Since that night, fireflies gathered into lights, illuminating the crumbling council chamber, and seemingly igniting a fuse called "dissent" in everyone's heart.
However, the fire spread in a strange direction.
The initial opposition was a heavy responsibility, a desperate plea that risked their lives.
But soon, it went wrong.
In the council chamber, there are always a few people who, in order to highlight their "clear-headedness" and "independence," deliberately raise their hands after each resolution.
Their reasons were weak and unconvincing, yet their eyes held a sense of superiority, as if they were the only ones who were sober while everyone else was drunk.
What they oppose is not the decision itself, but the act of "not opposing" it.
This trend spread like a plague, even infiltrating children's games.
In the cafeteria, while queuing for food, a teenager would imitate the adults, puff out his chest, and shout at the top of his lungs at a pot full of stewed cabbage, "I object! I object to eating cabbage today!" The children around him would burst into laughter, as if they were not expressing an opinion, but staging the latest trendy farce.
Lin Yi stood on the lookout tower shrouded in morning mist, the chill penetrating to his very bones.
Behind him, Chu Yao's voice was as soft as the mist itself, yet it precisely hit the core of the problem: "They have learned to say no, but they haven't learned why they don't say it."
Yes, they treat "no" as a gesture, a cheap badge, forgetting that behind every "no" should stand a weighty "why".
Responsibility is being dissolved into a performance art involving the entire population.
On this day, the bells in the council chamber rang with a more solemn tone than usual.
Everyone had arrived, whispering amongst themselves, the air thick with excitement and anticipation.
They waited for today's agenda, waiting for their turn to take the stage and perform their skillful "opposition" act.
Lin Yi stepped onto the stage, his gaze sharp as he swept over every face—whether numb, excited, or simply watching the show.
He didn't announce any agenda items; he simply and calmly announced a new rule, word by word.
“From today onward, all public objections within the shelter must follow a new rule.” He paused, his voice suddenly rising, striking everyone’s hearts like a heavy hammer blow. “For every objection you raise, you must also submit a ‘cost card.’ The card must clearly state what price you are willing to pay if your objection is ultimately adopted.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the entire audience erupted in uproar.
"Price? What price?"
"Opposition comes at a price? What kind of logic is that!"
"Isn't this just shutting us up?"
The discussions came like a tidal wave.
Lin Yi remained unmoved. He simply stood there quietly, and the imposing aura in his eyes gradually silenced even the noisiest corner.
He knew that the right to free services was most easily abused, and only by re-binding rights and responsibilities could the superficial bubble be squeezed out.
On the very first day the new rules were implemented, someone ran into trouble.
A young man in charge of defense loudly opposed the newly drafted night patrol duty schedule at the meeting, arguing that it was "too tiring and inhumane."
His voice was loud and clear, which drew many echoes.
Lin Yi extended his hand expressionlessly: "Your price card."
The young man paused for a moment, then, encouraged by those around him, gritted his teeth, pulled out a piece of cardboard from his pocket, hastily wrote a few words, and handed it over.
Lin Yi took the document and read it aloud in front of everyone: "I, Zhang Wu, oppose the current rotation plan. If my opinion is adopted, I am willing to take on two extra nights of guard duty during the formulation of the new plan."
A low gasp of surprise rippled through the crowd.
This is no longer just empty talk; it's real dedication.
Lin Yi nodded and solemnly put the card into a wooden box.
"I accept your objection. The defense team will re-evaluate the duty roster plan. In the meantime, Zhang Wu, your two extra nights will be recorded in your file."
A complex expression flashed across Zhang Wu's face, a mixture of excitement at being recognized and a tense feeling of genuinely sensing the weight of responsibility.
The atmosphere was noticeably different the next day.
The noise in the council chamber subsided considerably, and those who habitually opposed the proceedings now sat upright, their eyes darting around.
When it came time to discuss the preservation plan for wheat seed sources, a middle-aged man who was usually very critical stood up. He opposed the crossbreeding of some wheat seeds, believing that the risks were too great.
"The cost card." Lin Yi's voice remained calm.
The man hesitated for a long time, wrote something on the piece of paper, and then handed it over.
Lin Yi glanced at it and immediately returned the card.
"It says: 'I feel this is wrong, it feels dangerous.'" Lin Yi's voice turned cold. "I'll say it again, 'feeling' is not the price. 'Feeling' is the starting point for you standing here and raising your objection. What is your price? If your objection succeeds, and the alienation cultivation is terminated, but one day in the future, our existing wheat varieties suffer a devastating disease, what are you willing to bear?"
The man blushed and stammered, unable to answer a single word.
He just felt something was wrong, but never thought about what would happen after he felt something was wrong.
In the end, he took back the card in shame and sat down silently.
Three days later, the focus of the controversy shifted to the education of children.
A woman in the shelter, a former teacher, stood up to object to “making the children read aloud from the daily dissent book.”
She believes that exposing children to such confrontational content too early can make them become extreme.
"Your price?"
The woman handed over her card, which read: “I am willing to use all my free time to find and establish a new way to teach children the importance of rules of procedure while protecting their innocence. If I cannot do so, I will volunteer to clean a biogas digester for a month.”
Lin Yi gave her a deep look and took the card.
"Your objection is accepted. I'll give you ten days."
Everyone thought that was the end of it.
However, that very evening, Lin Yi personally found the female teacher, who was racking her brains as she scribbled on scrap paper.
Lin Yi didn't say much, but simply placed a pile of soft clay and a carving knife in front of her.
“Sound is gentler than words,” he said.
The female teacher suddenly realized.
