In late spring, Shouwangmai ushered in its first bumper harvest.
Golden waves stretched from the horizon all the way to the walls of the shelter, the wind carrying the warm scent of wheat, the smell of life and hope.
The entire shelter was immersed in an almost frenzied joy. This was a miracle they had created with their blood and sweat, the most luxurious color in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
However, just as the celebrations reached their peak, Lin Yi announced a decision that left everyone speechless.
“Starting today, we will establish a new festival called ‘Begging Festival’.”
The square fell silent instantly; you could hear a pin drop.
The smiles on people's faces froze, replaced by confusion and bewilderment.
Lin Yi's voice, clear and steady, resounded through the loudspeaker to every corner: "On the day of the festival, starting with me, everyone must go out with an empty bowl. You may ask anyone for food, but there are three rules: First, you are not allowed to mention your identity; second, you are not allowed to boast about your war achievements; third, you are not allowed to talk about your contributions to the shelter."
The crowd erupted in uproar.
"What? Begging? Chief, are you humiliating us?" A veteran with a missing arm and a distinguished war record stepped forward, his face flushed. "We are soldiers, builders, not beggars!"
"Yes, we finally have our own food and can hold our heads high. Why should we become beggars?"
"This is outrageous! I'd rather go hungry for a day than ask anyone for a handout!"
The doubts rose and fell, forming a huge wave that almost drowned Lin Yi.
They revered Lin Yi, but this order touched upon their fragile dignity, which they had just established.
Lin Yi did not get angry, but listened quietly.
After the commotion subsided, he slowly raised his hand, a complex smile on his face: "Do you think heroes are above worldly concerns? Let me tell you, true heroes have all begged for food."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, his voice carrying a hint of distant reminiscence: "Long Wu, one of the strongest warriors in our shelter. When he first awakened his superpower, he lost his way in the wilderness because he couldn't control the rampaging power. He went hungry for three days and three nights, until his eyes turned green. In the end, he traded his only relatively intact tactical vest with a passing homeless man for a bowl of spoiled porridge. That bowl of spoiled porridge saved his life and also made him understand that no matter how strong you are, the first thing you must learn is to bow your head and admit that you need help."
Lin Yi's words struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.
They had all heard the legend of Long Wu, but they never imagined that this towering and powerful figure had such a shameful past.
“A hero is not someone who never bows their head, but someone who has the courage to survive in any adversity and, once they survive, is willing to lend a helping hand to others.” Lin Yi’s voice became firm and powerful. “This holiday is not to humiliate anyone, but to remind each of us that we are first and foremost human beings, that we can be hungry, feel pain, and need each other. If we forget this, we are not far from becoming monsters.”
The crowd fell silent again, and many people lowered their heads thoughtfully.
Meanwhile, in the control center, Chu Yao lightly tapped her fingertips in the air, and streams of pale blue data surrounded her.
Before her was a huge brainwave map composed of countless points of light—the collective consciousness network of the entire shelter's inhabitants.
"The 'Begging Festival' ritual... has established a resonance channel with the 'Well of Memory'." She murmured to herself, her eyes focused and sharp. "Ensuring the authenticity and fluidity of all emotional feedback. I want to see what you're really up to, Lin Yi." She knew that this was far more than a simple social experiment; behind every unusual action of Lin Yi lay a deeper goal.
On the day of the festival, it was just getting light.
Lin Yi was the first to leave his room.
He took off the specially made combat uniform that symbolized his status as leader, put on the most ordinary linen clothes, went barefoot, and held a rough ceramic bowl in his hands, which was empty.
Instead of heading to the canteen, he went straight to the residential area in the west of the city.
Many ordinary survivors he rescued from the ruins lived there.
He stopped in front of a door.
An elderly man with gray hair opened the door. The moment he saw Lin Yi, his legs went weak and he was about to kneel down: "Chief! You...you've come!"
This was the old man that Lin Yi had rescued from a group of mutants. Back then, he had knelt before Lin Yi like this, worshipping him as a god.
"Don't kneel." Lin Yi reached out and helped him up, then handed him the empty bowl, a shy smile on his face, as if he were doing this for the first time. "Old man, can I have something to eat? I'm hungry."
The old man was completely dumbfounded. He looked at the empty bowl in Lin Yi's hand, and then at Lin Yi's sincere eyes. He was at a loss and his whole body was trembling.
Should he give alms to the savior?
This...this is unacceptable!
"I...I don't deserve it..." The old man's lips trembled, and his eyes instantly reddened. "You gave me my life, you gave me everything..."
"There's no leader today, just a hungry young man." Lin Yi's smile remained gentle. "Would you be willing to share a bite of your food with me?"
The old man stood there for a long time before finally turning around and going back into the house, trembling. A moment later, he came out with half a hard, dry rye bread and carefully placed it into Lin Yi's bowl. That was almost all of his food for the day.
Lin Yi picked up the steamed bun, took a big bite without hesitation, chewed it vigorously, then let out a satisfied sigh and said to the old man with a smile, "It's so delicious! Much better than the compressed biscuits I used to eat in the ruins back then."
This seemingly ordinary sentence completely shattered the old man's last line of defense.
He suddenly burst into tears, not from excitement, nor from fear.
He didn't kneel down to worship anymore, but instead rushed forward and hugged Lin Yi's leg like a helpless child.
