29: Chapter 29 Grandma Zhang's Radio is Broken

Under the locust tree in the Old neighborhood, Brother Li's bicycle chain was still making a "clack" sound. Chen Jie had just tightened the last screw when the phone in his pocket vibrated.

It was Grandma Zhang calling. The static in the earpiece was even harsher than the white noise of a radio: "Little Jie-zi, come quickly! That old radio of mine... has gone mute again!"

As Chen Jie ran toward the alley entrance, his canvas backpack bounced violently on his back. The wrench inside struck the jade stone, making a "clinking" sound, as if urging him to hurry.

Zhao Kai followed behind, holding a popsicle in his mouth, the plastic wrapper blown against his face by the wind: "I'm telling you, you just can't sit still. Grandma Zhang's radio is even older than her reading glasses. Why not just throw it away and buy a new one? It would be so much easier."

"What do you know?" Chen Jie slammed on the brakes, nearly colliding with a tricycle selling tofu pudding. "That was left behind by Grandpa Zhang. The date of their wedding is engraved on the casing—didn't you see it when we fixed it last time?"

He dragged Zhao Kai into the stairwell; the rust on the stair railing rubbed against his palm, feeling like a layer of sandpaper.

Grandma Zhang's wooden door was ajar. As soon as he pushed it open, he caught a faint scent of sandalwood. The old-fashioned radio sat on the chest of drawers, its red lacquer casing faded to a dull shade, with aged tea stains embedded in the wood grain on the side.

Grandma Zhang was wiping the glass cover with a flannel cloth. When she saw Chen Jie enter, the cloth suddenly dropped from her hand: "That's the one! It was perfectly fine this morning, but then it suddenly went silent while sitting there. Patting it doesn't help either. It's just like when you and Grandpa Zhang used to have arguments—so stubborn!"

Chen Jie crouched in front of the chest of drawers. As soon as his fingertips touched the radio knob, he felt a slight tingling in the web between his thumb and index finger. This sensation was very familiar—he had felt a similar tingle when touching the old grandfather clock in the ancestral hall and when pulling Zhao Kai by the waterfall, like a thin stream crawling up his veins.

Subconsciously, he reached for his backpack. The jade stone was hot through the canvas, even more so than when he was at the braised food stall.

"That's creepy..." Zhao Kai leaned in, pointing his phone camera at the radio. "You haven't even started fixing it yet, and it's already shaking on its own?"

Sure enough, the radio's needle suddenly trembled lightly on the dial, as if pulled by something, swaying back and forth around the "Central People's Broadcasting Station" frequency.

Chen Jie opened the back cover. The capacitor components on the circuit board were covered in a thin layer of dust. Just as he was about to clean them with tweezers, the jade stone in his backpack suddenly let out a "hum." A faint green light seeped through the canvas, casting tiny specks of light onto the circuit board.

"Look at that solder joint!" Grandma Zhang suddenly shouted, her voice trembling.

When Chen Jie looked down, he saw the cold solder joint on the edge of the circuit board slowly becoming full in the green light, as if it had been re-melted with solder. The needle "clicked" and settled on a frequency. Suddenly, the sound of Pingju opera came from the speaker—the clear, crisp female voice, mixed with slight static, echoed through the room—it was Grandma Zhang's favorite, "flower as matchmaker."

"It's alive! It's really alive!" Grandma Zhang's tears fell onto the radio. "If the old man were here, he would surely say this was him manifesting..."

Zhao Kai's hand holding the phone froze in mid-air, not even noticing that the popsicle in his mouth had melted: "This... can this jade stone even repair circuits?"

Chen Jie snapped the back cover shut, the tingling in his fingertips gradually fading. The jade stone in his backpack had cooled down. The patterns on the stone's surface faintly revealed the shape of a wrench beneath the canvas, exactly the same as what he had seen by the pool at Suiyu Slope.

He suddenly remembered what Old Liu had said—the stones of Suiyu Slope are imbued with Spiritual Qi, can recognize their master, and can manifest miracles. Could it be that this jade stone not only absorbs water, smoke, and slows down time, but can also repair old objects according to his intentions?

"Must have been a loose connection," Chen Jie said vaguely, slinging his tool bag over his shoulder. Grandma Zhang insisted on stuffing a bag of roasted peanuts into his hands, saying she had roasted them herself; they exuded a toasted aroma.

As they went downstairs, Zhao Kai suddenly grabbed his arm, his eyes wide: "Tell me honestly, has this stone become a spirit? From the mountains to the city, it hasn't done a single normal thing!"

Chen Jie smiled and didn't reply. Sunlight filtered through the locust tree leaves, weaving a golden net on the ground. The jade stone in his backpack tapped lightly against the wrench, making a "ding" sound, as if responding to something.

He knew that Grandma Zhang's radio would not be the last object "repaired" by this stone. Just like those old items in the Old neighborhood that held stories within them, one day, they would all come back to life in the faint glow of the jade stone.