In those ashen, astonished eyes, a flicker of panic and a complex murderous intent even crossed. But this hint of murderous intent dissolved completely under Mo Hua’s cold and authoritative gaze.

Tie Shu-gu slowly straightened up. His demeanor was less wooden, showing more the vicissitudes of time, but his attitude…

After that night, the tranquility of Ji Lake did not last long.

On the morning of the seventh day, before dawn, the lake surface suddenly rippled with spiral waves, spreading slowly outward from the ceramic pot. The water ripples were silent but carried a strange rhythm, as if an ancient incantation was being whispered. Immediately afterward, the faint blue light at the bottom of the lake was no longer still, but flickered like a flame, sometimes converging into a single line shooting up to the sky, and sometimes scattering into thousands of tiny stars, wandering erratically in the crystal-clear lake water.

A night-watching Yi-xing-zhe knelt by the pavilion, his finger gently touching the lake surface. He suddenly felt a warm current flow from his fingertip into his heart. He closed his eyes and saw a scene: a stone bridge spanned a deep abyss, countless people on the bridge, all burdened with heavy loads, walking with difficulty. Their faces were blurred, their clothes tattered, some leaning on crutches, some holding infants, some supporting the elderly and leading children. At the end of the bridge stood a gate, nameless, with only seven stars revolving around it. Each time someone passed through that gate, a star would dim a little.

He suddenly opened his eyes, cold sweat dripping. “This is not an illusion,” he murmured. “This is the ‘Wang-chuan Ferry Map’.”

According to the fragmented records of the “Zhen-shi Jiu-zhang,” in ancient times, there was a river connecting the realms of life and death, named Wang-chuan. Departed souls had to be cleansed of their memories by this river before they could be reborn. However, a great sage, unable to bear the loss of the past for all beings, used their own divine soul as a guide to build a “Yi Bridge” over Wang-chuan, promising that those who still held strong attachments in their hearts could cross with their memories, at the cost of never being reborn. This bridge later collapsed and vanished, leaving only legends.

But the scene now appearing in the lake was clearly consistent with the ancient texts.

In less than half a day, the anomaly spread far and wide. The Yi-xing-zhe rushed to the scene, setting up a “resonance array” around the lakeside pavilion, attempting to analyze the source of this fluctuation. However, no matter how they deduced, they could not explain why a long-lost memory would reappear at this moment. More unsettling was that whenever someone gazed at the lake for more than three breaths, they would fall into a brief昏厥, and upon waking, they would mumble in a completely unfamiliar language, with an archaic tone, neither like a song nor a prayer.

On the third night, the little girl came to the pavilion again.

She still held the tattered picture book, sitting beside the ceramic pot, flipping through its pages. This time, she said nothing, only gently pressed her cheek against the cold surface of the ceramic pot, and closed her eyes.

A moment later, her breathing became long and even, as if she had entered a meditative state.

Just then, a crack suddenly opened in the lake surface, and a blue light shot out from the bottom of the water, enveloping her figure. Her body floated slightly, three inches off the ground, her hair swaying, and an expression not belonging to a child appeared on her face—the tranquility of having weathered many storms, the relief of having seen it all.

She spoke, her voice ancient and gentle, as if coming from a distant place:

“My name is Mo Yan, born in troubled times, died in a sea of fire.
I am not a saint, nor am I perfect.
I once feared death, and I once betrayed my beliefs.
But I always remember
Remember every person who reached out to me,
Remember every unspoken word,
Remember those names that should have been forgotten.”

Everyone held their breath, daring not to move.

She continued, “You think I am a god? No. I am just a wisp of thought unwilling to depart, residing in the memories of millions of people. As long as someone remembers a name, a story, a pain, I will not truly vanish. And this lake, this pot, this bell sound, are merely vessels.”

The wind stopped, the trees were still, even the birdsong from the distant mountains ceased abruptly.

“But now…” She paused, her voice trembling slightly, “a force is devouring memory itself.”

As her words fell, the lake water surged violently, and the blue light instantly turned dark red. The sky was covered with dark clouds, no stars or moon visible. A muffled thunder-like roar came from afar, not from the sky, but from deep within the earth’s veins, like the earth was groaning.

The little girl opened her eyes, the light gone from them, reverting to her childlike expression. She looked around blankly, as if unaware of what had just happened.

