The moment the wind stopped, there wasn't deathly silence, but an extreme tension, as if all the air in the city had been sucked out, waiting for a deafening echo.
The next second, the echo came.
It was not sound, but light.
A faint streak of light shot into the sky from the Malt Ruins at the easternmost edge of the city, like a silver needle piercing the night.
Immediately afterwards, a second, a third... a total of thirty-seven beams of light rose simultaneously from the forgotten ruins covered with wall-talking plants!
They converged, intertwined, and merged at an altitude of thousands of meters, and finally, a long, boundless band of light that stretched across the sky took shape!
It's like a galaxy hanging upside down above the city, dazzling and magnificent, yet carrying an indescribable desolation.
The city's neon lights paled in comparison, and everyone instinctively looked up, their faces filled with shock and bewilderment.
Lin Yi stood in the center of the malt ruins, looking up at his "masterpiece," his eyes filled with an unprecedented solemnity.
He saw that the band of light he had named "The Path of Returning Light" began to pulsate rhythmically, like a giant heart.
With each pulse, the silver veins of all the wall-flowering plants shimmer beneath our feet and on the walls.
What alarmed him even more was that these plants began to grow at a speed visible to the naked eye. The vines that originally only covered the wall were now sprouting new buds that were about an inch long!
No, that's not right!
Lin Yi's pupils contracted sharply. He moved closer to a wall-whispering plant and stared intently at its shimmering silver veins.
What flows within is no longer just light, but... memories!
Countless miniature fragments of memory surge within it!
A little girl with pigtails laughs loudly amidst the ruins; a couple cries and embraces at the bridgehead after arguing; a hunchbacked old man sits on the doorstep, humming an ancient nursery rhyme that has long been lost...
These are... the forgotten emotions of this city!
The “Path of Returning Lights” not only connects spaces, but also awakens memories that have been dormant in the river of time!
Just then, he heard Ivan's intermittent message in his ear, crackling like static, as if it were a murmur from another dimension: "...Ninety-five...unit...activation...requires...nine heart lamps...reignited...the wellhead..."
Nine lamps of the heart!
Lin Yi felt a chill run down his spine and immediately understood what was going on.
The path to returning to the light is just the skeleton; it still needs flesh and blood to fill it.
And this flesh and blood are the nine families that guard the oldest memories of this city.
Without the slightest hesitation, he turned and rushed into the archives deep within the ruins.
On a dusty metal shelf, he frantically searched for a top-secret file marked "The Lightkeeper".
Soon, the names of the descendants of the other eight families, apart from his own, and the characteristics of their tokens, were clearly presented before his eyes.
But he did not pick up the communicator.
He knew that for these descendants who had long forgotten their mission, any explanation would be futile.
What they need is not persuasion, but an irresistible "divine revelation".
Lin Yi returned to the center of the ruins, where there was a "malt flower core" half-buried in the soil, about the size of a millstone, which was the central hub of the entire city's wall-language plant network.
He took a deep breath and solemnly placed the replicas of the eight tokens recorded in the file—an old pocket watch that had stopped, a broken string of an ancient zither, half a rusty medal of honor—one by one next to the flower pit.
After doing all this, he simply waited quietly.
Nothing happened that night. When the dawn broke through the clouds the next day, a miracle occurred.
Beside the malt flower pit, the eight tokens had vanished without a trace.
Meanwhile, in eight different corners of the city.
A man working overtime all night in an office building in the financial district looked wearily out the window and found his family's old pocket watch lying quietly on the windowsill.
A young girl practicing her piano skills diligently at an art academy pushes open the window of her practice room, where a familiar broken string hangs on the window hook, swaying slightly.
A retired veteran opened the window to let in some fresh air, and there sat half of his father's medal, which he had been searching for all his life, on the windowsill...
Eight people, eight different locations, the same shock.
Next to each keepsake was a small slip of paper formed from the leaves of a wall-talking plant, with the same sentence written on it in silver veins:
"Your light bulb needs refilling."
These words were like a bolt of lightning, shattering their long-buried family memories.
They may not understand what happened, but the throbbing deep in their blood urged them to make the same decision.
Around noon, eight people arrived one after another outside the Malt Ruins.
Their expressions varied—some were confused, some were wary, and some were excited—but they all clutched tightly the family heirloom they had found again.
Lin Yi was already waiting there.
He offered no further explanation, simply pointing to the magnificent band of light still suspended in the sky, and calmly said, "Throw it in."
The crowd exchanged bewildered glances, and an impatient young man couldn't help but demand, "Who are you? What's going on?!"
Lin Yi did not answer, but looked at him with an unquestionable gaze.
That look seemed to say, "The answer lies in your own choice."
