The gray ring's rotation accelerated, and the outer layer of Qinghai Lake sedimentary rock began to peel away. Each detached grain of ash turned into a translucent sheet, drifting in the air like the scales of the Qinghai Lake naked carp they had found. Images gradually emerged on the sheets: Moon Street in 1999, where Ayu's mother was dropping a postcard into a green mailbox; a hospital corridor in 1997, where Zhonghua's grandfather was holding an infant in swaddling clothes, the boat ticket slipping from his pocket to the ground; and the frozen surface of Namtso Lake in 1600, where herdsmen in Tibetan robes were drilling holes in the ice, the ice chips freezing into star shapes the moment they hit the lake.
“This isn’t ashes.” Ayu finally understood. She reached out and touched the rotating band of light. Where her fingertips passed, the ash particles didn’t disperse. Instead, they melted into her skin, leaving a cool sensation. “It’s a knot of time.”
Zhong Hua grasped her hand, and as their palms met, the gray ring suddenly burst forth with white light. The swirling ash expanded outward abruptly, the sedimentary rock patterns of Qinghai Lake crashing against the walls of the waiting room, leaving huge rock paintings on the brick surface; the glacial striations of Yubeng Village seeped into the cracks of the floor tiles, making the entire ground gleam like ice crystals; the volcanic rock vents of Weizhou Island rose to the ceiling, turning into countless twinkling stars, much like the starry sky they had seen at the Crocodile Mountain crater.
The rotation speed continued to climb, already matching the wind speed during a sandstorm at Mingsha Mountain. Ayu saw the 1999 postmark on the outermost layer of the gray ring melting, the inky liquid dripping to the ground and transforming into the waters of Qinghai Lake, spreading around her feet, displaying the same layered texture as sedimentary rocks. On Zhong Hua's phone, the sound of the wind and sand continued, intertwining with the buzzing of the rotating gray ring, creating a kind of resonance that made the air begin to tremble slightly—this frequency was exactly the same as the camel bells they had heard in front of the Dunhuang murals, the sound of water under the sacred waterfall in Yubeng Village, and the sound of wind they had heard by Namtso Lake.
"What is it waiting for?" Ayu's voice was half-swallowed by the resonance. She saw the core layer of the gray ring shrinking, the light spots in the volcanic rock pores becoming denser and denser, finally condensing into a small ice bead, like the surface of Namtso Lake in winter, freezing the reflection of the entire sky.
Zhong Hua didn't answer. His gaze fell on the innermost bluish-gray of the gray ring, where the carbon-14 value was slowly fluctuating, finally settling on a familiar year—2018, the year they met in Yubeng Village. That day, the water from the sacred waterfall suddenly split into two streams, forming a rainbow above their heads, the arc of which perfectly matched the radius of the gray ring at that moment.
Just then, the rotation of the gray ring suddenly slowed down. As if pressed on slow motion, the movement of each grain of ash became clearly discernible. The sedimentary rock patterns of Qinghai Lake became clear again, the glacial striations in Yubeng Village gleamed coldly in the light, and the vents of the volcanic rocks on Weizhou Island began to emit tiny particles of smoke, like a volcano that had just erupted. The rotation speed eventually stabilized at a certain value, coinciding with the frequency of the second hand on the wall clock in the waiting room—the rotation speed of the prayer wheels they had heard in front of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, round and round, measuring the length of time.
Ayu suddenly felt a stinging pain in her fingertips; a speck of ash from the outermost layer of the gray ring had seeped into her nail. She remembered that afternoon in 1999 when her mother was embroidering peonies, and the needle had pricked her fingertip in the same way, the blood that seeped out falling onto the silk thread and turning into the most vibrant red of the peony. And now, that speck of ash was burning hot in her nail, like a seed sprouting, trying to replant a forgotten moment back into her memory.
Zhong Hua's phone died, and the sound of sandstorms at Mingsha Mountain abruptly ceased. But the gray ring continued to spin, relentlessly and undeniably marking the passing of time. He knew this ring of ash would never fall to the ground. It would forever remain suspended here, like a coordinate, marking all the points of encounter—the sand of Qinghai Lake, the ice of Yubeng Village, the fire of Weizhou Island, the snow of Namtso Lake, and every path they had traversed, every moment they had met, all locked within the rings of this ash, forever spinning in the river of time, forever remembered.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
