24: Chapter 24 The Slight Vibration of the Jade

Clotheslines in the Old neighborhood were hung full of bedsheets, swaying in mid-air like faded sails when the wind blew.

Chen Jie crouched in front of Grandma Zhang's old radio. As his screwdriver lightly touched the circuit board, a "zzzt" sound erupted, and the speaker suddenly emitted a harsh static noise, startling a spider plant on the windowsill into dropping a leaf.

"I'm telling you, this antique should've been thrown out long ago," Zhao Kai said, leaning against the doorframe with his phone camera pointed at Chen Jie's tool bag. "You were tinkering with it back in the mountains, and you're still fixing it now—listen to that sound; it's even worse than the noise from Wang Lei's freezer."

Chen Jie didn't look up. The resistor he was holding between his fingertips suddenly became scalding hot, as if branded by a soldering iron. He instinctively pulled his hand back, bumping into the jade stone inside his tool bag—the dark green stone had somehow slipped out of its suede wrapping, and the patterns on its surface were glowing with a faint green light, like fireflies submerged in water.

"Don't move." Chen Jie pressed down on the radio's suddenly restless knob. Amidst the "click" of gears engaging, the jade stone suddenly began to vibrate gently. Its frequency was as slow as the pendulum of an old grandfather clock, and he could feel that subtle tremor even through the canvas. His heart skipped a beat as he recalled the same rhythm when the stone first heated up in the creek at Suiyu Slope.

Zhao Kai nearly dropped his phone. "What's that noise? Did your bag come to life?" As he leaned in, he saw Chen Jie place the jade stone next to the radio. The green light on the stone's surface suddenly brightened, and miraculously, the static in the speaker weakened, faintly revealing the melody of a Ping opera, its lilting, nasal tones drifting over as if from a great distance.

"That's spooky..." Zhao Kai's voice tightened. "Can this stone actually fix radios?"

Chen Jie didn't reply, his fingertips tracing the surface of the jade stone. The vibration had stopped at some point, but the stone's surface was even colder than before, as if it had just been fished out of a creek. He suddenly remembered when the stone slab on Auntie Wang's pickle jar had been stirred by the jade stone; it had also trembled first and then gone still, as if resonating with some kind of frequency.

Grandma Zhang came out carrying an enamel bowl, the sweet aroma of brown sugar ginger tea spreading through the air. "Jie-zi, don't strain yourself if you can't fix it. Grandma doesn't need this thing to listen to." She glanced at the jade stone and suddenly laughed. "This stone looks really familiar; it's the same color as the one my old man picked up at Suiyu Slope when he was young."

Chen Jie's fingers froze abruptly. "Grandma Zhang knows about Suiyu Slope too?"

"How could I not?" The old lady added a piece of firewood to the stove, the firelight dancing in her wrinkles. "The stone he picked up back then could keep pickles from rotting, but it was later swindled away by a scrap collector, and he was so heartbroken he cried for half the night." She suddenly lowered her voice. "That stone could move too; it would tremble whenever it touched iron, just like the noise in your bag."

Zhao Kai suddenly gripped Chen Jie's shoulder. "Did you hear that? It can move! I told you this stone wasn't right—back at Wang Lei's stall, the water leaking from the freezer was gathering around your bag; that was its doing too, right?"

Chen Jie shoved the jade stone back into his tool bag. As he pulled the zipper halfway, he suddenly felt the vibration return, even lighter this time, like someone tapping Morse code on the stone's surface with their fingernails. He pulled out a multimeter to test the radio, and the needle actually swayed in time with the jade stone's vibrations, drawing tiny, jagged wave lines on the dial, looking just like water ripples in a creek.

"Can this stone conduct electricity?" Zhao Kai's eyes lit up as if he had discovered a new continent. "I knew it! When you fix things, there's light at your fingertips—it must be its doing!"

Chen Jie suddenly remembered the white light at his fingertips that had made the gears turn in front of the old grandfather clock in the ancestral hall, and how the jade stone's red light had slowed down time beneath the waterfall. These subtle vibrations were perhaps it "speaking," using its own frequency to respond to the surrounding iron and electrical currents, like an untuned radio always searching for the right frequency band.

"It's fixed." Chen Jie closed the radio's back cover. The Ping opera in the speaker suddenly became clear, the crisp, resonant female voice mixing with the sound of electricity, echoing through the old room. He slung his tool bag over his shoulder. The jade stone's vibration had stopped at some point, leaving only its coldness seeping through the canvas, like a piece of ice reminding him to keep the secret.

Zhao Kai followed behind, asking questions, his voice echoing in the hallway. Chen Jie didn't look back, but his mind was crystal clear—this slight vibration was no coincidence. Just like a machine half-repaired suddenly making an odd noise, there was always some component quietly transmitting a signal. And this stone he'd brought back from the mountains had likely already taken him as its most suitable "receiver."

Downstairs in the locust tree, sparrows had returned to the branches. Amidst their chirping, Chen Jie felt as if he could still hear the jade stone's vibration, as light as the ticking of an old grandfather clock, quietly counting down something in this Old neighborhood filled with the scent of everyday life.