The first mark on node 85, like a brand, is deeply etched into the temporal and spatial texture of this wheat field.
Lin Yi gazed at the straight, crystallized wheat blossoms, but his heart remained uneasy.
He knew this was just the beginning.
A wrong ending often marks the beginning of another, more complex problem.
"If a mistake takes root, it can also grow into honesty."
This sentence, like a seed, quickly took root and sprouted among the people.
That area, once a symbol of decay and shame, is now the most eye-catching place in the entire settlement.
The newly sprouted seedlings were indeed more robust than any other wheat seedlings. Their leaves were broad and thick, a deep dark green, as if they had absorbed the nutrients from the deepest part of the soil. Their vigorous vitality was almost visible to the naked eye.
In the morning sunlight, old farmers, teenagers, and female workers—those who had once offered up their "soil of mistake" with trepidation—stood by the field ridges, their eyes filled with complex emotions.
There was relief, surprise, and a touch of awe.
They witnessed firsthand how acknowledged mistakes can truly be transformed into fertilizer for the future.
“The land doesn’t lie.” Lin Yi’s voice wasn’t loud, but it reached everyone’s ears clearly. “It accepted our honesty and rewarded us with the most abundant growth. This wheat field is the result of our collective courage.”
A low, heartfelt exclamation arose from the crowd.
The clouds of panic and suspicion were swept away, replaced by an unprecedented sense of unity.
From that day on, the "Cuorang District" was no longer a taboo, but rather became a peculiar ritual.
At first, people were very cautious.
Two days later, a guard on night patrol poured a handful of hard soil mixed with gravel into the ridge of the field.
He didn't leave a note, but everyone knew that the previous night, a high window in the mill had been blown open by the wind, almost letting rain in, but fortunately it was discovered in time.
That handful of hard soil was his silent repentance for his negligence.
This action was like opening a floodgate.
The "Cuorang District" has become lively.
A young apprentice, distracted while mixing ingredients, added an extra amount of yeast, causing a batch of dough to over-proof. Frustrated, he threw a handful of sticky yellow soil into the field.
A woman who was weaving straw mats accidentally broke an important warp thread with a spark. She silently sprinkled a clump of black soil mixed with wood ash into it.
Some children, even those who broke a neighbor's earthenware pot while playing, would timidly grab a handful of sand with their little hands and solemnly pour it into that special field, led by their parents.
In just over ten days, the area of the "fault zone" has nearly doubled.
The soil in that field became a motley collection of colors: dark brown, light yellow, grayish-white, crimson... Each clump of soil represented a mistake that had been confronted.
People are no longer afraid of making mistakes because they have found an outlet to put those mistakes in.
Lin Yi stood on high ground, quietly watching all of this.
His eyes were deep, devoid of joy or worry, like an ancient well reflecting the ever-brightening crystallized wheat blossoms in the sky.
Chu Yao's winds swept around her again, but this time, they were free of the previous chaos and obstruction, instead carrying a light, almost joyful, sense of flow.
“The energy of the nodes is being channeled,” she said softly, her voice tinged with surprise. “The flow of ‘responsibility’ is becoming clear. People are no longer pushing it away, but are actively guiding and placing it.”
“It’s going too smoothly.” Ivan’s underground proverb carried an ominous weight. “When all the streams flow into the same ocean, the ocean itself is diluted. The earth tells me that the weight of ‘error’ is becoming lighter.”
Lin Yi nodded slightly; Ivan and he had the same thought.
The problem quickly became apparent.
That afternoon, Lin Yi was instructing his students on how to repair irrigation canals when a boy named A-Jie, one of the first brave souls to pick up a black steamed bun, hummed a little tune as he grabbed a handful of soil from the roadside and ran briskly toward the "soil-prone area."
"You made a mistake again?" a classmate joked.
Ah-Jie waved without turning his head, his tone as casual as if he were talking about the weather: "It's not really a mistake. I just spilled a few drops of water from the bucket on the cafeteria floor when I was getting water this morning, and forgot to wipe it up. Anyway, I just poured some dirt in, and I feel perfectly at ease."
After saying that, he casually tossed the clump of soil into the ridge like trash, clapped his hands, and ran back to continue working, his face showing no trace of the solemnity and reflection he had shown before.
