49: Chapter 49 Happy Copy and Paste
The day the population of Xinfeng Town reached 449, Lin Feng's phone was blown up.
The first call came from a small town in Ohio called Coalville.
The mayor was a woman in her fifties with a hoarse voice, as if she had been shouting for years without anyone listening:
"Mr. Lin, our town is exactly like Millbrook. The coal mine closed, the people left, and a bunch of old people are all that remain. Can you come?"
Lin Feng squatted at the entrance of the restaurant, biting on a straw: "Send an email."
The second call came from West Virginia, the third from Kentucky, and the fourth from another town in Pennsylvania.
By the end of the day, the names of seventeen mayors lay in Yuki's computer.
Yuki handed Lin Feng a note:
[Seventeen. They all want you.]
Lin Feng stared at the note for three seconds.
Then he smiled.
Margaret, standing nearby, asked: "What are you smiling at?"
Lin Feng said: "I'm smiling because I'm only one person."
Margaret paused for a moment: "Then what are you going to do?"
Lin Feng stood up, brushed off his pants, and walked to the church entrance.
He shouted inside:
"Meeting!"
---
That night, 449 people squeezed into the church.
Lin Feng stood before the altar and recounted the matter of the seventeen emails.
The crowd was silent for three seconds.
Then George was the first to speak:
"You should go."
Lin Feng looked at him: "If I go, what happens to this place?"
George pointed at the people around them:
"We aren't useless."
Lin Feng was stunned.
George continued: "We can farm, we know how to talk in the church, and we know how to sing in the bar. We've learned what you taught us."
The other old men nodded in agreement.
Margaret stood up and walked over to Lin Feng:
"Lin Feng, do you know what Xinfeng Town is now?"
Lin Feng shook his head.
Margaret said: "It's a template. You've created the template, and we can handle the rest ourselves."
Lin Feng stared at her for three seconds.
Then he smiled.
"Alright."
--
The next day, Lin Feng called the seven people from the Anti-Involution Laboratory together.
"You seven, divide yourselves up."
Alex was stunned: "Divide what?"
Lin Feng said: "Seventeen towns, divide them among yourselves. Go and teach them."
Rachel widened her eyes: "Us, on our own?"
Lin Feng nodded.
Tony was a little panicked: "Are we... going to be okay?"
Lin Feng pointed at the people working outside the church:
"They can do it. Why can't you?"
The seven of them fell silent.
Then Yuki held up a note:
[I'll go.]
Lin Feng looked at her and smiled.
---
A month later, the seven were scattered across seven different states in the US.
Alex was in Ohio, helping Coalville build a website.
Rachel was in West Virginia, helping an abandoned mining town design new houses.
Tony was in Kentucky, chatting with a group of old miners every day about why people need to live.
Sam was in another town in Pennsylvania, teaching those old people how to sing.
Jenny was in Illinois, opening a new "Soul Massage" center.
Chris was in Tennessee, converting an abandoned factory into a vertical farm.
Yuki was in Virginia; she didn't speak, but she helped that town make connections with over thirty supermarkets across the US.
Lin Feng received messages from them every day.
Alex sent a photo: The first batch of mushrooms from Coalville had been produced.
Rachel sent a video: An old lady was standing at the door of a new house, crying.
Tony sent a text: "Today, an old miner asked me, 'What should I do if living is tiring?' I said, 'Then don't live so tiringly.' He smiled."
Sam sent a voice message: "Boss, they sang! For the first time!"
Jenny sent a message: "Today, thirty people came to talk in front of the 'Ear'."
Chris sent a photo: "The farm is built, and it's even bigger than the one in Xinfeng Town."
Yuki sent a note, photographed:
[Orders from thirty-three supermarkets. Signed.]
Lin Feng looked at these messages and smiled like an idiot.
Margaret, nearby, asked: "How is it?"
Lin Feng handed her his phone.
Margaret scrolled through them one by one; by the end, her eyes were red.
She looked up at Lin Feng:
"Lin Feng, do you know what you're doing?"
Lin Feng shook his head.
Margaret said: "You are making the entire America become Xinfeng Town."
--- (A bit scary)
Three months later, the mayors of seventeen towns gathered in Xinfeng Town.
They stood in front of the farm converted from the abandoned coal mine, looking at those snowy-white mushrooms, unable to say a word.
...
The mayor of Ohio spoke first:
"The coal mine in our town is bigger than this."
The mayor of West Virginia said: "There are more people in our town than this."
The mayor of Kentucky said: "But we don't have this."
He pointed at the patch of mushrooms.
The others fell silent.
Lin Feng squatted nearby, biting on a straw, listening to them talk.
Margaret walked over and squatted beside him.
"Lin Feng, they're waiting for you to say something."
Lin Feng shook his head: "I don't need to say anything."
Margaret paused.
Lin Feng pointed at the mayors:
"They will say it themselves."
Sure enough, those mayors started talking to each other.
"How did you make your website?"
"Who do you sell your mushrooms to?"
"We also want one of those 'Ear' sculptures."
"Can we borrow the old men who sing?"
Lin Feng listened and smiled.
He stood up, brushed off his pants, and walked toward the restaurant.
Margaret chased after him: "Where are you going?"
Lin Feng didn't look back:
"To eat. Hungry."
---
That night, the seventeen mayors drank all night in the restaurant in Xinfeng Town.
Mike—that bar owner Mike—mixed forty drinks, each one different.
Those old folks—George, Edna, and the others—sat nearby, chatting with the mayors.
George said to the mayor of Kentucky:
"Do the miners where you are sing?"
The mayor nodded: "They do. But no one listens."
George smiled: "Well, now there is."
The next morning, when the seventeen mayors left, each of them held a copy of the "Xinfeng Town Transformation Manual".
It was made by Alex and Rachel overnight.
On the cover was a line of text:
[Happiness can be copied]
Lin Feng squatted at the entrance of the town, watching the cars drive away one by one.
Margaret stood beside him.
"Lin Feng."
Lin Feng turned his head to look at her.
Margaret said: "You are really going to become famous."
Lin Feng shook his head and said earnestly:
"Not me. It's them."
He pointed at the cars that were leaving:
"They will bring happiness to other places."
Margaret stared at him for three seconds.
Then she smiled.
[Chapter 49 End]