The birth of the crystallized wheat leaf totem was like a pebble thrown into stagnant water, the ripples of which quickly spread to every corner of the ruined city.
Overnight, imitators sprang up like mushrooms after rain.
They sifted through the rubble to find remnants of poetry, attempting to recreate that heart-wrenching impact.
On the broken wall, someone pieced together a shattered moon with broken porcelain bowls; beside the dried-up well, someone hung a broken clock that had lost its pendulum, letting the wind pass through its hollow shell and emit a mournful murmur.
These "incomplete art" quietly grew in the ruins, becoming a new way for survivors to vent and commemorate.
However, during his inspection, Lin Yi keenly sensed a distorted imitation.
He stopped in front of the three newly erected "landscapes".
The “imperfection” here does not stem from the ruthlessness of the disaster, but from the deliberate actions of the survivors.
The most glaring sight was an old-fashioned hand pump that was still usable, but had been smashed to pieces by a heavy object, with its parts scattered all over the ground.
A passionate young man stood beside his "masterpiece," explaining his philosophy to the onlookers: "We must not forget! The silence of this water pump is the loudest testimony to the sacrifices of the past!"
His voice was filled with a self-righteous sense of tragic grandeur, as if he were not a destroyer, but a spokesperson for history.
Chu Yao stood beside Lin Yi, her cold gaze sweeping over the pile of twisted metal, and said in a low voice, "When breaking becomes a performance that can be carefully designed, the pain is no longer real."
Lin Yi remained silent, simply watching the young man.
He did not lose his temper in public, nor did he order any punishment.
Amidst the puzzled gazes of the crowd, he issued only one order: collect all the remains of the water pump, regardless of size, and transport them to the open space in the square.
A day later, a peculiar "park" was built in the center of the abandoned city.
It had no flowers or benches, only a low wall made of rough stones, inside which lay the wreckage of the water pump—bent levers, broken pump bodies, and rusty screws.
Lin Yi named it "Pseudo-Ruins Park" and established a rule: all visitors must pick up a piece of scrap metal from a water pump at the entrance, carry it on their backs, and walk around the park.
The young man who smashed the water pump was the first to enter the park under the watchful eyes of the crowd.
With a hint of disdain and provocation, he casually picked up the largest piece of pump body debris and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
The lump of iron was much heavier than he had imagined; its rough edges rubbed against his shoulders, making every step feel like a slow, agonizing torture.
He initially tried to maintain his upright posture, but soon cold sweat broke out on his forehead and his breathing became heavy.
The path underfoot was paved with gravel, uneven and extremely difficult to walk on.
Halfway there, he slipped and fell forward in a sorry state.
The heavy piece of scrap iron flew out of his hand, and he instinctively reached out to block it. The sharp metal edge instantly cut his palm, and blood gushed out.
The young man groaned in pain and struggled to get up, only to find that his knees were also scraped and burning with pain.
He slumped to the ground, staring at the deep, bone-revealing wound on his palm, his eyes filled with confusion and pain for the first time.
Just then, a pair of military boots stopped in front of him.
Lin Yi squatted down, without a trace of reproach, and silently took out a clean roll of bandage from his pocket and handed it over.
"Does it hurt?" Lin Yi's voice was calm.
The young man gritted his teeth, nodded haphazardly, and let out a sob.
While treating his wounds, Lin Yi asked softly, "When you destroyed it, did you ever think about what the hands of those people who risked radiation and their lives to fetch water looked like? Did you ever think about what would happen to those children who depended on it for survival if they couldn't drink the last drop of clean water?"
The young man's body trembled violently. He raised his head, tears welling in his eyes: "I... I just want everyone to remember... to remember those who were sacrificed, those who were forgotten..."
"Remember, this isn't about creating a new wound." Lin Yi's voice suddenly turned sharp, like a scalpel precisely dissecting his fragile defense. "True remembrance is about ensuring that those who come after don't have to bear such wounds physically like we did!"
He helped the still sobbing young man up and took him back to the original site of the water pump.
Beside the destroyed foundation, Lin Yi had the engineers dig up the already solidified soil.
A few minutes later, a tin box wrapped in tarpaulin was dug out.
Upon opening the box, one finds an old maintenance logbook.
The paper was yellowed and brittle, covered with dense records of each repair in various colors of ink.
The handwriting is messy, and there are even water stains and oil stains, but every stroke is full of power.
The numerous patches and annotations bear witness to how this water pump was repeatedly pulled back from the brink of death in the years after the apocalypse.
Just then, a deep, resonant hum, seemingly emanating from the depths of the earth, resounded in Lin Yi's mind.
It was Ivan's voice.
"Civilization Evolution Node 89... A critical divergence has been detected. Decision direction: 'Preserve the old' or 'Establish the new'. Current progress... Stuck."
