He sat quietly, like a stone statue that grew out of the mountain.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Morning dew condensed into droplets on his eyebrows and eyelashes, only to evaporate in the sunlight; wind and sand covered his shoulders with a thin layer of dust, which was then swept away by the mountain wind.
He stood motionless, but the wild grass beneath him seemed to possess a spirit, growing around his figure and leaving a perfect clearing.
Each of his breaths was long and even, and the silver patterns on his clothes, which had long been integrated into his flesh and blood, flickered in and out, their frequency perfectly synchronized with the pulse of the entire mountain range.
On the fourth day, the sky began to lighten with the first light of dawn.
Before the first rays of dawn pierced the clouds, the dormant mycelial network of the entire mountain range quietly awoke.
"Buzz—"
A low hum, inaudible to the ear but perceptible to the heart, echoed through the mountains and fields.
Immediately afterwards, countless thin, silvery streams of light lit up from all around the foot of the mountain, like rivers flowing into the sea, winding their way up the path Lin Yi had taken.
They did not rush towards Lin Yi, who was sitting cross-legged, but instead gathered and solidified behind him, spreading out a reverse path of light.
The starting point of that light path was the top of the watchtower where he was now, and its ending point was a distant pebble path in the eastern part of the small town below the mountain.
The earth is replicating the path he came from.
Lin Yi slowly opened his eyes, his gaze clear and bright, showing no signs of fatigue, but rather containing a deeper power than it had three days ago.
He knew that this path of light was not the way home he had built.
It is more like a bewildered yet powerful newborn, clumsily imitating the steps of its "father," trying to understand every step he takes and every choice he makes.
This is the first large-scale manifestation of memory, and also the first response from this land to him.
He stood up, dusted himself off, but did not step onto the dazzling new path.
He turned and walked towards the other side of the mountain peak—the ridge of the mountain, a barren slope where not a blade of grass grows.
The rock strata here are exposed due to years of wind erosion, and the soil is barren, so even the most resilient mycelial network has never penetrated into this area.
This is a "dead land" forgotten by memory.
Lin Yi squatted down and took out the last few things from his backpack.
It was neither food nor a tool, but a handful of dried soil.
This was the soil he scraped off little by little from the windowsill of his mother's old house with his fingertips before he left, mixed with withered flower roots and a few small pieces of pottery.
He gently poured the handful of soil into the crevices of the rocks on the barren slope.
Where the soil fell, the ground trembled almost imperceptibly.
A crack thinner than a hair spread slowly outwards from the point where the soil fell, eventually stopping next to a rock the size of a fist.
Lin Yi did not urge him, but waited quietly.
He knew that forcibly instilling memories would only result in poor imitation.
True birth requires patience and respect.
Time flowed silently, and seven quarters of an hour later, a sudden change occurred.
From that tiny crack, a wisp of grayish-white mycelium, completely different from the main network of the mountain range, timidly peeked out.
It appeared so frail, as if it might vanish into the wind at any moment.
It hesitated for a moment, then, as if drawn by something, slowly reached out towards a shard of pottery in the handful of rubble.
The tips of the mycelium carefully wrapped around the pottery shard, and then with all its might, slowly dragged it into the crack in the ground.
A faint smile appeared on Lin Yi's lips. He leaned down, his voice so soft it was as if he were afraid of disturbing it.
"You...want to remember something too, right?"
The grayish-white mycelium swayed gently at the crack, like a shy child nodding.
At the same time, east of the city at the foot of the mountain.
As usual, Granny Chen, leaning on her worn-out old cane, arrived at the pebbly path in the early morning.
Her gaze immediately fell on the strange "wall-whispering flower" in the corner.
Today, this flower, which was transformed from Lin Yi's old shoe, is somewhat different from usual.
The flower stem, which had been drooping slightly, rose a few inches, and the five petals, which had been tightly closed, opened halfway. The silver veins on the petals were still flowing, but at a very slow speed, with a rhythm that made her heart tremble—a rhythm she knew all too well.
Her aged body trembled, and she quickly stepped forward and slowly squatted down.
When her wrinkled fingertips gently touched the flower stem, the mycelium network clinging to the base of the wall on the ground quickly lit up, its silvery light swirling and slowly forming a line of words.
He looked back.
Grandma Chen froze, her cloudy eyes widening instantly as she stared intently at the words. Her lips trembled as she murmured, "He...he still remembers this road?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the mycelium on the ground shimmered with silver light again, erasing the old words and piecing together a new line of text.
"It's not that I'm looking back, it's that my heart hasn't gone far."
In an instant, it felt as if a warm current flowed through my body, dispelling years of fatigue and loneliness.
Grandma Chen stared blankly at the flower and the words, her eyes gradually welling up with tears.
She suddenly smiled, a smile that bloomed on her deeply lined face, making her look as radiant as if she had become twenty years younger.
