V. A Mirror Image: A Mailbox in 1999 and Now

The liquid glass wall began to ripple, and the images of the girl from 1999 and Ayu overlapped on the wall. Ayu saw the girl's hand as she handed out a postcard; on the inside of her wrist was a mole exactly like her own. The "thump" of the postcard being dropped into the mailbox was perfectly synchronized with Zhong Hua's heartbeat. Zhong Hua reached out his hand, and the light suddenly forked, one branch connecting to the mailbox from 1999, the other wrapping around the zipper of Ayu's windbreaker.

“Look at the postmark date,” Zhong Hua’s voice trembled. Ayu leaned closer to the glass wall and saw that the postmark on the postcard was blurred, but the re-developed number was July 5, 2023—the very day they were moving. A familiar scent seeped from the liquid wall: the top note was the sandalwood of her mother’s embroidery, the middle note was the smell of sand from the Gobi Desert in Dunhuang, and the base note was the aroma of yak butter tea from Yubeng Village. The girl suddenly smiled, turning the postcard over, and the wave pattern on the back transformed into the waterproof seam tape on Ayu’s down jacket.

The clock suddenly struck twelve, not 10:18. The light strip vibrated violently, and all the light spots flew towards the liquid wall. Ayu saw the girl from 1999 disappear into the light, replaced by her own reflection standing in front of the old mailbox, while Zhong Hua's hand passed through the light strip and grasped her own hand in the reflection. The glass curtain wall of the waiting room returned to solidity, and the hands of the clock on the wall had somehow returned to normal. The water droplets on the pendulum were still there, but this time, the water droplets clearly reflected the sunrise over Qinghai Lake, the icefalls of Yubeng, and the starry sky over Namtso Lake, like a piece of amber polished by time.

“We should go.” Zhong Hua picked up the canvas bag at his feet. The color of the cotton thread showing through the worn strap was the same blue-gray as the morning mist over Namtso Lake. Ayu nodded. The zipper of her windbreaker flashed in the sunlight, a light that reflected the patterns of ocean waves and the still-wet ink from a 1999 postcard. As they walked out of the waiting room, the trail of light behind them gradually faded, leaving only a watermark on the ground. The shape of the watermark resembled the endless loop on the Yunnan-Tibet Highway map.