Jin spent the summer with his grandmother in a village halfway up Green Cloud Mountain. On his first walk, he found a wooden sign at a fork in the trail. One arrow pointed to “Old Tea House,” but the path beneath it ended at a wall of ferns. The other arrow was blank. Jin stood there, confused, while the afternoon mist swallowed the peaks.
金在青云山半山腰的村子里和奶奶一起过暑假。第一次散步时，他在小路的岔口发现一块木路标。一个箭头指向“老茶馆”，可箭头下方的小路尽头却是一堵蕨类植物组成的墙。另一个箭头则是空白的。金站在那里，满心疑惑，午后的雾气渐渐吞没了山峰。
Back home, his grandmother laughed gently. “That sign has been wrong for years,” she said. “The tea house burned down before you were born.” Jin wondered why nobody had fixed it. The next morning, he borrowed a pencil and a notebook and walked every trail around the village. He drew each turn, bridge, and spring, then compared his map with the broken sign.
回到家，奶奶轻轻地笑了。“那块路标已经错了好多年，”她说，“你出生前，老茶馆就烧毁了。”金不明白为什么没人修好它。第二天早上，他借来铅笔和笔记本，走遍村子周围的每条小路。他画下每个转弯、每座桥和每处泉水，再把自己的地图和那块破损的路标对照。
A week later, a group of hikers knocked on his grandmother’s door. They had followed the blank arrow and wandered for hours. One woman had twisted her ankle. Jin felt responsible, even though he had not made the sign. He led them to the clinic, then returned to the fork with red paint and a board. He painted a clear arrow toward the village.
一周后，一群远足者敲响了奶奶家的门。他们跟着那个空白箭头走了很久，迷了路。其中一位女士还扭伤了脚踝。虽然路标不是金做的，他仍觉得有责任。他带他们去了诊所，然后带着红漆和一块木板回到岔口。他画了一个清楚的箭头，指向村子。
Before he finished, a woodcarver named Uncle Fang arrived. “You cannot fix every path alone,” he said. “And paint washes away in the rain.” He showed Jin how to cut letters into wood and how to mark distances. Together they made new signs. Each one had a symbol for the clinic, the school, and the spring, so travelers who could not read Chinese would understand.
他还没画完，一位名叫方叔的木匠来了。“你不可能一个人修好所有的路，”他说，“而且颜料会被雨水冲掉。”他教金怎样在木头上刻字，怎样标出距离。他们一起做了几块新路标。每块都带有代表诊所、学校和泉水的图案，这样即使看不懂中文的旅人也能明白。
On the last day of summer, the village held a small ceremony at the fork. Uncle Fang hammered the new signs into place while children tied ribbons around the posts. Jin’s grandmother brought tea and sesame cakes. A hiker from the city read the symbols aloud: clinic, school, spring. “This is the first time I have understood a mountain trail,” she said.
暑假的最后一天，村子在岔口举行了一场小小的仪式。方叔把新路标钉好，孩子们在木柱上系彩带。金的奶奶带来了茶和芝麻饼。一位从城里来的远足者大声读出那些图案：诊所、学校、泉水。“这是我第一次真正看懂一条山路。”她说。
Jin looked at his notebook. The map was messy, but every mark matched a real place. His grandmother touched his shoulder. “A good sign does not tell people where to go,” she said. “It helps them trust the path.” Jin gave a copy of the map to the village school. The mountain would change with every season, and someone else would need to keep the signs true.
金看着自己的笔记本。地图虽然凌乱，但每个标记都对应着一个真实的地方。奶奶把手放在他肩上。“好的路标不只是告诉人们该往哪里走，”她说，“它让人相信这条路。”金把地图的副本送给了村小学。山会随着季节改变，将来还需要别人继续让路标保持准确。