"Good, good that your heart hasn't wandered far." Leaning on her cane, she straightened up again, her back much more upright than before. "Then this old lady won't rush to grow old! I'll give you, I'll give this road, another ten years to patrol!"
As night fell, the mountain breeze grew colder.
Lin Yi found a sheltered cave to use as a temporary dwelling.
He took out the last plum candy from the rusty tin box his mother had left him.
The candy wrapper had long since yellowed, and the writing on it was blurred and illegible.
He didn't open it; he simply placed it quietly on a flat rock beside him.
This is his most precious treasure from his childhood, and also his mother's silent love for him.
That night, in the crevices of the cave, the newly sprouted grayish-white mycelium quietly spread out. They were a little bigger than during the day and carefully wrapped around the plum candy.
The mycelium did not absorb the candy; instead, a drop of clear dew seeped from its tip.
The dewdrops fell on the stone surface, but instead of spreading out, they quickly spread out, and the interplay of light and shadow pieced together a small figure—a child of about five or six years old, who was tiptoeing and trying, somewhat clumsily, to stuff a piece of candy into the pocket of a blurry woman's figure.
The image flashed by in an instant.
Lin Yi closed his eyes, but a warm tear slid down his cheek.
In the sound of the wind, he seemed to hear a very light, very faint humming, the melody intermittent, yet incredibly familiar.
That was a lullaby his mother used to hum to lull him to sleep, a lullaby he had long forgotten and buried deep in his memory.
It wasn't a real sound, but the vibration of mycelium, mimicking the rhythm in my memory.
He understood completely.
“Memory…” he whispered, his voice trembling slightly, “has already learned to speak on its own.”
The next day, Lin Yi did not linger, but instead slowly walked along the ridge towards the outer edge.
He could feel the mycelial network beneath his feet expanding, learning, and growing at an unprecedented speed.
The seed he planted is now sparking a silent revolution in this ancient mountain range.
Suddenly, he stopped.
On a huge rock wall ahead, a very faint trace of light appeared without warning, like a crack in a tightly closed door, emitting a soft silver light.
Lin Yi stopped and observed quietly.
The light trail slowly opened to both sides, revealing not a cave or space, but a flowing, dynamic light and shadow.
In the interplay of light and shadow, a young woman with braided pigtails, who was Granny Chen in her youth, is kneeling on a post-war ruin, digging through the rubble with her bare hands and planting the first seed of the Wall Whisper Flower.
The scene shifts to a stormy night, where newly blooming flowers sway in the wind. She holds up a tattered cloth umbrella, using her frail body to shelter the flowers from the wind and rain, staying up all night as the rain soaks her back.
The light and shadow lasted only three seconds before quietly disappearing.
The portal closed, and the rock wall returned to its rough, cold, and hard original appearance, as if nothing had ever happened.
This is not a demonstration, but a sharing.
It was this mountain range that, in its newly learned way, was telling Lin Yi the story of another guardian.
“So…” Lin Yi murmured, his eyes filled with respect, “You’ve been guarding more than just this road.”
That night, Lin Yi walked to the side of a mountain stream.
He took out the last piece of paper from his backpack, which was a record he had prepared to write to himself.
He picked up his pen, intending to write "Today I...", but the pen tip hovered over the paper, unable to write anything for a long time.
He no longer needs to record things in writing.
Finally, he carefully folded the blank letter into a small boat and gently placed it into a tributary of the mountain stream.
The small boat drifted along with the current, swaying and rocking for a hundred meters.
Suddenly, countless silver mycelia emerged from the bottom of the water, like a gentle hand, lifting the paper boat and slowly sinking it into the mud and sand of the riverbed.
At dawn the next day, as the first rays of sunlight illuminated the earth.
Centered on that mountain stream, the silver veins on all the plants in the entire watershed, whether wild grass or shrubs, suddenly surged!
A dazzling silver light shot into the sky, and the stream of light spread wildly downstream along the river, crossing shallows, bypassing boulders, and surging all the way.
Ultimately, the light flow formed a magnificent light path that meandered for thousands of miles and traversed the entire basin on the vast plains at the foot of the mountains.
The shape of the light path was exactly the same as the patrol route that Granny Chen had followed day after day for the past seventy years.
However, on this path made of light, the steps are lighter and the rhythm is more steady.
It was as if a more powerful being had taken her heavy steps and carried out all the deep-seated, unspoken longings and obsessions for her.
Lin Yi stood at the end of the mountain range, looking back at the river of light that stretched across the sky and earth, and took a deep breath.
The mountain breeze carries the fragrance of grass, trees, and memories.
He knew that the mountain had come back to life.
And he should go to a farther place.
He turned around and faced the vast plains beyond the mountains.
The gaze passed over the fields and villages, reaching towards a more distant and unknown world.
The stories there are still blank; the memories there are still dormant.
The distant horizon, cut straight and sharp by the rising morning light, resembles a blank scroll waiting to be written on.
And he was the sole writer.
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