bridge's surveillance footage and reviewed data from several days, weeks, and even months.

I focused on the dog's movement routes, paths, and tracks on the main bridge.

The root systems of plants and the light paths of cities have both changed!

These paths... each path now forms a clear pattern and is arranged in a circular symbol.

This cannot be a coincidence.

The dog... is the key.

The animals are marking the path of light.

At this point, the path to understanding has begun.

I need to prove that.

I chose an abandoned subway tunnel that used to be an animal shelter, which was the perfect testing environment.

I carefully calibrated and installed vibration sensors at various locations in the old station.

The first night, there was no movement; the second night, there was only static interference; the third night... the sensor reacted.

The open space echoed with rhythmic tapping sounds, three short taps followed by one long tap, spaced seven seconds apart—this was the "homecoming tune" of the "Night Listeners."

It couldn't have happened, but it did.

I responded tremblingly with a rusty straw, three short and one long.

I waited, my heart pounding in my chest, and the straw vibrated.

Then, a miracle happened.

Two paths of light emerged from the darkness, one at a height of 1.5 meters, the height of a human; the other at a height of 40 centimeters, the height of a dog.

"Lower-level discourse...higher-level discourse." This theory gradually became clear in my mind.

These two optical paths, this combined signal, this dual network—this is the current actual structure.

I immediately ordered the installation of "ground humming sensors" at each silent station and trained the patrol teams to become "dual-track guides," focusing on sensing animal signals.

The results came out quickly.

A patrolman followed the tremors to a park, where they found an old dog rhythmically tapping on a tombstone in a cemetery.

The dog knocked a specific pattern on a stone: "home".

That was the grave of its owner, who had died thirty years ago; the scene was deeply moving.

I know I must go further.

My next plan is "twin light stands".

I must find a solution, with the goal of fully realizing the dream of communication.

I have now arrived at the Malt Site, and the "Twin Lampstands" are in place.

The low lights for the animals ignited with an amber flame, projecting an image of a scene from decades ago.

The image of young Grandma Chen and a small dog is as clear as a direct memory.

I saw a dog on the bridge with its human companion; it was a joyful sight.

The old dog on the bridge, now like a ghost, has been guarding the lamp all night.

It died at dawn, and its cubs took its place.

The legacy is evident: it has an unwavering loyalty and mission to humanity.

I stood amidst the ruins, phantoms flickering around me.

They are no longer just my mother, but silhouettes of humans and animals walking side by side on this new path.

I could almost feel the heartbeat of the earth, its steady and powerful pulse.

I touched a plant with a transparent straw, and sound and feeling enveloped me: it was a wave of footsteps, claws, hooves, and wings.

The whole world is filled with the sounds of countless lives.

“Now, this road wasn’t built by us… but by all the lives that have lived, died, and been remembered together,” I said.

I opened my eyes again, and the silver veins began to flow again... faster and more complex.

The light shimmered, full of life.

Those patterns... have something new, something richer, that I can't quite describe.

The light took on a new color.

I can feel this world now, a silver world that dances and flows.

The blinding dark golden light instantly engulfed the entire monitoring room, and Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.

This is not a warning, this is a declaration.

This signifies that the fragile balance he had built over the past seven days has been completely overturned by a force he cannot comprehend at all.

He lunged at the control panel, his fingers flying across the keyboard, typing in lines of commands in an instant.

A torrent of data from the core database flooded the screen, and a massive stream of data exploded before his eyes.

No longer familiar, stable fragments of human memory.

On the screen, the flowing images representing the silver veins of the "Wall Language Plant" became chaotic and incoherent.

One second, he was looking at the eaves of the old town under the setting sun from the perspective of an old man; the next second, the whole world suddenly plummeted, the scene moved at high speed close to the ground, the rough texture of the cobblestone road was clearly visible, and the shadows cast by the roadside pressed down like mountains—this is the dog's perspective!

Then, the scene suddenly leaps up, climbing along the vertical wall, finally stopping on a windowsill, looking down at the tiny human figures below—this is the cat's perspective!

There are even lights and shadows moving through the dark soil, sensing the veins of grass roots and the obstacles of pebbles—that is the memory of earthworms!

