The first rays of dawn pierced precisely through the small skylight in the attic, like a long-awaited arrow, shooting towards the lonely old wooden chair.
The beam of light did not disperse, but miraculously condensed into a warm halo, perfectly enveloping the area where the chair was usually sat.
Lin Yi stood at the top of the stairs, his breathing steady, but his eyes sharp as an eagle's.
This halo has appeared for several days in a row, without fail every morning.
It was like a silent declaration, a mysterious ritual.
Today, he's going to break this ritual.
He stepped forward slowly, extended his slightly trembling hand, and moved the heavy wooden chair three inches to the left.
The movement was small, yet it exhausted all his strength, as if he were wrestling with some invisible rule.
He took two steps back and stared intently, holding his breath.
The halo distorted slightly in the air, like a ripple stirred by a gentle breeze. Then, right before his eyes, it shifted three inches to the left, perfectly encircling the center of the chair again.
Lin Yi's heart sank. A chill ran up his spine from the soles of his feet. This was no coincidence.
He took a deep breath and simply moved the wooden chair aside, replacing it with a completely different low stool in its place.
He himself sat on a low stool, his body tense, awaiting trial.
The beam of light descended again, and this time, without the slightest hesitation, it pierced directly through his body, ignoring him and the low stool beneath him, and landed precisely back in the empty spot, as if the old wooden chair still stood there.
The halo burned silently on the cold floor, like a stubborn brand.
At that moment, Lin Yi was shaken, and a long-held misconception suddenly crumbled.
He finally understood.
This light is not waiting for him to sit, but eternally confirming – "Someone once sat here."
It marks not the future, but the past.
It's not an invitation, it's evidence.
He slowly got up, moved the old wooden chair back to its original place, and the halo immediately and obediently embraced him.
He stopped trying to change anything, and simply sat down quietly as usual, letting the warm light envelop him.
He closed his eyes, as if receiving a silent certification, a proof of existence from an unknown dimension.
Beneath the attic, along the base of the wall extending along the pebble path, another silent evolution was quietly taking place.
Grandma Chen walked by, carrying a worn-out water bucket, her steps faltering.
Her gaze inadvertently fell on the roots of a wallflower, and she suddenly stopped in her tracks.
The mycelium there is currently wriggling at an unusually active speed that can be seen with the naked eye.
They are no longer a chaotic silver network, but are slowly and orderly weaving something.
She crouched down and peered closely with her cloudy old eyes.
Those fine mycelia actually intertwined to form a small, clear pattern on the sole of a shoe.
The pattern was exactly the same as the wear and tear marks on the soles of Lin Yi's old cloth shoes that he had worn for many years.
Grandma Chen stretched out her wrinkled hand and gently stroked the strange mycelium.
The mycelium seemed to come alive, trembling slightly under her fingertips, as if it were "describing" her the footsteps that had trod this place countless times in a way that transcended language.
"You... miss him?" she asked in a low voice that only she could hear.
The weaving of the mycelium paused for a moment.
Immediately, the silver threads disintegrated and then reassembled in an even more decisive way.
They first awkwardly arranged themselves into a clear "no".
Grandma Chen's heart was in her throat.
Immediately afterwards, the word "no" dispersed again, and the mycelium recombine like quicksand, slowly and firmly spelling out four words: "He is on his way."
As night deepened, Lin Yi tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
Outside the attic, the wind howled, like a sigh from afar.
He took out the translucent ear of wheat, which had long lost its luster, from the deepest part of the drawer.
The faint hum that once rang out has now completely vanished, leaving only a deathly silence.
It lay silently in his palm, like a storyteller who had exhausted all his tales.
He walked to the window and, as if possessed, pressed the wheat stalk close to an inconspicuous weed in a flowerpot on the windowsill.
The moment they made contact, something unexpected happened!
The originally dull silver veins on the leaves of that wild grass suddenly burst forth with a dazzling light!
The dazzling stream of light surged wildly up the grass stems, gathered at the top of the wheat ears, and finally cast a small patch of swaying light and shadow on the wall.
