Lin Yi's fingertips swept across the cold control panel, bringing up all the operational data for the past seven days for the seven "nameless paths" in the city.

A deluge of information flooded the screen like a waterfall; every line of code, every flicker of light, was like an electrocardiogram of the city as it awoke.

His breathing grew heavier and heavier as the scene before him completely overturned all his understanding of "wall language" and "relics".

The activation of optical paths has completely transcended the scope of human intervention.

Three days ago, during a torrential rainstorm, a light path in the east of the city was cut off by a landslide.

In the surveillance footage, without any guidance, the underground mycelial network seemed to have living tentacles, actively sensing obstacles, meandering through the soil, bypassing the landslide area, and reconnecting at 3 a.m. The whole process was as precise as surgery.

Yesterday morning, a thick fog enveloped the industrial area in the south of the city, where the light path nodes became dim due to the moisture.

However, dozens of gray crows brought dew-covered broad leaves and precisely covered the point where the energy was waning.

The moisture on the leaves seemed to act as a catalyst, allowing the light to stabilize again.

This is not a coincidence; it is a collaborative effort.

The strangest time is late at night.

Every midnight, a pack of stray dogs would appear on the "nameless path" in the north of the city. They would patrol silently along the edge of the path, and urinate at every key point.

Lin Yi zoomed in on the image and was shocked to find that the stability and conduction efficiency of the light from the nodes marked with urine had increased by three percent compared to before.

They are not marking territory, but reinforcing the city's memory network in the most primal way.

Living things, plants, and even the weather all spontaneously maintain and optimize this system.

The city itself has become a huge, living entity.

What truly sent a chill down Lin Yi's spine were the three "empty platforms" that were initially discovered.

They are no longer dormant, but have begun to sprout "light buds".

It is a thin wisp of light that grows automatically from the cracks in the platform every morning without needing any relics to trigger it.

The filaments are extremely fine, yet incredibly resilient, trembling slightly in the wind as if they are breathing.

It will continue to grow for three days, and then at dawn on the third day, a miniature Wallflower will bloom at the tip of the light filament, completely translucent, like an ice crystal.

Lin Yi stared intently at the miniature flower that had just bloomed on the screen and immediately accessed the city's historical database of meteorological and biological activities.

He input the precise time of the "light bud's" birth—5:17:34 AM—into the system for cross-comparison.

When the bullet hit, he felt a chill run down his spine.

At this point in time, the wind direction, air temperature and humidity, and even the frequency of birdsong in the background environment match the record of a certain dawn on the day the city fell ninety years ago with a 99.9% accuracy.

Memory is replicating and reproducing itself through the environment itself.

To verify this terrifying hypothesis, Lin Yi decided to conduct an extreme test.

He chose an abandoned alleyway in the west of the city that had been razed by artillery fire during the war. There was no trace of any "nameless path" there; it was a true blank space in his memory.

He mobilized the engineering team to completely seal off the fifty-meter-long alleyway with the thickest soundproofing materials and lead plates, forming an absolutely isolated "forbidden zone" that blocked all light, sound, human and biological activities.

Seven days later, when the heavy lead doors sealing the restricted area were reopened, everyone gasped in shock.

Inside, it was no longer an empty ruin.

Countless silvery-white mycelia penetrated the smallest gaps between the materials, spreading in from the outside and weaving a complete and clear network of light paths on the dark ground.

At the end of the light path network, three newly grown wallflowers stand quietly. Their roots are not planted in the wall, but grow directly from the ground. Silver veins flow on their petals, emitting a soft halo.

Lin Yi slowly walked forward and saw that three blurry human faces were faintly emerging on the petals, as if they were asleep.

He took a deep breath, took out a piece of rusty wheat stalk that had long lost its luster from his pocket, and gently tapped the ground with it.

Buzz—

The three wallflowers seemed to be awakened by invisible sound waves, and they began to tremble violently.

Their flower centers project three interwoven beams of light and shadow, converging on the mottled walls of the alley to form a dynamic scene: an old woman with gray hair, hunched over, is struggling to carve some mark on the corner of the wall with a sharp stone.

A child's innocent voice rang out from off-screen: "Grandma, now that we're gone, will anyone still be able to find this place?"

