The next morning, as dawn broke, everything at the site of the old letter-burning station had changed.
The earth was no longer flat; fine cracks crisscrossed it, like a piece of paper that had been roughly folded and then forcibly unfolded.
A strange smell filled the air, a mixture of the earthy odor and a dry, musty smell, like old paper and paste.
Lin Yi stood alone in the center of the ruins, his gaze as sharp as a hawk's.
He crouched down, his fingertips hovering lightly over the deepest crack, but he didn't touch it.
A pale yellow, viscous liquid is slowly seeping out from inside the crack.
He moved closer, and the smell of paste became even stronger, almost instantly transporting him back to that fiery night seventy years ago.
No sampling or testing is required.
He already had the answer in his heart.
This liquid contains the memory deposits formed from the plant fibers and carbonized ink of countless letters that were burned, which, over a long period of time, became entangled and fused with the energy of the earth's veins.
The time was exactly seventy years ago—the year his mother's last letter, along with the longing of countless people in that era, turned to ashes.
Without alerting anyone, he simply took a small windproof lamp from his backpack and lit it in the core area where the cracks were most concentrated.
The orange flames flickered gently in the morning breeze, illuminating his calm and expressionless face.
He gazed at the flickering flames, as if conversing with some will deep underground, his voice low and clear: "If you wish to appear, you need not be complete."
Night fell again. As the last glimmer of light was swallowed by the horizon, a miracle occurred.
In the crack illuminated by the windproof lamp, a translucent, cicada-wing-like membrane was breaking free from the soil and slowly rising.
It seemed weightless, hovering half a foot above the ground, its edges charred black from being burned by fire, and inside, lines of blurry writing were faintly visible in the dim light.
Although the strokes were distorted and unclear, the familiar brushstrokes struck Lin Yi's heart like a heavy hammer.
"Yi'er, it's getting cold, remember to wear more clothes."
It's my mother's handwriting.
Lin Yi's breath caught in his throat, and his heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand.
He resisted the urge to reach out, because he knew that this was not a physical object, but a memory projection anchored by "emotional density".
Any physical contact could cause it to disintegrate.
He slowly took out the rusty bell and the ear of wheat tied to it from his bosom.
He gently placed the rusty wheat ears in front of the translucent "letter paper".
jingle……
A faint, almost inaudible tremolo rang out.
The rusty wheat ears seemed to come alive, and began to tremble slightly.
As it trembled, the suspended membrane began to react, slowly and gently curling up, like a letter being carefully folded by an unseen hand.
In the end, it turned into a stream of light and silently sank back into the ground, leaving only a crease that was more moist than the rest of the ground.
At the same time, Ivan's whisper, originating from the depths of the earth and carrying a strange warmth, rang clearly in his mind, no longer as indistinct as before: "...The...unsent...letter...does...not...need...a...postman..."
Lin Yi suddenly understood.
He finally understood the operating principles of this force.
It is not a simple copy or resurrection, but a reconstruction of things destroyed or forgotten by the physical world, using strong emotions, obsessions or regrets as coordinates.
The stronger the emotion, the clearer the coordinates of the reconstruction.
His fingers flew across the virtual screen of the city archives, with only one filter: important letters from history that were destroyed by war, disappeared by accident, or never sent before death.
Soon, thirty-seven targets were identified.
Behind every letter lies an unresolved knot in the heart, a regret buried by time.
Lin Yi did not attempt to copy the contents of these letters.
He knew that true power originated from "emptiness".
All he had to do was provide a container, a container where those dormant thoughts could find a place to rest.
For several nights in a row, his figure appeared in every corner of the city.
At the ruins of the old post office destroyed by fire, at the salvage site of the mail ship that sank to the bottom of the river, at the military post abandoned due to the war... at each place, he lit the same windproof lamp, under which lay a clean, empty white envelope.
There was no address, no signature, as if waiting for a postman who had been lost for centuries.
On the third night, in front of the cracks in the exterior wall of the old inpatient building of the city center hospital.
A nurse who had just finished her night shift stood for a long time in front of this unexpectedly appearing light.
She stared at the empty envelope under the lamp, her gaze complex. Finally, as if confessing to an unseen audience, she whispered in a voice only she could hear: "I'm sorry... I burned that patient's suicide note back then. I was just afraid his family would be completely devastated if they saw it..."
After she finished speaking, she left, looking dejected.
The next morning, when she passed by again, she was horrified to find that the empty envelope had been sealed at some point.
At the seal, a dark red wax seal was clearly visible, and the pattern on it was the patient's unique fingerprint imprint.
The envelope was still blank, but it exuded a faint, all-too-familiar scent of disinfectant and withered flowers.
With trembling hands, she carefully peeled off the sealing wax with her fingernails.
There was no suicide note in the envelope, only a dried rose petal.
She turned the petal over and saw a line of small words written on the back in a style of handwriting so fine it was almost impossible to see with a magnifying glass: "Thank you for hiding my pain."
The nurse's tears instantly burst forth.
On the other side, Lin Yi patrolled to the playground of an abandoned school.
He saw a young student sitting quietly facing a crack in the playground floor.
The student had been sitting there all night, his eyes bloodshot, but his expression was unusually focused.
Lin Yi did not disturb him.
The next day, when he returned, the envelope under the lamp had automatically sealed itself.
He silently retrieved the envelope, found the student, and handed it to him.
The student took the envelope with a puzzled look, and when he tore it open and saw the yellowed letter inside, he was struck dumb.
He read the letter, first sobbing softly, and finally bursting into tears while holding the letter.
The contents of the letter were exactly the same as what his father, whom he had never met, wanted to say to him before he died on the battlefield, a message he had repeatedly dreamed of since childhood.
Lin Yi quietly turned and left without asking a single question.
He jotted down his latest insight in his notebook: "It's not a restoration, it's filling in the forgotten corners."
On the seventh night, a storm was brewing.
The underground tremors at the site of the former letter-burning station suddenly intensified.
This time it was no longer a dull groan, but a violent throbbing like the heartbeat of a giant beast.
The soil in the entire area seemed to have come alive, breathing slowly with its ups and downs.
The energy density in the air reached an unprecedented peak, and even Lin Yi felt a sense of pressure.
He stood alone by the windproof lamp, his heart as still as water, awaiting the final result.
At exactly midnight, the undulations of the ground reached their peak.
Before him, the land where his mother's handwriting had once appeared suddenly arched upwards.
The soil was turned over, and a complete, undamaged envelope slowly emerged from the ground, enveloped in a soft glow.
The sealing wax on the envelope was intact and had an antique design.
In the recipient's section, two words were clearly written in a vigorous and powerful handwriting: "Lin Yi".
However, the sender's information was left blank.
Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat.
He didn't open it immediately, but took a deep breath and gently placed the mysterious letter on the trembling, rusty ear of wheat.
The moment the envelope touched the ears of wheat, the bell rang loudly!
The rusty bell trembled violently, its sound no longer a whisper, but a resounding boom that echoed through the soul.
A bright white light emanated from the edge of the letter, as if another hand was gently caressing the other side of the envelope from an unobservable dimension.
Ivan's voice, for the first time carrying shock and awe, resounded in his mind like thunder in spring:
“Node 94… has completed its first… interdimensional touch.”
Lin Yi withdrew his gaze, gripped the envelope that seemed to carry the weight of another dimension, and turned to walk towards the ruins that he regarded as the origin of everything.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com