The moment that string was plucked, there was not a loud bang, but a sharp, almost ear-tearing silence.
Lin Yi's fingers trembled slightly as he pinched the light note. The handwriting on it was exactly the same as yesterday, carrying a casual sense of familiarity: "New neighbor, try some handmade."
His gaze passed over the note and landed on the earthenware pot that had replaced the fresh vegetables.
The jar is made of coarse pottery, with a dark glaze, and looks quite old.
He took a deep breath, as if he were about to make a major decision, and reached out to lift the lid of the jar.
A strange fragrance instantly entered my nostrils.
It's not the overly salty pickled vegetables you find in the market, but a complex, subtle fragrance that carries the marks of time.
A sweet and sour flavor, the unique crisp aroma of perilla and green plum forcefully bursts through the gates of memory.
His pupils suddenly contracted.
Inside the jar, the white radishes were cut into varying thicknesses, the knife work clumsy, yet in the most old-fashioned and stubborn way, perilla leaves and green plum slices were added.
There is only one person in the world who would do this.
Only his mother would complain that the pickled radishes sold outside had too many additives, and stubbornly use this time-consuming and laborious old method, but with a mellow and sweet taste, just so that he could eat a few more bites when he was greedy.
After his mother passed away, that smell completely disappeared from his world.
Lin Yi stared intently at the few perilla leaves floating in the soup, as if trying to see through them.
A dryness gripped his throat, and he slammed the jar shut as if shutting out a ghost that had crawled out of a grave.
Last night, he was flipping through his mother's old books in the attic when his fingertips accidentally brushed across a page with a dried silver-veined grass leaf tucked inside. Next to it, four words were faintly marked in pencil: "Food preserves life."
The taste of food contains the soul of a person.
He didn't reply, nor did he knock on any doors.
The neighborhood was so old it seemed forgotten by time, and the neighbors were indifferent to each other. He didn't even know who lived next door.
anger?
terror?
Neither.
A chilling, unsettling feeling, as if all his secrets had been exposed, crept up his spine to the top of his head.
He walked to the window, silently picked up the empty porcelain bowl used to hold coins, and turned it upside down on the windowsill without saying a word.
The bowl is upside down, like a seal, or a silent question.
The next day, on the pebbly path, Granny Chen carried half a bucket of water, her steps faltering.
She saw a young mother squatting in the corner, pointing to a peculiar plant growing against the wall, teaching her child, "Baby, look, this is called the Wall Whisperer, and its flower language is 'remember'." The child stood on tiptoe and asked in a childish voice, "Then who does it remember?"
The young mother smiled but didn't answer.
Granny Chen stopped in her tracks, a faint glimmer of light flashing in her cloudy eyes that went unnoticed.
She remained silent, watching the mother and child walk away until their figures disappeared at the alley entrance.
She slowly squatted down, her dry, bark-like fingers gently touching a half-open flower bud.
The petal trembled almost imperceptibly beneath her fingertips.
Strangely, the flower did not cast any shadow in the sunlight.
The next second, a crystal-clear dewdrop, without warning, seeped from the heart of the flower and landed precisely in her palm.
Grandma Chen slowly lowered her head and looked at the water droplet in her palm.
The water droplets were as clear as a mirror, but what they reflected was not her own aged face, but rather the somewhat lonely figure of Lin Yi carrying a vegetable basket as he walked along this road yesterday morning.
A knowing smile slowly spread across her deeply lined face.
“So it remembers,” she murmured in a voice only she could hear, “the path you walked.”
A few days later, with continuous rain, Lin Yi was stuck at home, so he decided to tidy up the old things in the attic.
He pulled a rusty tin box from the bottom of the box, and the moment he opened it, a cloud of dust rushed out.
Inside was a box full of letters, all written during his university years, but none of them had been sent.
Every single one of them started exactly the same: "Mom, today I..."
I received a scholarship today.
Mom, I had a fight with my classmate today.
Mom, the braised pork in the cafeteria was delicious today, just like yours... Those unspoken longings and trivialities solidified on the yellowed paper, exuding a musty smell.
He originally intended to burn these useless thoughts to put an end to this matter.
But just as he struck the match, the silver veins of a patch of wild grass by the courtyard wall outside the window lit up without warning. The light was weak, but it was clearly visible in the gloomy sky.
The blades of grass moved without wind, like slender fingers, gently swaying towards him and the tin box in his hand.
Lin Yi froze.
He stared at the eerie silver light, and as if possessed, he released the match from his hand.
Instead of trying to light them again, he pulled out the letters one by one and, with a fierce determination, tore them all into pieces.
