Xiaoman's heart skipped a beat.
Drawn by the faint light, she led a few curious children to crawl under the old stone bridge.
In this forgotten corner of the city, the damp, earthy smell mingles with the scent of moss, and the children's chattering noise is muffled by the bridge archway, creating a dull echo.
The "Unbreakable for a Century" stone tablet is embedded in the thickest bridge pier, half buried in the mud and half exposed, like a stubborn tooth.
She crouched down, and the children quieted down as well, gathering around her and holding their breath to watch the strange sight.
Silver threads, brighter than spider silk and more fluid than mercury, slowly seep from the cracks in the bridge piers, wrapping around the stone tablet like living vines.
"Teacher Xiaoman, what is this?" a bold boy couldn't help but ask.
Xiaoman did not answer; her fingertips gently brushed across the surface of the monument.
The stone tablet is severely weathered, with countless file marks left on it by the blunt knife of time.
She squinted, and by the faint light of the silver thread, she could barely make out a few blurry characters: "...Migrant worker Li Shouyi, erected in the year of Bingwu".
Li Shouyi.
An unfamiliar name, yet at this moment, seemed to strike her heart with immense force.
The moment her fingertip touched those three words, a slight rustling sound came from the ground beneath her feet.
The silver threads hidden in the soil seemed to be summoned, rapidly converging and forming three crooked characters in front of her.
"He's still here."
A silent thunderclap exploded in her mind.
She abruptly pulled her hand back, her chest heaving violently.
Grandma Chen's wrinkled face and slow, deep voice appeared before her eyes without warning: "Some roads are paved with lives. People may forget, but the land remembers."
Oh, that's what it meant.
She took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in her heart, and turned to ask the children behind her, "Do you know who built this bridge?"
The children looked at each other, then shook their heads one after another.
All they knew was that the bridge was called "Old Ferry Bridge," and that they passed by it every day on their way to and from school; that was all.
Yes, who would remember?
The name of an ordinary migrant worker has long been buried in the dusty old rain of the year 1966, weathered even more thoroughly than the inscription on the monument.
Xiaoman paused for a moment, then took out half a piece of white chalk from her cloth bag.
She walked to a relatively flat, blank wall near the bridge pier, and, facing the children's puzzled gazes, wrote down each stroke with great effort.
"Li Shouyi, born in the year of Bingwu, was a bridge builder."
The white writing stood out starkly against the dark underpass, like a freshly opened wound.
After finishing writing, she unscrewed the kettle and gently and solemnly poured the remaining half-bottle of water at the foot of the "Never Falls for a Century" stone tablet.
Water seeps silently into the dry soil.
The anomaly is about to occur!
It was as if a drop of water had fallen into a pot of boiling oil, and the silver threads that had been shimmering faintly suddenly burst into a dazzling light!
They no longer meander slowly, but instead rush along the inscription's marks like madmen, like a pair of thirsty eyes greedily reading that long-forgotten name.
"Li Shou-yi"
An old, hoarse sigh seemed to come from the depths of the earth, echoing in the bridge arch.
Immediately afterwards, the entire bridge pier made a soft "humming" sound.
Countless silver lines burst forth from the stone tablet, instantly covering the entire bridge pier like a spider web, and then spreading towards the bridge body.
The patterns were not random; upon closer inspection, they were actually crisscrossing footprints, some deep and some shallow, stretching from one end of the bridge to the other, outlining an invisible path.
After the light stabilized, the mycelium on the ground changed shape again, forming a new line of words.
"The name may be gone, but the road continues."
The next day, Granny Chen came alone.
She didn't look at Xiaoman, nor did she pay attention to the children excitedly recounting their adventures from the previous day. She simply leaned on her cane and walked step by step to the bridgehead.
Overnight, the wild grass at the bridgehead seemed to be soaked in the silver light, merging with the silver patterns on the ground to spontaneously form a clear path of light.
A hint of understanding flickered in Granny Chen's cloudy eyes.
