38: Chapter 38 The Chair That Hurts Your Butt

The autumn atmosphere of the Old neighborhood was soaked in morning dew. The locust tree leaves were half-drenched, hanging down heavily. As the wind passed, the tips of the falling leaves, dusted with water droplets, struck the concrete ground, leaving fine, damp marks.

The wild chrysanthemums at the base of the wall were wrapped in frost, their petals curled into little clusters, yet their fragrance was even richer, mingling with the scent of firewood drifting from Grandma Zhang's coal stove, spreading into a faint mist at the alley entrance.

Chen Jie squatted beside the bench, sandpaper in hand, smoothing out the burrs on the edge of the seat. Rust shavings mixed with wood chips fell onto the withered leaves covering the ground, looking like scattered, earthy-yellow stars.

On the stone table not far away, Grandma Zhang's enamel mug was steaming; the delicate fragrance of chrysanthemum tea entwined with the water vapor, drifting upward and condensing into a fine mist in the morning light.

"Jie-zi, come over and take a look!"

Grandma Zhang leaned on her cane and shuffled to the bench, her blue cloth shirt's cuffs stained with a bit of soot. "You repaired this chair sturdily enough, but sitting on it... why does it feel like sitting on a rock from Suiyu Slope?"

She steadied herself against the back of the chair and sat down to test it, her brows immediately knitting together. She patted the middle of the seat, "Look here, there's a small bump, it digs into your bones—it's harder than the wooden stool for my old grandfather clock!"

Chen Jie straightened up and touched the bump in the middle of the seat; it was a blob of solder from when he'd welded the steel bars last time, which hadn't been smoothed out and was hidden under the canvas seat cover.

"That was my oversight, I'll just file it smooth." He pulled a small file from his backpack, its metal edge glinting in the morning light.

"You child, you always leave loose ends when you work." Grandma Zhang sighed and stuffed an apple into his hand, the skin still covered in fuzz. "A while back when you fixed my radio, the back cover wasn't closed tight, and now it drops parts whenever it gets bumped. But then again, that radio sings clearer now than it did when it was young, wouldn't you say that's strange?"

Chen Jie smiled, the file making a "shushing" sound against the solder: "Old items are just like that, like the rocks in the mountains; you have to go with their nature. Your radio is a vacuum tube model, so it's naturally durable."

He suddenly thought of the jade stone in his backpack. When he was at Suiyu Slope, the patterns on the stone surfaces were never intentionally regular, and the curves at the bends were naturally rounded, which was actually more pleasing to the eye than anything artificially carved.

"Rocks in the mountains?" Grandma Zhang's eyes brightened, and she peered at his backpack. "Are you talking about that dark green stone you picked up? Wang Lei was nagging at me, saying his braised dishes don't spoil even after two days, and he's afraid it's because they were touched by the Spiritual Qi of that stone?"

"It's just an ordinary stone." Chen Jie said vaguely. When the file stopped, the bump had been smoothed flat, leaving only a shallow mark. "Wang Lei just uses plenty of braising spices, it has nothing to do with the stone."

"I don't believe it." Grandma Zhang sat on the bench, not frowning this time. "When my old man was young, he used to gather herbs on Suiyu Slope, and he said the rocks on that slope could move on their own and would manifest their power when they encountered someone fated. This stone of yours... could it be the same kind of thing he talked about?"

She suddenly lowered her voice, "Last time I saw a blue light shining from your backpack, just like the light from the gears of the old grandfather clock in the ancestral hall. Don't keep it from Grandma."

Chen Jie's hand paused, and the file almost fell to the ground. He hadn't expected Grandma Zhang to be so observant, so he had to deflect: "Your eyes must be playing tricks on you, it was just the reflection of sunlight through the plastic bag. Listen, the radio is singing again."

Grandma Zhang was indeed distracted, tilting her head to listen to the Pingju opera singing, a smile gradually forming at the corners of her mouth. "My old man and I listened to this 'flower as matchmaker' at least fifty times when we were young."

She patted the repaired seat. "Alright, it doesn't dig into my butt anymore. Grandma will be here every day listening to the opera, waiting to see what other new things that stone of yours can stir up."

The wind swept a withered leaf across the seat. Chen Jie stuffed the file into his backpack, his fingertips touching the coldness of the jade stone. Watching Grandma Zhang squinting as she listened to the opera, he suddenly felt that this complaint about the chair "digging into her butt" hid something more precious than Spiritual Qi—just like the pendulum of the old grandfather clock; it looked ordinary, yet it ticked away the days in a steady, solid rhythm.