Wake Stone

Wake stone In the third week of the rainy season, the walls of the gallery begin to regain moisture. Jiang Xing squatted in the corner and wiped the water stains with a dry cloth. When he pressed the cloth, there was a dark mark, like something slowly seeping in and crawling out. She wiped it twice and gave up, then threw the cloth into the bucket. The ceiling light tube reflected in the bucket shook and broke into pieces of white light. Someone is pressing the iron door downstairs. The iron door of the old bungalow was so rusted that every time I had to lean out from the balcony on the second floor and shout, it could be opened. Jiang Xing didn't move. After waiting for a while, the phone rang. "Ms. Jiang? Express delivery, please ask me to sign for it." "Just throw it on the first floor." "No, the sender said he would give it to you personally." Jiang Xing wrung out the wet cloth and put it on the faucet, then walked down the creaky wooden stairs. A piece of wall peeled off at the corner, revealing an older layer of mortar. She reached out and dug at it, but it didn't move. Standing downstairs was a young man in a dark green work jacket, aged 27 or 28, holding a canvas bag with a red rope tied to the zipper pull. He saw her coming down and handing over the canvas bag, which dropped heavily. "Who sent it?" "An old gentleman named Xiao," said the young man, "lives in Pudong and is ninety-three years old." Jiang Xing took the canvas bag and weighed it in his hands. It was as heavy as a stone. She opened the zipper and took a look inside. Inside was a pile of rubble and bluish material, the cross section of which was so old that it turned yellow. On the top rested a stone piece carved in the shape of a crabapple flower, split in half from the middle. She said nothing and closed the zipper. "Did he say something?" "He said you'll know when you see it. He also asked me to ask a question." "What words." The young man paused for a moment, his eyes sliding from her face to somewhere else, as if he was relaying something he didn't quite understand. "He said, why did you leave back then?" Jiang Xing looked up at him. His profile was cut by the half-dark light in the stairwell. The lines between his brow bone and the bridge of his nose were very sharp. There was a small mole on his left cheek near the corner of his mouth. "He got the wrong person." She put the canvas bag under her arm, turned and walked upstairs. No footsteps followed behind me. She returned to the second floor and placed the canvas bag on the workbench. The electric drill used in the decoration next door suddenly sounded, buzzing through the partition wall. The water glass on the table vibrated, causing a circle of fine lines on the water surface. Jiang Xing waited for the sound of the electric drill to stop before opening the zipper again. She took out the broken stones one by one and placed them on the table. A severed hand, half a face, a broken waist, two kneecaps, and nothing below the ankle. She tried the order of piecing together, and the broken wrist of the hand was connected to the stubble of the forearm, and they fit together perfectly; half of the face was pieced together with another skull fragment, and there was a vertical crack between the eyebrows, as if something had split it in the middle. She stopped and stared at that half of the face for a long time. The curvature of the eyebrow arch, the movement of the bridge of the nose, the line of the lips when they are closed - she couldn't explain why she looked at them so carefully. This was the first time she had seen these things, but when she put her fingers on them, her fingertips remembered every rise and fall. The slightly yellowed edges of the fracture touched the skin, giving it an indescribable sense of familiarity, like touching one's own old scars. The drill rang again. She put the fragments back into the canvas bag, zipped it tightly, and stuffed it into the bottom drawer of her desk. There was also a box of unopened pencils, three lighters, and a ceramic cat with missing ears in the drawer. The canvas bag was squeezed in and the drawer couldn't be closed tightly. She pushed it with her knee before pushing it all the way. That afternoon she opened the door as usual, wiped the dust as usual, and watered the two pots of pothos as usual. Three guests came to see the exhibition. A college student took more than a hundred photos with his mobile phone. A middle-aged man stood in front of each painting for five minutes before shaking his head and walking away. There was also an old lady who sat down and asked where the toilet was. The library closed at half past five. When she locked the door, she found that the iron door was even more rusty. She turned the key three times before the lock bolt popped open. The plum rain showed no sign of stopping, and the water dripping from the eaves made small pits on the steps. The pits were filled with muddy yellow water, reflecting a small patch of gray sky. In the evening, she ordered takeout and ate half a bowl of wontons, leaving the remaining half cold on the table. The TV was on and showing local news, demolition, traffic jams, and an elevator was installed in an old community. She leaned on the sofa, her ankles resting on the edge of the coffee table, and stared at the TV screen for a long time. Then she stood up, walked to her desk, squatted down, and opened the bottom drawer. The canvas bag was stained with pencil dust. She took out the bag and put it on her lap, opened the zipper, and took out the two halves of Shi Haitang. The cracks are uneven, and there are dark traces of dryness remaining at the fractures, like blood that has seeped into the texture of the stone and then dried. She put the two halves together and closed them. Something moved under the palm of my hand. Very light, very short, like a tiny heart beating for a beat. Jiang Xing's hand suddenly popped open, and the two halves of Begonia split open again and rolled onto the floor tiles, each spinning half a circle before stopping. She sat on the ground and didn't move. The wall clock in the living room is running, and the second hand is chiming one by one. The TV changed to an advertisement, and a female voice recommended anti-dandruff shampoo. It started to rain again outside the window. The next morning, the iron door was knocked from the outside. Jiang Xing went downstairs and opened the door. Standing at the door was the young man from yesterday. His dark green jacket had been replaced by a gray one, and his hair was a little wet. He looked like he came on an electric bike. He was holding nothing in his hand, standing at the foot of the steps and looking up at her. "My grandpa left last night," he said. "I found it this morning." Jiang Xing didn't answer. The young man rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. There was a very light blue-grey under his eyes, obviously he had not slept all night. "He left a note on his bedside, writing the address of your gallery and two words." He took out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over. Jiang Xing took it and unfolded it. There were two lines written vertically on the note. The top line is the address, her gallery address, written stroke by stroke very slowly and hard. There are only two words below, and the ink is a little blurred, but it doesn't hinder the recognition—— "Look for him." Jiang Xing folded the note and returned it to him. "Who are you looking for?" She asked. The young man stuffed the note back into his pocket and looked up. Raindrops fell on his eyelashes, and he blinked. The small mole on his left cheek was moistened by the moisture and shone slightly. "He said you knew." He paused, "In the last ten years of his life, he sent you postcards every year. You didn't reply to any of them. He said he didn't blame you, you had long since forgotten." "Don't remember anything." The young man didn't answer immediately. He looked at her for a while, and there was something strange in his eyes that didn't belong to a young man in his twenties. He was so steady that he was almost clumsy, like a stone that had been sunk at the bottom of the water and was fished out after many years. "He said you carved a stone statue three thousand years ago. It's called Xuan Gyu." Jiang Xing stood under the porch, rainwater dripping from the eaves, forming a bright curtain between her and Si Miao. She suddenly felt itchy on her left cheek near the corner of her mouth. Intention:1