At this moment, deep in the Yi Forest outside Jin-yu City, the newly grown Si Tree suddenly shook violently, its branches and leaves rustling. Amidst the flying petals, the characters appearing on the ground were no longer “I remember,” but three constantly flashing large characters:

Jin Yi Ling (Memory Prohibition Order)

Meanwhile, urgent reports came from the northern border: the Duan-mai Army had not been annihilated; instead, they had reorganized into the “Xu-wang Alliance,” whose leader called himself “Wu-yi-zhe” (Memoryless One), proclaiming to sever all historical ties and establish a “pure new world.” They had already captured three Yi Halls, burned 100,000 volumes of oral historical records, and used a secret technique called “Shi-xin Gu” (Heart-Corroding Gu) to make hundreds of veteran soldiers who had personally experienced the war lose all their memories overnight, even failing to recognize their own children.

Even more frightening, they unearthed ancient “Feng-yi Stele” (Memory Sealing Steles) in various places, with inverted inscriptions. Once activated, these steles could erase specific events from the collective memory of people. For example, a village that had suffered a massacre, after the stele was activated, the descendants of the villagers firmly believed their ancestors had migrated peacefully, without any sorrow or indignation; another example, a certain uprising, originally to resist tyranny, under the influence of the stele, was widely regarded as a “rebellion,” with some even actively volunteering to assist the imperial court in suppressing the “rebels.”

Memory was being systematically altered.

When the news reached Ji Lake, emotions ran high. The Yi-xing-zhe spontaneously gathered, preparing to head north to confront the enemy. However, an elderly guardian elder of memory stopped them.

“Where are you going?” The old man stood leaning on his staff, his gaze profound. “Do you think swords can protect memories? The torches in your hands can illuminate the night, but they cannot penetrate the human heart.”

“Then what should we do?” someone roared. “Should we just watch them erase our past?”

The old man remained silent for a long time, then finally pointed to the ceramic pot in the center of the lake pavilion.

“The answer has always been here.”

That night, twelve of the most gifted Yi-xing-zhe sat by the lakeside, forming the “Gui-yuan Seal,” linking their minds to the ceramic pot. They were not seeking to gain power but attempting to release all their memories into the lake, as a foundation against the Xu-wang Alliance.

The first Yi-xing-zhe recalled his mother holding his hand before she passed away; the second remembered his village being burned down in childhood, hiding in a dry well, listening to the cries until dawn; the third relived the moment his heart pounded when he first said, “I remember…”

As memories were infused, the lake water froze again, the ice layer visibly thickening, eventually forming a circular ice platform a hundred zhang in diameter, with the ceramic pot at its center.

And when the last person completed their offering of memory, the entire ice platform suddenly rose, floating in the air, like a blue moon suspended over the lake.

It no longer responded passively but began to actively project.

Wherever its light and shadows fell, anyone with a sincere heart could see fragments of lives that were not their own: a merchant from the Western Regions clutching a jade pendant given by his daughter before his death; a female physician writing “May those who come after not repeat our mistakes” before dying in a plague zone; a pair of lovers promising to meet in the next life upon parting, but never encountering each other again due to war…

These scenes were not limited by region, spreading across the Nine Provinces. Someone eating would suddenly burst into tears; someone about to sleep would be struck by a sudden memory; even old people who had been afflicted by the “Shi-xin Gu” would suddenly awaken upon seeing a certain scene, trembling as they called out their deceased wife’s name.

This was memory’s counterattack, an awakening of truth.

At the Xu-wang Alliance’s main altar in the north, the “Jing-yi Grand Ceremony” was being held. On the high platform, the priest, holding a black jade scepter, was about to activate the largest Feng-yi Stele—engraved on it was the story of the entire Yi-shou Division perishing 300 years ago. If successful, people would completely forget that history of resisting tyranny, and all related figures would vanish from collective consciousness.

But at the last moment of the ceremony, just as the scepter was about to fall, everyone in the audience simultaneously looked up, and the same scene appeared in their eyes: a woman in plain clothes standing in the center of a sea of fire, holding a burning scroll in her hands, her lips moving, and though silent, everyone heard the words:

“You can burn the words, but you cannot burn the people who have read them.”

In that instant, the Feng-yi Stele spontaneously shattered into dust.

The priest roared to the sky, “Impossible! This is the law of heaven and earth! How can it be shaken by mortal will!”

His response came from the distant sound of copper bells.

This time, it was not a single sound, but thousands upon thousands of sounds.

