Teeth marks on film

The green awning of the photo printing shop swayed gently in the evening breeze. When Zhong Hua stopped his bicycle, the clinking of the metal frame coincided with the old-fashioned wall clock in the shop. He propped up the kickstand and rubbed his fingertips on the handlebars—a gesture he had been doing for almost half a year, ever since Ah Yu started frequently coming this way.

"Mr. Zhong is here?" Shop assistant Xiao Zhou was wiping the counter with a soft cloth. Several photos were spread out on the glass table, waiting to be picked up. They were tulips that had just arrived at the flower shop on the next street. The water droplets on the pink and white petals looked like crushed diamonds.

Zhong Hua nodded, his gaze sweeping over the lost and found basket in the corner. Inside lay half a plastic comb, a thermos with a cartoon cat printed on it, and a scrawled notepad. His eyes lingered on it before returning to Xiao Zhou: "He didn't come today...?"

"Oh, Brother Yu?" Xiao Zhou straightened up and smiled. "He came by at noon to pick up the old street photos he took last week. He was in a hurry, saying he was rushing to the pier to shoot the sunset." She bent down and pulled out a kraft paper envelope from under the counter. "But he left something behind. He forgot to bring the film he sent to develop last Thursday when he picked up the photos. I've kept it for him."

When Zhong Hua took the envelope, his fingertips noticed the unevenness before his eyes. The envelope was thin, containing only a roll of 36 color film, still unopened. He pinched the edge and pulled it out. The setting sun slanted in through the shop window, illuminating the dark green box—a faint crescent-shaped crease in the lower right corner, with slightly irregular, rough edges.

It's a tooth mark.

Zhong Hua's thumb unconsciously brushed against that spot, the thin callus on his fingertip rubbing against the smooth plastic casing, as if touching something scalding hot. He remembered the darkroom of the university photography club, where Ah Yu always loved to have an unopened roll of film in his mouth, adjusting chemicals with his left hand and flipping the developing tray with his right, the film canister dangling from his lips, like a little animal that had secretly hidden candy.

“He always does this,” the then-president of the publishing house, Old Chen, tapped him on the head with tweezers. “Isn’t he afraid of ruining the film? This is imported, it’s expensive.”

Ah Yu chuckled indistinctly with a roll of film in her mouth, the mumbled syllables leaking from between her teeth: "Just mark it so it won't get mixed up with other people's." As she spoke, she deliberately turned the bitten side towards Zhong Hua, her eyes shining brighter than the red light in the darkroom, "See, this way you know it's mine."

At that moment, Zhong Hua was squatting on the ground picking up the developer bottle he had knocked over. Hearing this, he looked up and happened to catch Ah Yu's smile. The boy's jawline was still very thin, and the way he was biting the film made him look a little silly, but it made the smell of chemicals in the darkroom seem sweeter.

"Mr. Zhong?" Xiao Zhou's voice pulled him back to reality. "This roll of film... could you take it back for him?"

"Okay." Zhong Hua put the film back into the envelope, paused at the seal with his fingertips, and folded it into a neat triangle. "Thank you for your help."

"Don't mention it." Xiao Zhou waved his hand, watching him carefully stuff the envelope into the inside pocket of the canvas bag. "Speaking of which, Brother Yu, have you been very busy lately? Was that roll of photos taken last week of Qinghai Lake? I saw a lot of sunrises on the negatives, as well as prayer flags by the lake."

Zhong Hua pushed his bicycle out, the metal chain making a slight clicking sound: "I took this while I was on a business trip to Qinghai last month."

“No wonder,” Xiao Zhou laughed, leaning on the counter. “When he picked up the photos, he told me that one of the sunrise photos was blurry and he was upset for days. I said, ‘Why don’t you just go and take another one?’ He said that place is too far away and he doesn’t know when he can go again.”

Zhong Hua paused. He remembered that blurry sunrise photo.

The morning at Qinghai Lake was as cold as an icebox. Ah Yu, wrapped in two coats, squatted by the lake, his tripod set up perfectly straight. Zhong Hua stood a few meters behind him, clutching an unopened bottle of hot water, watching him adjust the focus as he looked at the pale dawn sky. The wind whipped his scarf, and his exposed ears were red with cold, like two fresh cherry slices.

"Almost there, almost there!" Ah Yu shouted back at him, her voice filled with excitement, "The second the sun jumps out of the lake—"

Before he could finish speaking, the pile of pebbles by the lake suddenly slipped, and Ah Yu's camera wobbled. He hurriedly reached out to steady it, but the shutter clicked. The sunrise in the viewfinder became a blurry halo, like cinnabar dripped on rice paper, spreading into a messy red.

"Damn it!" Ah Yu kicked a rock in frustration, squatted on the ground staring at the camera screen, her shoulders slumped.

Zhong Hua walked over and handed him the thermos: "It's okay, we can film it tomorrow."

"I have a project presentation tomorrow, and I have to take the bus early in the morning." Ah Yu unscrewed the cap and took a sip, the steam blurring his glasses. "I've finally waited for such good weather..."

That night, Ah Yu developed a fever and huddled in the hotel blankets, shivering and muttering about the sunrise he hadn't taken well. Zhong Hua sat by the bed, wiping his forehead and listening to his intermittent ramblings in his sleep. Suddenly, he really wanted to hide the roll of film that had been shot so badly—not for any particular reason, but just because he was afraid that if Ah Yu woke up and saw it, he would frown and feel annoyed for days.

The bicycle bell jingled in the evening breeze. When Zhong Hua came to his senses, he had already ridden past two intersections. An old song was playing in the music store on the street corner, its slow melody mingling with the scent of gardenias carried on the evening breeze. He touched the inside of his canvas bag; the corner of the envelope pressed against his palm, like a tiny heart beating.

He stopped his car as he passed the vegetable market. The vendors at the evening market were packing up their stalls; rotten vegetable leaves and fish scales mixed with water lay on the ground, and the air was filled with the smell of fish and the pungent aroma of ginger and garlic. Zhong Hua walked to the innermost general store, bent down, and picked up a bag of candied tangerine peel from the basket—it was orange-flavored, and Ah Yu had loved it since she was a child.

As the shopkeeper filled his plastic bag with candy, she jokingly asked, "Buying this for that little photographer again? This young man, eating so much candy every day, aren't you afraid of getting rotten teeth?"

This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!