11: Chapter 11 "Slip of the Hand" - The Kettle

Dew in the pine forest clung to the blades of grass, looking like shattered glass scattered across the ground. When Chen Jie was woken by the cold, the campfire was reduced to a pile of pale ash. Zhao Kai was squatting by the creek rinsing his mouth, water foam dripping from his chin into the stream, startling the small fish in the crevices of the rocks and sending them darting out in a spray of silver water.

"Can you hurry up and pack?"

Zhao Kai slapped his wet towel onto his face, water droplets splattering against the tent fabric. "Uncle Liu says there's a waterfall up ahead; it'll look much more rare in photos than that broken jade stone of yours—oh right, all that smoke last night was crawling into your bag. Could that jade stone be the culprit?"

Chen Jie was stuffing compressed biscuits into his tool bag; he paused at these words. The jade stone was wrapped in chamois leather, feeling cool to the touch. The patterns on its surface seemed to have become clearer, the straight horizontal and vertical lines shimmering with a faint luster in the morning light, like marks lightly scratched by someone's fingernail.

"It's just damp in the mountains, and smoke tends to drift toward warmer places," he said vaguely. His fingertips, however, tightened involuntarily. The trajectory of the blue light from last night always reminded him of the circuit boards he had seen when repairing radios; the curves at the corners were identical.

"Warmer? I think it's just weird." Zhao Kai suddenly raised his voice, and the stainless steel thermos in his hand hit a rock with a "clang," the lid popping off and rolling half a foot away.

As he bent down to pick it up, his foot slipped on the moss, and he lunged forward. The thermos flew out of his hand, heading straight for Chen Jie.

"Watch out!" Uncle Liu's pipe dropped to the ground with a "snap."

Chen Jie reached out to catch it instinctively. Just then, something strange happened—the thermos's trajectory in the air seemed to slow down. The arc of the thermos's rotation was clearly visible, and even the splashing water droplets seemed to hang in mid-air, each one reflecting the morning light, bright as crushed diamonds. He could even see the fingerprints on the thermos, the mud stains Zhao Kai had smudged on it when grabbing the spout last night.

The feeling was strange, like looking at things through a layer of water; every action was half a beat slower. Chen Jie's hand reached out steadily, and when his fingertips touched the bottom of the thermos, that familiar warmth radiated from the jade stone, crawling up his arm and pulsing gently at his temple. With a "thud," the thermos landed in his hand, the warm sensation instantly pulling him back to reality.

Zhao Kai had already fallen into the creek, half his body soaking in the icy water, grimacing as he cursed: "This dump of a place! If I'd known, I wouldn't have come—hey, how did you catch that? I just saw you reach out like it was in slow motion."

Chen Jie didn't speak, looking down at the thermos in his hand. The water inside sloshed, but not a single drop spilled out. He touched his tool bag; the jade stone was very quiet, like an ordinary rock, but that moment of "slowness" just now was definitely not an illusion—it was like suddenly grabbing the pendulum while repairing a grandfather clock, causing the rhythm of the entire world to pause.

"Strange, really strange."

Uncle Liu picked up his pipe and tapped it against Zhao Kai's soaked pant leg. "Things in these mountains are different once they're stained with Spiritual Qi. When I was young, I saw a hunter catch a rabbit that was about to disappear into the grass; he just grabbed it slowly and easily. Later, I found out that the man had picked up a blue-glowing stone at Suiyu Slope the night before."

Zhao Kai crawled out of the water, his pant legs dripping, looking exactly like a drowned rat. "What blue-glowing stone? I think it's just that Jie-zi has fast reflexes."

He was stubborn with his words, but his eyes kept darting toward Chen Jie's backpack. "Though, come to think of it, your stance when you reached out just now was steadier than Old Zhang, who repairs watches at the entrance of our neighborhood. He has to use a magnifying glass when repairing watches, but your naked eye seemed to be in slow motion."

Chen Jie set the thermos on a rock, and the steam from the bottom of the pot dissipated, condensing into a fine mist in the morning light. He suddenly remembered the speed at which the blue light flowed when the jade stone was absorbing the smoke last night—it was as fast as a torrent in a stream, but when he caught the thermos just now, the blue light seemed to have suddenly slowed down, like a gentle current washing over pebbles.

"Maybe the air in the mountains is good, so I could see clearly."

He told a lie, but his heart was churning. This stone could absorb smoke, could slow down time, and was even related to the legends of Suiyu Slope. Could the legend of the Jade God that Uncle Liu mentioned be true?

"Hurry up and pack your things; if we dawdle any longer, we really won't make it in time to see the waterfall." Zhao Kai twisted the water out of his pant legs, the droplets hitting the ground and forming a small puddle that reflected Chen Jie's frowning expression.

Chen Jie stuffed the jade stone deeper into his tool bag and zipped it up tight. But the warmth was still there, seeping through the chamois leather and canvas, like carrying a pebble that had been sun-baked. He looked up toward the direction of Suiyu Slope; the morning mist was rolling in from there, and something seemed to be hidden within the fog, shimmering with a faint light in the morning sun, somewhat like the blue light of the jade stone.

"Let's go."

He put on his backpack, and the thermos inside gently bumped against the jade stone, making a "ding" sound, like someone striking a bell. Chen Jie suddenly felt that this journey into the mountains was probably not as simple as a graduation trip. The stone he had picked up from the stream was like an alarm clock hiding secrets, slowly revealing the mystery of time, and he seemed to have become the person who had accidentally moved its hands.

Zhao Kai was grumbling in front, and Uncle Liu's pipe tapped against the grass with a "clack, clack" sound, startling a few sparrows. Chen Jie followed behind, his steps somewhat heavy.

He always felt that the "half-second of slowing down" just now was not the end, but the beginning—just like repairing a complex machine; he had just found the first gear, and there were countless transmissions and interlocks waiting for him to discover.