Back home, Zhong Hua placed the ceramic bowl on the display shelf in his study. That night, when the lights were on, the light shone through the bowl, casting a circular shadow on the wall. Ayu sat on the carpet watching the shadow; the outermost ring, depicting the cracks in the ice of Qinghai Lake, seemed to shimmer on the wall, as if the lake water were truly flowing. She remembered the day of the sunrise over Qinghai Lake, when Zhong Hua's camera lens was frosted over, and he breathed on it to wipe it, saying, "Look, don't the cracks in the ice on the lake look like a star map drawn by someone?"
When Ayu got up in the middle of the night, she passed by the study and saw the ceramic bowl gleaming faintly in the moonlight. She went closer and noticed that the scorch marks on the bottom of the bowl, resembling the Big Dipper, seemed even brighter, as if sprinkled with silver powder. She leaned in to smell it, and a new aroma mingled with the scorched fragrance of the rim—the smell of wind and sand from the Gobi Desert near Dunhuang, a hint of earthiness and the scent of dried camel thorn. She suddenly remembered that day at the Mogao Caves, when Zhong Hua was squatting in front of the murals taking pictures, the lens cap fell to the ground and rolled deep into a crack. When he reached for it, his fingertips touched some peeling paint from the murals, and the smell of that paint was exactly the same as the aroma emanating from the bowl now.
The next morning, Zhong Hua suddenly called out to her, "Come quick!" Ayu rushed into the study and saw a ceramic bowl half-filled with water—they had clearly dried the bowl thoroughly the night before. Even more miraculously, tiny flour particles floated on the surface, arranged in the shape of the sacred waterfall of Yubeng Village. Zhong Hua checked the weather on his phone and suddenly said, "It's snowing in Yubeng Village today, the same date we went."
Ayu stared at the flour-like patterns on the water's surface; the direction of the waterfall's flow was exactly as she remembered. She recalled standing beneath the waterfall that day, the icy snowmelt mixed with glacial meltwater pouring over her head. Zhong Hua ran over with a raincoat, shouting, "Be careful of altitude sickness!" But she still opened her mouth and took a few sips; the water tasted crisp and sweet, with the sweetness of glaciers.
Over the next few days, the ceramic bowl continued to surprise them. Sometimes tiny grains of sand would appear at the bottom of the bowl, arranged in concentric circles resembling the crater of Weizhou Island; other times, water droplets would condense on the bowl's surface, their shapes strikingly similar to the shoreline of Namtso Lake. The most amazing time was when they returned from outside and found a dried sycamore leaf lying in the bowl, its veins identical to the leaf that had fallen into the ceramic bowl on the day the bread kiln was demolished.
"This bowl seems to be recording time," Zhong Hua said, tucking the leaf into her notebook. "Or rather, connecting the places we've been."
Ayu didn't speak. She remembered what her mother had said: some old objects can "recognize people," following their owners as they travel far and wide, absorbing the scenery they've seen into their own textures. But this ceramic bowl was clearly dug out of a bread kiln, how could it recognize their journey?
Two weeks later, they received an anonymous package. Inside was a yellowed photograph of a bread kiln from thirty years ago. An old man in a blue cloth shirt stood in front of the kiln, holding the very same earthenware bowl they had dug up. Next to the old man squatted a little girl with pigtails, holding a wire and wrapping patterns around the handle of the bowl—the shape of the wire was exactly the same as the Tibetan antelope horn they had found at Namtso Lake.
On the back of the photo, written in pencil, was a line of words: "Kiln fire records the years, pottery patterns etch the stars." The handwriting was faint, but it suddenly reminded Ayu of what Zhong Hua had said in front of the Dunhuang murals, pointing to the cracks: "Look, don't these cracks look like someone scratched them with their fingernails?"
That night, Ayu had a dream. In her dream, she returned to the bread kiln of thirty years ago. An old man in a blue cloth shirt was kneading dough, and a little girl with pigtails squatted beside him, carving circular patterns on the bottom of a ceramic bowl with a wire. As the old man kneaded the dough, he said, "Little girl, this circle is Qinghai Lake, which we will visit in the future. Its water is as blue as if the sky fell to the ground; this circle is Yubeng Village, where the mountains turn white when the snow falls; and this central scoop is the star of Namtso Lake, so bright that it can illuminate the secrets of one's heart."
The little girl nodded, seemingly understanding, as the wire in her hand made a "sizzling" sound as it scraped the bottom of the ceramic bowl. The old man added some firewood to the kiln, and the firelight reflected on the ceramic bowl, making the circular patterns appear translucent, as if there were flowing lake water, falling snowflakes, and twinkling stars.
When Ayu awoke, the first snow of the year was falling outside her window. She went to the study and saw a thin layer of snow had accumulated in the ceramic bowl, the snow falling on the scorched marks of the Big Dipper, filling the handle completely. She remembered that night at Namtso Lake, when Zhong Hua pointed to the Big Dipper and said, "Look, the direction the handle is pointing is the way home."
Now, this ceramic bowl has become their way home. Each ring of scorch marks holds the scenery and time they have traversed. When Ayu licks the scorched aroma from the rim of the bowl again, she tastes not only the lively atmosphere of Weizhou Island, but also the sandstorms of Dunhuang, the first snow of Yubeng, the sunrise over Qinghai Lake, and the starry sky of Namtso Lake—all the flavors blend together like a bowl of soup that has been simmering for a long time, and drinking it warms her whole body.
Zhong Hua walked over and gently turned the ceramic bowl around. The cracks on the bottom of the bowl shimmered under the light, and A Yu suddenly realized that the direction of those cracks, besides resembling the Dunhuang murals, also looked remarkably like the map of the Yunnan-Tibet Highway they had drawn during their travels. Each bend corresponded to a certain rest stop along the way.
"You mean," Zhong Hua suddenly asked in a low voice, "could that little girl from thirty years ago be...?"
Ayu shook her head and placed her finger on the crescent-shaped notch at the rim of the bowl. It still held her warmth, and the curve of the conch shell from Weizhou Island. She thought, some answers don't need to be spoken, like the rings in a ceramic bowl; it's not necessary to know who carved them, just that each ring connects their past and future, and that's enough.
The snow outside the window fell heavier and heavier, settling on the antique shelf and covering the ceramic bowls with a thin layer of white. Looking at the snow in the bowls, Ayu suddenly remembered that in Yubeng Village, when they left the glacial lake, they left two lines of footprints in the snow. Zhong Hua had said, "Look, doesn't it look like the cracks on the bottom of the ceramic bowls?"
Now, those footprints have been covered by time, but the rings of time within the earthenware bowl continue to grow. Every time I think of the trip, every time I smell a similar scent, every time I see a familiar pattern, the rings deepen, allowing those moments to burn eternally at the bottom of the bowl, like an inextinguishable fire in a bread oven.
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