He walked to the window, opened it, and scattered all the scraps of paper into the flowerpot downstairs that had been idle for many years.
After doing all this, he felt as if he had exhausted all his strength.
He slept very soundly that night.
Unbeknownst to him, in the darkness, countless white mycelia, barely visible to the naked eye, were silently emerging from the depths of the soil in the flowerpot, greedily entwining every scrap of paper stained with ink and memories.
The next morning, Lin Yi was awakened by a sliver of light coming through the window.
He walked to the window, glanced at it once, and could not look away.
Around the edge of the flowerpot that was filled with his "last words," a ring of tiny, tender buds, seemingly formed from condensed light, emerged.
At the heart of each bud, a blurry yet recognizable Chinese character flickers.
Those words, strung together, formed a cold and clear statement—
"I've said it, listen to me."
At the same time, Granny Chen also noticed something was wrong.
Since she stopped watering the wisteria plants along the pebble path every day, these eerie plants have not withered but have grown even more evenly, and the silver veins on their leaves have become even brighter.
Confused, she took out her old pocket watch, sat down by the wall, and began to keep time without moving.
She discovered that the flow of light in those silver veins, and the rhythm of its fluctuations in intensity, were perfectly synchronized with the water pressure fluctuations in the city's water pipes.
During morning and evening rush hours, residents use a lot of water, causing drastic changes in water pressure, which makes the light flow merrily.
At midnight, water usage drops sharply, water pressure stabilizes, and the light becomes as long and gentle as breathing.
I see.
Grandma Chen suddenly realized.
These "things" that feed on memories have evolved.
They no longer need a specific person to "protect" them; instead, they have taken root in the flowing blood of the city, and the unconscious daily water use of all residents has become a new mechanism for delivering nutrients.
Memories no longer need to be deliberately protected; they have become an integral part of life itself.
That night, she turned the bucket that had been with her for decades upside down in front of the empty platform at the ruins, just like the bowl Lin Yi had turned upside down.
In the darkness, wisps of mycelium quietly emerged from the bottom of the bucket, like living tentacles, and burrowed into the cracks in the ground.
Life continued in an eerie calm.
Lin Yi's shoes were worn through, so he took them to the shoe repair stall at the alley entrance that had been there for decades.
The old craftsman, wearing reading glasses, said casually as he threaded a needle, "Young man, the soles of your shoes are worn strangely. They always wear down on the outer side, as if you're always in a hurry to turn around and look back while walking."
Lin Yi's heart sank.
The old man didn't notice his odd behavior and chuckled to himself, "But you know, this road is easier to walk on lately. At night, there are always lights along the edge of the gravel road, so you don't trip over them anymore."
Lin Yi lowered his head. He remembered how many times he had walked that path at night, pausing beside the faint light emitted by the wall-flowers, observing them curiously, and then, as he left, he would always subconsciously turn back to see if that light was still there.
Now, he no longer looks back, but the road ahead is even brighter.
When he paid, he slipped two extra one-yuan coins under the shoebox the craftsman handed him.
This is what his mother taught him: respect for craftsmen, a kind of "silent gratitude."
The next morning, at the end of the pebbly path, Granny Chen saw an upside-down white enamel cup. The cup was a bit old, but very clean.
There was half a piece of plum candy wrapped in candy wrapper at the bottom of the cup. She recognized it; it was the one Lin Yi had bought at the grocery store at the alley entrance a few days ago, and he had even given a bag to the owner.
She picked up the half-candy, but before she could unwrap it, she heard a very faint trembling sound of fungal hyphae coming from the ground beneath her feet.
A ray of light quietly spread from the bottom of the enamel mug, quickly spelling out a line of small characters on the dusty ground: "Same as always, no pickled vegetables."
That was the phrase Lin Yi's mother loved to say when ordering food before she passed away.
Grandma Chen unwrapped the candy and put the half-piece of plum candy into her mouth.
A strong sour smell suddenly hit her nose, and her eyes involuntarily became slightly moist.
She slowly turned around, and the small words behind her, composed of light, lit up silently and then slowly disappeared, as if they were just a wisp of morning mist blown away by the wind.
Back home, Lin Yi looked at the empty bowl that was still upside down on the windowsill.
The world had changed completely in his eyes.
That daily routine, filled with deathly silence, sorrow, and numbness, was torn open, revealing a rift leading to the unknown.
Beyond the rift, is it an abyss or salvation?
He didn't know.
But he knew that the peaceful days were over for good.
For the first time, he began to look forward to the next morning.
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