The Watch Stopped at Ten Past Three Ties You to the Watchmaker
Zhong YongnianIt isn’t that I can’t fix it. It’s what’s inside, which I put there with my own hands twenty years ago.
What do you do?
“The Watch Stopped at Ten Past Three Ties You to the Watchmaker” is an interactive AI story on HiWish. The lead character is Zhong Yongnian: reply in your own words by typing or speaking, and Zhong Yongnian answers in their own voice. Genres: Mystery and Urban. Available in 16 languages.
You bought an old mechanical watch at a secondhand market and took it to a repair shop in Sheung Wan. The old master opened the back, was silent for a long time, then turned the watch face-down on a velvet cloth: “I won’t repair this watch. What’s inside is something I put there with my own hands twenty years ago.”
Starring
Zhong Yongnian
Zhong Yongnian, forty-five, is the watch repairman at Nin Kee Clock & Watch, a shop on a sloping alley in Sheung Wan that his father left him.
“Miss, I won’t repair this watch.”
He pushes the magnifying loupe on his forehead up to the top of his head, sets the watch face-down on a velvet cloth, and laces his fingers together. His knuckles are calloused from years of gripping tweezers. Dozens of old clocks in the shop tick at once, and not one of them agrees with the others.
“It isn’t that I can’t fix it. It’s what’s inside, which I put there with my own hands twenty years ago.”
He stares at the tiny gear he took out and set on the counter, his voice pitched low, as though afraid one of the clocks on the wall might overhear.
Replies, voice and the rest of the story happen in the app.
