That strange sense of synchronization sent chills down his spine.

This is no longer a passive traction, but an active integration.

The almost invisible silver thread beneath his feet seemed to be an extension of his nerve endings, sharing the same heartbeat with this desolate city.

He lifted his foot and tentatively took a step forward.

The instant his toes touched the ground, a brand-new silver thread appeared out of thin air on the ground in front of him, exactly the distance of his next step.

Behind him, the short stretch of path he had just walked along vanished like smoke, leaving no trace.

Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat, and he abruptly stopped.

The silver thread in front of him also came to a standstill, like a patient guide, waiting for his decision.

He turned his head, trying to look back at the path he had come from, but behind him was only deep darkness; the path of light that had led him here had completely disappeared.

He then tried taking two steps to the side, attempting to deviate from the predetermined path.

In an instant, the silver threads beneath his feet twisted wildly, trembling violently like a frightened creature. The path ahead also instantly became chaotic, turning into a tangled mess of illogical threads, as if issuing a silent warning.

This is a one-way, unique path, created just for you.

Turning back means getting lost. Deviating from the path means chaos.

Lin Yi took a deep breath, suppressing his surprise and doubt.

He had no choice but to follow this strange path, step by step.

With each step, new guidance is generated ahead; with each step taken, all the past is severed behind.

He seemed to be walking on the edge of time, pushed by an invisible force, unable to turn back or stop.

The abandoned neighborhood receded silently on both sides, with broken neon signs and dusty shop windows resembling tombstones.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, he stopped in front of a long-closed photo studio.

On the old signboard, the words "Time" have long since faded and worn.

Just as his gaze swept across the huge shop window, something unexpected happened!

The originally smooth glass surface was now rippling like water.

Immediately afterwards, a moving image appeared on the glass—it was a boy of about ten years old, wearing a faded school uniform, with a bright smile on his face, his little hand being held tightly by a warm and delicate big hand.

That was him, and his mother when she was young.

They were walking down the street, and his mother was looking down at him, speaking softly to him.

The whole scene was terrifyingly realistic; even the curve of the mother's hair being blown by the wind was clearly visible.

These vivid memories, like a red-hot branding iron, burned fiercely into Lin Yi's heart.

Three seconds, just three seconds, and the image shattered and vanished like a dream bubble.

The shop window glass was restored to its original state, still covered in dust, but... where the mother's cheek had been in the previous scene, a clear wet streak remained, winding down in a shape resembling a teardrop.

As if possessed, Lin Yi reached out and gently touched the wet stain with his fingertips.

"Buzz..."

A very slight tremor came from my fingertips, as if some sound was trapped on the other side of the glass, desperately trying to get through, but was blocked by the cold medium.

Was it an illusion, or... was memory itself trying to communicate with him?

Lin Yi's heart pounded, and he immediately took out the transparent wheat stalk that he always carried with him from his pocket.

This was the only item he brought out of the Malt Ruins, and it was also the key to his ability to sense energy fluctuations.

He carefully pressed the tip of the wheat ear onto the tear-like wet stain.

In an instant, the faint buzzing sound inside the wheat ears suddenly intensified more than tenfold!

It was as if a signal receiver had finally tuned to the correct frequency.

The wet streaks on the glass seemed to come alive, quickly shrinking, condensing, and finally transforming into a crystal-clear dewdrop.

Snap.

Dewdrops rolled off the glass and fell into the cement cracks below the shop window, where they were instantly absorbed by a small clump of tenacious moss.

The next second, right next to the moss, in the thicket of wild grass, a small plant, radiating a silvery glow, broke through the soil, sprouted, and bloomed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

It was a miniature wallflower, its petals as thin as cicada wings, with silver veins flowing across them.

The petals parted slightly, and a fragment of a voice, so familiar it made his soul tremble, drifted out from within, intermittent yet incredibly clear:

"Xiao Yi... keep moving forward... don't look back..."

The voice of a mother!

Lin Yi took a step back abruptly, his eyes instantly turning red.

This is not a simple illusion; it is a sealed memory that he has activated and extracted through some unknown mechanism!

Just then, a completely different energy fluctuation came from the north of the city, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, creating invisible ripples.

Meanwhile, in an old residential building in the south of the city, Granny Chen suddenly woke up from her dream.

She instinctively reached for the old brass pocket watch on the bedside table. The crisp ticking sound had stopped sometime earlier, and the hands were forever frozen at three in the morning.