Lin Yi ignored it; his entire attention was drawn to the diary.
He turned to the last page, where there was a passage of ink-dampened handwriting, crooked and uneven, yet powerfully written:
"It's been repaired for the seventeenth time. I know that one day it will break down completely and can never be repaired. But as long as it can pump water for one more day, it might save one more life. As long as I am alive, it must live."
The signature was a name that had long since faded, and the date was three years after the catastrophe.
That night, Lin Yi stayed up all night, repeatedly studying the diary.
The next morning, he gathered all the surviving craftsmen in the ruined city, stood before the ravaged water pump base, and announced his decision.
“We’re going to rebuild the pumping station.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried clearly to everyone’s ears. “The materials will be these smashed parts. We don’t deny that it will break down again, or even be completely scrapped.” He swept his gaze intently over the crowd. “But I hope that the next time it breaks down, it will be because it has served too long and is too tired, not because someone has prematurely ended its life for some so-called ‘memorial’.”
On the day the project started, a highly respected old craftsman refused to work.
He stood stubbornly to the side, leaning on his cane, his cloudy eyes filled with sorrow: "New things will cover up old wounds. You are using shiny iron sheets to cover up the blood we shed."
Lin Yi did not force him, nor did he argue with him.
He simply asked the old craftsman to build a low platform about half a person's height next to the original foundation using old bricks.
“Master, I don’t want to argue with you. I just ask that, starting today, you display one of the tools you used to repair this water pump here every day, along with a description.”
The old craftsman was skeptical.
On the first day, he placed a rusty pipe wrench on the ground, with a wooden sign that read: "This wrench has repaired leaks thirteen times, was burned by radiation, and saved the lives of fifty-one people downstream."
The next day, he placed a chisel with its edges smoothed down: "This chisel has been used to treat more than 300 welds and has saved the lives of 127 people."
On the third day, there was a wrench that had broken and then been welded back on...
Every day, people gather around the low platform, silently looking at the weathered tools and the numbers behind them.
Those cold tools seemed to come alive, silently telling stories of perseverance and survival.
On the seventh day, when the old craftsman came to the low platform again, he gazed at those "meritorious figures" for a long time.
Then, he turned around and walked into the bustling construction site without saying a word.
He took out the claw hammer, which he treasured and had been with him all his life, from his toolbox and personally welded it into the core support structure of the new water pump.
At that moment, the sound of metal being fused together seemed to be a symphony of two eras, old and new.
There was no ribbon-cutting ceremony or cheers on the day the water pump was rebuilt.
Lin Yi did not hold any kind of inauguration ceremony.
He simply invited everyone who had ever suffered, been confused, or argued about "to repair or not to repair" or "to demolish or not to demolish" to come together to the newly built water pumping station.
He personally pressed the lever, and a stream of clear, earthy-scented groundwater gushed out.
Amidst the excited and expectant gazes of the crowd, Lin Yi took out a shard of porcelain from his pocket—the very shard he had brought back from that "pseudo-ruins park."
In front of everyone, he gently dropped the angular porcelain shard into the water pump's inlet.
“It’s better to let it get stuck.” His voice was unusually clear amidst the sound of flowing water. “Operation never means perfection. It only means that we know there are obstacles ahead, that it will eventually break down, but we still choose to start it. This fragment is our reminder.”
The water flowed for a slight pause, then continued to flow smoothly.
Three days later, someone quietly erected a small stone tablet, half a meter high, next to the water pump.
The stone tablet was polished smooth, but there wasn't a single word on it.
Upon seeing this, Lin Yi ordered his men to carefully move the blank stele to the other side of the square, placing it alongside the stele that the boy had pieced together with ears of wheat.
He gave the area a new name: "The Unhealed Garden".
That night, the moonlight was as clear as water.
Some people were surprised to find that the reflections of the two stone tablets in the nearby reservoir miraculously mirrored each other on the water's surface, the light and shadow outlining and piecing together a fragmented but recognizable star trail map.
Standing beside Lin Yi, Chu Yao gazed at the starry reflection in the water and whispered, "Unit 89... It seems it has learned how to distinguish between ruins and sites."
As soon as he finished speaking, that deep whisper from the earth resurfaced in Lin Yi's consciousness, clearer than ever before.
"Node evaluation passed. Memory continuity confirmed."
"Scanning for the next high-risk logical singularity..."
"Location successful. Location... under those 'almost broken' eaves."
Lin Yi abruptly lifted his gaze from the reflection on the water and looked at the silhouettes of the old town buildings that seemed to be swaying precariously in the night wind.
On the verge of collapse... It's not the past, nor the present, but a future hanging over everyone's heads, about to fall.
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