Chapter 91: The Sloppy Old Woman
To embroider good work, one must first be able to sit still, be calm in mind, and harmonious in breath. If one is restless and uneasy, it’s basically impossible to produce anything of quality. Ancient women spent years confined within their homes, not stepping out of the inner chambers. Their so-called pastimes could hardly involve singing, watching television, or strolling around shopping. What they did most was embroider.
To master a needlework technique, she must spend a long time practicing without the system unlocking the second one until she feels proficient in the first. Only then would the system enable the next. Since the system began unlocking needlework techniques, she has learned nearly ten different kinds.
The Spring Festival couplets sent out, whether to the Village Chief or Aunt Hua’s family, were very satisfactory, particularly those at the Village Chief’s home—they felt inevitable pride seeing their own door adorned with the couplets.
This year’s New Year was quite cold, due to a heavy snowfall. On the morning of the first day of the lunar year, every household was out early, shoveling snow. But because of the extreme cold, the snow never melted; instead, it formed many ice spires, and long chains of them hung from the eaves.
Somehow, an old woman in tattered clothes appeared in the village.
Her hair was almost entirely frosted over, and her cotton-padded coat was riddled with patched holes, through which tufts of cotton stuffing were visible. The coat, which smelled strongly of dust mixed with the snow, emitted an unpleasant odor.
Not many were outside the village. She seemed to be searching for something, wandering into a narrow alley and then circling back, then lowering her head and continuing her search. She breathed warm air into her hands, which were dry and cracked like bark, and scarred in various sizes.
When she reached the doorway of a house, she did not enter but hid to the side as if waiting for someone.