Star map on hot water bucket

Ayu's fingertips had just touched the edge of the hot water bucket when a piece of peeling enamel scratched her. Rust, like old scabs, etched irregular lines on the dark green bucket. These were some of the last remaining items from the renovation of the old waiting room. The stainless steel water dispenser gleamed coldly in the corner, but this enamel bucket still sat askew on the tiled counter in the tea room, like a forgotten ring of time.

“1965.” Zhong Hua’s fingers brushed against a spot on the bucket, revealing a pale blue base coat beneath peeling enamel shards. The engravings were very shallow, like numbers drawn with a fingernail. A Yu leaned closer to look and noticed a wavy line engraved next to the numbers, its curve as old and worn as a lost folk song. She ran her fingers along the wavy line upwards, the peeling enamel shards fluttering in her palm, revealing a metallic surface that gleamed coldly, until her fingertips stopped at a raised ridge.

“The highest water level,” Zhong Hua said. His shadow fell on the bucket, dividing the ridge line in two. Ayu didn't speak, but traced the ridge line with her fingernail—the curve was so familiar, like the one she saw on a horseback ride on Qinghai Lake one morning, where the lake water overflowed the edge of the meadow. The wind that day carried the smell of the lake, billowing her scarf like a sail, the distant snow-capped mountains appearing and disappearing in the mist, and the lake water, with that same curve, gently nibbled at the pebbles on the shore.

“Look at this.” Zhong Hua’s fingertips slid to the lower half of the bucket, where there was a coin-sized indentation, its edges worn smooth, as if touched by countless hands. “The lowest water level,” he said, his voice trembling with disbelief, “Doesn’t it look like…”

Ayu crouched down, her nose almost touching the crater. The coldness of metal mixed with the smell of rust filled her nostrils, and the shape of the crater was just like the outline of a volcano she had seen through her mask while diving on Weizhou Island. At that time, she was suspended in the deep blue seawater, the rock walls of the crater were covered with dark green seaweed, and sunlight pierced through the water, casting shimmering spots of light on the bottom of the pit. The depth made her suddenly feel dizzy, as if the entire ocean was spinning in that crater.

“How could someone from 1965 know about Qinghai Lake and Weizhou Island?” Ayu’s voice seemed a little ethereal in the empty tea room. The water stains on the tiled wall looked like an abstract painting, and the faucet was still dripping, tap, tap, tap, each sound striking the cracks of time. Zhong Hua didn’t answer, but reached out to turn the faucet—his handle was badly rusted, and it took him a while to turn it before he heard a “click” and the water gushed out, hitting the thin layer of water at the bottom of the bucket.

The sound was so sudden that Ayu instinctively shrank back. The sound of water crashing echoed in the small space, not just a normal splash, but with a deep, resonant quality, like someone drumming underwater. Zhong Hua's hand stopped on the faucet, and his eyes suddenly lit up: "Listen..."

Ayu held her breath. The water was still rushing, the crashing sounds mixed with faint echoes, like the soft cracking of icicles breaking. She suddenly remembered that afternoon at the sacred waterfall in Yubeng Village, when they looked up to watch the icicles fall from the cliff top, through the misty spray, and crash into the icy lake below, making just the same sound—first a crisp "ding," then a dull "thud," and finally an echo that swirled through the valley, like someone ringing a copper bell in the distance.

"The frequency is the same." Zhong Hua's voice was filled with excitement. "Do you remember when we used our phones to test voiceprints..." He didn't finish his sentence because the splashing water was suddenly illuminated by the sunlight outside the window. The afternoon sun slanted through the window of the tea room, shining on the splashing water droplets, each droplet like a prism, refracting tiny fragments of light.

Ayu subconsciously looked at the wall. Water droplets splashed on the wall, scattering light spots, but a few particularly bright ones were moving slightly with the vibration of the water. She blinked, and those light spots seemed to be slowly converging, first forming a winding band of light, and then the light points began to align, as if someone was drawing something on the wall with an invisible pen.

“Namtso…” Ayu said softly. She recognized the shape of the band of light—it was the outline of the Milky Way they had seen that night they stayed at Namtso. They had been sitting by the lake, wrapped in down jackets, the surface covered with a thin layer of ice, and the Milky Way stretched across their heads, so clear it seemed they could touch the stars. The arc of the band of light, and the positions of the few particularly bright spots nearby, were exactly the same as the night sky that night. Even the blurry nebula at the edge of the Milky Way was clearly visible through the refraction of the water droplets.

Zhong Hua walked over and reached out to touch the patch of light on the wall. His fingers slipped through the light, and water droplets splashed onto the back of his hand, icy cold. "How could this be?" he muttered to himself, "A hot water bucket from 1965, how could it..."

Ayu didn't answer. She was still staring at the lowest water level depression, the shape of the crater exceptionally clear in the shadows. The water was still rushing, mingling with the sound of icicles from the Yubeng Waterfall. The Milky Way on the wall trembled slightly with the sound of the water, while the arc of the highest water level reflected the sunrise over Qinghai Lake. She suddenly remembered her mother's old wooden box, with similar markings on the bottom. Her mother said it was a water level mark she had made with a needle when she was an apprentice at the Shanghai docks. Later, the box followed her mother to the Northwest and then to the South, the markings filled with dust from different places.

“Look here.” Zhong Hua’s fingers groped along the other side of the bucket, where the enamel hadn’t peeled off yet, and there were a few fine scratches on the dark green glaze. A Yu leaned closer and, by the light from the window, saw that the scratches formed a simple pattern—like a crooked sun, with three diagonal lines next to it, like sunlight.

“This is…” Ayu suddenly remembered something, took out her phone from her pocket, and scrolled to the photos she had taken in Dunhuang years ago. In the photos, on the sand dunes of Mingsha Mountain, a child had drawn an identical sun with a twig, next to which were three diagonal lines representing a camel caravan. They had found it interesting at the time and even took a picture, never expecting to see the same pattern here.

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