The Complete Collection of Qiongyao 4 -- I Am a Cloud

Author: Qiong Yao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Excerpt:
A May afternoon. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue, the sun shining on it with brilliance and radiance. A few white clouds drifted lazily across the horizon, carrying a sense of leisurely comfort, freedom, and unrestrained ease, from one side of the sky to the other. Wanlu looked up at the sky, watching the clouds drift and roam, and she couldn’t help but half-walk and half-hop with her feet, her heart filled with a joy that belonged to youth, to sunshine, to the vastness of the sky. This feeling of joy was hard to explain—it surged like a tide in her chest. The weather, the sunlight, the clouds, and the gentle breeze of early summer all made her happy, made her want to laugh, to jump, to sing. And today was a particularly joyful day! Twenty years old, celebrating her birthday, which meant she was coming of age! At home, her parents would surely have made some preparations, and her older brother Zhao Pei would probably be jealous, complaining that her parents were "biased toward girls over boys." She couldn’t help but smile, clutching her book tighter, and hurriedly made her way home. Her gaze still lingered on the clouds, her steps half-jumping and half-hopping. Her brother Zhao Pei always said, "Wanlu is so unrefined! She walks without grace, sits without grace, and stands without grace! All the girls are gentle and demure, but only Wanlu, even at twenty, still acts like a big boy!" So what? If she acted like a boy, what was the harm? Wanlu shrugged and suddenly noticed a "Golden Rain Tree" by the roadside, its branches heavy with