By April 5, the deepest secret of the Columbus Bookstore finally revealed a tip of its iceberg to Ryan.
After paying a rental fee of one peso, the old bookstore owner allowed Ryan to enter the dusty, cluttered attic at the back of the shop.
The attic had terrible lighting, and the air was thick with decades of accumulated dust. At the bottom of a rotting wooden crate smelling of mothballs, Ryan found Hermann's private belongings left there years ago.
It was an old toolbox made of red pine, secured with a rusted brass lock.
Instead of breaking the latch, Ryan expertly picked the rusted spring lock with a thin iron wire.
“Click.”
The lid popped open. Inside, there was no gold, nor any mystical runic artifacts, but a whole box of meticulously organized private manuscripts:
Dozens of pages detailing statistical tables of wind directions across the Pampas in different months;
Dozens of bottles containing dried-up soil samples;
A thick hydrological notebook recording changes in the salinity of underground well water;
And a heavily folded, badly worn national geographical topological map of Argentina.
Ryan slowly unfurled the massive map across the wooden table.
On the map, Hermann had marked over a hundred tiny red dots in vibrant red ink.
Next to each red dot, the date and the name of the collected plant were meticulously recorded in German.
Ryan pulled out his own sketch of the collection route he had drawn recently and overlaid the two maps for comparison.
At that moment, even Ryan's heart skipped a beat.
They overlapped perfectly.
The migration route pieced together from alpine plants of the Andes that he discovered in 1891 shared an astonishing ninety percent overlap with the red line Hermann had drawn in 1887!
Bypassing all cities and railways, this red line resembled a hidden underground artery. Starting from the outskirts of Buenos Aires, it cut across the vast plains, stretching all the way southwest before finally converging on a single point at the very edge of the map—
The desolate salt marshes at the foot of the Andes Mountains, on the southwestern edge of the Pampas.
Just then, soft footsteps echoed from the stairs.
Lucia walked up to the attic carrying a tray with freshly sliced black bread and a cup of cold water. She had brought Ryan some afternoon tea.
Seeing the massive map spread across the table, the girl stopped in curiosity.
Her gaze drifted over the red line formed by countless red dots.
The next second, she froze.
Setting down the tray, she slowly approached the table, her clear grey eyes locked onto the red circle at the southwestern edge of the map.
“What is it?” Ryan looked up at her.
Lucia raised a slender finger and gently pointed at the desolate coordinates of the final destination.
Her brow furrowed slightly, a trace of confusion and bewilderment flickering in her eyes, as if she herself could not understand why she felt this way.
“Here...” the girl whispered, her voice exceptionally clear in the quiet attic. “There must be so many, many, many things growing here.”
Ryan's eyes narrowed slightly. “Why do you say that? The map marks it as a dry salt marsh with almost no rainfall.”
Lucia shook her head.
She withdrew her hand and crossed her arms over her chest, staring blankly at the beams of dusty light filtering through the window from the setting sun.
Only after a long silence did she speak in a faint, almost murmuring voice:
“Because... I can feel that they are all heading there.”
“All the grass, all the seeds, all the roots... they are running to that place with all their might, riding the wind and following the underground water.”
The girl turned her head to look at Ryan. “Sir... is there something calling out to them over there?”
A dead silence immediately fell over the attic.
The fading glow of the setting sun spilled through the broken wooden window onto the table, where countless tiny dust particles slowly drifted and spun in the golden shaft of light.
Ryan sat in his chair, looking at this ordinary thirteen-year-old girl with absolute seriousness for the very first time.
There were no extraordinary fluctuations, no manifestation of divine miracles.
Yet at this moment, Ryan suddenly understood completely the passage that the German scholar, Hermann, who had vanished twenty years ago, had written at the end of his notebook:
“The world is a grand ensemble.”
“Most people can only see the blooming flowers; scholars can map out the structure of the root system.”
“Yet on this desolate earth, a select few souls... seem naturally gifted to hear the faint chorus of survival and return sung by plants deep within the soil.”
Ryan slowly folded the map and slipped it into the inner pocket of his trench coat.
He stood up, brushed the dust off his trousers, and reached out to gently pat Lucia's hair.
“Thank you, Lucia.”
April 8, morning.
The persistent rain of the past several days finally cleared up. The air in the Lower End of Buenos Aires carried the crisp, dry chill characteristic of late autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.
When Ryan pushed open the back door of the Columbus Bookstore, he saw Lucia squatting by a crevice in the corner of the courtyard.
In the sunlight filtering through the broken wooden eaves, a tiny, pale-green sprout had stubbornly pushed its way out from the center of the clay pot that had been as dry as firewood half a month ago. A single droplet of morning dew clung to the sprout, sparkling crystal-clear in the golden morning light, radiating a raw and vigorous vitality.
