Zhong Hua didn't answer. He squatted down and slowly shone his phone flashlight along the cracks in the brick. When the light swept across the handle of the "Big Dipper" pattern, it suddenly revealed an extremely fine scratch in another inconspicuous spot on the brick surface. The scratch was very shallow, as if it had been made with a fingernail or a sharp object, and its shape was crooked, like an unfinished "7".
"Seven?" Ayu frowned. "We've traveled through seven provinces? Or did we stay in Yubeng for seven days?"
Zhong Hua stared at the engraving, his gaze suddenly turning strange: "In my grandfather's logbook, the one from 1978, the last page has an unfinished compass drawn, the needle stopping at this angle. And your grandmother's dowry chest, the pattern on the brass lock, one of the arcs perfectly overlaps with this engraving." His finger traced the engraving, "And do you remember the geological age of the Weizhou Island volcano? About 7,000 years ago, the last eruption..."
The air was thick with the smell of cleaning agents and dirt, and the lights were a stark white, like moonlight. Ayu suddenly felt a chill on the platform. She rubbed her arms, her gaze returning to the bluestone slab. The mica in the crack still shimmered faintly, like the lingering starlight of Namtso Lake; the dents in the brick surface held the last traces of moisture, reflecting the ceiling light like unevaporated rainwater in the volcanic lake of Weizhou Island; and that mysterious engraving, like a punctuation mark forgotten by time, hung at the end of the handle of the Big Dipper.
“Perhaps,” Zhong Hua suddenly spoke, his voice soft, “it’s not that we’ve walked through these places, but rather that these places have already recorded our arrival in their own way.” He pointed to the cracks in the brickwork, “Look at this direction. The Big Dipper points to Polaris, and the Yunnan-Tibet Highway also runs roughly north-south. The crater of Weizhou Island, on satellite imagery, is located exactly at the southern end of this virtual extension…”
He didn't finish speaking, but Ayu understood. It was like the stone they stumbled upon beneath the sacred waterfall in Yubeng Village, its natural patterns forming a silhouette of the two of them; like the folds of a donor's clothing in a mural at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, perfectly matching the collar of the shirt in an old photograph of Zhong Hua's grandfather. These weren't coincidences, but rather codes woven into time, hidden in the patterns of old objects, in the folds of geography, waiting to be discovered by a specific person one day.
The platform gates began to close slowly, making a clanging sound. Ayu and Zhonghua stood up and took one last look at the bluestone slab. The mica in the crack was still shimmering, like stardust that someone had carelessly scattered on the ground.
“Let’s go,” Zhong Hua said. “The construction team will be sealing off this old platform tomorrow.”
They turned and headed for the exit, their footsteps echoing in the empty station hall. Ayu glanced back; in the dimming light, the cracks in the third bluestone slab seemed to come alive, the handle of the dipper turning slightly, pointing in the direction they had left. The last drop of water seeping from the cracks left a faint watermark on the ground, its shape strikingly similar to the crescent moon they had seen floating on the surface of Namtso Lake that morning.
As she stepped out of the subway station, a night breeze blew, carrying the chill of early autumn. Ayu looked up at the sky; the city's light pollution blurred the stars, but she knew that somewhere unseen, the Big Dipper shone brightly in its rightful place. And the ground beneath her feet—the deep-seated cracks in the bricks, the mica, the shards of pottery—was telling, in its own way, stories of time and space, of resonance, of encounters already written in the past. She gripped Zhong Hua's hand tightly; his palm was warm, just as it had been at Yubeng Waterfall, by Namtso Lake, and on the volcanic rocks of Weizhou Island, conveying a tacit understanding unspoken—some traces existed before memories, and their journey might never have been about exploring the unknown, but rather a reunion with coordinates already written in the past.
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