What did you find?
Gu Wenhua was somewhat bewildered.
Shang Yechu's palms were sweaty, but her hands were ice-cold. Gu Wenhua was a little disgusted and was about to pull his hand away when Shang Yechu flicked his hand away with a finger and moved the progress bar back herself.
After noting down the time, Shang Yechu moved closer to Ji Juntao's computer and shifted the timeline of the frame-by-frame screenshot software to the previous point in time.
Click, click. Shang Yechu clicked the mouse repeatedly, and the images on the computer screen changed frame by frame until finally, they stopped on one image.
Gu Wenhua leaned closer to take a look and asked disappointedly, "What's wrong?"
This scene depicts Pinghua sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed) mending Xiaoyue's school uniform. While the composition is somewhat heartwarming, the plot is rather bland. Gu Wenhua couldn't see anything particularly special about it.
Shang Yechu moved back to Gu Wenhua's other computer, moved the progress bar to the point where she had just watched the video, and paused it.
"Did you figure it out?"
The scene shown here is Pinghua standing on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) kneading dough.
Gu Wenhua compared the images on the two computers, then rubbed his forehead in bewilderment: "Uh, Pinghua is doing different things?"
Shang Yechu, annoyed by his own incompetence, tapped the computer screen with her knuckles: "Here, what is this?"
"kang?"
What's on the kang (heated brick bed)?
"The kang cloth... Ah!"
Gu Wenhua exclaimed in surprise, "So that's what you meant!"
A kang cloth, also called a kang cover, is a sheet made of materials such as a base paper layer, synthetic leather, imitation leather, or artificial leather, and is laid on the surface of a heated kang (a traditional Chinese heated platform bed). Simply put, it's a plastic sheet placed on the kang. Kang cloth is moisture-proof, waterproof, easy to clean, and can cover the dusty, earthen kang. It is widely used in rural areas.
The scene where Pinghua mends Xiaoyue's school uniform takes place when Xiaoyue was in elementary school. In the scene, during Xiaoyue's elementary school years, a gaudy red cloth is laid on the earthen kang (heated brick bed) in his home. The cloth is slightly larger than the kang, so its edges are roughly folded and covered with cracks.
The red kang cloth has faded somewhat, and the part at the head of the kang, which is often exposed to high temperatures, has turned yellow and black, making it quite jarring. In addition, because the kang is made of yellow mud, the surface is not very smooth, resulting in many pits, bumps, and depressions on the kang cloth.
However, in the next scene, where Pinghua is kneading dough by the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed)—in this part of the story, Xiaoyue is already in junior high school—the earthen kang has been replaced by a brick kang, and the brick surface is now very smooth. The tattered red kang cloth has also been transformed into a thick, bright red kang felt!
The kang felt was the perfect size, with no awkward bends or bumps, and looked extremely presentable. However, because its color was very similar to the previous one, it wasn't immediately noticeable.
Moreover, besides the changes to the earthen kang (heated brick bed) and the kang cloth, there were other significant changes in the room as well.
In footage from Xiaoyue's elementary school days, there were only two sets of faded, old quilts and two dirty pillows on the pile of bedding on the kang (a heated brick bed), which were openly exposed. In footage from Xiaoyue's junior high school days, the pile of bedding was noticeably taller, and a large green floral tarpaulin was used to cover it.
In the footage from Xiaoyue's elementary school days, the Guan family's floor was a very ordinary yellow mud floor, compacted by the footsteps of people coming and going, with only one or two withered little weeds sprouting from the cracks along the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed). However, in the footage from a few years later during her junior high school years, the Guan family's floor had become a hard cement floor. Although it was still dusty, it was extremely smooth, and there was no longer any endless dust.
The old wardrobe next to Pinghua has been replaced by a second-hand wardrobe that is neither new nor old; the old-fashioned, bulky tabletop TV behind Pinghua has been replaced by a larger LCD TV; the table standing behind Pinghua has changed from a crippled wooden kang table to a large, foldable table that stands on the ground...
These changes are subtle and gradual, only noticeable when you look closely.
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