Morning Voice

"I'm late for the 'Koudou Dafu' (a type of steamed bun), and I still haven't sat down by 5:40. It's not too late to go downstairs now."

Zhou Yu's morning meeting notice was posted at the stairwell last night. So at 5:38 a. m., Sigelica sat in the shop with her unkempt hair, two dark circles under her eyes, and a daifuku in her hand. She took a bite to assert her ownership.

"Who set the time for the morning meeting?" she asked.

"The schedule," Zhou Yu pointed to the wall, "New topic, just one: Listening."

Dania was stirring the porridge behind the bar. The pot was bubbling away, the aroma of rice mixed with the scent of beans. Bozai squatted at her feet, looking up at the pot, his tail swishing back and forth.

At 5:44 sharp, the broadcast started.

A soft melody spread from the Rainbow Sound Tower in the distance, and the roller shutters of every shop along the street awoke one by one, clanging and banging as if they had made a pact.

Dania stopped stirring the porridge.

She placed the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot, tilted her head, and listened to the entire passage.

"Here it comes again," she whispered. "At the end of this sound, there's a very faint, off-key note. Just a moment, like a grain of sand hidden in the sound of a bell."

"Which second?" Chisaki's terminal was already raised in mid-air, the red recording dot lit up.

"Finally," Dania thought for a moment, "The last time, when we count to eleven."

Eleven. Chisaki wrote down these three words, rewound, and played them again at maximum volume. The speaker was spotless, without a single grain of sand.

"I can't hear you," she said. "You're probably the only one in the whole world who can hear me."

"I'll save this recording for now." Chisaki put the file away and tapped the screen with her fingertips. "Today's task: open it and take a look."

The canvas bag hung on the back of a chair next to the bar. Zhou Yu reached in and touched it; the old-fashioned digital watch was covered with a layer of warmth, as if it had just been warmed by his palm, but the screen was black, and no notifications popped up.

He noted the fever on the back of the schedule, but it didn't trigger an alarm.

"Does it recognize this voice?" Dania asked, leaning closer.

"I know him, but I pretend I don't." Zhou Yu pulled her hand away. "Just like some people at work."

"Who are you talking about!" Sigelica, biting into a daifuku (a type of Japanese tofu).

The first customer to come in was an old lady from Sakuramachi. She bought a pound of coffee beans and we chatted for a bit.

"You're up this early too?" The old woman counted her change. "At this hour, the whole street is buzzing with excitement."

"Grandma, how many years has this broadcast been going on?" Zhou Yu asked.

"It's been like this since I was a child." The mother-in-law thought for a moment. "My grandma said she was like this when she was a child too. 5:44, without fail. Nobody can really explain why it's this time; we just got used to it after hearing it so many times."

She left carrying the beans. Zhou Yu and Chisaki exchanged a glance.

"It's even older than the Old Honami schedule," Chisaki whispered. "This timetable is older than the archives."

There weren't many customers in the shop that morning. Chisaki occupied a corner table, wearing one earphone and leaving the other to listen to the recording. She cut the recording into small segments and looked at them second by second. The sound waves on the screen were smooth, except for the segment at the end of the bell, which had abnormally many jagged edges.

"Found it." At noon, she slammed the terminal on the table. "The static only appeared at 5:44, lasting eleven seconds, hidden in the afterglow of the clock. At other times, it was completely silent."

"So it only goes to work once a day?" Sigelica leaned closer to look.

"Once a day, eleven seconds each time." Chisaki pulled up another document, old photos from the municipal public archives. "Look at this."

The photo shows a yellowed program schedule with the title. "Old Honami Morning Voice." The broadcast starts at 5:44 AM. The opening bell chimes eleven times.

"Old Honami is the city before the disaster." Chisaki pointed to the signature. "After the old city was gone, this format was discontinued. The new city changed the music, the announcer's voice, and even the bell tolls were replaced with electronic sounds. Only the broadcast start time of 5:44 remained, and nobody knows why it was kept."

"Does this broadcast sound similar to the one by Old Honami?" Zhou Yu asked.

"It doesn't seem like it. The melody is new, and the bell sound is electronically synthesized." Chisaki superimposed the two audio clips for comparison. "Except for that noise. The waveform of the noise overlaps 94% with the aftersound of Old Honami in the file."

"Ninety-four percent overlap, just missing that 0.6%?"

"It's not the sound that's lacking," Chisaki said, "It's the sense of age. The rough edges of old cassette tapes can't be replicated with synthesized audio."

The store was silent for two seconds.

"So who's broadcasting every day on time now?" Zhou Yu asked.

"I don't know." Chisaki closed the terminal. "The equipment is from that era. All that's left of the Rainbow Sound Tower is an old, sealed-off archive."

"Should we call the police?" Sigelica asked. "Or report it to the registry office? We'll have to file a report if we get into trouble during the observation period."

"What should I report?" Zhou Yu refilled his coffee. "It hasn't been absent, hasn't disturbed the peace, and has been with the company longer than everyone else on this street. Treat it as a long-serving employee for now, and continue to observe."

"What if it stops airing one day?"

"Then let's consider it retired," Zhou Yu said. "Retirement means no accountability; that's part of our store's culture."

As evening fell and the shop closed, Dania moved a small stool to the shop entrance, sat with half a bowl of leftover porridge in her hand, and listened to the sounds of the street.

When Zhou Yu came out, she was staring blankly in the direction of the Rainbow Sound Tower.

"Xiao Yu, I've been thinking about this all day," she said. "That voice doesn't sound like a bad person."

"Like what?"

"It's like someone who really wants to go to work, but has no work to do." She spoke slowly, enunciating each word clearly. "They come on time every day, ring the bell eleven times, say that one sentence, and then leave. They follow the rules."

Sigelica moved her stool over and, after a three-second silence, spoke first, "Should we send it out a job posting?"

"You're already on the outside," Zhou Yu said. "We don't need anyone else."

"I'm serious!" Sigelica pointed to her ear. "Only Dania can hear it in the whole store. What if it really wants the job? Missing out on an honest employee would be your loss."

"Written down." Zhou Yu took out a pen, wrote a line of small print in the corner of the schedule, and read it aloud, "Position pending, morning broadcast. Requirements: able to ring the bell, punctual, gentle voice."

Chisa wiped her knife as she passed by, leaving behind the comment. "You still need to know how to dodge the fog."

Dania smiled, her eyes crinkling into slits. A cool breeze came from the street corner, and she shrank her neck. Zhou Yu raised his hand and gently covered her ears with his palm.

"Listen to dinner first, bad noises come after me."

His palm was pressed against the side of her hair, warm. Dania didn't flinch, staying close to his hand for a while, then suddenly looked up. "Xiao Yu, is your heartbeat also on the schedule?"

"Hmm," Zhou Yu answered quickly, "You're number one."

At ten o'clock at night, everyone went back to their rooms. The night lamp by the bedside was on, the light from the digital watch set to its dimmest setting.

In the darkness, Dania turned over, facing him.

"Xiao Yu."

"Um."

Will I still be able to hear it at 5:44 tomorrow?

"Yes," Zhou Yu said. "Your ears are more valuable than mine, so get some sleep."

She was satisfied, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and her breathing slowly subsided.

The lights were still on in Chisaki's room next door.

She saved the recording from the daytime, thought for a while about the filename, and typed four words: "To Do," then listened to it.

Before saving the game, she casually checked the attribute verification time. Eleven seconds, that's right.

But she glanced at the file size again, looking at that line of numbers three times.

An eleven-second recording shouldn't be this big. This file size looks like it's been recorded on a loop for many, many years.