The wind howled like weeping, brushing past Lin Yi's ears, carrying the most primitive desolation of the mountains and fields.
He stood still, silently facing the sheer cliff made of giant rocks.
This was not an obstacle that human power could overcome, but rather the earth's final ultimatum to him on this journey.
Just as he was about to give up and turn back along the way he came, he felt something strange coming from the soles of his feet.
It wasn't a violent shaking, but a continuous, low tremor, as if a beating heart buried deep in the earth was anxiously urging him on through the thick layers of rock.
His gaze was drawn to the crevices in the pile of stones by the tremor.
There, a wallflower is struggling to survive.
Its petals were tightly closed, and the silver veins that should have shone brightly were now so dim that they were almost invisible, revealing a fragile sense of impending death.
Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat.
He crouched down and unscrewed the last bottle of water in the side pocket of his backpack.
The bottle was dented, and less than half of it remained inside.
He had thought that this was his last guarantee for crossing this no-man's-land.
But at that moment, without the slightest hesitation, he poured every last drop of the life-saving water onto the roots of the Wall-Wall Flower.
Water droplets seeped into the dry cracks in the rocks, and a miracle happened in an instant.
"boom!"
As if a colossal creature that had been dormant for millennia had been awakened, countless bright silver mycelia surged wildly from every crevice at the base of the Wallflower!
They are no longer trickles, but floods bursting their banks, climbing, intertwining, and weaving at a visible speed.
In just a few breaths, a staircase made entirely of light threads, radiating a soft yet firm glow, spiraled upwards from beneath his feet like a silver dragon, leading straight to the cloud-shrouded mountain peak.
Lin Yi did not step on it immediately.
He stared at the bizarre road, his voice not loud, yet clear enough to cut through the wind: "Is this your road, or mine?"
The staircase made of light filaments trembled slightly, and the light filament at the very front swayed gently, transforming into a head-shaking posture.
A thought, not a voice, resounded directly in his mind—not yours, nor ours, but "the place with feet."
If you have feet, you can step on them.
Without further hesitation, Lin Yi took a deep breath and stepped onto the path of light.
The sensation coming from the soles of my feet was peculiar, neither tangible nor intangible, warm and elastic.
He took his second step and was surprised to find that the light filament in front of him automatically extended forward by a foot the moment he landed, exactly the distance of a single step.
This road is following in his footsteps.
On a sudden impulse, he quickened his pace, almost running along the path of light.
The speed at which the light filament extended also increased dramatically, consistently and precisely paving a smooth path beneath his feet.
He stopped abruptly, and the weaving of the light threads also came to an instant.
He even closed his eyes and tried to move forward by feeling alone.
The light path beneath his feet glowed slightly and warmed a little, like a warm hand silently reminding him of where he was standing.
He suddenly understood.
This path is no longer about "following" him, but about "walking alongside him".
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away on the outskirts of the city, Granny Chen, leaning on her cane, was inspecting the pebbly path in the morning mist.
When her gaze fell on the wall-flower that had been transformed from Lin Yi's old shoe, a hint of surprise flashed in her cloudy eyes.
Today, the flower petals are completely closed, and the stem is drooping slightly, like a child who has suddenly fallen into a deep sleep.
She staggered over, knelt down, and her wrinkled fingers trembled as she gently stroked the soft flower stem, whispering in a voice only she could hear, "What? Even you're gone?"
As soon as she finished speaking, the mycelium network at her feet suddenly lit up, and the light flowed slowly across the ground, piecing together a line of crooked words: "He didn't leave, he became part of the road."
Grandma Chen paused in her movements.
She stared blankly at the words for a long time before slowly raising her head and looking towards the endless mountains in the east of the city.
The wind ruffled her silver hair, and the disappointment in her eyes was gradually replaced by a sense of relief.
“I see…” she said softly, “Then I shouldn’t keep thinking about it, I should move on to something new.”
At the summit, Lin Yi finally reached the end of the path of light.
A weathered and abandoned watchtower stands alone on the mountaintop, like a sentinel forgotten by time.
Half of the tower's base is buried in soil and rocks, with a heavily rusted metal plaque embedded in the exposed part, the inscription of which is long since blurred.
He stepped forward and brushed away the dust and moss from the nameplate.
The moment his fingertips touched it, the mycelium beneath his feet seemed to sense his intention. Several slender strands of light quietly crawled out and precisely drilled into the marks eroded by time, using their own light to fill in and connect the incomplete strokes one by one.
A line of vigorous handwriting reappeared in the world under the light: "The last listener of the night once stood guard here for the dawn."
Listener of the Night… Lin Yi murmured this unfamiliar word, yet a strange sense of familiarity and sorrow welled up in his heart.
He took out the tin box containing the transparent ashes of wheat remnants from his backpack and solemnly scattered the ashes onto the base of the watchtower.
This is both a farewell and a passing on of the torch.
As night fell, an incredible sight occurred.
Centered on the watchtower, the silver veins inside every blade of grass in the entire mountain wilderness were simultaneously illuminated!
Countless rays of light rose from the depths of the earth, converging into a sea of light.
As if drawn by an invisible force, the light stream slowly rotated around the watchtower, forming a huge halo, as if erecting an inextinguishable monument for that nameless "night listener".
The next morning, Lin Yi did not continue on his way as usual.
He sat down beside the tower and took out the last piece of paper from a hidden compartment in the tin box his mother had left behind.
He gazed at the distant horizon, picked up his pen, and wrote only one short sentence: "Today, I'm not leaving."
He carefully folded the letter into a small boat and gently placed it into the babbling mountain stream beside him.
The paper boat drifted downstream for a hundred meters before the underwater light suddenly surged, like a gentle giant net, steadily supporting the small boat. It then slowly sank into the depths of the riverbed and disappeared.
Another dawn.
When the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds, the silvery patterns of wild grass across the entire river basin were instantly pushed to the extreme of brilliance!
Countless streams of light spread wildly along the river, intertwining with each other, eventually forming a winding path of light across the vast land.
The shape of that path was exactly the same as the inspection route he had taken day after day, year after year for the past ten years!
However, the speed at which this path of light extended was slower than it had been back then, and its pace was more steady, as if a tireless figure was walking that final journey for him, allowing him to rest in peace.
That night, Lin Yi lay supine on the grass on the mountaintop, with a soft blanket of light beneath him.
He gazed up at the vast starry sky, and suddenly, he saw the earth beneath his feet, where the mycelial light network that covered the entire world was quietly emerging, like the breathing of a sleeping giant, with slow and rhythmic fluctuations of light and shadow.
Just then, he felt a slight twitch at his fingertips.
A wisp of light, finer than a strand of hair, quietly emerged from the crack in the ground beneath him, gently and with a hint of longing, wrapping around his little finger once before shyly retreating back.
Lin Yi slowly closed his eyes.
A thought, like a revelation, exploded in his mind: I am no longer the source of light, nor a witness to light.
I am the path that light has walked.
Meanwhile, in a distant city, Granny Chen was walking along that familiar pebbly path, leaning on her cane.
She suddenly felt a strange warmth coming from the soles of her feet. Looking down, she saw a barely visible wisp of light gently wrapping around the soles of her shoes, like a long-awaited embrace.
It was as if the entire web of memories and life was silently telling her in this way: You are too.
The wind on the mountaintop seemed to have stopped because of this tranquility that permeated heaven and earth.
Lin Yi slowly sat up, leaned against the cold, ancient watchtower that had witnessed countless dawns, and closed his eyes.
Once he sat down, he never got up again.
It was as if he had completely merged with the ancient watchtower and the silent mountains.
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