Who sent you the purple letter

Author: Xia Xiaofang / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Cen Ang rushed downstairs with a secret, ding ding ding. As soon as she stepped out of the hallway, she hadn’t walked more than a few steps before her secret was almost exposed. A boy stood far away, shouting at her, “Cen Ang, did you bring the silkworm box?” Cen Ang ran toward the boy, shaking her hands and telling him not to shout. After running about ten meters, she stopped and looked back at the windows on the sixth floor. Seeing no sign of her dad’s head, she breathed a sigh of relief. The boy ran toward her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t let my dad hear.”
“You didn’t tell your dad?” The boy asked Cen Ang, tilting his head. The boy was named Zhang Zeng, who was unusually short for his age. He was in fifth grade but looked like a second grader. Cen Ang gave a mischievous smile.
“I understand,” Zhang Zeng said. “You want to act first and tell him later.”
“I’ll tell him this afternoon,” Cen Ang replied.
Cen Ang was a girl with a round face and slender limbs, with delicate eyes. She wasn’t wearing pigtails, and two strands of hair fell behind her head, like two thick dog-tail grasses.
“My mom won’t let me keep silkworms,” Zhang Zeng said, walking beside Cen Ang, who was a whole head taller than him. “She said if I dare to bring one home, she’ll throw me and the silkworm out together.”
“Haha, haha,” Cen Ang laughed. Zhang Zeng asked, “By the way, do silkworms like to eat vegetables?”
“They don’t.”
“Such picky eaters.”
“This isn’t pickiness,” Cen Ang corrected him. “Would a lion like to eat vegetables?”
“I remember there’s a type of silkworm that doesn’t eat mulberry leaves.”
“Is it ginseng silkworm?”
“I forgot, it looks like a caterpillar.”
“It’s ginseng silkworm then.”
This morning, Cen Ang was in a cheerful mood and talked more than usual. “Ginseng silkworms look a bit timid, with brown spiny hairs on their bodies.”
“Will Zhao Tingting’s silkworms grow hair?”
“No.” Cen Ang laughed.
“What if they do?”
“It’s impossible.” Cen Ang laughed again.
Zhao Tingting in their class had silkworm eggs, and everyone knew about it. Last semester, Zhao Tingting brought the silkworm eggs to school for everyone to see. She told everyone that her dad’s grandmother used to raise silkworms and had filled an entire room with them. At night, if you stepped into that room, it would be filled with noise. Tens of thousands of silkworms eating mulberry leaves sounded like an army charging at you. Everyone listened in awe, not realizing that soft and cuddly silkworms could be so amazing!
A boy sighed and said with a wistful tone, “If we recorded that sound and played it at the city gate, Zhuge Liang wouldn’t have needed to sing the ‘Empty Fort Strategy’.”
Everyone laughed happily and for a moment, felt as if they had been born in the wrong era. If they had been born fifty years earlier, they could have gone to Zhao Tingting’s dad’s grandmother’s house to hear the mysterious “killing sound” and maybe even take a few silkworms to raise.
Zhao Tingting was the class representative for Chinese class and was very eloquent. Seeing that she had everyone’s attention, she opened her small pink piggy bank, took out a piece of paper solemnly, and showed it to everyone. They saw small gray particles densely scattered on the paper.
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