As a torrential downpour on the summer solstice filled the pond, her three-year-old son, Tiezhu, was pounding the chipped enamel basin with a stick. Watching the splashing water, Chen Chunhua was transported back to a midsummer night when Ye Qingliu was six years old.
The young master sat on the piano bench in his silk pajamas, his feet unable to reach the pedals, yet he insisted on playing the "Moonlight Sonata." Hua Jinyue held a strawberry bear as a footrest, her lace nightgown sweeping across the ebony floor: "Brother, you played it wrong! It's dong-da-da-da-da!"
"Shut up!" Tiezhu suddenly threw the enamel basin into the water. Chen Chunhua raised her hand to hit him, but saw the child shrinking his neck in the same way as Ye Qingliu.
But the young master would hold her arm and shake: "Sister Chunhua, please practice with me~" Her eyelashes cast shadows like small fans in the moonlight, and Tiezhu's snot was dripping down the wooden stick into the muddy water.
When the Jingzhe thunder startled sparrows, Chen Chunhua found half a fairy tale book in the barn. Wang Tiezhu tore off the pages and folded an airplane.
"Mom, look!" Tiezhu launched a paper airplane into the chicken coop. Chen Chunhua watched the fragments of the illustration drift into the dung heap, and suddenly remembered the candy wrapper Ye Hua Jinyue had slipped her—the one with Swarovski crystals printed on it, which Ye Qingliu had folded into musical notes and hidden in the music sheet.
At dusk during the Grain Full season, Tiezhu fell into a paddy field chasing a dragonfly. Chen Chunhua picked up a crying child, mud dripping from her hair in strings.
This scene overlaps with the time when Ye Qingliu fell into the water at the age of six - the young master fell into the koi pond but giggled, and Hua Jinyue insisted that his brother was the "Mermaid Prince".
The housekeeper wanted to take him to change clothes, but the child threw himself wetly into her arms: "Sister Chunhua, it smells so good!"
"So dirty!" Chen Chunhua tossed the iron pillar to the edge of the well. Wang Tiezhu, shivering with mud on his face, looked a lot like Ye Qingliu after Hua Jinyue had her milk tea splashed on him as a prank.
But Ye Qingliu would be wrapped in a Fendi blanket and ask for a hug, while Wang Tiezhu was shaking leeches onto her coarse cloth clothes.
On the morning of White Dew, Wang Tiezhu painted "stars" all over the wall with stove ash. Chen Chunhua looked at the crooked circles, and suddenly the sound of Ye Qingliu's piano, played when he was six, rang in her ears.
The young master always loved to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" after breakfast, smearing jam on the keys, saying it would "add a touch of sweetness to the notes." Hua Jinyue would steal the butler's silver spoon and cast the reflected light into the Milky Way.
"Mom, smile!" Tiezhu's ash-covered hand touched the corner of her mouth. Chen Chunhua turned away, and in the broken mirror fragments she saw the reflection of the Ye family's breakfast room—Ye Qingliu smearing blueberry jam on her apron, and Hua Jinyue was drawing a smiley face on toast with butter.
Now the "stars" on the iron pillars are crooked like wounds, shedding gray tears on the moldy earthen walls.
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On Frost's Descent Day, Chen Chunhua taught Tiezhu to identify the Big Dipper. The child pointed to the dimmest auxiliary star and shouted "firefly," a mistake that reminded her of Ye Qingliu's astronomy class when she was six.
Hua Jinyue always calls the North Star a "diamond lamp," while Ye Qingliu can improvise constellation connections on the piano. As the tutor shakes her head and sighs, two children point their telescopes at her, saying, "Sister Chunhua is the brightest star in the night sky!"
"Wrong!" She slapped the foxtail grass from Tiezhu's hand. The snapping sound startled a jackdaw, like the sound of a flower soaked in the moonlight that spilled over a crystal glass.
But the little princess would jump onto the piano stool barefoot and play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", using the sound of the piano to gild her mistakes, while Tiezhu's crying was echoing in the pigpen.
While making dumplings on the winter solstice, Wang Tiezhu applied flour paste to the shrine. The moment Chen Chunhua grabbed his collar, bran flakes fell like snow.
This scene overlaps with the Christmas Eve when Ye Qingliu was sixth - the young master stole gold powder and sprinkled it all over the piano room, and Hua Jinyue said it was "the first snow for Sister Chunhua."
When Butler Li arrived with a vacuum cleaner, the two children were using piano keys to imitate the sound of sleigh bells.
"Mom, look!" Tiezhu brought over the twisted dough rabbit. Chen Chunhua looked at the earless "masterpiece" and suddenly remembered the birthday bear Ye Qingliu had made out of fondant—although its limbs were uncoordinated, it wore a miniature chef's hat.
The young master blushed and said, "This is Chunhua Bear. He can make delicious cloud bread."
At noon on the Spring Equinox, Tiezhu wove a "crown" out of foxtail grass. Chen Chunhua, looking at the spider webs among the grass stems, suddenly snatched them away and threw them into the stove.
As the flames devoured the grass leaves, Chen Chunhua seemed to see the small diamond crown that Ye Qingliu was wearing when he was playing games - the young master secretly put it on her head, saying "Sister Chunhua is the real queen of music."
Wang Tiezhu's cries startled the chickens, but Chen Chunhua stared at the sparks flickering in the ashes.
Six-year-old Ye Qingliu was playing "Für Alice" deep in his memory. Hua Jinyue strung wisteria flowers into a necklace. The two children reached out to her in the moonlight: "Sister Chunhua, what's ours is yours forever!"
On a cold night, Chen Chunhua was mending Tiezhu's cotton trousers when Wang Daniu's wine bottle smashed into a pickle jar. Pickle juice mixed with glass shards splattered onto the earthen wall, and Tiezhu huddled in a corner, trembling, looked a lot like herself, kneeling in the mansion's back garden as Madam Yi'an punished her.
"Spendthrift woman! You put so much salt!" Wang Daniu swung the fire poker and hit her. Chen Chunhua instinctively protected the back of her neck, the same action she had used when Lady Yi An had punished her.
The enamel vase that Hua Jinyue had stolen shattered on the Persian carpet. Madam Yi An's jade ring scraped across Chen Chunhua's cheek. "You lowly thing! You can't even pay for half a year's wages!"
Six-year-old Ye Qingliu suddenly rushed in and slammed the piano sheet music onto the fragments: "I asked Sister Chunhua to use the vase as a metronome!"
The young master's fingers were still stained with chocolate, but he sat upright on the piano bench: "Mozart loved the sound of porcelain!"
Hua Jinyue rolled into the pile of debris holding the strawberry bear: "It was Jinyue who wanted to hear the ding-dong sound!" The lace stockings were torn, and blood beads were made into a necklace.
When Madam Yi An left in anger, Ye Qingliu secretly stuffed a piece of Swiss candy into her palm and said, "Sister Chunhua, eat it quickly. It will be sweet and the pain will go away."
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