The morning light, like scattered gold, pierced through the thin mist and bathed the town square, which had survived the catastrophe.
All eyes were fixed on the black stone tablet that had once caused endless panic.
The inscription, "Why do you need a savior?", is like an unhealed scar etched in everyone's heart.
Right under everyone's watchful eyes, a sudden change occurred!
At the end of that profound question, the dust particles in the air seemed to be stirred by an invisible hand, beginning to gather, rotate, and arrange themselves.
They weren't blown there by the wind, but rather, as if they had come to life, they actively and precisely coalesced on the cold stone surface, forming a new line of tiny characters.
"Because we're afraid of the dark."
There were no traces of chisels, and no sound of tools.
These words seem like a collective sigh from the entire town, an answer spontaneously written by all the dust that has yet to settle in the air.
It is fragile, yet it resolutely proclaims the deepest fears in the hearts of all survivors.
A suppressed gasp erupted from the crowd, and some people instinctively stepped back, as if the words were not words, but the tentacles of some living creature.
Lin Yi pushed through the crowd and slowly stepped forward.
He didn't look at the panicked townspeople; his gaze remained fixed on the new words.
He crouched down and gently touched the surface of the monument with his slender fingertips.
It lacks the cold, aggressive energy fluctuations of a scavenger.
Instead, what is transmitted through the fingertips is an extremely subtle, almost whispering "emotional resonance".
It wasn't an external invasion, but rather an automatic response in the real world stemming from within people's hearts—a collective dependence they themselves were unaware of.
This force is gentle, humble, and even carries a hint of pleading.
“It came back to life…” an old man’s voice trembled.
"It's a miracle! It's God responding to us!" Some people were already preparing to kneel down.
"No."
A clear, cool female voice came from the eaves where snow was melting and water was dripping. Chu Yao's figure appeared there silently, like a nimble black cat.
Her gaze was sharp as a knife, dissecting the bizarre phenomenon before her: "Although you destroyed the core of the Seventh Node, the lingering shadow of the 'savior template' it spread has already infiltrated the collective subconscious of the town, forming a cycle. It no longer needs to parasitize a powerful individual, but directly depends on the 'consensus' itself—as long as there is still one person here who believes that 'someone must stand up to solve all the problems,' it can be resurrected through this belief."
Lin Yi's fingertips remained pressed against the inscription, feeling the continuous, faint emotion of "fear of the dark."
He slowly rose, a cold understanding flashing in his eyes, and muttered to himself, "So, it doesn't attack, it only responds... It wants to become the 'answer' that we are most familiar with and most eager to hear."
This discovery is more chilling than facing a menacing monster.
The enemy is no longer a concrete entity, but an invisible and intangible "ideological virus" that is everywhere.
That afternoon, the contagiousness of this "virus" was confirmed in the most terrifying way.
A little girl who lost her parents in a monster attack walks to the monument, clutching a tattered teddy bear.
She tilted her head back and, in a childish voice, sobbed softly at the stone tablet, "I'm afraid... I'm afraid those monsters will come back..."
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone in the square heard a slight scraping sound coming from the stone tablet.
The dusty words "because we are afraid of the dark" seemed to wriggle and decompose again like living things, and then rearranged and recombined at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A new sentence emerged before everyone's eyes—"I will protect you."
The crowd erupted in cheers!
If the previous responses were merely vague expressions of sympathy, then this promise is a powerful stimulant, precisely piercing everyone's most vulnerable nerves.
What shocked and even ignited their excitement was that the handwriting of the new line was vigorous and powerful, with a familiar sharpness, and it was nine-tenths similar to Lin Yi's handwriting!
"It's Lin Yi! It's Mr. Lin Yi protecting us through the divine stele!"
"A miracle! This is a true miracle!"
"Thump! Thump!"
This time, no one hesitated.
Large numbers of townspeople knelt on the ground, bowing and worshipping the stone tablet and Lin Yi not far away. They regarded Lin Yi as their savior, and the stone tablet as an extension of his divinity and the embodiment of his promise.
However, Lin Yi, standing outside the crowd, showed no smugness on his face, but rather a chilling expression.
He suddenly realized that this was neither a forgery nor a projection of his own power.
This is the "automatic output" of group beliefs!
When enough people project their expectations of "protection" onto him, the rules of reality themselves act like a sophisticated printer, automatically extracting the image of the "guardian" they trust most—that is, Lin Yi's handwriting—and "printing" out this expectation.
It is stealing his image and exploiting the townspeople's trust in him to weave a breeding ground for itself called "dependence".
Chu Yao walked to his side, her face grave: "It's polluting your 'concepts.' If this continues, you will no longer be yourself, but rather the omnipotent, indispensable 'savior' symbol in their hearts. When everyone places their hopes on you, your failure will be the end of the entire town."
"Erase it!" A member of the town guard drew his knife and roared as he charged forward.
"Stop right there!" Lin Yi shouted coldly.
A chilling glint flashed in his eyes as he swept his gaze over the kneeling townspeople, a cold smile curving his lips: "Why erase it? Such a good experimental sample, it's such a waste to destroy it."
Ignoring the astonished looks of the crowd, he turned to Chu Yao and ordered rapidly, "From now on, record the time of each change in the inscription, the context that triggered it, and the core emotional fluctuations of everyone present. I need data, the most accurate data."
Over the next dozen or so hours, Chu Yao's terminal operated at high speed, with streams of data flowing into the analysis model.
The stone tablet, like a faithful mirror reflecting emotions, constantly responds to the townspeople's prayers.
