“Zhong Hua,” she stood up, her fingers still stained with rust, “do you think it might…”
The man didn't let her finish. He took out his phone from his backpack, opened the photo album, and flipped to a picture of camels he had taken in Dunhuang years ago. In the photo, the camels' puffed-out cheeks as they chewed formed a blurry silhouette in the twilight, while in the background, the sand ridges of the Singing Sand Dunes and the water patterns spreading across the gate barrier appeared strikingly similar under the screen's light. He then flipped to a video of Milk Lake, where the slow-motion flow of water over the rocks and the speed at which the colors spread across the barrier were almost identical.
“There’s something in here.” Zhong Hua tapped the turnstile casing with his knuckles. The dull metallic sound made the blue-green light spot on the barrier flicker, as if water were actually flowing inside. He remembered that when he inserted the coin earlier, his fingers had touched the inner wall of the coin slot, where there seemed to be some fine lines engraved, but they were covered by rust.
Ayu squatted down again, this time using her key to scrape the edge of the coin slot. Where the rust had peeled away, fine scratches were revealed. These scratches formed an irregular grid, reminding her of the scrap paper her mother used to count stitches while knitting, covered with countless tally marks. She followed the scratches down, and at a certain corner, her fingertip touched a small raised dot—its shape strikingly similar to Cormorant Island on Bird Island in Qinghai Lake.
"Click".
The turnstile beeped again. This time, the barrier opened completely, revealing a dark gap behind it. A smell mixed with rust and dust rushed out, but it transformed into another scent at Ayu's nose—the scent of soapberry left in the bamboo basket after her mother finished knitting a sweater, the smell of camel dung mixed in with the dry air of the Gobi Desert at night in Dunhuang, and the crisp moisture brought by the melting glaciers at Milk Beach.
Zhong Hua shone his phone's flashlight inside, and dust swirled wildly in the beam. At the bottom of the gap lay something, encased in a thick layer of rust, only a dark red corner visible. He reached in to pull it out; the texture felt like leather, yet under the flashlight beam, it had a woven fabric-like quality. As he yanked the object out, the rust crumbled away, revealing its true form—
It was a small notebook, about the size of a palm, with a cover made of faux leather, a style popular in 1987, and the words "Made in Shanghai" printed in gold foil. But what made Ayu's breath catch in her throat was the pattern painted on the cover with faded red paint—a bird with outstretched wings, the curve of its beak matching the outline of Bird Island in Qinghai Lake, and the pattern of its feathers exactly the same as the cable knit stitch that her mother was best at when knitting sweaters.
The notebook was stuck shut by rust. Zhong Hua used a Swiss Army knife to pry open the cover, and a yellowed train ticket fell out of the first page. It was a hard-seat ticket from Shanghai to Xining in 1987. The date on the ticket stub suddenly reminded Ayu of her mother's birthday. On the back of the ticket, a line of words was written in pencil, the handwriting delicate, yet at certain turns, it bore the same habitual force her mother used when knitting sweaters—
"Once the flock of birds flies over Qinghai Lake, I will go and learn to weave twisted needles."
The door to the waiting room was pushed open, and the demolition team leader's roar came in: "What are you two dawdling about! Move this piece of junk right now!"
Ayu didn't move. She stared at the second sheet of paper tucked into her notebook. It was a hand-drawn map, with the shoreline of Qinghai Lake drawn in blue ink. Bird Island was circled in red, with the note "starting point of the stitch" next to it. In the blank space at the edge of the map, there was a silhouette of a woman knitting a sweater. The woman's posture was exactly the same as when her mother knitted a scarf on the balcony. The curve of the knitting needle in her hand corresponded exactly to the milky seawater flow curve blurred on the gate barrier.
Zhong Hua emptied the coin from the turnstile, and it rolled onto the notebook with a crisp sound. That sound reminded Ayu of the camel bells she'd heard in Dunhuang. The frequency of the bells as camel caravans crossed the sand dunes, the sound of the coin, and the click-clack of the turnstile all seemed to follow the same sound wave pattern. She suddenly understood why the braided stitches her mother used when knitting sweaters matched the outline of Bird Island on Qinghai Lake and the patterns of accumulated rust—it wasn't a coincidence, but a resonance buried by time.
“Take it with you.” Zhong Hua’s voice was low, but it carried an undeniable firmness. He stuffed the notebook into his backpack, and the moment the zipper was closed, A Yu heard a very faint “click” sound from inside the backpack, as if something had closed.
The demolition team's shovels had already smashed into the waiting room floor tiles. Ayu took one last look at the turnstile; the blue-green light spots on the barrier were disappearing, turning back into gray rust. But she knew that those colors hadn't truly faded, just like the stitches of her mother's knitting, the flocks of birds at Qinghai Lake, the camel bells of Dunhuang, and the flow of Milk Lake—all existing in some hidden way within the folds of time.
As she stepped out of the waiting room, the June sun shone brightly on her face. Ayu squinted and saw a dark red corner of a notebook peeking out from the side pocket of Zhong Hua's backpack, like a piece of amber polished by time. She recalled the mixed smells she had caught in the turnstile and suddenly understood that the rust, stitches, and sound waves on those old things were never isolated entities—they were threads on the tapestry of time, and with just a gentle pull, they could evoke the echoes of the entire world.
The notebook in the backpack seemed to move slightly. Ayu reached out and touched Zhonghua's arm. At the same time, they both heard a very faint "click" sound coming from deep inside the backpack, like a bird circling over Qinghai Lake flapping its wings, resonating with the camel bells of the Gobi Desert in Dunhuang, the meltwater of the Daocheng glacier, and the heartbeat of the woman who learned to weave needlework in 1987, echoing at the same frequency.
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