Low-light film
As Ah Yu squatted beside her suitcase rummaging through the developing solution, her fingertips brushed against a cold metal box. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the window of the mud-brick house, illuminating the embossed "Kodak" logo on the box—it was the film box for Zhong Hua's old, outdated film camera.
"Still hiding some unfinished shots?" When he turned around, Zhong Hua was leaning against the headboard counting pills. The white pills rolled off the tin foil and piled up in his palm. Hearing this, Zhong Hua paused, his Adam's apple bobbing, before he spoke: "The signal is bad in the mountains. I wanted to take some pictures to let Wanqing know I'm safe."
Ah Yu didn't reply, his fingers already unfastening the film canister's snap. He'd been shooting film for over a decade, and he could recognize it with his eyes closed—a Fuji Pro400H, Zhong Hua's most frequently used model—with fine grain, making it less prone to blurring in night scenes. Only a small tail of the film was visible inside the canister, like a curled-up silver-gray beast.
"Don't take it off." Zhong Hua suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse from just recovering from a fever. When Ah Yu looked up, she saw the redness on the tips of his ears, as if they had been exposed to the sun outside the window. "I haven't washed them yet, what if they get exposed?" Zhong Hua said, trying to sit up, but Ah Yu pressed his shoulders down and pushed him back against the headboard.
"Lie down." As Ah Yu pressed him back down, her fingertips touched the thin fabric beneath his shoulder blade, where a lingering warmth still lingered. He turned and stuffed the film into the inner pocket of his photographer's vest, where it was warm against his chest, keeping him cozy. "I brought a portable scanner; I can watch it as soon as I develop it."
The bathroom in the adobe house was so small that there wasn't enough room to turn around. Ah Yu placed a folding basin on the tiled floor and poured in half a bottle of mineral water. While the developer and fixer were being mixed in the correct proportions, Zhong Hua was leaning against the door frame, wrapped in a dusty gray quilt, looking like a cabbage that had been battered by frost.
"Go back to bed." Ah Yu twisted the bottle cap without looking up. "The doctor said you need to keep warm."
“I saw it.” Zhong Hua’s voice came muffledly from under the covers. “Last time in Qinghai, you spilled the developing solution on your sleeping bag when you were developing films.”
Ah Yu paused, the medicine on her fingertips feeling cool. It was true, three years ago when they were shooting the sunrise at Qinghai Lake, he was squatting in the tent developing the film when his hand slipped and he spilled half a bottle of brown developing solution. To this day, a light brown stain remains on Zhong Hua's dark blue sleeping bag, like a piece of undissolved cloud.
“That was an accident.” Ah Yu carefully immersed the film into the developing solution. The red film slowly unfurled in the water, like a fish awakening. “And after that, I practiced darkroom techniques for half a year.”
Zhong Hua didn't speak again, only the rustling sound of the quilt rubbing against the door frame could be heard. Ah Yu stared at the film in the basin, watching the images gradually emerge—first appeared the old locust tree at the village entrance, its branches stretching wildly in the twilight; then came the blurry figures of children chasing each other in the threshing ground, with a blurry, moving silhouette; then came the eaves of the adobe houses, raindrops hanging from the corners like strings of unthreaded crystals.
Just before the last few pages, Ah Yu's breathing suddenly stopped.
Against the pitch-black backdrop, tiny green lights floated, like overturned stars falling into an inkwell. Some formed lines, others clustered together, the brightest cluster resting on a blade of grass, its veins clearly visible. They were fireflies in the mountain night.
He recalled the night before he left, slapping his thigh while looking at a photography magazine: "I heard there are fireflies in the mountains, I wish I could take a picture of them." Zhong Hua was revising the project budget on his computer at the time, and without looking up, he said: "The peak season is in early July, there are too few now."
"But I want to see it." He remembered how he had drawn out his words and pleaded, just like when he begged Zhong Hua to save him a seat in the library back in college. Zhong Hua's fingers paused on the keyboard, the blue light of the screen reflecting his profile, and he said softly, "We'll see when the time comes."
So he remembered.
Ah Yu's fingertips lightly touched the water's surface, causing ripples to spread and blur the green light into indistinct spots. Footsteps sounded behind her, and Zhong Hua's shadow was cast long on the tiles under the light.
"Your hands were shaking badly." Zhong Hua's voice was right next to my ear, carrying a hint of barely perceptible tension. "I had a fever when I was taking the picture, so I couldn't get the focus right."
When Ah Yu turned his head, he saw him pursing his lips, his eyelashes drooping, like a large dog that had done something wrong. He suddenly remembered that year in college, when Zhong Hua stepped into the mud and twisted his ankle while trying to help him take pictures of the lotus pond under the moonlight. When he came back, his trouser legs were covered in black mud, but he held up his camera like a treasure: "Look at this one, the dew on the lotus flower is just right for reflecting the light."
The photos from that time have long since faded, but the light in Zhong Hua's eyes when he held up the camera was brighter than the flash.
"It looks good even though it's blurry." Ah Yu took the film out of the fixer and clipped it to the clothesline. Water droplets dripped down the film, leaving small watermarks on the ground. "It's much clearer than the one I took at the botanical garden last time."
Last summer at the suburban botanical garden, he squatted in the grass for three hours, only managing to photograph a few half-dead fireflies that barely even flapped their wings. Zhong Hua picked him up in his car and, seeing him covered in mosquito bites, didn't say anything, but simply pulled out a bottle of mosquito repellent from the trunk and sprayed it on his neck.
“Those are artificially bred, they have no spiritual energy.” Ah Yu touched the green light on the film, as if touching the warmth of stars.
Zhong Hua didn't reply, but reached out and brushed the stray hairs that had fallen across his forehead behind his ear. His fingertips were still cool from the pills, and when they touched his earlobe, Ah Yu couldn't help but shrink back. "It's damp in the mountains," Zhong Hua said, his thumb brushing against his earlobe. "When you go back tomorrow, wear my windbreaker."
Ah Yu looked up and met the light in his eyes. Sunlight from outside the window shone through the window frame behind him, casting two small bright spots in his pupils, brighter than fireflies on film.
"Didn't I spill coffee on your jacket?" Last winter in the studio, he lost his grip while making pour-over coffee, and the scalding brown liquid spilled all over Zhong Hua's gray windbreaker, leaving a dark brown stain that looked like an abstract painting.
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