Guan-yi Platforms, Yi Halls, village ancestral temples, eaves of schoolhouses… all hanging Yi Bells chimed in unison, the sound waves converging into a torrent, penetrating mountains and rivers, reaching directly into people’s hearts.

Members of the Xu-wang Alliance began to waver. Some dropped their weapons and wept on their knees; some mumbled unfamiliar names, as if retrieving lost loved ones; several young people even turned and left, shouting, “I refuse to be memoryless!”

The tide of battle turned, not on the battlefield, but in the heart.

Three months later, the Xu-wang Alliance disintegrated, its remnants fleeing into the extreme northern wilderness, their whereabouts unknown. The imperial court officially issued the “Hu-yi Edict,” explicitly prohibiting any form of memory manipulation, and promoted “Yi-yu Courses” nationwide, requiring children from the age of six to learn to listen to and narrate true past events.

However, the true victory was not in this.

Ten years later, a young boy came alone to Ji Lake. He was not an Yi-xing-zhe, nor a cultivator, but an ordinary farmer’s son. He squatted by the lake, taking out a yellowed piece of paper from his怀, on which were scrawled a few words: “Dad, I miss you.”

This was the last sentence his father wrote before he passed away, but he was young then and couldn’t understand its deep meaning. Now, grown into an adult, he finally understood how heavy that longing was.

He gently placed the paper into the mouth of the ceramic pot and whispered, “I miss you too.”

A drop of water fell, and the lake light shone brightly.

And a thousand li away, at the site of the Southern Mausoleum ruins, the stone stele that once displayed Mo Yan’s image slowly revealed a new image—this time, a boy crying while squatting on a field ridge, with a blurry figure standing beside him, reaching out to stroke his head.

No one had ever filmed this scene, nor recorded this past event.

But it existed.

Because someone remembered.

Twenty years later, a lakeside academy was built around Ji Lake, specializing in “memory philosophy.” Every morning, students would do one thing: face the ceramic pot and speak of the one thing they least wished to forget. Some spoke of their mother saving the last bite of food during a famine year; some mentioned a friend dying to save them; others confessed past mistakes and asked for forgiveness.

A professor once asked a student, “If one day everyone forgets you, do you still exist?”

A young girl replied, “As long as I remember others, I still exist.”

The professor smiled and nodded.

This concept later became known as the “Inter-Memory Proof Theory,” becoming the spiritual cornerstone of the new era.

A hundred years later, the ceramic pot finally shattered.

It was not broken by someone, nor weathered by nature, but on a drizzly spring afternoon, it suddenly made a crisp sound, then turned into fine sand, scattering with the wind.

The lake water was still clear, the lakeside pavilion still stood, but the vessel that had carried countless memories had completed its mission.

Some said it had exhausted its last bit of spirituality; others said it was never meant to exist forever, because memory should not rely on external objects.

But from that day on, every midnight, a line of characters would appear on the lake surface, condensed from water vapor, fleeting:

“No need to seek the pot, the heart is the vessel.”

Today, there are tens of thousands of small Ji Lakes across the Nine Provinces, all voluntarily dug and built by the people, with a stone urn or a wooden plaque in the center, or even just a stone with words carved on it. They may not have a faint blue light, nor a mysterious sense, but every day people come, quietly saying a word.

And on some special nights, if you happen to pass by a small pond in a mountain village, you might see the water surface slightly move, reflecting the outline of houses long gone, or hear a few distant conversations carried on the wind:

“The harvest is good this year.”
“The children have all grown up.”
“It’s okay if we grow old, as long as they remember.”

Then everything returns to silence.

You might pause, then smile, and then quietly walk away, unwilling to disturb this gentle reunion.

Many years later, when a new generation of children opens their textbooks and sees the term “Yi-sheng,” the teacher will no longer say, “This is a legend,” but will tell them:

“He is not a name, but a choice. When you decide to remember a person, an event, a pain, or a love, you become part of Yi-sheng.”

Outside the window, the sun was just right, and the spring breeze swept through the Si Tree in the campus, petals falling like snow.

In the classroom, a little girl raised her hand and timidly asked:

“Teacher, if I remember something very sad, will it also make me a better person?”

The teacher knelt down, held her hand, and softly replied:

“It will. Because true courage is not forgetting pain, but carrying it and moving forward.”

At that moment, on the Guan-yi Platform far away in Jin-yu City, a copper bell gently vibrated, emitting a long, clear sound.

As if saying:
I heard it.
I remembered it.
We are always here.