Part 10 intro­duces a dra­mat­ic shift in the narrator’s jour­ney, begin­ning with the dis­cov­ery of a long-aban­doned house nes­tled in an untouched val­ley beyond the moun­tains. Unlike the rigid, iden­ti­cal dwellings of the col­lec­tive city, this struc­ture is full of individuality—its design unique, its rooms per­son­al, and its con­tents unfa­mil­iar. A sense of awe aris­es from the sight of col­or­ful clothes, mir­rors, and fur­ni­ture built for com­fort rather than effi­cien­cy. Each object offers a silent tes­ti­mo­ny to a life once lived with per­son­al agency. The nar­ra­tor and the Gold­en One, upon explor­ing its con­tents, begin to grasp that peo­ple before them may have lived not in enforced uni­ty, but in free­dom. The con­trast between the ster­ile same­ness of their old world and the vivid diver­si­ty of this house cre­ates a tan­gi­ble sense of pos­si­bil­i­ty.

The deci­sion to remain in the house is not made light­ly, but once made, it feels both nat­ur­al and irre­versible. The two beds in the house sug­gest inti­ma­cy and pri­va­cy, things they’ve nev­er known under the col­lec­tive regime. Instead of being dis­turbed by the iso­la­tion, they are filled with a sense of peace and own­er­ship. Even the silence with­in the house speaks vol­umes; it is not oppres­sive but com­fort­ing. Books scat­tered across the rooms hint at lost knowl­edge, and although the words are dif­fi­cult to deci­pher, they rep­re­sent a key to under­stand­ing not just his­to­ry, but iden­ti­ty. The reflec­tive glass, which offers them a clear view of their own faces, holds a sym­bol­ic power—it gives them back their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, some­thing long denied. With each object they find, their under­stand­ing of self becomes clear­er, and the divide between past and present begins to shrink.

As the nar­ra­tor con­tem­plates the vast new world stretch­ing beyond the house, a qui­et deter­mi­na­tion builds. There’s no desire to return to the City, nor to bring any­thing from it into this place. This world is unspoiled, untouched by rules meant to erase thought, expres­sion, and desire. They now pos­sess a space to think freely, to build with­out restric­tion, and to ques­tion with­out fear of pun­ish­ment. What lies ahead is not just sur­vival, but a life designed by choice. The sim­plic­i­ty of this real­iza­tion is pro­found: they will live by their own rules, and in doing so, they reclaim pow­er that had once been stripped away.

The house is not just a shelter—it becomes a sym­bol of rebirth. The nar­ra­tor begins to asso­ciate it with learn­ing, inde­pen­dence, and emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. It is here that they plan to study the books, uncov­er the mean­ing of for­got­ten words, and teach them­selves what was once for­bid­den. The Gold­en One, by stay­ing along­side him, affirms their shared pur­pose and com­mit­ment to this new life. No longer bound by rules or over­seers, their rela­tion­ship deep­ens, root­ed not in oblig­a­tion but mutu­al respect. They begin to under­stand that rela­tion­ships, like knowl­edge, must be freely cho­sen to hold true val­ue. In cre­at­ing a new home, they also begin craft­ing a new way of liv­ing, one anchored in respect for self and for each oth­er.

Their expe­ri­ence is a qui­et but rad­i­cal act of rev­o­lu­tion. By accept­ing this house and refus­ing to return, they reject the total­i­tar­i­an rule that sought to erase their minds and spir­its. Their rebel­lion is not vio­lent, yet it is total—it starts with thought, then grows into action, and now becomes foun­da­tion. Each book they open, each item they use, strength­ens the bridge between a for­got­ten past and a reimag­ined future. And with­in that future is the pos­si­bil­i­ty for oth­ers, too, to break free. They dream of a world where the mind is not chained, and where the word “I” is not cursed, but cel­e­brat­ed.

This chap­ter marks the begin­ning of that dream, where exile trans­forms into free­dom, and soli­tude into sov­er­eign­ty. Here, the nar­ra­tor finds not only refuge, but a path for­ward. The past, once hid­den and feared, becomes a resource for growth. Every piece of fur­ni­ture, each for­got­ten arti­fact, becomes a spark. And with every spark, a new fire begins to burn—not of destruc­tion, but of awak­en­ing. What begins as shel­ter evolves into a sanc­tu­ary of thought, prov­ing that some­times, free­dom starts with a door left open and the courage to walk through it.