She carefully took out a community history book with yellowed pages and curled corners from her patched coarse cloth jacket.
She turned the pages with her rough fingers, the pages rustling softly, finally stopping at a page with blurred handwriting.
"In the summer of the Bingwu year, there was a great flood. Li Shouyi led thirty laborers to build a bridge in seven days, working tirelessly through the rain. The bridge was completed, but the laborers had not yet returned..."
She didn't read it aloud, but gently pressed the page in front of the stone tablet, as if showing it to a deceased friend.
Then, she put away the community journal, said nothing, and simply tapped the ground three times with her old wooden cane, neither too hard nor too soft.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sound didn't sound like knocking on the ground; it sounded more like knocking on an unseen door.
That night, the sky suddenly changed, and a torrential downpour that had been brewing all day finally began.
Large raindrops pounded on the ground and the bridge, forming streams.
The water under the bridge quickly rose above ankle level, forming a muddy depression.
Worried that the magical path of light would be washed away by the flood, a few of the bolder children put on raincoats, carried flashlights, and secretly came to investigate.
But the sight before them left them speechless with astonishment.
The silver patterns did not fade; instead, they reflected equally clearly on the water's surface.
The net of light on the ground and its reflection in the water form a double-layered, three-dimensional cage of light, which flickers in sync like mirror images, so beautiful it is breathtaking.
Xiaoman, who rushed over upon hearing the news, was also shocked by the scene.
She took off her shoes and stepped barefoot into the icy water.
The expected chill did not come; instead, a warm current slowly rose from the soles of my feet and instantly spread throughout my body.
Just then, she suddenly heard a very soft humming, as if it came from deep within the soil beneath her feet, through a thick layer of water.
The tune was old, with a repetitive and heavy rhythm, the kind of work chant that people shouted on construction sites decades ago to unify their steps and strength.
It was neither a song nor a melody, yet it was full of power.
As if possessed, Xiaoman softly hummed along with the indistinct melody.
Buzz—
The flickering frequency of the entire light network suddenly stabilized, no longer flashing erratically, but transforming into a continuous and gentle stream of light, as if receiving the most longed-for response in her humming.
The next morning, the rain stopped and the sky cleared.
On the ground at the bridgehead, where the mud had been washed clean by the rain, new mycelium had already spelled out a line of words.
"Those who came after him went much further."
Xiaoman led the children to find an open space by the bridge.
Instead of planting expensive flowers, they found a few rusty nails and some rotten hemp rope from an abandoned corner.
Xiaoman told them that this is a kind of "wall-whispering flower" that only grows near old buildings, and its roots are these forgotten old things.
When the children buried the nails and rope in the ground, something amazing happened.
Silver mycelium emerged from the ground, enveloping the waste. In a short while, several tender green shoots broke through the soil, their stems bearing the textures of rust and hemp rope.
Xiaoman stroked the strange flower stem and whispered to the stone bridge, "Li Shouyi, your bridge is still here, and your road is still here."
She thought this was just the beginning, a story about commemoration and inheritance.
She didn't know that this was more than just the awakening of a bridge.
As she and the children watered the newly sprouted "Wallflowers," Grandma Chen's figure reappeared at the bridgehead.
This time, the old man didn't look at the bridge, but stared intently at Xiaoman, his weathered eyes filled with an unprecedented solemnity.
“Child,” Granny Chen’s voice was hoarseer than ever before, “you have lit a lamp. But do you know how many lamps in this city are waiting to be lit?”
She paused, then pointed her cane toward the city center, where skyscrapers stood in rows under the morning light, a scene of bustling prosperity.
Some things are recorded in stones, in the soil. But many more are locked in paper, slowly decaying. Are you... willing to try and understand them?
Xiaoman's heart skipped a beat. She looked in the direction that Granny Chen was pointing, her gaze passing through the familiar streets and over the bustling market, as if she saw a quiet and ancient building.
An unprecedented sense of mission, accompanied by immense uncertainty and a vague fear, quietly seized her.
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