The students around laughed, as if it were a perfectly normal and funny thing.
Lin Yi's hands didn't stop moving, but he had already taken in everything out of the corner of his eye.
He said nothing, but the solemn atmosphere of "honesty" that had just been established seemed to crack slightly.
Chu Yao moved closer to him, and the wind patterns on her fingertips trembled uneasily.
"Can you feel it? The wind... is starting to become frivolous. The word 'responsibility' is losing its weight."
That's true.
When the cost of confession becomes so low that it even becomes a fashionable daily ritual, the boundaries of wrongdoing begin to blur.
Forgetting to wipe away a few drops of water and nearly flooding the granary are both given the same "soil redemption" in this "dilapidated area".
They were mixed together and lost their individual weight.
That evening, Lin Yi arrived at the "Cuorang District" alone.
Under the moonlight, the new seedlings were growing vigorously, but his gaze went beyond them, looking towards the straight, crystallized wheat blossoms on the distant mountain ridge.
He discovered that the light, which had been as firm as a vow, was now beginning to sway very slightly, as if an invisible wind was blowing against the vow formed by the collective will.
"Ivan," Lin Yi called softly.
“I am here,” the voice from underground responded immediately. “The pulse of the earth has become disordered. The foundation is loosening. Too much insignificant sand has been mixed in, filling the gaps but unable to support the weight of the beams and pillars.”
When mistakes are shared, who decides whether it is truly a mistake?
Lin Yi silently repeated the question he had asked himself back then.
Now, he has a rough idea of the answer.
When everyone can easily "share the burden," no one will bother to delve into the essence of the mistake.
This is like a forest, which accepts both the timber that takes a hundred years to grow into a pillar and the weeds that can be seen everywhere.
When the number of weeds far exceeds that of the pillars, this forest is no longer a forest, but a wasteland.
He turned and went back to the mill. He didn't sleep all night.
On the morning of the fourth day, when people habitually headed towards the "Cuorang area" to begin their daily "ritual," they were all stunned into silence.
The once open field was now enclosed by a newly erected wooden fence.
Lin Yi was standing at the entrance of the fence.
Beside his feet lay a huge, exceptionally smooth bluestone slab. Next to the slab was a bucket of white paste made with special minerals that was resistant to fading, and several sharpened hardwood pens.
Everyone stopped and stared at him in bewilderment.
The relaxed and casual atmosphere in the air was instantly replaced by an invisible pressure.
Lin Yi's gaze swept over everyone, passing over their faces which showed surprise, confusion, or wariness.
His voice remained steady, yet carried an undeniable power.
“From today onwards, the rules of the ‘Cuorang District’ will be changed.”
He pointed to the huge bluestone slab.
"Before offering up your 'soil of transgressions,' please use this pen to write down your mistakes on this stone tablet."
An uproar immediately erupted in the crowd.
"Write...write it down?"
"Everyone saw it! How can that be called an apology? It's practically a public execution!"
"Yes, Mr. Lin Yi, this is different from the previous rules!"
People were talking about it, and the feeling of "feeling at ease" they had before had completely disappeared.
An anonymous confession and a signed confession are two completely different things.
The former is self-liberation, while the latter requires facing the gaze of everyone.
Lin Yi ignored the crowd's murmurs and continued, "You can choose to write or not. This stone slab will not record names, only events. It will stand here, exposed to the sun and rain, until the next rain washes away the writing. Until then, everyone who comes here will be able to see it."
His voice paused, and his eyes sharpened like knives.
"The land can accept everything because it is silent. But we are human beings, we need to see, we need to discern."
He raised his head, gazing at the slightly swaying crystallized wheat blossoms in the distance, and said, word by word:
“I need to know, and you all need to know—what we are sacrificing together is either a cornerstone strong enough to support the future, or sand that crumbles at the slightest touch.”
After saying this, he gently placed a hardwood pen on the top of the bluestone slab, then turned and left, leaving behind the blank slab and a group of people looking at each other with different thoughts.
The bluestone slabs stood quietly in the morning light, like a huge mirror, reflecting not people's faces, but the various mistakes hidden beneath the soil.
It is also like a balance scale, silently waiting for the first weight to be placed.
And the weight of this scale will redefine everything about right and wrong on this land.
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