Ayu and Zhonghua froze simultaneously, their faces drained of color.
That voice... they knew it all too well!
Just a few months earlier, they had spent the night with a geological expedition team in the Gobi Desert near Dunhuang. That night, the moon was dark and the wind was high, and all was quiet except for the occasional howl of wolves in the distance. Just as they were about to fall asleep, a clear sound of camel footsteps approaching from afar pierced through the darkness and reached their tent.
"Tap...tap..."
The sound was unhurried, carrying an ancient, timeless quality, as if it had come from the millennia-old sands of the Silk Road. They were curious how a camel caravan could pass through this desolate Gobi Desert. The footsteps lingered outside the tent for a short while before gradually fading into the night, leaving behind a sense of mystery.
And now, the exact same footsteps were clearly heard the moment the needle on the old record jammed! The rhythm, frequency, and even the pauses and textures between each step were exactly the same as what they had heard during their night in the Gobi Desert!
"How could this be..." Ayu's voice trembled, "What exactly happened?"
Zhong Hua stared intently at the record, his eyes filled with shock and confusion: "The needle... it got stuck deep in a groove that matched the data of the sand layers in Mingsha Mountain, and then... it played the sound of camel footsteps that we heard in the Gobi Desert?"
This is completely beyond the scope of scientific explanation. A vinyl record containing "Moonlight Sonata" was being sold off at an old record store that was being demolished. The depth of its grooves corresponded to the geological structure of Dunhuang, and the skipping and noises hid the hawking cries of childhood alleyways. When the stylus got stuck in a certain deep groove, it played the camel bells of the Gobi Desert that they had personally experienced!
What is the connection between all of this?
The record was still spinning, the needle still stuck in that deep groove, continuously emitting the "tap...tap..." sound of camel footsteps, like an echo from the depths of time and space, stubbornly repeating itself in this small room, under the horrified gazes of the two people.
Outside the window, the city's hustle and bustle continues, the roar of bulldozers faintly audible, slowly devouring the last traces of the old neighborhood. Inside, however, this old record from the past is like a mysterious Pandora's box, opening a crack to an unknown time and space, allowing sounds thought to have long since vanished to resonate in reality in an incredible way.
Looking at the intricate patterns on the record, those seemingly ordinary grooves now seemed to have transformed into intersecting time tunnels, connecting the twilight of the alleyway, the sandstorms of Dunhuang, the final days of the old record store, and their own memories of spending the night in the Gobi Desert.
The third movement of the Moonlight Sonata was not yet finished when the stuck needle acted as a pause button, freezing this eerie and mysterious moment. Meanwhile, the clear sound of camel bells continued to ring unhurriedly, as if asking: Are you ready to listen to the secrets of time?
They didn't know what else this record would bring, nor what truth it concealed. But they knew that from the moment they heard the words "Osmanthus and Red Bean Soup," something had completely changed. This old record, soon to be "updated" along with the old record store, might just be the key to unlocking the mysteries of time, playing a mysterious and lingering echo from the past and the distance amidst the roar of urban change.
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