The night was as clear as a mirror, and Granny Chen's breathing became barely audible in the silence.
The boundless starry sky collapsed in the depths of her consciousness, and Lin Yi's thin back and those words, as soft as a sigh, were like a cold wedge driven into her soul.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes, her heart pounding like a drum, making her chest tingle.
Without transition or ambiguity, the boundary between dream and reality is torn apart in an instant.
In the courtyard, the moonlight, like water, cast a long, slanted shadow on the old rattan chair.
Her gaze was fixed on the wall-talking flower beneath the rattan chair, which was undergoing a strange transformation.
The silver veins that had been flowing slowly now surged wildly within the translucent stem like a burst dam, emitting a faint hum.
The petals no longer reflected the familiar courtyard wall, but rather resembled a window that had been forcibly pushed open, revealing a completely unfamiliar scene inside—layers upon layers of terraced fields in the mountains, outlining a soft yet resilient silhouette in the dim light.
What made her heart clench even more was that along the edge of the field, countless silver lines, finer than a strand of hair, were faintly visible, like the veins of the earth.
She didn't disturb anyone, but just sat quietly all night until the sky began to lighten.
"Xiaoman, come with me." As dawn broke, Granny Chen's voice was calm and undisturbed; she called only to Xiaoman.
The two men carried no tools, only water and some dry food, and trekked into the depths of the mountains outside the village.
Grandma Chen walked ahead with steady steps, as if she were not searching for a scene from her dream, but going to keep a pre-arranged appointment.
Xiaoman followed closely behind, her mind filled with countless questions, yet she remained silent.
She believed in every decision her grandmother made.
The ten-mile mountain road was rugged and difficult to traverse.
When they crossed the last mountain ridge, a breathtaking view suddenly opened up before them.
A terraced field, forgotten for countless years, lies quietly in the mountain valley, exactly as I had seen in my dreams.
The air was filled with the damp scent of earth and decaying grass.
The terraced fields have long been abandoned, overgrown with weeds.
Strangely, faint silver threads could be seen slowly moving in the crevices of the paddy fields, like sleeping creatures.
Upon closer inspection, even the roots of the wild grass shimmered with a faint light, as if they were imbued with some kind of mysterious energy.
Xiaoman squatted down and gently touched the damp soil with her fingertips.
The instant she touched the ground, the mycelium beneath her feet seemed to receive some kind of instruction, and began to recombine and rearrange at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A moment later, three crooked yet vibrant ancient characters appeared on the surface of the soil: "It has arrived."
A chill ran down Xiaoman's spine.
"No." Grandma Chen's voice was unusually calm. She didn't look at the three words, but gently stroked the soil on the ridge with her rough hands, as if comforting a frightened child.
"It didn't come; we just arrived at a place... where it might wake up."
These words were like a bolt of lightning, cleaving through the fog in Xiaoman's mind.
She instantly understood the difference—the former was passive waiting, while the latter was active awakening.
They were not chosen, but pioneers.
They didn't make any marks in the terraced fields, and even pulled out a single weed that might attract attention.
The next seven days became a silent ritual.
Grandma Chen brings the village children here every morning.
They don't "build" anything; they just do what the most ordinary farmers do: water the parched land with spring water, pull out some of the bad weeds by hand, and then take off their shoes so that the children can run and play barefoot on the ridges of the fields.
The adults didn't understand, but the children thoroughly enjoyed it.
Their tender feet trod on the warm, moist earth, and their laughter and footsteps echoed through the valley, as if they were playing an ancient and sacred game.
On the evening of the seventh day, a miracle quietly occurred.
At the very edge of the terraced fields, beside a broken hoe handle that had been abandoned for many years, only half of it remained, a brand new wallflower sprouted from the soil.
Its stem is transformed from that weathered wooden handle, and its silver veins are thicker and more stable than those of the tree in the courtyard, like tamed rivers.
The petals slowly unfolded, and the scene inside made everyone hold their breath.
It was no longer a static image, but a flowing video.
Countless feet, belonging to the elderly, children, men, and women, are treading on all sorts of different lands—muddy wetlands, hard stone paths, soft sand, and the ridges between the fields beneath their feet.
With each step, the silver patterns around the footprints spread out like ripples from a stone thrown into a lake, extending and taking root in all directions.
Xiaoman's heart was struck hard.
She finally understood!
The light path that Lin Yi was talking about was not "built" inch by inch by human effort at all!
It has always existed, like a huge, sleeping net, buried deep in the memory of every piece of land.
It is not waiting for engineers or builders, but simply for someone who is willing to lower their head and measure and feel the earth with their own feet.
She suddenly took out her water bottle and stopped watering only the roots of the flowers as before.
She unscrewed the lid and slowly poured the clear spring water along the ridge at her feet.
A wondrous thing happened where the water flowed.
The silver patterns that were originally hidden in the cracks of the soil lit up one by one when they were soaked in water, emitting a warm and gentle white light!
The light spread rapidly along the ridges of the fields, like a silver dragon awakened, winding and coiling across the entire terraced field.
The scene was like the thunder of spring awakening insects, a sign that all things were reviving!
Grandma Chen had somehow reached the highest point of the terraced fields. Her eyes reflected the shimmering, colorful scene below, and her expression was solemn and devout.
She saw that the awakened light patterns were not rigidly confined to the paths and ridges of the fields, but rather followed the natural terrain of the mountain, finding the most reasonable paths on their own in the slopes, ditches, and even the crevices of the rocks, connecting with each other and converging into a network.
She slowly bent down and took off her old cloth shoes that she had worn for many years. The soles of the shoes were worn smooth, but they were also covered with the dust of her life.
She gently and solemnly placed the shoes at the edge of the field.
The moment the sole of the shoe touched the ground illuminated by the light patterns, the silver veins on the sole flashed and then, like melting snow, silently seeped into the soil.
That night, the shadow of those shoes completely vanished.
On the spot, a wall-whispering flower, no bigger than a fingernail, sprouted from the soil. Its stem was actually transformed from that faded shoelace.
The petals trembled slightly, with a rhythmic quality, like a newborn baby breathing quietly.
It was late at night, and the children had already been sent back to the village.
Xiaoman sat alone on the edge of the field, guarding this miraculous land.
She saw that the silver patterns of the entire terraced field had formed a huge river network, and the flow of light was no longer intermittent, but presented a steady, tide-like rhythm, as if it were resonating with the pulse of this planet.
She tentatively placed her foot lightly on a gleaming silver stripe.
The anticipated feeling of power gathering did not appear.
On the contrary, the stream of light beneath her feet did not surge toward her; instead, it extended even more rapidly in all directions, using her as a pivot point.
The light crossed the mountain ridge, penetrated into the deeper dense forest, and dived into the deserted valley—like countless unseen roots, quietly and firmly taking root in the wider and more distant darkness with the help of the "life force" they awakened.
Xiaoman closed her eyes, and an unprecedented realization welled up in her heart.
So it turns out we weren't building a road.
We are the road itself.
At this moment, unbeknownst to anyone, on the edge of that steel city a hundred miles away, in the cracks of a long-abandoned railway track, amidst the cold gravel and weeds, a faint, almost invisible silver thread was slowly and tentatively emerging from the depths of the soil.
Like a tentacle with its own consciousness, it swayed gently in the cold night wind, and eventually became entangled in a rusty, forgotten railway spike.
That gesture was both a tentative probe and a greeting.
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