The night was as dark as ink, and the crystallized wheat flower, which looked as if it had been carved from dragon scales, had been swaying in the cool wind for three whole days.
It is invincible and unfading, its entire body radiating an almost sacred glow, like a star fallen to earth, illuminating the most primal awe in the hearts of the townspeople in the Ash Era.
Along the edge of the field, shadowy figures could be seen.
What started as just a few curious onlookers has now grown into a silent crowd.
They dared not approach, but merely watched from afar, their suppressed breathing rising and falling.
Some people clasped their hands together, moved their lips, and whispered ancient prayers, beseeching this "miracle" to bring them protection.
Even more so, some people's knees buckled, and they were about to kneel down and worship the wheat flower, their eyes shining with fervor and anticipation.
This is a dangerous sign.
Hope, once distorted into blind worship, becomes a breeding ground for the next disaster.
Just as this collective consciousness was about to take shape, a figure broke through the thin mist of dawn.
Lin Yi carried an ordinary old sickle on his shoulder, its blade gleaming coldly in the morning light.
His face was expressionless, his steps steady, each step seeming to tread on the frenzied heartbeats of the crowd, producing a dull yet clear echo.
"What...what is he going to do?" A commotion arose in the crowd.
"Don't go over there! That's a sacred object! Desecrating a sacred object will bring divine retribution!"
Lin Yi ignored him.
He walked straight to the crystallized wheat flower, ignoring its alluring glow and the gazes around him that seemed to want to devour him.
He bent down, swung his arm, and the sickle drew a clean arc.
"Whoosh—"
The crisp sound, like a thunderclap, resounded in everyone's ears.
The wheat stalk, upon which boundless hope was placed, snapped in an instant.
Lin Yi straightened up and gently placed the unusual ear of wheat into a rough pottery bowl he had brought with him.
He turned around, facing the astonished, angry, and bewildered faces. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly across the entire field:
“It blooms not to perform miracles.” His gaze swept over everyone, as calm as a deep pool. “It blooms to prove that this ashes, which we consider cursed, can sustain life. That’s all.”
The moment the words fell, Chu Yao, who had been quietly standing on the rooftop in the distance, keenly sensed an invisible change.
That collective consciousness, permeating the crowd and about to solidify into a "sacred expectation," seemed to be severed by this cold and pragmatic stroke. Like morning mist dispersed by the sun, it quickly receded and dissipated, never to take shape again.
People stood frozen in place, staring at the still beautiful ears of wheat in the ceramic bowl, then at Lin Yi's calm face. Their fervor was doused with cold water, gradually cooling down, replaced by a more complex set of thoughts.
That night, it was late and quiet.
Lin Yi sat at the table, repeatedly wiping the sickle.
Deep underground, Ivan's intermittent whispers, after days of silence, became unusually clear for the first time, piecing together a complete sentence:
“The eighth node…is in the ‘Forgotten Sacrifice’.”
Lin Yi suddenly stopped moving.
A forgotten sacrifice?
He repeatedly pondered those words, countless thoughts flashing through his mind like lightning.
Not those great figures who are revered by the masses and whose names are engraved on monuments of heroes, such as Long Wu.
The scavenger's remaining consciousness, or rather, that distorted "savior template," needs not worship, but a deeper and more lasting nourishment.
A sense of indebtedness.
A massive negative emotion stemming from forgetting and fermenting from guilt.
Lin Yi suddenly stood up, rushed into the storage room filled with clutter, and frantically searched through a pile of dusty files.
Finally, he pulled out a yellowed kraft paper folder with the words "Ordinary Heroes Project" written in faded ink on the cover.
This is a semi-official organization initiated by the Alliance in the early days of the Ash Era to cope with endless catastrophes.
Countless awakened individuals burned their lives in the process, and most of them didn't even have time to leave their names before turning to ashes in the fierce battles.
Their achievements are unknown, and their names are not engraved.
After the war, their ashes, mixed with residual energy, were collected and sealed in a stone tower outside the city known as the "Tower of Silence," and were never seen again.
Lin Yi's fingertips traced the cold numbers on the file, his breathing becoming rapid.
He finally understood.
The final stronghold chosen by the scavenger's remaining consciousness is not in those "worshipped heroes" who are portrayed as idols, but here—among these "forgotten sacrifices"!
The deepest sense of indebtedness lies here, a debt that the entire town, and even the surviving human civilization, unconsciously wants to repay but has no way to begin.
This "empty space waiting to be filled" is precisely the spiritual nourishment that the "savior template" craves most and finds most perfect!
It can masquerade there as the will of a hero, drawing upon this inexhaustible guilt until it finally breaks through the soil.
The next morning, Lin Yi did not bring any combat personnel, but only gathered a group of teenagers from the town to form a youth group, and together they went to the Silent Tower.
The Tower of Silence stands in a desolate valley outside the city, its body covered in moss, the iron lock on the tower door long since rusted away, and the inscriptions on the surrounding stone tablets blurred by wind and rain.
This is a forbidden place; adults warn children that restless spirits slumber here.
The boys were somewhat afraid, but seeing Lin Yi's calm face, they all mustered their courage.
Lin Yi did not use any magic or brute force to break open the tower door.
He simply walked to the first stone tablet, brushed away the dust with his hand, pointed to the faintly discernible characters, and said to the children behind him:
"read."
A bold boy stepped forward, took a deep breath, and loudly proclaimed: "Chen Xiaoyu, seventeen years old, detonated her personal energy explosives to cover the evacuation of the civilians from Settlement No. 3, perishing together with thirty-seven Rift Worms."
The sound echoed in the empty valley, sounding somewhat thin.
"Next." Lin Yi's tone left no room for argument.
