The Diary of a Renter
45. Initial Confusion
One afternoon, after the moss and AI-7B had been cleared away, sunlight streamed through the crystal windows, casting dappled shadows on the library floor. Annie was nestled beside the librarian, Teddy, listening to him tell a story about a star whale. When the story reached the part where the whale flicked its tail, scattering starlight, Annie excitedly patted the floor: "Wow! Just like Sister Shirin!"
Where she took the picture, several tiny, sparkling points of light, like real starlight, appeared on the soft carpet, bouncing a few times before slowly disappearing.
"Huh?" Annie patted it again out of curiosity, and the light spots reappeared. The old man who managed the carpet pushed up his reading glasses, a hint of surprise on his wrinkled face. He gently touched the light spots and felt a faint energy fluctuation, the same as Shirin's but more immature. "Child, your joy... seems to have brought this carpet to life for a moment."
Almost simultaneously, in the Steel Godfather's precision workshop, the fox, assisting in calibrating an energy transmitter, discovered an inert energy crystal used for testing. While the Godfather was engrossed in solving a complex logic lock, a brief but perfect fractal geometric pattern spontaneously formed within it, as if echoing the Godfather's extreme focus and "rational beauty." The pattern vanished after only a few seconds, but the Godfather's optical lens flickered violently for a full minute, recording this phenomenon that defied all his database common sense.
“Logic cannot explain this.” The Godfather finally concluded, his tone unusually perplexed. “The phenomenon indicates that highly ordered thought waves are exerting non-commanding interference on reality.”
These sporadic phenomena were initially dismissed as interesting coincidences or the dissipation of unknown energy. However, a few days later, while Zero was practicing a challenging interdimensional spatial folding exercise, he became frustrated while calculating a complex parameter and muttered a curse. The previously stable spatial passage in front of him suddenly twisted and contracted violently, like a startled mimosa, nearly trapping him halfway through.
"What the hell!" Zero stumbled out of a spatial ripple, clutching her hair in lingering fear. "What's wrong with this place? Even the space itself is acting up?"
46. Resonance of the Source Key
The series of anomalies alerted Jiang Yu. He calmed himself and focused his consciousness on the Source Key in his chest. This time, he no longer sensed a clear network of rules, but rather a warm, flowing ocean of energy, as tranquil as the deep sea yet brimming with life.
Countless tiny points of light—representing the emotions, memories, and even fleeting thoughts of each resident—float, intertwine, and resonate within it. The Tree of Hope, like a lighthouse in the ocean, has its roots deeply embedded in this sea of consciousness, and the light from its branches and leaves reflects the light points of light.
He clearly "saw" that when Anne was joyful, her light would emit warm golden ripples, gently touching the surrounding "reality" structure; when the Godfather was contemplative, his light would emit stable and orderly blue waves; and when Zero was agitated, his light would stir up a chaotic undercurrent.
The Source Key itself is no longer a lofty controller, but rather a sensitive resonance core that amplifies and gently feeds back this collective consciousness energy to reality itself.
The fox mobilized all the building's monitoring systems and, combined with Jiang Yu's perception, arrived at a startling conclusion: "The building's physical constants have not changed, but the 'reality elasticity coefficient' and 'consciousness-matter coupling rate' have increased by several orders of magnitude. Our collective consciousness, especially our strong emotions and highly concentrated thinking, is generating a 'superconducting effect' at an extremely low energy level with the order field maintained by the source key, thus temporarily 'rewriting' the manifestation of reality at the microscopic level. We name this phenomenon 'mental reality'."
This means that the building is evolving from a purely physical entity into a strange symbiotic entity that is deeply bound to the consciousness of its residents, a hybrid of psychology and physics.
47. Creation from disorder to order
After the announcement, residents reacted differently. Uncle Blood Axe scratched his head: "What does that mean? If I think about deliciousness when I'm grilling meat, the meat will taste even better?" Chef Gulu's eyes lit up: "Mind-controlled seasoning?! That's amazing! I'm going to develop a 'happiness soup'!"
But some people have concerns. The doctor frowned: "What if negative emotions can also affect reality? Could an argument trigger a local earthquake?" Rock gripped his shield tightly: "We need to build defense mechanisms to prevent malicious thoughts from causing damage."
Jiang Yu acknowledged everyone's concerns but also saw the enormous potential within them. "We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater," he said at the meeting. "Since mental reality is inevitable, we must learn to guide it. Rather than letting it appear randomly in the unconscious, let's create an area together, consciously infusing it with positive emotions and creativity, making it our new paradise and testing ground."
This is the origin of the "Mind Garden" project. The location was chosen in a relatively independent area with a stable energy field on the east wing of the corridor.
After the project was launched, the scene was spectacular:
Anne's "Fairy Tale Path": The little girl became the most enthusiastic builder. Every day, she would drag Teddy along and loudly tell her own stories in the designated area. After a few days, a winding path actually appeared there, paved with glowing pebbles that changed color and pattern with the story's plot. Along the path, "giggle mushrooms" (which would make a soft laugh when touched) and "story flowers" (whose petals would display the scenes Anne was telling) grew.
Shirin's "Starry Terrace" and "Emotional Weather": Shirin brings her love for the starry sky to life. The terrace she created has a floor that resembles a deep night sky, rippling with starlight when stepped on. Most magically, the terrace's "weather" changes according to the main user's mood: when happy, the sky is clear and the stars twinkle; when tranquil, a gentle meteor shower occurs; and when slightly melancholic, dreamlike nebulae slowly rotate.