Resting her face in her hands, the girl stared unblinkingly at the touch of green, her thin face glowing with a pure, brilliant smile.
“Sir! Look!” Hearing his footsteps, Lucia quickly turned around, her voice bubbling with irrepressible excitement. “It really came back to life!”
Ryan stepped forward and squatted beside her.
He reached out and gently touched the tender green leaf.
From a botanical perspective, this was merely the normal sprouting of a cheap ornamental plant waking from dormancy. But in Ryan's eyes, this splash of green carried an indescribable warmth. After experiencing the endless calculations, slaughter, and destruction of the Old World, witnessing the revival of a fragile life brought a long-lost peace to his heart.
“See? It heard you,” Ryan said with a gentle smile.
Lucia nodded vigorously and carefully nudged the clay pot toward a sunnier spot.
At seven in the evening, the Lower End was illuminated by a hazy glow of lights.
Pedestrians on the streets gradually thinned out, and the distant steam locomotives let out low whistles. The wet streets reflected the warm glow of oil lamps from the shops lining both sides.
The bookstore was filled with the rich aroma of black coffee and the dry scent of old paper.
The old owner sat behind the counter, wearing reading glasses and chewing on the end of a pencil, clacking away at his abacus to audit the week's rental accounts. A copper gas lamp hung from the vaulted ceiling, casting a dim but steady halo that stretched the shadows of the bookshelves long.
“Fourteen cents collected today, and a geographical atlas ruined... damn kids,” the old man grumbled. Yet, he reached into a drawer, pulled out two coins, and tossed them to Lucia, who was wiping a table nearby. “Here, go to the corner and buy two loaves of French black bread. Keep the change as a tip.”
The girl caught the coins, thanked him politely, and neatly folded her cloth.
Ryan sat in a corner beneath the attic stairs, holding a freshly brewed cup of black coffee and quietly observing the scene.
There was only the crisp clacking of the abacus, the bubbling hiss of the coffee pot, and the occasional clip-clop of horse hooves from the street corner. In this corner of a massive, chaotic port city, an order called “daily life” was quietly taking root. It even gave Ryan the illusion that he was truly just an ordinary Old World scholar who had found a peaceful harbor to anchor himself.
After the bookstore closed, the old owner returned to his residence on the back street.
Lucia stayed behind to clean up the last of the clutter.
As Ryan packed up his documents and prepared to leave, his eyes caught the small wooden table in the corner of the backyard.
Lucia was hunched over the wobbly table, holding a discarded stub of a pencil, slowly scribbling on the margin of a yellowed, old newspaper.
She was writing with great effort, her small fingers gripping the pencil tightly, her breath held in concentration.
Ryan approached silently.
In the blank space of the newspaper, several lines of advertisement headlines were clumsily copied. Lacking systematic study, many of the words had scrambled letters, and she had even spelled “Buenos Aires” as a completely illogical jumble of letters.
Sensing someone nearby, Lucia reacted like a child caught misbehaving. She hurriedly covered the newspaper with both hands, her cheeks instantly flushing a deep crimson. Lowering her head, she bit her lip hard, her eyes filled with insecurity and self-doubt.
“I... I don't know many words,” the girl's voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzz. “I just wanted to see if I could read the names in the books...”
Looking at the yellowed newspaper covered in misspellings, Ryan felt no urge to laugh.
He pulled over a wooden chair and sat down opposite the girl.
“It's fine,” Ryan said, his voice calm and deep, carrying a reassuring warmth. “You will learn eventually.”
The girl looked up at him, unable to believe her ears.
“Tomorrow morning, bring a clean sheet of paper,” Ryan said, tapping the table. “I will teach you.”
Late at night, in a brick house in the East End.
The sea breeze from the La Plata River outside howled, making the wooden window panes rattle softly.
Under the dim light of the kerosene lamp, Ryan spread the folded map of the southwestern Pampas across the table. Beside it lay a solid brass compass, a small packet of moisture-proof desiccant, and a pair of tall leather boots.
He was organizing his gear for a long journey.
Ryan walked over to the washstand, drew a bucket of cold water, and submerged his face in the icy water.
When he wiped away the water and looked up at the tarnished old mirror on the wall—
The look in “his” eyes in the mirror had changed.
It was no longer the gentle, calm, and scholarly detached gaze of “Joshua Adams,” but a cold, weary, and supercilious look that scrutinized everything with the lens of modern civilization.
“Are you planning to keep her around?”
Lin Yuan had spoken.
“She is just a talented child,” Ryan replied calmly in his mind, looking at his reflection.
Lin Yuan snorted coldly, his eyes filled with disgust and weariness for this backward nineteenth-century era. “Talent? Ryan, don't forget who you are. I have no attachment to this era, let alone any interest in these natives struggling in the mud.”
“This place is not home,” Lin Yuan pierced straight to the core. “You must become stronger.”