Ultimately, her new plan—to record rational and valuable objections in a calm tone on ceramic shards and place them in a phonograph jar next to the mill for the children to listen to during their playtime—won everyone's approval.
As the first recording ceramic piece was carefully placed into the urn, from deep underground, Ivana's whispers, seemingly from another world, rang out intermittently through a special transmission device, his voice carrying a metallic quality: "Eighty-sixth node... weighing program initiated... weight, qualified."
The "cost card" system acts like a precise sieve, filtering out impurities and leaving only the real gold.
However, a new and more acute question has also emerged.
A heated debate erupted in the council: should "unjustified objections" be completely banned?
"Of course it should be banned!" an old man slammed his fist on the table excitedly. "Since a cost card has been set up, it means that every objection must be carefully considered! Those who can't give a reason and only know how to oppose are simply wasting everyone's time!"
"That's right! We must be reasonable! Otherwise, what's the difference between this and before?"
"I agree! Every objection must be accompanied by a logically sound statement of reasoning!"
The vast majority of people stood on this side.
They believe that now that they have embarked on a rational path, they should carry it through to the end.
They want to build a world completely dominated by logic and reason, where any "I feel" or "I think" should be completely banished.
All eyes were on Lin Yi, waiting for him, the ultimate decision-maker, to bring this debate to a close.
However, Lin Yi's actions caused a sudden shock to everyone's minds.
He slowly walked to the phonograph jar containing the recording ceramic pieces, took out a blank price card from his pocket, and gently placed it on the edge of the jar.
Then, he turned to the crowd and said clearly, word by word, "I oppose 'the need to reason'."
The entire room fell silent.
Shocked, bewildered, incredulous.
Everyone's expression froze.
He, the one who set the rules, actually took the lead in raising an objection that was... completely without reason.
Finally, someone couldn't hold back any longer. A hot-tempered man stood up and roared, "Lin Yi! What do you mean by this? What gives you the right to object? What are your reasons? What will you pay for this?"
"Why?" Lin Yi's gaze was as calm as an abyss. He slowly looked around at everyone, his voice not loud, but with an irresistible penetrating power, "Because I was once the only person here who could decide everything."
These words instantly silenced all the commotion.
People were reminded of that not-so-long era, the era when Lin Yi could decide life and death with a single word.
“I know,” Lin Yi continued, “When one voice becomes so powerful that it can approve whether another voice is qualified to be uttered, that’s the most terrifying thing. The most terrifying thing is not hearing unreasonable nonsense, but one day you find that the surroundings are eerily quiet, because everything you want to question must first get the approval of that ‘reason’.”
He offered no further explanation, but instead turned and led a group of suspicious people toward the wartime archives at the deepest part of the shelter.
The air there still carries the smell of gunpowder and despair.
He stopped in front of a row of filing shelves that were almost hollowed out by termites and pulled out a copy of a record marked "destroyed".
“When the Cleaners first descended upon this land,” Lin Yi’s voice became low and solemn, “the first person to stand up and resist was neither the strongest warrior nor the most intelligent scholar.”
He unfolded the yellowed record in front of everyone.
"She was a mute woman. When all the survivors were asked to sign a scroll of allegiance, everyone silently signed their names. Only she stepped forward, picked up a charcoal pencil, and heavily drew an 'X' at the end of the scroll."
On the file, the replica of the "charcoal fork" is crooked and twisted, yet it seems to carry a force that pierces through the paper.
“No one knows why she objected. She couldn’t speak, nor could she write long arguments. She just objected.” Lin Yi’s voice trembled slightly. “Three days later, she was executed. Before her execution, the jailer in charge of guarding her recorded the only sentence she uttered with all her might.”
He pointed to the end of the record.
The sentence was: "They...shouldn't...be so quiet."
The entire archive room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Everyone stared intently at the "X" and the last words, as if a chill ran from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.
They seemed to see that lonely, mute girl, amidst everyone's silence, uttering the most deafening cry with the simplest, most "unreasonable" symbol.
Lin Yi silently brought the copied record back to the council hall and solemnly pasted the "charcoal fork" in the most conspicuous position on the review wall.
“Some ‘no’,” he said to the cross on the wall, and to everyone else, “is itself the answer.”
That night, the lights in the council chamber remained on for a long time. Many people stayed up all night.
The old man who had once loudly echoed the opposition to preserving the old city stele forest quietly arrived at Lin Yi's door before dawn.
He didn't knock, but simply placed an old map, carefully wrapped in an oilcloth, on the threshold.
Next to the map, there was also a note.
When Lin Yi opened the door, he saw the map.
The handwriting on the note trembled slightly with excitement: "I used to think that silence was golden, that it was a sign of composure. Now I finally understand that true composure is being able to withstand the immense pressure of speaking out against something 'different'."
Lin Yi slowly unfolded the old map under the glow of the firefly lamp.
It was a hand-drawn map of the area, older than any official record of the shelter.
The seven unknown, nameless, and desolate graves are clearly marked on the surface with cinnabar.
Under the lamplight, several fireflies seemed to be drawn by the ancient aura of the map, tirelessly flying and circling around the seven vermilion dots, as if measuring those forgotten paths, or as if paying tribute to those nameless souls.
Just then, from deep underground, Ivan's constant, mechanical whisper rang out once more.
But this time, there seemed to be an almost imperceptible... pulse in its voice.
Immediately afterwards, seven extremely slight, almost imperceptible tremors came from the depths of the earth, like the footsteps of a giant who, after sleeping for thousands of years, tentatively set foot on the ground for the first time.
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