“Chief…” he sobbed, his words incoherent, “I…I thought I was just a burden in this life, an old thing rescued to die…I…I also wanted to be needed…I also wanted…to be like you, to be able to give others something to eat…”
At this moment, he was no longer a believer looking up to God, but a living person yearning to "give".
Lin Yi gently patted his back, and a huge weight was lifted from his heart.
At the same time, inside the control center, Chu Yao suddenly stood up, staring intently at the collective brainwave map in front of her.
On the graph, the sharp peaks representing "looking up" and "being looked up to" are rapidly dissolving and flattening, replaced by an unprecedented, gentle and stable waveform that is slowly spreading.
"This is... 'equal resonance'?" she murmured to herself, her eyes filled with disbelief. "The spiritual connection between people is no longer a one-way worship and obedience, but... a two-way cycle of 'giving' and 'receiving'... He did it?"
Just then, a faint and intermittent thought entered her mind from the depths of the shelter through a special channel.
That was Ivan's whisper from the wreckage of the suppressed "scavengers".
“The ninth node…in…in the ‘desire to be needed’…”
Almost at the same time, Lin Yi, who was holding the old man's shoulders, suddenly shuddered!
He finally understood!
The Cleaner's final parasitic point, the most hidden and stubborn ninth node, is not hidden in someone's brain, nor attached to any artifact, but parasitizes the collective unconscious of the entire shelter!
It is parasitic on a distorted cognition that has been alienated by heroism—"Only heroes are worth being needed!"
Because heroes are needed, people admire them.
Because of admiration, people place all their hopes on heroes.
Ordinary people thus give up their self-worth, relinquish the power to "give," and become passive "recipients."
Heroes, on the other hand, are held hostage by this endless "need," placed on a pedestal, and ultimately become a lonely symbol, a cold answer.
This one-way, pathological energy flow is the perfect breeding ground for scavengers!
It plants the seed of "I need a savior" in people's hearts, and then draws deified energy from the "savior," forming a perfect parasitic closed loop.
The "Beggars' Festival" is the sharp blade that breaks this closed loop!
Lin Yi suddenly understood. He helped the old man up, turned to face the growing number of people in the square with varying expressions, and with all his might, let out a shout:
"From today onwards, everyone listen to me! 'Hero' is no longer a title, but a verb! If you help a child who has fallen, you are a hero! If you bring a bowl of hot soup to a hungry neighbor, you are a hero! If you help your brother on duty, you are a hero! When you help others, you are a hero!"
After saying that, he did something even more astonishing.
He pulled a handful of heavy metal coins from his pocket. These were commemorative coins he had minted after melting down the fragments of the captured "Scepter of Power." Each coin contained a faint source of energy and was a symbol of status and honor.
He strode to the entrance of the canteen, where a large pot of piping hot wheat porridge was being cooked.
To everyone's astonishment, he threw that handful of incredibly precious commemorative coins into the porridge pot with a whoosh!
"What are you all looking at! Let's cook! Whoever finds a commemorative coin in this pot of porridge today keeps it!"
The crowd was initially deathly silent, then erupted into deafening laughter and cheers.
People were no longer reserved or hesitant; they grabbed their bowls and rushed forward, eagerly scooping up treasures from the pot.
The order was somewhat chaotic, but everyone's face was filled with a genuine, unreserved smile.
A seven or eight-year-old child was lucky enough to pull a shiny commemorative coin from the bottom of the pot with his small bowl.
He excitedly raised it high and shouted at the people around him with all his might:
"Look! I caught it! I'm... I'm the cooking hero!"
The people around him laughed even harder and congratulated him, creating an extremely lively atmosphere.
As night deepened, the festive festivities gradually subsided.
The collective consciousness of the shelter is immersed in a warm and contented ocean.
It was in the depths of this ocean of consciousness that the last wisp of the "scavenger's" consciousness made its final struggle.
It relentlessly attempts to recreate the magnificent scene of the "descendant's arrival" in people's dreams—a scene of golden light, a god descending from the sky, and all people kneeling in worship.
However, the inhabitants of the dream remained oblivious to the strange phenomena in the sky.
They no longer look up, but instead lower their heads, carefully counting the grains of rice in their bowls, or sharing a piece of roasted potato with those around them, with simple smiles on their faces.
The remnant consciousness was enraged. It gathered its power and tried to carve an eternal mark on the heroes' monument in the center of the shelter with its will: "You need me!"
Just as the golden lettering appeared, a group of children, dozing off and returning from their night patrol, passed by.
They pulled out their fluorescent pens, which glowed in the dark, and scribbled crookedly over the words, finally changing the domineering declaration into a gentle greeting:
"are you hungry?"
That was the question Lin Yi asked most often during the "Beggars' Festival".
"Are you hungry?" "Do you need any help?" "I'll share this pancake with you."... Countless ordinary, everyday thoughts, full of warmth and life, surged in like a tide.
They are not aggressive, but they carry the purest, most genuine care between people.
The scavenger's remaining consciousness, a collection of obsessions about being "looked up to" and "needed," felt an unprecedented sense of suffocation in this warm ocean.
It was like the last snowflake under the scorching sun, silently and completely melting and evaporating amidst the greetings of "Are you hungry?", leaving no trace.
As night faded, the first rays of dawn pierced the horizon, bathing the sleeping shelter in a new golden hue.
Everything was silent; a new era seemed to be holding its breath, waiting to be ushered in.
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