Bloodaxe and Gulu's "Smoke of Memories": Their collaborative "tavern" has no physical food, but rather is permeated with a peculiar "scent memory." When Bloodaxe longs for the campfire roasting meat of his hometown, the tavern is filled with the mouthwatering aroma of charcoal; when Gulu yearns for a lost spice, the air is filled with complex and alluring exotic fragrances. This smoke can greatly evoke warm and happy memories.
Mo's "Silent Corridor": The area Mo contributed is the most unique. There, all is silent, the light is so soft it's almost nonexistent, and the flow of time seems to slow down. Entering it, chaotic thoughts quickly calm down, like a deep massage for the soul. This has become the ideal retreat for doctors, godfathers, and others who require absolute quiet.
The "Logical Aurora" of the Steel Godfather: Nothing is more astonishing than the Godfather's creation. With unimaginable precision, he directly transformed the elegant logic of mathematical theorems and physical formulas into ever-changing geometric aurora flowing across the sky. That aurora is not only beautiful, but gazing upon it can even help clarify one's thoughts; it is known as "the romance of reason."
48. Tempering the Mind
However, the garden of the mind is not always sunny. Just as doctors worry, negative emotions also leave their mark.
Once, Zero's critical interdimensional teleportation went wrong, causing a batch of urgently needed medical supplies to fail to arrive on time, plunging him into deep self-blame and anxiety. When he irritably walked into the Garden of the Mind to clear his head, the light around him quickly dimmed, the smooth ground became muddy and difficult to walk on, and even a frustrating "ghost wall" area appeared, repeatedly showing the same failed scenario, trapping several light spirits playing inside.
"See! Something went wrong!" Zero clutched his head, even more frustrated.
Jiang Yu didn't blame him, nor did he forcibly use the power of the Source Key to erase this "shadow zone." He gathered everyone together. "Mental reality is a mirror for all of us," he said calmly. "Running away from the shadow will only allow it to hide in the corner and become stronger. We must learn to face it, understand it, and transform it."
He led Zero into that area, guiding him to confront his mistakes, analyze the reasons, and develop a remedial plan. The doctor shared his own failed cases in his medical practice and how he overcame them; Iwashi recounted the price he paid for misjudgments in battle and the lessons he learned. When Zero truly accepted this failure and saw it as a stepping stone to growth, the muddy area began to solidify, transforming into a "balance beam challenge path" requiring patience and skill to traverse, while the "ghost wall" became a "maze game room" for developing spatial awareness.
This incident made everyone realize that a complete mind includes both light and shadow, and true harmony is not about eliminating negativity, but about learning to live with it, and even transforming pain into nourishment for growth. The garden of the soul thus becomes richer and deeper.
49. The Result of the Tree of Hope
As residents delve deeper into their inner worlds and the Heart Garden develops steadily, the Tree of Hope undergoes a fundamental transformation. Its roots are no longer confined to the soil, but rather, like a neural network, are deeply connected to the Heart Garden, the endless corridor, and even to the emotional sparks of each resident. Its canopy grows ever more lush, its radiance restrained yet warm.
One morning, Anne was the first to discover that several fruits, radiating a soft light and seemingly containing miniature galaxies flowing slowly within, had formed among the branches of the Tree of Hope. They had no physical form and seemed to be composed of pure light and consciousness energy.
The manager, after consulting all the ancient records, excitedly told everyone: This is very likely the prototype of the legendary "Seed of the World"! It is not a physical seed of the universe, but a highly condensed information-energy complex containing a specific "law of existence" and "spirit of civilization." The core message of this harmonious model represented by the building, based on the symbiosis of love, order, inclusiveness, and creativity, is being solidified and solidified by the Tree of Hope.
This does not mean that the building will become a planet. Rather, it means that this successful symbiotic model has itself become a "real-world template" or "spark of civilization" that can be disseminated and perceived and learned by other worlds or civilizations.
50. Hope comes true
At night, Jiang Yu sat on Xilin's Starry Terrace, gazing at the logical aurora created by the Godfather in the sky, like a flowing cosmic symphony, and wrote in her diary:
On X day of X year
The tree of hope has borne fruit of light.
The manager said that there might be tiny "worlds" inside, each containing our stories and beliefs.
Our home truly has its own heartbeat and breath. Anne's fairy tales have become glowing paths, Shirin's feelings have transformed into a shower of stars, and even Uncle Zero's frustrations have become a challenging maze.
We are no longer afraid of the gloom in our hearts, because we know that if we learn to live with it, the sky will be bluer and the rainbow will be more beautiful after the rain.
The building is now like a living, ever-growing entity. Each of us is the sound of its heartbeat, the color in its dream.
Perhaps one day, these fruits of light will ripen, ride the starlight, and travel to a faraway place, to another corner that needs hope, to quietly sprout and tell the people there how wonderful it is to live like us, noisy yet closely intertwined.
Goodnight, my home, which is learning and growing.
Goodnight to everyone who makes this home unique.
His pen paused, and he felt a steady, vibrant pulse emanating from the Source Key, synchronized with the "heartbeat" of the building beneath his feet. He was no longer just a manager, but more like a guardian and witness to this wondrous symbiotic entity.
Outside the window (the boundaries of the Mind Garden have naturally merged with the corridor), reality and dreams gently intertwine, together forming a vibrant and infinitely possible vision of the future. The building's story has turned a new page, from "protecting the home" to "nurturing possibilities."
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