Zheng Wanqing was immersed in the scent of ink in the newly opened Western Bookstore on Lizhan Street, concentrating on searching for a favorite poetry collection among the bookshelves. Just as her fingertips brushed over a beautifully bound book, a sudden noisy commotion came from outside the window.

She subconsciously looked in the direction of the voice and saw a woman as thin as a willow sitting on the dry roadside after the rain.

The hem of the woman's washed-bleached blue shirt was soaked in muddy water, and a pair of three-inch golden lotus feet abandoned by the times slipped out of her embroidered shoes, like two white magnolias run over by wheels, so pale that they were dazzling.

A boy of about four or five years old was grabbing the corner of her clothes tightly, his eyes like black grapes filled with panic.

"I told you that your little feet shouldn't go out!"

Zheng Wanqing's pupils shrank slightly. The man in a flannel suit who was frantically slapping the mud and water splashing on his trouser legs with a handkerchief was Lin Hezhi, who had recently published "On Women's Liberation" in "Juewu".

Three days ago, Xie Yun leaned back in the leather sofa, flicking the newspaper in which his article was published with his slender fingers and sneering: "It's all pidgin, not as clear as the storytellers on the flyover."

The gaze behind the gold-rimmed glasses of this new-style talent is colder than the ice on the Haihe River in December.

The woman trembled as she took out her embroidered handkerchief to wipe him, but it fell to the ground with a "pop". The white handkerchief floated into the puddle of water, and the crooked twin lotus on it gradually spread.

"Don't touch it! This material is from Britain. Even if you embroider handkerchiefs for ten years, it won't be worth half a foot of cloth!" His words were vicious and his eyes were full of disgust.

"Sir, please forgive me..." The woman's voice was as thin as a mosquito, and tears were welling up in her eyes.

"That's enough!" Lin Hezhi suddenly raised his voice and interrupted her rudely, causing several female students wearing indigo cheongsams to stop and look. "This is the tragedy of arranged marriages! Marriages without a common language are fundamentally inhumane!"

Lin Hezhi took out a silver dollar and threw it on the ground. The coin spun around the woman's knees for a few times. "Go back by yourself."

After saying this, she flicked her sleeves and walked away. The woman collapsed in the puddle, and the child beside her burst into tears out of fear.

Zheng Wanqing watched this scene and felt a surge of indignation and sympathy in her heart.

The western-style clock in the bookstore was striking four, and Zheng Wanqing tightly grasped the hard cover of the poetry collection. Xie Yun stood behind her without her noticing, and his warm palm covered the back of her slightly cool hand.

"That Lin Hezhi was advocating for women's rights in Awakening last month." She stared out the window and whispered.

Xie Yun stroked the wedding ring on her ring finger with his thumb: "What these new-school writers are best at is using other people's suffering as a stepping stone for progress."

The copper bell on the glass door suddenly rang crisply.

The hem of Zheng Wanqing's apricot-colored cheongsam swept across the threshold, and the sunlight after the rain stretched her shadow into a slender shape.

When she squatted down, she smelled the sour scent of cheap osmanthus oil in the woman's hair and saw the densely packed stitches and threads on the inside of her collar that were repeatedly mended.

"Madam..." Zheng Wanqing handed over the silk handkerchief that she had scented with jasmine flowers.

The woman slowly raised her tear-stained face and looked at Zheng Wanqing with empty eyes, as if she had lost all hope.

Xie Yun also came forward, handed some silver dollars to the woman, and said, "Take the bus back home with the children later."

The woman hesitated for a moment, a trace of struggle flashed in her eyes, but she finally took the silver dollar and thanked him repeatedly with trembling lips.