Another girl stepped forward and read out the second name: "Zhao Tiezhu, 38 years old, a level 2 earth element awakener. When the western defense line collapsed, he used his physical body to block the micro-space rift for seven seconds, buying precious time for the reconstruction of the defensive position."
"continue."
One after another, the children's clear and pure voices began to intertwine and echo in the valley.
Each name they uttered represented a once vibrant life, a heroic feat buried in history.
"Li Fen, twenty-four years old..."
"Wang Dashan, forty-one years old..."
Chu Yao had appeared behind them without them noticing. She closed her eyes and gently raised her slender fingers.
An invisible ripple of consciousness emanated from her, spreading out quietly like a spring breeze entering a dream, gently caressing everyone in the town.
This ripple precisely connects the names echoing in the valley with fragments of the town's residents' daily memories.
While repairing the roof, Aunt Wang suddenly recalled a rainy day when a strange girl named Chen Xiaoyu smiled and handed her an umbrella.
While forging iron, Li the blacksmith vaguely remembered that many years ago, a kind-hearted man named Zhao Tiezhu always liked to roast a few sweet potatoes in winter and share them with everyone who passed by.
These forgotten memories, like seeds awakened, quietly sprout in people's hearts.
They stopped what they were doing, staring blankly in the direction of the Tower of Silence, their faces showing bewilderment and reminiscence.
They finally remembered that behind those cold inscriptions were neighbors, friends, and even relatives who were flesh and blood, who could cry and laugh.
This recitation lasted for three whole days.
On the third day at dusk, as the last name was read, the valley fell into a solemn silence.
Suddenly, a gentle breeze blew by, and the thick layer of dust that had accumulated on the top of the Silent Tower for countless years, defying the laws of physics, slowly and silently floated into the air.
The dust churned and coalesced in the afterglow of the setting sun, and finally, under everyone's gaze, spontaneously arranged itself into a clear line of large characters:
We are not sacrifices.
The writing lingered for a moment before suddenly dissipating, turning into a cloud of dust that fell softly, like a belated funeral.
Lin Yi slowly closed his eyes.
He could clearly sense a faint yet incredibly pure feeling of "relief" slowly seeping from the depths of the Silent Tower's foundation, like a sweet spring flowing into the earth, nourishing this wounded land.
From underground, Ivan's voice rang out again, carrying an unprecedented calm: "The Well of Memory... exhaled its last breath."
Lin Yi understood.
The suppressed and distorted will of those nameless heroes was finally freed from the "silence of being worshipped".
They are no longer debts to be repaid, no longer voids waiting for a savior to fill.
They were simply themselves, a group of people who fell while protecting their homeland.
Their sacrifice has finally found true peace.
That evening, Lin Yi returned to town and announced a decision that shocked everyone: "The Silent Tower will be demolished."
Before the crowd could erupt in uproar, he continued, "The original site will be converted into the 'Echo Cafeteria'."
"Echo Cafeteria?" someone asked, puzzled.
Lin Yi's gaze drifted into the distance, where wheat fields were covered in ashes: "We will use the sealed ashes, mix them with the ashes, and grow the first batch of vegetables that truly belong to us, making them into free meals to supply the whole town."
This proposal was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, creating ripples everywhere.
An old man stepped forward, his voice trembling, his face filled with disbelief and anger: "Using...using the ashes of the dead to grow vegetables? Lin Yi, this is too cruel! This is the greatest disrespect to heroes!"
Lin Yi turned his head, looking directly at him with eyes as sharp as knives. He asked, word by word:
"They risked their lives, even turning to ashes, to protect you, to protect this land, to ensure that the living could have a hot meal."
His voice suddenly rose, carrying a hint of suppressed anger and pity: "Now, the food they've been protecting is getting cold. And you stand up and say you can't bear to use their remaining warmth to light a new fire?"
The old man was speechless, his face turned bright red, and he finally lowered his head in dejection.
The surrounding crowd fell silent. Lin Yi's words were like an awl, piercing through the hypocritical moral facade in their hearts.
That evening, the Echo Canteen hastily opened on a makeshift construction site.
There were no ornate plaques, only a few dim oil lamps.
The first pot of porridge was cooked by Zhao Tiezhu's younger sister, a simple rural woman.
As she stirred the rice grains bubbling in the pot, she smiled and said to the onlookers, but tears welled up in her eyes: "My brother used to love drinking this. He said that when he was tired from work, a bowl of this would give him energy."
The steaming aroma of porridge dispelled the chill of the small town's night and warmed the somewhat numb hearts of the people.
Late at night, after everyone had left, Lin Yi sat alone on the steps at the entrance of the cafeteria.
As the evening breeze blew by, he suddenly saw a faint ray of light slowly emerge above the wheat field not far away.
The outline of that light and shadow vaguely resembled Long Wu's majestic figure standing between heaven and earth back then.
However, it did not exude any pressure, nor did it linger for long. It simply nodded slightly toward the cafeteria and toward Lin Yi.
Then, like a wisp of smoke, it completely dissipated into the wind.
Deep underground, Ivan let out a resonant sound that was almost a sigh: "It... has finally left."
Lin Yi knew that the shell of the "savior" born from Long Wu's obsession, the heaviest shadow hanging over the town, had finally been completely let go after witnessing all of this.
The next morning, just as dawn was breaking.
On the newly built white wall in the cafeteria, there was a line of crooked handwriting written in charcoal pencil. The strokes were childish, clearly the work of a child.
The text read:
“I dreamt of Uncle Zhao yesterday. He said the porridge in the cafeteria was very good, but a little bland. But it didn’t matter, he said, it was just right to eat with rice.”
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com