A chill ran through her. She put on her clothes, leaned on her cane, and walked to the window.

Outside the window, the path of light composed of countless points of light that lights up precisely every night has undergone a strange change.

It is no longer a straight line, but rather it bends and recombines on its own, converging in front of the old lady's house to form a clear arrow pointing north.

Grandma Chen, her mind clouded, didn't even have time to put on a thick coat. She pushed open the door, leaned on her cane, and stepped onto the path guided by the arrow of light.

Her steps were unsteady, yet unusually firm.

The light path led her through deserted streets and over abandoned parks, covering a distance of two kilometers before finally stopping at the playground of an abandoned elementary school.

The power has been cut off here for many years, and no lampposts have ever been set up here.

However, at this moment, in the very center of the playground, seven enormous wall-flowers are quietly blooming, their silver veins radiating a soft and bright light, illuminating the entire playground as if it were daytime.

Seven flowers form a perfect circle, and in the center of the circle, a scene composed of light and shadow appears on the ground: a group of children dressed in old-fashioned clothes are holding hands, running and laughing carefree on the playground.

That intense energy fluctuation originated from here.

When Lin Yi arrived at the scene as quickly as possible, following his senses, this was what he saw.

He saw Granny Chen squatting at the edge of the wreath. She didn't look at the light and shadow, but instead stretched out the tip of her cane and gently, over and over again, drew something on the dusty ground.

She was humming an old and sad nursery rhyme, a song that had been passed down during the war to comfort children.

The song was desolate, carrying the weight of time.

As she sang, an incredible scene unfolded.

The silver veins of the seven wallflowers began to shimmer in sync with the rhythm of the nursery rhyme, like seven resonating hearts.

The light and shadow of the children running on the central ground vanished instantly, replaced by a completely new and more solid image:

In the dimly lit air-raid shelter, a group of terrified children huddled together.

The roar of artillery fire continued to echo outside.

A slightly older boy pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and quickly passes it to the girl next to him, who then passes it to the next girl... The paper flies through each pair of small hands, and finally, the scene freezes on a close-up of the paper being unfolded.

A line of words was written in childish handwriting: "We have lived, therefore we are still here."

Below the handwriting was a crooked smiley face pressed down with a fingerprint dipped in mud.

The scene abruptly ends there.

With a loud crash, all seven Wallflowers withered simultaneously. All their light, along with their silver petals, transformed into countless threads of light, as if they possessed life, and sank into the cracked earth, disappearing without a trace.

The entire playground instantly returned to darkness, with only Granny Chen's sorrowful nursery rhyme still echoing and drifting in the empty night.

Lin Yi felt a surge of emotion in his chest and was about to step forward to ask when he heard a very faint sound, like a snapping string, coming from beneath his feet.

He looked down sharply and saw that the silver thread that had been guiding him and paving his way had broken in the middle.

The broken end of his shoelace, like the receding tide, slowly shrank back into the soil until it disappeared completely.

His connection to that "road" was severed.

Almost simultaneously, the buzzing sound inside the transparent wheat stalk in his pocket abruptly stopped, falling into complete silence.

It turned into an ordinary, crystal-like ornament, with no further energy response.

A huge, indescribable sense of emptiness rose in Lin Yi's heart.

He subconsciously raised his head and looked up at the city sky.

The night was still deep, but the ring of light that had once enveloped the city, as dazzling and vast as a galaxy, was slowly fading away at a speed visible to the naked eye.

No, it didn't disappear.

Lin Yi's pupils contracted sharply; he saw it clearly.

That enormous net of light did not evaporate out of thin air, but rather sank down!

They transformed into countless tiny streams of light, piercing through skyscrapers, streets, and all man-made barriers, silently sinking deep into the earth, merging with the earth's veins, the rock strata, and the city's oldest foundation.

The sky is becoming empty. And the earth is becoming heavy.

He finally understood.

From his mother's whispers to the notes left by children during the war, all these memories no longer needed a "witness" like him to activate and read them.

They have completed a certain migration and integration.

Memory is no longer a ghost floating in the world.

It came back to life and became the deepest soil of this land.

Lin Yi stood still, feeling the unprecedented calm and solidity beneath his feet.

The path that guided him was broken, the medium for communicating energy failed, and the guidance hanging over his head sank.

The entire world seemed to have undergone a complete overhaul of its underlying rules overnight.

All past experience is now obsolete.

He, along with everyone in the city, was left in a new, boundless wilderness.

There were no more signs ahead.