Birds soar through the sky, mice burrow into the ground, and dogs sniff out everything.

Countless non-human, low-perspective, primitive yet vivid fragments of memory, like a flood bursting its banks, forcibly flooded into the "Shared Light of Living Beings" system, which originally belonged only to humans.

Lin Yi felt a wave of dizziness. He forced himself to calm down and stared intently at a key line of data: "In the core area of ​​the Malt Relics Site, plant roots and underground animal nests form a large-scale bioelectric resonance network, increasing the information transmission efficiency of light filaments by 300%!"

I see.

He believed that animals were merely passive carriers of memory, bystanders of urban memory.

He was wrong, terribly wrong.

They use their bodies, their nests, and their life trajectories to intertwine and coexist with the roots of plants, weaving a neural network buried deep underground that is far larger and more efficient than he imagined.

“They are not bystanders…” Lin Yi leaned back in his chair, lost in thought, his voice hoarse, “They are…the founders of the road.”

Just then, the door to the control room was gently pushed open.

Grandma Chen walked in cautiously, her body hunched over, a hint of unease in her cloudy eyes.

In her arms, she solemnly held a tattered and yellowed collection of nursery rhymes, the cover of which was curled up.

“Xiao Yi,” she walked to Lin Yi’s side, turned to a page in the book, and handed it to him, “Grandma remembered something. A long time ago, there was a shelter in the malt field that kept a lot of unwanted dogs. Those dogs were strange; they didn’t bark, they never barked. When they were hungry, cold, or homesick, they would just scratch the mud with their paws.”

Lin Yi's gaze fell on the pages of the book.

It was a simple illustration depicting fields and fences, with messy dog ​​paw prints drawn in childish strokes in the blank spaces.

Grandma Chen's fingers trembled as she traced the paw prints: "The adults all say they are mute dogs, but we children know they aren't. They are marking the way, marking a path home."

One sentence exploded in Lin Yi's mind like a thunderclap!

He sat up abruptly, his eyes flashing with a terrifying light.

Going home... claws... scratching the road!

He immediately pulled up the surveillance footage of the underpass area, locked onto the group of stray dogs circling the silent lights, and analyzed it frame by frame at the slowest playback speed.

He saw it!

The dogs' seemingly chaotic movements of circling, stopping, and digging, after dozens of cycles, actually traced a complex and precise set of circular symbols on the ground!

Lin Yi immediately input the topological structure of this set of symbols into the system and compared it with the root distribution map of the "Wall Language Plant".

100% match!

The path the pack of dogs took was exactly the same as the most critical branching point of the underground root system!

They not only remember the way, but they also use their bodies and the most primitive language to "calibrate" the nodes of the underground light veins again and again!

A crazy and audacious idea popped into my head.

Lin Yi took a deep breath and immediately ordered: "Connect to the abandoned subway line 3 tunnel in the north of the city, activate the 'earthquake vibration' monitoring array, turn off all light sources, and enter silent mode!"

That tunnel was once the largest animal sanctuary after the disaster.

If animals are truly "writing" paths with their bodies, they will definitely leave traces there.

Nothing happened on the first night.

The second night was still deathly silent.

Lin Yi's heart sank.

It wasn't until 3 a.m. on the third night that the piercing alarm finally sounded!

The system detected a highly regular vibration originating from deep within the tunnel.

The sound was amplified by the sensor and clearly entered Lin Yi's ears—it was the sound of claws striking the concrete floor!

"Tap, tap, tap—tap!" Seven seconds apart, perfectly timed!

Lin Yi was jolted; he was all too familiar with this rhythm!

This is the "homecoming tune" that the "Night Listeners" used to transmit signals in the darkness back then!

He rushed out of the control room, retrieved the rusty stalk of the "Night Listener" wheat ear from the archives, and sprinted to the tunnel entrance.

He crouched down and, mimicking the rhythm, gently tapped the ground with the end of a broken wheat stalk.

Three short, one long.

Deep inside the tunnel, the rhythmic clawing sounds abruptly ceased.

The deathly silence lasted for more than ten seconds, as if confirming something.