The old woman did not turn around. Her voice, hoarse yet firm, echoed through time and space in the deathly silent alley: "As long as someone has been here, the road is still here."

The image disappeared.

Lin Yi stood frozen in place, the broken stem of the wheat ear in his hand silently slipping away.

He finally understood.

Memory no longer needs "relics" as a carrier, nor does it rely on "storytelling" as a means of inheritance.

It has permeated every grain of dust and every gust of wind in this city, becoming an inseparable attribute of the environment itself.

Roads, buildings, air... they all remember, they all tell stories.

This city possesses an indelible soul.

In the center of the malt site, he erected the last and most unique "lighthouse without lamps".

The platform is bare, without any guiding devices or buried high-energy relics.

Lin Yi simply buried a fragment of a wall brick, which his mother had carved the family address into, in the center of the platform.

He wondered if this insignificant memory, which belonged only to him personally, could be accepted by the city.

Three days later, just when everyone thought the test would end in failure, something unexpected happened.

A faint yet incredibly pure wisp of light struggled to emerge from the crack in the broken brick.

Without the slightest pause, it shot into the sky like an arrow as soon as it appeared, then split into seven in the air, precisely connecting to the seven already formed "nameless paths" main trunks of the city.

In an instant, a ring-shaped light network covering the entire city was formed!

That night, the silver veins of all the wall-speaking plants in the city, regardless of whether they were new or old, flashed intensely seven times in unison.

That was the highest signal from the era of the "Night Listeners"—"Perpetuity," a signal long lost.

It represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new era.

Grandma Chen, who had been silently watching all of this, trembled as she took out paper and pen the moment she saw the light net take shape.

Instead of contacting Lin Yi, she took the initiative to initiate a "nameless co-governance" pact.

The convention calls on all citizens to voluntarily adopt a section of the "unnamed path" near their homes and become its observers and recorders, but absolutely prohibits any form of interference or damage.

She copied the written agreement onto a huge, dried wall petal, then walked unsteadily to the nearest "empty platform" and solemnly placed the petal inside.

There was no flame, and the petals were not ignited.

The moment it touched the platform's stone surface, it transformed into billions of points of light, rising up like fireflies and flying towards the entire city along the newly formed network of light.

Wherever the light passed, it activated nine ancient lampstands that had been dormant for a hundred years!

The city's monitoring center captured an astonishing scene: the nine individuals who had just pressed their fingerprints on the covenant, at the same moment, in their respective dreams, all nodded slightly, as if responding to some solemn oath.

Lin Yi stood at the highest point of the Malt Ruins, looking down at everything below.

The newly sprouted wall plants have completely broken free from the constraints of the wall. They grow independently from the earth, their thick roots intertwining closely with the mycelium and light filaments underground, forming a boundless web of life.

As the silver light pulses flow through it, the entire ruins resemble a giant beast slowly breathing, with the light and shadow undulating accordingly.

He took out the transparent wheat ear that had been with him for a long time and gently touched the ground beneath his feet.

This time, the familiar sound of a mother's footsteps inside the wheat ears completely disappeared.

Instead, there was a quiet and profound hum, like a whisper from the deepest part of the earth, the heartbeat of the entire city.

Lin Yi suddenly understood.

The memory no longer needs to be "replayed," because it has come to life in the present, and has become part of the city itself.

In the dead of night, the flames of all the lampposts on the "nameless paths" throughout the city went out quietly at the same second.

However, the city did not fall into darkness.

On the ground, the paths woven from mycelium and light filaments lost their softness and became increasingly clear and bright, like galaxies spread across the earth, guiding the way.

Just then, Lin Yi saw a newly sprouted Wallflower not far in front of him slowly, as if carrying some kind of will, turn its flower head towards him.

The petals unfolded silently, revealing the innermost center of the flower.

There were no words or images on it, but rather a line of extremely fine footprints composed of countless tiny points of light.

The footprints extended from the heart of the flower, passing through layers of petals, pointing straight to his feet.

Lin Yi subconsciously lowered his head.

His shadow and the footprints formed by that light perfectly overlapped.

A moment later, the flower shadows vanished, and the dazzling Milky Way on the ground receded into the earth like a tide, and the city returned to its usual tranquility.

Only a barely audible whisper, carried by the night breeze, gently brushed past Lin Yi's ear:

"The person who led the way should go home now."