The light and shadow are not complicated; they are just two footprints side by side, one large and one small.
Lin Yi's breath caught in his throat.
Those footprints, one big and one small, represent the softest corner of his memory—the traces left by his mother as she led him along the muddy ridges of the fields when he was five years old, after a rain shower.
He stared blankly at the light and shadow, his eyes instantly welling up with tears.
He understood.
The wheat ears are no longer the carriers of memories; they have been exhausted.
Now, it is this land, and these lives that have crossed paths with him, that are nourishing it in reverse, filling its emptiness with their memories.
He gently removed the ears of wheat from the weeds, and the light and shadow disappeared.
He walked to the flowerpot, dug a small hole, and solemnly buried the ear of wheat that had been with him for so long.
"You should rest," he said softly, as if saying goodbye to an old friend.
Three days later, Granny Chen gathered all the "waterers".
They are the guardians of this small town, the preservers of bygone days.
They gathered on the empty stone platform in the center of the ruins, the night as dark as ink, the atmosphere solemn.
Grandma Chen didn't say a word.
She simply walked to the center of the stone platform and slowly turned the old water bucket, which she had used for thirty years and whose rim was worn smooth, upside down on the ground.
A muffled thud, like the tolling of a bell, struck everyone's heart.
Seeing this, everyone's eyes showed no doubt, only understanding.
They silently stepped forward and put down the tools they had brought—some were buckets, some were old ladles, and some were small shower heads that had been used for decades—turning them upside down on the ground to form a perfect circle around Granny Chen's bucket.
This was a silent handover ceremony. They were returning the "past" they had been guarding.
That night, a miracle occurred.
Countless silver mycelia surged out from the cracks in the stone platform like a tide, like living vines, quickly wrapping around each inverted container.
The silver light pulsed through the mycelial network, growing brighter and brighter until it illuminated the entire stone platform as if it were daytime.
The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight shone down, all the tools on the stone platform disappeared, along with the rampant mycelium.
Instead, a new ring of wallflowers grew in the same spot.
They bloomed exceptionally brightly, and the inside of their petals was no longer blank, but instead revealed unique patterns—the handprints left by each "waterer" holding their tools year after year.
This is not a name, nor a symbol, but the most direct and undeniable mark of their "existence".
Lin Yi knew nothing about this.
As usual, he went to the alley entrance to buy vegetables in the early morning.
As usual, the breakfast stall owner served him vegetarian buns and soy milk, just like she had for the past twenty years.
But as he paid and turned to leave, the proprietress suddenly whispered, "Brother, my son will be taking over my stall soon. When he does, I'll teach him that yours is 'the usual, no pickled vegetables.'"
Lin Yi paused slightly, his back stiffening for a moment.
He didn't turn around, but his Adam's apple bobbed, he nodded slightly, and continued walking forward.
He had walked less than ten meters when he heard a child's voice behind him, asking curiously, "Mom, who was that grandpa just now?"
The landlady's voice was gentle yet firm, clearly reaching his ears: "Who he is doesn't matter, child. What matters is remembering the road he came from."
That night, Lin Yi returned to the attic.
The world outside the window was so quiet it was as if it had never been noisy at all.
He sat bathed in the light, at the desk that had been his companion for so many years, spread out a piece of paper, and wrote the last line:
"Today I sit in the light."
He carefully folded the note into a small paper boat, placed it in the flowerpot on the windowsill where wheat ears were buried, and gently pushed it into the moist soil.
After doing all this, he felt an unprecedented sense of relief.
It was as if a burden carried throughout one's life had been lifted.
The whole world seemed to have completed some kind of handover at this moment.
The pebble path, covered with mycelium, began to glow spontaneously in the heavy night fog.
It was no longer meant to guide anyone, nor to commemorate anyone. The light rose and fell gently and persistently, as if the earth had finally found its own breathing rhythm and learned how to live quietly and profoundly.
Dawn arrived quietly, and everything in the attic was immersed in this unprecedented tranquility, as if the whole world was waiting for the first ray of sunlight that truly belonged to "new life".
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