Following the tip of his pen, Ayu saw that the top arc of the wave pattern perfectly matched the upper right gap of the number "0" on the fragment, as if they were fragments from the same picture. Even more strangely, when she placed the fragment on the navigation map, the position where the glass shard was embedded covered the small words written in pencil in the logbook: "Tides and star trails are in sync."
"The logbook from 1992, the station sign from 2007..." Ayu's fingers traced the grains of sand on the anchor chain of her pocket watch. "How could there be a 15-year gap..."
Zhong Hua didn't speak, but picked up the pocket watch and held it up to the light. The wave pattern on the inside of the watch cover suddenly emitted a faint light, casting a shadow on the table, while the glass shards in the cracks of the fragments reflected light at the same time—the interplay of light and shadow created a complete pattern on the table: the upper part was the blue ice cracks of Yubeng Ice Lake, the lower part was the contour lines of the Weizhou Island volcano, and the middle part was connected by the shape of the railway tracks of the old station platform.
Just then, the whistle of a green train sounded again in the distance. This time, the rhythm of the whistle was synchronized with the "click" of the pocket watch gears. Ayu counted the beats and suddenly realized that the frequency was the same as the pendulum sound of the grandfather clock left by her father, and the clock's timekeeping error was exactly the same as the thermal expansion and contraction of the surface of Namtso Lake when it froze.
“My dad left from this station in 2007.” Ayu’s voice suddenly choked up as she ran her fingertips over the blurred lines on the shards. “He said he was going to the seaside to watch the boats, but he never came back.”
Zhong Hua grasped her hand. The salty, fishy smell in the nautical trunk suddenly intensified, mingling with the rusty scent of the old station platform, creating a peculiar aroma—much like the smell of old books in his father's study, yet carrying the damp saltiness of the sea breeze from Weizhou Island. When the hands of the pocket watch suddenly wobbled slightly, they saw the water vapor condensing on the watch face, leaving a mark that resembled the wrinkled postmark from the postcard their father had sent home years ago.
Chapter Four: Undelivered Flight Routes in the Overlapping Spacetime
The sound of the construction team's whistle signaling the end of the workday came from outside the shed. Zhong Hua got up to turn off the light, but as he turned around, he saw an astonishing scene: the shadows of the broken bus stop sign and the shipping box were projected onto the wall, overlapping to form a complete picture—the number "2007" on the broken sign became a sail, the anchor-shaped pattern of the shipping box became the hull, and the shadows of the glass shards and the pocket watch hands formed the pointer of a compass, pointing to the graffiti "No. 7 Moon Street" on the wall—the address that Ayu's father often mentioned in his letters.
“This is…” Ayu leaned closer to the shadow and discovered that the brick seam patterns on the wall were extending along the edge of the shadow, gradually revealing the route map from the 1992 nautical logbook. Even more amazingly, the wavy lines formed by the water seeping from the brick seams on the wall were the same shape as the silver necklace pendant her father left her, which she wore around her neck. And the pattern on the pendant was actually the outline of a fossilized coral from a certain coral on Weizhou Island.
Zhong Hua suddenly turned to the last page of the logbook. On the back of the page, half a line was written in pencil: "When the pendulum of Moon Street strikes four, drop the letter into the twelfth lamppost." The pauses in the handwriting were exactly the same as those in Ayu's father's letters home, and the location of the "twelfth lamppost," marked with a circle, was exactly the coordinate of the sycamore tree outside the old station platform that had been broken by the typhoon—the knotting method of the prayer flags they photographed in Yubeng Village last year was exactly the same as the strokes of this circle.
“At four in the morning, the pendulum of Moon Street…” Ayu suddenly looked up, remembering the words in her father’s last letter before he disappeared, “He said he wanted to go see the sunrise at sea and told me to listen to the bell at four in the morning.”
The pocket watch suddenly hummed. It wasn't the sound of gears, but rather a vibration like that of a resonating chamber, a sound that caused the shadows on the wall to begin to move—in the reflection of shards of glass, the blue currents beneath the ice of Yubeng Lake appeared, and in the salty smell of the nautical chest, the chill of Namtso Lake at four in the morning wafted. When the hum reached its peak, both of them simultaneously saw: the pocket watch hands began to turn counter-clockwise, and the shadows on the wall gradually distorted, eventually transforming into the postcard their father had sent home years ago—in the image, a green train traveled along the Gobi Desert tracks, and the shadows of the camel caravan in the distance overlapped with the smoke rings rising from the train's chimney, forming resonant ripples in sync with the old station's whistle.
Chapter Five: The Final Chord of Steam Whistles and Camel Bells
The searchlights at the demolition site suddenly went out, leaving only the faint glow of the pocket watch illuminating their faces. Ayu picked up a fragment of the station sign; the glass shards in the crack suddenly became hot. Zhonghua opened the hidden compartment of the nautical box and found a folded piece of oil paper inside—unfolded into an unfinished map, marking the route from the old station to Weizhou Island. Each station along the route was marked with a small sun, exactly like the doodles in Ayu's childhood textbooks.
“My dad… he probably took the train to the seaside and then took this route by boat.” Ayu’s fingertip traced the “Qingdao Port” on the map, which was circled in red and marked “Waiting for the tide”. The tide table showed that it was 4 a.m. when Namtso Lake was frozen over.
Zhong Hua remained silent, placing the pocket watch beside the fragment. As their metal edges touched, tiny sparks suddenly erupted—not from static electricity, but from a cold light reminiscent of colliding icicles. The instant the sparks fell, a clear steam whistle sounded outside the shed. This time, the whistle's rhythm was perfectly synchronized with the camel bells of Dunhuang, forming a wondrous chord. And the frequency of this chord was precisely the resonant frequency of the pocket watch's hands when they stopped.
“Listen.” Zhong Hua grasped A Yu’s hand and pointed outside the work shed.
In the twilight, faint traces of railway tracks appeared on the rubble left by the demolition. Not real steel bars, but light tracks composed of countless points of light, stretching into the distance and disappearing into the city lights. At the end of the light tracks, they saw the silhouette of a green train, its smoke rings rising and falling to the rhythm of camel bells. The smoke rings drifted into the air, becoming stars over Namtso Lake, then falling to become fragments of blue ice in Yubeng Ice Lake, finally crashing into the waves of Weizhou Island. The splashing water, along with the whistles of the old station platform and the camel bells of the Dunhuang Gobi Desert, merged into a song of time and space.
阿玉把残片和怀表放进航海箱，箱盖合上时，黄铜锁扣发出“咔哒”声。这声音让她想起母亲绣完最后一针牡丹时，银针穿过绷架的轻响，而锁扣上的锚形图案，在月光下突然显影出父亲的笔迹——那是他在明信片背面写的“等我回来”，字迹被海水浸泡过，却和航海日志里的航线签名，以及残片裂缝里的玻璃碴棱角，共同组成了一个完整的圆，如同他们绕了整个中国的旅行轨迹，最终在这座老站的废墟里，找到了时间的闭环。
当第一颗夜星亮起，航海箱的铜皮渗出微光，箱身上的海藻纹路逐渐清晰，竟和阿玉母亲绣在箱底的牡丹叶子，以及钟华祖父航海日志里的海图，共同拼成了纳木错湖面的形状。而在湖中心的位置，光点点亮，那是凌晨四点的月亮，正从怀表指针的位置升起，将残片上的“2007”数字，照成青海湖日出时的橙红色——如同父亲从未寄出的那封信，终于在时空的共振中，抵达了它的终点。
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