Ryan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“But here...” Ryan murmured in the depths of his heart, “for the first time, I feel like a living human being, rather than a tool designed only to calculate wins and losses.”
“Absurd!” Lin Yuan refuted coldly. “Peace is but a fleeting illusion. Responsibility will not simply vanish because you hide in an old harbor bookstore.”
Lin Yuan's voice carried an unshakeable pressure:
“There are still people waiting for you to return.”
The room fell into a deathly silence.
The wick of the kerosene lamp let out a faint pop.
Ryan opened his eyes. The cold, weary expression of Lin Yuan in the mirror had quietly faded, replaced once more by the deep, calm eyes of Joshua Adams.
He stood at the boundary of darkness and dim light, he stared at the map leading into the southwestern wilderness, remaining motionless for a long time.
There were still people waiting for him.
April 9, morning.
Golden morning light spilled into the Columbus Bookstore, with tiny dust particles drifting in the air.
The small wooden table in the backyard had been wiped clean. Two sharpened pencils and a small notebook Ryan had hand-stitched from clean absorbent paper lay on the table.
Lucia sat at the table early, her hands resting properly on her knees and her posture straight, her eyes filled with nervousness and anticipation.
Ryan walked in carrying his suitcase and hung his trench coat on a wall peg.
“Do you want to learn to read?” Ryan sat down opposite her, looking at the girl.
“Yes,” Lucia nodded vigorously.
“Then I will teach you.”
Ryan picked up a pencil and wrote the first Latin letter on the first page of the clean notebook in extremely neat handwriting: “A.”
The morning light filtered through the window panes, casting their shadows onto the weathered wooden wall. With the utmost patience, Ryan broke down the pronunciation, strokes, and meaning of each letter, instilling them into the soul before him that hungered for knowledge.
Half an hour later.
Ryan wrote a sequence of letters on the paper.
“L-U-C-I-A.”
Tapping the paper with his pencil, Ryan looked at the girl. “Try spelling it out.”
Lucia leaned in closer to look at the familiar letters. Taking a breath, she pressed her trembling finger against the paper and read them syllable by syllable:
“Lu... ci... a...”
“Lucia,” Ryan gently corrected her pronunciation. “That is your name.”
The girl's body sighed with a slight tremor.
She looked up, her eyes shining with an indescribable light. “That is... my name?”
“Yes, Lucia.” Ryan handed her the pencil. “Write it down. This is the first complete word of your life.”
The girl took the pencil as if holding a rare treasure. She traced over Ryan's handwriting with absolute focus, stroke by stroke.
When the word “Lucia” was fully written on the paper, the girl repeated it in a whisper, a faint tear even welling in the corner of her eye.
For the rest of the lesson, Ryan pulled out his botanical specimen sketches, pointing out the veins and roots to teach Lucia how to accurately document a species through sight and touch.
“You have a very special sensory ability,” Ryan said, looking at the girl. “You can feel the subtle changes in life. But that is not enough. You must learn to observe them with rationality.”
“Why do plant leaves curl during a drought? Because they are reducing water evaporation. Why do their roots grow deeper? Because the soil deep down is cooler.” Ryan's voice was low and precise. “Perception only gives you intuition, but observation brings you the truth.”
Lucia listened with intense concentration.
She no longer simply felt in a vague way that plants were “warm” or “wanted to live.” Instead, she began to understand the rigorous and magnificent natural laws that governed the pulse of life.
Watching the girl absorb knowledge so rapidly, Ryan felt a stir in his heart.
At noon, Lucia went to the front of the shop to help organize newly arrived packages.
Ryan stood alone in the shadows of the attic, looking at the old wooden box resting against the corner.
Deep in his mind, Lin Yuan's cold and rational voice arrived on schedule once more:
“She is holding you back, Ryan.” Lin Yuan's voice was filled with condescending annoyance. “I can't believe you're indulging in this warm, sentimental game of playing teacher. You spent half the day teaching a poor nineteenth-century girl how to spell her name, which is completely pointless. The backwardness and ignorance of this era are inevitable; you cannot save anyone.”
“She is just a child,” Ryan replied internally. “She needs someone to teach her how to survive in this world.”
“Which is exactly why she shouldn't be near you!”
Lin Yuan's emotionless, icy exposure struck Ryan's chest like a heavy hammer.
The air in the attic seemed to freeze instantly.
“Look at who you are, Ryan,” Lin Yuan's voice was cold and brutal. “Your parents are waiting for you in another world, you are being hunted by the Old World, and you are plagued by unspeakable anomalies. Anyone who gets close to you will be dragged into the abyss. Giving her hope and teaching her to read is nothing more than dragging a fragile native child into your personal hell.”
Ryan clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white from the strain.
He could not refute it.
Rate on N.U.
