The twilight is like a piece of velvet soaked in ink, slowly covering the "silent studio" at the end of the bluestone road. Chen Mo finished wiping the last copper stove with suede, and when he raised his head, he faced the row of old clocks in the glass cabinet - the hands of different lengths all pointed to seventeen minutes, as if an invisible hand was pinching his neck.
He took off his silver-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyebrows. The dark circles under his eyes were swollen with black. The words left by the man in the black trench coat three days ago are still ringing in my ears: "You can hear crying from this watch. If Boss Chen thinks it's unlucky, I'll pick it up tomorrow." When the other party pushed a palm-sized rosewood box over, the dark red marks on his knuckles looked like unwiped blood.
