The faucet was still running, and sunlight flickered on the wall. Ayu suddenly felt that this old hot water bucket was like a codebook forgotten by time; each mark was a coordinate, each peeling enamel a story. People in 1965 might have simply sketched a waterline, yet decades later, it resonated strangely with the landscapes they had traversed. Like the stone they found at Qinghai Lake, its patterns mirroring the outline of an island drawn in Zhonghua's grandfather's logbook; like the ice cracks they saw in Yubeng Village, their shapes identical to the copper lock pattern on Ayu's grandmother's dowry chest.
The water flow gradually decreased, and Zhong Hua turned on the tap. The last few drops of water flowed into the bucket, making a crisp "ding-dong" sound, as if drawing a period to this wonderful resonance. The light spots on the wall gradually disappeared as the last drop of water hit the ground, leaving only faint watermarks on the tiled wall.
Ayu reached out and touched the highest water level line again. The coolness of the metal seeped through her fingertips, yet it seemed to carry the dampness of the morning mist from Qinghai Lake. In the depression at the lowest water level, the deep blue of the Weizhou Island volcano seemed to be reflected. Zhong Hua stood beside her, silent, only looking at the 1965 engraving on the barrel, his eyes filled with surprise, confusion, and an indescribable tenderness.
Perhaps some journeys are already etched into the scale of time. Like this hot water bucket, when an unknown person carved the water level line in an ordinary year like 1965, the seeds of an encounter with the future were already sown. The mountains and rivers they traversed, the starry skies they gazed upon, the sounds of icicles falling they heard—all of these things already existed in some mysterious way within the patterns of these old objects, waiting to be accidentally touched on a sunny afternoon, and then to resonate across time and space.
Ayu picked up the water glass beside the bucket and filled it with tap water. The water was cold and had a rusty taste, but when she drank it, it was as if she tasted the wind of Qinghai Lake, the seawater of Weizhou Island, and the crisp coolness of the sacred waterfall in Yubeng Village. Zhong Hua looked at her and smiled, the lines at the corners of his eyes reflecting the sunlight outside the window, and also the fleeting glimpse of the Milky Way over Namtso Lake on the wall.
Construction sounds drifted from outside the break room; new floor tiles were being laid, and the walls were about to be painted. This old thermos would soon be moved away, thrown into the scrap heap, or picked up by some nostalgic soul, gathering dust in the attic. But Ayu knew that some marks would never disappear, some resonances would remain forever in the folds of time. Just like the warmth of her palm, still lingering on that unknown mark of 1965, and the star map in her mind, trembling slightly with her heartbeat.
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