The eight people fell silent.
Looking at the old objects in their hands, and then at the incredible river of light in the sky, their inner struggles were almost overflowing.
Finally, the retired veteran sighed, stepped forward, and threw the half of the medal into the air with all his might.
The medal melted like ice and snow the moment it came into contact with the band of light, turning into a dazzling stream of light that flowed into the inverted Milky Way.
Once there was a first, there was a second, a third… and then the eighth person, the art school girl, threw her broken violin string into the light beam—
"clang--"
A deep, resonant bell tolled, not from the heavens, but from beneath everyone's feet, from the depths of the earth!
The sound was ancient and powerful, carrying the chilling atmosphere of war; it was a variation of the alarm bell used to assemble the city's soldiers during wartime!
The moment the bell rang, the "Path of Returning Lanterns" in the sky suddenly came alive!
The entire band of light surged violently, and then nine thick beams of light descended from it, like divine spears of punishment, accurately shooting towards various parts of the city. The landing point of each beam of light was a coordinate that carried a heavy history!
"Follow me!" Lin Yi shouted, taking the lead and rushing towards the nearest path of light.
The other eight were completely stunned by the miracle before them and, without a trace of doubt, immediately followed.
Nine people, nine paths of light, nine historical coordinates.
Using their respective family heirlooms as a guide, and under Lin Yi's direction, they rekindled those ancient oil lamps that had long been abandoned and forgotten in a corner.
The final stop is the city's highest point—the central clock tower.
Lin Yi climbed to the top of the tower alone.
This is where the last lamp is located.
He cut his fingertip, used his own blood as lamp oil, and personally lit the dusty wick of the lamp.
The moment the flames rose, the intricate silver veins inside the entire clock tower were illuminated in an instant, the light so intense that it almost cracked the ancient bricks and stones!
Immediately afterwards, the giant bell, which had not rung for hundreds of years, started to ring on its own without any wind!
"Clang—clang—clang—"
This time, the bells were no longer an alarm from underground, but a proclamation that resounded through the heavens.
It was no longer somber, but filled with warmth and peace.
The sound of the bells, like mercury spilling across the ground, covered every corner of the city.
A wondrous sight occurred.
Wherever the bell tolls, hundreds and thousands of figures made of dots of light appear out of thin air on the streets.
They carried dim lanterns, walking silently through the midnight streets with orderly and slow steps, as if participating in a grand and solemn procession.
The citizens on the street watched in astonishment as this army of light passed by, but no one felt fear.
On the contrary, an indescribable sense of familiarity and belonging arose from the bottom of my heart, as if I had seen long-lost relatives.
Lin Yi stood atop the clock tower, overlooking the magnificent scene he had created.
He took out an old, rusty bell shaped like an ear of wheat from his pocket.
He shook it gently, and the clear sound of the bell resonated perfectly with the chimes in the sky.
On the street below, the thousands of luminous figures seemed to hear a summons, stopping in unison and looking up at Lin Yi atop the clock tower.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the thickest and brightest beam of light burst forth from inside the giant bell at the top of the bell tower, reaching straight to the "Path of Returning Lights" itself in the sky!
Lin Yi looked at the path of light that led to the heavens and, without the slightest hesitation, leaped into the air!
He wasn't trying to travel through the city, but rather to use his own body as a symbol to proclaim to the entire city and to those dormant memories: This road is open, and everyone can walk on it!
The light engulfed his figure.
When he returned to the top of the clock tower, his feet firmly planted on the ground, he opened his palm and saw that the rusty bell-shaped ear of wheat had disappeared, replaced by a brand new ear of wheat.
It is completely transparent, like crystal, with billions of tiny lights flowing inside. If you look closely, you can almost see countless feet moving forward inside, treading out a never-ending path.
In the dead of night, all was quiet.
Ivan's voice rang in his mind again, this time without any noise, clear and steady, with a hint of relieved exhaustion.
"The lamps have been lit, and all tribes will awaken. The next journey is to the bottom of the well to see the first lamp."
Lin Yi's gaze fell on the city holographic map in his hand, his eyes penetrating through layers of buildings and strata of earth, finally locking onto the depths of the red area marked "Zero Forbidden Zone".
There, at the very bottom of the fissure in the Earth's core, a faint point of light flickers quietly.
That was the source of all the light trails, the "well" Ivan spoke of, and the very essence of the "Well of Memory," the ultimate forbidden land he had never dared to set foot in, or even think about.
He gripped the newly sprouted crystal ear of wheat in his palm, bearing the weight of countless footsteps, feeling the immense power it contained. He murmured to himself, as if speaking to Ivan, yet also as if speaking to himself:
This time, I will not just listen.
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