Then, a clearer and more forceful clawing sound came from the darkness!

The moment the response rang out, something strange happened on the ground inside the tunnel!

Two parallel light paths appeared out of thin air, stretching forward along the ground like ghosts.

A beam of light, suspended about 1.5 meters above the ground, which is the height at which humans can walk.

The other track is close to the ground, only forty centimeters high, which is the height for dogs to run on!

The two tracks run parallel and complement each other, extending all the way to the end of the tunnel, like a homecoming road that transcends species.

Lin Yi understood.

The animals' memories form a "whispering layer" underground, independent yet capable of interacting with human memories.

Human memory, on the other hand, is at the "higher level."

Only by combining the two can we achieve a complete journey home!

"Order!" Lin Yi's voice was firm and decisive. "All silent stations, immediately install 'earthquake sensor panels' and bury them underground to detect even the slightest vibrations! All patrol members, receive emergency training to become 'dual-track guides'—they must not only understand human speech, but also learn to sense earthquakes!"

On the first night of the new regulations, the guide at Chengxi Park Station reported an anomaly.

He sensed a faint vibration from the sensor on his chest, and following the source of the vibration, he found a emaciated old dog in a corner deep inside the park.

The dog was tirelessly patting an inconspicuous stone tablet with its front paws, over and over again.

The guide checked the old city archives and was shocked – buried beneath the stone tablet was the owner of this old dog thirty years ago.

Verification successful.

Lin Yi immediately moved forward with the next step of the plan—the pilot project of the "twin lamp holders".

At each quiet station, two lights, one high and one low, are installed.

The high-beam lights continue to tell human memories, while the low-beam lights remain empty, waiting to be spontaneously activated by another kind of life.

On the seventh day of the pilot operation, a miracle occurred at the Malt Site.

The dimly lit lamp, without any external power source, suddenly burst into flames!

The flames were not silvery-white, but a warm amber color.

Sunlight cast a dynamic image on the dilapidated wall: a young girl with pigtails, carrying a small dog with a red rope around its neck, walks happily across a golden wheat field.

That girl was Granny Chen in her youth.

That night, the old dog under the bridge stayed by the lamp all night, motionless.

When the first rays of sunlight shone down the next morning, it lay quietly in front of the lamp base and closed its eyes forever.

While its body was still warm, a timid little cub wobbled forward from behind it, took its place, and gently placed its tender front paws on the lamp base.

The inheritance was completed silently at this moment.

Late at night, Lin Yi stood alone in the center of the Malt Ruins.

He looked up at the newly sprouted wall plants swaying in the wind.

At the top of the plant, those suspended points of light and shadow were no longer merely the outline of his mother.

The light and shadow shifted and intertwined, weaving countless silhouettes of people and animals in harmony: an old man with a hunched back, holding a gentle dog on a leash; a child giggling, cradling a lazy cat in his arms; a nurse beside the ruins, scattering breadcrumbs to a flock of chirping sparrows...

Just then, a final, muffled tremor resounded across the entire earth.

The sound didn't seem like an end, but rather like the final beat of a heartbeat, or the prologue to a brand new melody.

Lin Yi slowly reached out and took out the crystal-clear, whole ear of wheat that he always carried with him.

He bent down and gently touched the thickest root of the wall-talking plant with the tip of a wheat ear.

In an instant, a vast and boundless sound wave surged into his mind.

That was no longer a single footstep, but a symphony of billions of lives!

The steady footsteps of humans, the light paw sounds of dogs, the heavy hooves of horses, the flapping wings of birds... countless life trajectories, whether alive, dead, or remembered, converge into a surging torrent.

He closed his eyes and murmured to himself, as if speaking to the earth, and also as if speaking to himself:

"Now, the road wasn't built by us... it was built by all the lives that lived, died, and remembered, walking together."

After speaking, he slowly opened his eyes, his gaze returning to the silver veins of the wall-whispering plant beside him.

The earth's heartbeat has ceased, and a new rhythm has been established.

The silver light flowing through the veins of the plant seemed to have undergone some indescribable change at this moment.

It is brighter and faster than ever before, and in its flow, it seems to contain an unprecedented, full and complex sense of life.