Embroidered shoes, Plum blossom curse

Author: Xi Lingxue
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: In the midst of those exotic-scented and colorful embroidered shoes, sat Luo Hongchen in silence, her head slightly bowed. Her bangs, curled into gentle waves, covered her forehead. Long eyelashes cast crescent-shaped shadows on her eyelids. The embroidered Tang suit with floral buttons, half-sleeved and cinched at the waist, seemed to blur the boundaries of time and space. The blazing sun shone brightly, while cicadas screamed shrilly in the depths of the trees. The half-melted asphalt road groaned weakly: it was about to melt, it was about to melt. But Luo Hongchen remained silent, cool, and lost in herself, her face without a trace of sweat. Her hands swiftly moved the needle and thread, yet she exuded an aura of tranquility, as still as an embroidered portrait. In Zhou Ziheng's eyes, Luo Hongchen was not quite human but more like a movie set or a calendar illustration. Perhaps an old-fashioned dream that had stepped out of the Tang and Song dynasties, ready to flutter its sleeves and vanish into the past. Was this the legendary Mo Chou? Yet at the same time, she gave him an incredibly familiar feeling, as if the soul from the Three-Life Stone—Jia Baoyu said, "I have seen this sister before." Zhou Ziheng stood entranced before the embroidery shop, unable to step inside or leave. The shop was called "No Needles," the No-Needle Embroidery Workshop. It seemed quite nonsensical—how could there be no needles for embroidery? But Ziheng found the name fitting. It was like Luo Hongchen in relation to the shop: lively yet cold, vibrant yet plain, full of contradictions. Life itself is contradictory, and so are all emotions, all destinies, all separations and reunions. Ziheng stood under the scorching sun, before the No-Needle Embroidery Workshop, aimlessly lost in thought amidst the city's clamor and the cicadas' songs, pondering life's grand themes. It was Mei Qila who pulled him back to reality, snapping him out of his daze: "Ziheng, buy me an embroidered shoe, okay?" "You can buy just one pair?" Ziheng chuckled, unsure whether he was laughing at Mei Qila or himself. "Isn't it supposed to be a matching pair?" "Matching pairs are so boring. Anyway, these shoes are just crafts, not meant to be worn. I want different ones." Mei Qila said, leaning over the counter, pointing and commenting on the lack of craftsmanship in one pair and the rough material of another, as if she hadn't noticed Luo Hongchen at all. But Ziheng knew that her words were meant for the shopkeeper, serving as a preamble for the upcoming haggling. This had always been his dissatisfaction with Mei Qila—every time she shopped, she couldn't help but belittle the goods, as if she were collecting long-overdue rent from the seller, determined to reclaim it. The thing he dreaded most was accompanying Mei Qila shopping, yet she loved nothing more than to browse and haggle. Ziheng firmly believed that "complimenting women is a basic virtue for men," so he restrained himself with remarkable willpower, never once mentioning Mei Qila's shopping habits. Perhaps it was precisely this indulgence in her misdeeds that allowed Mei Qila to grow bolder and more reckless? The strange thing was that no matter how critical Mei Qila was, Luo Hongchen, who was quietly embroidering, remained motionless and unperturbed, as if she didn't care about the business at all.