"Our food is running low..." The inscription changed to: "There will be bread."
"My leg was injured in battle, and it hurts so much." The inscription changed to: "Sleep peacefully, and the pain will be gone."
With each change, the font became infinitely closer to Lin Yi's handwriting.
The number of people kneeling in worship increased, and the atmosphere became increasingly fervent.
In the evening, Chu Yao handed the compiled data report to Lin Yi.
Lin Yi glanced at it and then let out a cold laugh.
“Just as I suspected.” He pointed to the red cross on the report. “The growth of the inscription is not random. It only happens when the intensity of the emotions ‘fear’ and ‘expectation’ reaches its peak simultaneously. And, do you notice that everything it generates points to one core—‘dependence’, not ‘action’? It never teaches people how to find food or how to heal wounds; it only promises a result, causing people to give up thinking while waiting.”
He raised his head and looked at the stone tablet, which was already bathed in the golden light of the setting sun, his eyes sharp as an eagle's.
"It has become wise... no longer playing the role of a high and mighty god, but choosing to become the most faithful and gentle 'echo' in our hearts."
Because an echo will never raise objections; it will only repeat the sound you most want to hear.
That night, Lin Yi made a decision that surprised everyone.
He gathered all the children in the town and held a grand "reverse inscription ceremony" in front of the black stone tablet.
He gave each child a pen made of fluorite, which emitted a soft glow in the darkness.
“Listen, children,” Lin Yi’s voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet night, “This stone is not here to give you answers. From today onwards, it is for you to ask questions. Each of you can write on it, and you can erase any sentences you don’t like. But remember, you can only write ‘questions’.”
The children were a little timid at first, but with Lin Yi's encouragement, the boldest boy took the lead and used a fluorite pen to draw a crooked line of light on the sentence "I will protect you".
He wrote, "Why can't we fight the monsters ourselves?"
It was as if the first domino had been toppled.
The children got excited and rushed forward.
The childish handwriting, glowing with the light of fluorite, crisscrossed on the dark surface of the monument, covering the original characters.
"What should we do if Brother Lin Yi doesn't come?"
"Won't the guardian get tired? Does he need our protection?"
Why are we just supposed to wait to be rescued?
"It's getting dark, do we really have to turn on the lights? Can't we let our eyes get used to the dark?"
Each naive yet crucial question, like a shining star, adorns the dark surface of the monument.
They have no answers, only endless curiosity and questioning.
In the early hours of the morning, after the last child wrote down the question, "Do stones dream?", another strange event occurred!
The entire stone tablet suddenly began to tremble violently, as if something inside had been provoked.
The blurred and indistinct phrase "I will protect you" is trying to resurface and reappear.
Golden dust gathered again, trying to forcibly cover up the light of the fluorite.
However, this time, it failed.
Those densely packed, shimmering new questions, like tenacious vines, coiled around from all directions.
They intertwine to form a vast web of light composed of the "unknown," tearing the promise that represented the "only answer" to shreds.
"Why?" "What should we do?" "How?"
Each question is like a red-hot branding iron, scorching the "echo" that is trying to take shape.
It cannot answer, nor can it provide an answer.
Because its essence is to end the problem, rather than to confront the problem.
"Buzz—"
An invisible wave, filled with intense resentment and pain, was suddenly pulled out of the stone tablet and retreated in a disheveled manner into the depths of the earth.
The feeling was as if someone who was used to being needed was being burned head-on by countless "unsolvable problems" for the first time, and was fleeing in panic.
Almost simultaneously, Ivan, who was monitoring the Well of Memories deep underground, transmitted his hoarse whisper to Chu Yao through the communicator: "The Well of Memories... just now... felt a strong 'rejection'."
The crisis seems to have been averted.
The next morning, when the first rays of sunlight illuminated the square again, people were surprised to find that the black stone tablet had returned to its original blank state.
Whether it was the question of the "savior" or the questions scribbled by the children, they all disappeared without a trace, leaving the surface smooth and new, as if everything from last night was just a dream.
Lin Yi stood in front of the monument, confirming that the aura of the "echo" had completely disappeared.
Just as he was about to turn and leave, he caught a glimpse of something unusual out of the corner of his eye.
At the very bottom of the stone tablet, near the edge of the ground, there is a line of extremely faint and fine writing.
It is not made of dust, nor is it written with fluorite. It is more like a mark that has been barely carved by the wind over thousands of years. It is impossible to find without careful observation.
Lin Yi bent down and softly read the line of text.
"Thank you... for not letting me become you."
His pupils suddenly contracted.
An unprecedented chill crept up his spine.
He suddenly raised his head and looked around the entire town.
The townspeople's faces were filled with the joy of surviving a disaster, and children chased and played in the sunshine; everything seemed so peaceful.
However, Lin Yi keenly sensed that something was amiss.
Something is very wrong.
The "echo" was rejected, and the dependence on the "savior" was temporarily severed.
However, the huge "void" formed by collective fear and expectation has not disappeared.
It has only been temporarily shelved.
Now, there is no echo in this void.
It became quieter than ever before...
This deathly silence is more unsettling than any clamor.
It's like a huge room that has been completely stripped of all its furniture, quietly waiting for some new and unknown entity to come and fill it.
Lin Yi's gaze swept across the faces of every town resident.
He saw that deep within their smiles, in the depths of their relaxed eyes, lay a deeper weariness and emptiness that even they themselves were unaware of.
It was a kind of emptiness... the emptiness that comes after one's spirit has been emptied.
Lin Yi slowly inhaled the cool morning air, but felt an inexplicable chill seep into his lungs.
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