Chapter One: The Aura of Double Mirrors
The glass curtain wall of the subway station was like a huge, cold mirror, reflecting Ayu's slightly tired face. She had just finished a part-time job, and her canvas bag was heavy, containing a few old books and a half-empty bottle of mineral water. The newly built subway station was still filled with a fresh, pungent smell of metallic paint, sharp and modern, with an undeniable sense of novelty, penetrating her nostrils as if forcibly marking the existence of this space.
She stopped to buy a drink from the vending machine. As she bent down to look at the items, her gaze inadvertently swept over the decorative vintage wall clock next to her—it was placed there by the designer to add a touch of nostalgia; the clock face was made of antique-style glass with deliberately distressed wear marks on the edges.
However, at that very moment, Ayu was stunned.
She could clearly see that on the antique-looking clock face, not only was her own reflection and the bright, new subway station environment behind her mirrored, but also another blurry yet exceptionally clear image was superimposed. It was an old-fashioned green mailbox, its paint peeling off, standing on what appeared to be an old street paved with bluestone slabs, surrounded by low, old houses with upturned eaves, and the air seemed to be filled with particles of dust.
This is not a simple reflection. It's more like two different timelines overlapping on this thin layer of glass.
"Ayu?"
Zhong Hua's voice came from behind, tinged with a hint of doubt. He was carrying a freshly bought coffee, steaming hot.
“Look at this…” Ayu pointed to the clock face, her voice trembling slightly.
Zhong Hua leaned closer, his gaze falling on the clock face. He frowned at first, seemingly trying to discern what it was, then his eyes widened in astonishment. "This is... the old mailbox?" he murmured, "The one we saw before the old town was demolished?"
They did indeed pass through an old neighborhood that was being demolished last week and saw a lonely, abandoned green mailbox that looked almost exactly like the one reflected in the clock face.
But what shocked them even more was not the overlapping images, but the smell that followed.
The metallic smell of the newly built subway station still lingered, cold, sharp, and an anchor of reality. But at the same time, another smell "seeped" out from the old mailbox in the mirror, entering their nostrils—a smell mixed with the old, damp paper and a touch of earth. Ayu immediately recognized it as the musty smell that often lingered on the old letters her grandmother had kept around 1999, a smell that carried a unique, tepid, and stubborn aura of bygone times.
Two scents, one real and one mirrored, are completely different, yet they coexist in the same space without conflict, and even begin to subtly blend together.
Ayu subconsciously took a deep breath.
The moment the two scents mingled, a completely new yet incredibly familiar aroma unexpectedly entered her senses.
The scent seemed to be awakened by some kind of magic. The top notes were a light, calming sandalwood fragrance, which immediately reminded her of her mother sitting in front of the embroidery frame, her fingertips weaving through the silk threads, with wisps of smoke rising from the incense burner beside her. The fragrance gently enveloped the peonies and mandarin ducks on the embroidery, carrying the warmth of handmade craftsmanship and her mother's unique scent.
Then, the middle notes emerged—a dry, granular scent of sand, rugged and vast, instantly transporting her to the distant Gobi Desert of Dunhuang. That summer, she and Zhong Hua, backpacks on their backs, walked under the setting sun at the Singing Sand Dunes. The wind whipped up fine sand, stinging their faces, and the scent they inhaled was this mixture of sunlight, rocks, and endless emptiness, carrying a desolate grandeur.
Finally, the aftertaste was somewhat unexpected yet perfectly fitting—salty and savory, with a rich milky aroma and a hint of tea bitterness—the taste of butter tea from Yubeng Village. In that remote and sacred Tibetan village, they had stayed overnight at a Tibetan family's home. In the early morning, the hostess brewed butter tea in a black earthenware pot, and its aroma filled the simple wooden house, dispelling the chill of the plateau and becoming a warm memory of their journey.
"Can you smell it?" Ayu suddenly turned to look at Zhong Hua, her eyes shining with disbelief. "Sandalwood...and the smell of sand from Dunhuang, and butter tea!"
Zhong Hua's expression was equally shocked. He sniffed hard, his brows furrowing, then slowly relaxed: "Yes... I smelled it. It's very faint, but very clear. The top notes smell like the embroidery room of my aunt, the middle... it really does smell like the Gobi Desert, and the last bit of salty aroma... it's the butter tea brewed by that lady in Yubeng Village!"
His gaze didn't leave the clock face, but followed the direction of the faint scent. "Look, Ayu," he said in a low voice, with a hint of surprise, "the trajectory of the scent..."
Ayu followed his gaze. She saw that the scent, a mixture of reality and reflection, awakening past memories, wasn't spreading randomly, but rather, as if guided by something, it moved and spread slowly along a barely perceptible crack in the waiting room ceiling. Whether the crack was a flaw left from the initial construction or a trace of stress in the structure itself, no one knew.
But at this moment, the lines of the flowing scent gradually outlined a familiar shape in their eyes.
Its outline is circular with irregularly serrated edges and a slightly concave center, resembling a huge, dormant volcano.
“Weizhou Island…” Ayu said the name almost breathlessly.
They had visited Weizhou Island together, an island formed by a volcanic eruption. They walked along the crater ruins, admiring its unique geological structure; the round, deep outline of the crater was already imprinted in their minds. And now, the flowing scent on the ceiling outlined a contour map of the Weizhou Island volcano, abstract yet capturing its essence.
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