5: Chapter 5 The Glimmer at Chen Jie's Fingertips

The mountain mist drifted slowly over the terraced fields, like cotton wool torn apart by someone.

Chen Jie climbed up the slippery stone steps, his canvas tool bag banging against the rock wall with a "clatter," startling the mountain crickets in the crevices into a "chirping" frenzy.

The white Qi he exhaled condensed into a mist before his eyes, only to be scattered by the wind.

The dew clinging to his cuffs froze into tiny ice crystals that felt prickly to the touch.

"This damn place, the temperature fluctuates more wildly than that freezer of Wang Lei's."

Zhao Kai pulled his sun-protective jacket over his hoodie, but even with the zipper pulled to the top, it could not block the wind.

"I was sweating at the foot of the mountain, but now with this wind, my ears are about to freeze off—Jie-zi, listen to this wind, it sounds just like that old outdoor air conditioner unit of Su Rui's, it's noisy enough to make one's brain ache."

Chen Jie did not respond; he was staring at the guest-greeting pine on the cliff edge.

Strings of icicles hung from the pine needles, shining brightly under the sunlight filtering through the mist, looking as if someone had hung a curtain of crystal beads.

The moss at the roots was frozen brittle, crunching with a "snap" when stepped on, yet a few emerald-green grass shoots poked out from the stone crevices, stubbornly swaying against the shards of ice.

"Look at that grass," he suddenly tugged at Zhao Kai, "it can still survive even when frozen like this; it's more reliable than that fridge of Brother Li's that had to be repaired three times."

"Can reliability be eaten?"

Zhao Kai puffed warm air onto his hands, "I just want to find a warm place to stay right now, even if it's a greasy corner like the dining car."

"That's just how it is in the mountains," Uncle Liu said, turning the corner with a bamboo basket on his back, the hem of his blue cloth jacket damp with mist.

"The sun is out at 7 a.m., mist rises by 9 a.m., and it might even drizzle by noon—it's just like our old grandfather clock, its temperament is hard to predict."

He pointed at the sky with his tobacco pipe.

The outlines of a few black pines suddenly emerged from the thick fog, and the icicles on the branches fell with a "plop," landing right beside Zhao Kai's feet, scaring him into shrinking behind Chen Jie.

"Uncle Liu, when will this fog clear?"

Zhao Kai stared at his phone, the signal bars turning gray, "My navigation is completely dead; if we keep wandering like this, I'm afraid we'll just end up going in circles in the mountains."

"Soon, soon," Uncle Liu laughed, revealing his gold teeth.

"Once the sun climbs to the top of the ginkgo tree, the fog will have to retreat.

That old tree is clever, more accurate than the meteorological station—last year, a group of city folk came to sketch and did not believe this, but they ended up trapped in the fog, unable to find their way, and it was my wife who had to bang a copper basin to lead them back."

As they spoke, the mist indeed thinned, revealing the gray tiled roof of the ancestral hall.

The icicles hanging from the eaves were a full half-foot long, like strings of inverted crystal cones, and the sunlight shining through the gaps in the mist refracted into fine, shimmering light.

Just as Chen Jie reached the entrance of the ancestral hall, he saw a layer of thin ice on the threshold.

He squatted down and scraped it with his fingertip, the ice shards falling with a rustle: "This threshold is even colder to the touch than Grandma Zhang's old freezer; if the grandfather clock was left here, I'm afraid it would have frozen stiff long ago."

The moment he pushed the door open, a blast of cold air mixed with a musty smell rushed toward them.

Zhao Kai shivered and glanced toward the offering table: "My god, it's even colder inside this room than outside! Jie-zi, I'm afraid the oil in your tool bag is going to freeze!"

Chen Jie ignored him; his flashlight beam had already landed on the old grandfather clock.

The mahogany casing was covered in a layer of white frost, and the glass cover was frosted with ice flowers, like a blurry landscape painting.

He reached out to wipe it, and the moment his fingertips touched the glass, he suddenly gasped—a burning heat surged from the thin callous on the crook of his thumb, hotter than the braised spice packet he kept in his chest pocket.

"What's wrong?"

Zhao Kai leaned over, "Did you get stuck to the ice? I told you this godforsaken weather..."

Before he could finish, he saw a layer of pale white light rise from Chen Jie's fingertips, like sunlight leaking through the mist.

The light burrowed into the glass cover, and the ice flowers melted away with a "hiss," revealing the rusty gears inside.

The tobacco pipe in Uncle Liu's hand dropped to the ground with a "clack": "That's spooky! This light... it's like the 'Mountain God's Tears' from the mountain legends!"

Chen Jie blinked, the light still shimmering on his fingertips.

He tentatively dripped some machine oil onto the gears, and the usually thick oil actually seeped rapidly into the rust crevices along the light's trail.

The gears turned half a circle with a "click," and the dust it kicked up danced in the beam of light.

"Look!"

He looked up and smiled at Zhao Kai, mist clinging to the lines at the corners of his eyes, "What did I tell you? No matter how cold a machine is, once you find the trick, it can still run."

Zhao Kai held up his phone to record, his hands trembling from the cold: "Make it turn some more! This is much rarer than a sunrise at the seaside—wait, the fog is getting thick again!"

Indeed, the mist outside the window suddenly surged back, blocking the window lattice like a ball of cotton, and the sunlight was completely cut off.

The light on Chen Jie's fingertips extinguished with a "whoosh," and the gears froze again, leaving only the pendulum swaying gently, emitting a faint "tick-tock" sound, as if counting the time until the fog would disperse.

Uncle Liu picked up his tobacco pipe and tapped it against the sole of his shoe: "Don't panic, wait until the sun gets higher, the fog will definitely clear.

Let's go to the stove and boil some hot water to warm up—the sweet potatoes my wife boiled this morning are still warming in the stove, sweet enough to stick your teeth together."

Chen Jie rubbed his fingers, the burning heat on his thumb still not faded.

He gazed at the grandfather clock, suddenly feeling that the mountain's climate was quite similar to old objects—looking cold on the outside, but hiding a sense of warmth within, as long as you have the patience to wait, you can always wait for the moment it "comes alive."

The mist outside the window began to thin again, and the distant terraced fields faintly revealed a touch of green, like ink bleeding on rice paper.