Feast of Flowers

“Huahua?!” Tan Yuan looked at Hua Jin in surprise. Recently, they had accepted several high-priced custom orders. Just embroidering these required working overtime, and now they had to embroider such a large piece? How could they possibly have enough time?

The middle-aged man, seeing the change in Tan Yuan's expression, guessed that she might not want to take his business. He hunched his shoulders, rubbed his hands together, and said softly, “I, I’m willing to pay more, could you…”

“Let me show you the catalog.” Hua Jin handed the catalog to the man. Instead of quoting a price, she carefully explained the different embroidery methods and the approximate time required for each.

The man listened attentively. He flipped through the catalog and looked at the photos of finished pieces. After much hesitation, he chose an embroidery style that could be completed in about a month.

When it came time to pay the deposit, the man pulled a dirty, old wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket. The wallet was imprinted with a large, counterfeit logo. As he counted the money, the man said somewhat sheepishly, “I don’t know how to use mobile payments. I heard there are many viruses online, and your money can be stolen from your phone if you’re not careful.”

He’d heard that young people in big cities nowadays prefer to use mobile payments, even scanning their phones to buy snacks on the roadside. His old-fashioned way of paying might not be appreciated.

“Cash is fine. It feels more substantial in hand.” Hua Jin handed the man a deposit receipt. “My and my colleague’s phone numbers are on it. You can contact us if you need anything.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The man repeated his thanks three times. He put the receipt into his wallet and quickly disappeared out the door.

“Huahua.” After the man had left, Tan Yuan said with concern, “Last time, someone offered three times the price, and you weren’t willing to rush the work. This time, you’re taking less money and embroidering a large piece. Could he really be from your hometown?”

“Even if he’s from your hometown, it’s not worth you working so hard. Don’t you know that staying up late is the number one killer of beauty?” She reached out and touched Hua Jin’s face. “What a pity for such a beautiful face, one that even women would be moved by.”

“Thank you for the compliment, but I’m not interested in you. Give up.” Hua Jin swatted Tan Yuan’s hand away and stuffed a cup of freshly brewed tea into her hand. “Go and finish your painted jewelry box. You are dismissed.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Tan Yuan smiled and retreated to her workbench. She had no talent for embroidery. Her mother said that even after nearly ten years of learning, the things she embroidered lacked spirit. In the past, she would have been destined to remain a mere embroiderer, never a master. Huahua was different. She only started learning Shu embroidery from her mother at nineteen, but in just five or six years, her work had become lifelike, filled with what her mother called “spirit,” a gift from the ancestors.

Tan Yuan was very happy about this. Her mother's craft finally had a successor. Tan Yuan herself preferred lacquerware, so in recent years, she had started learning from her father.

Both lacquerware and embroidery are traditional crafts. They share some artistic commonalities but also have many differences. The biggest problem facing traditional crafts is that the highly skilled masters are getting older, and the younger generation of skilled artisans hasn’t been fully trained yet, leading to a gap in talent. Many embroidery techniques have even been lost.

Therefore, in the eyes of Tan Yuan’s mother, Gao Shulan, Hua Jin was the spark of traditional art, the future hope of Shu embroidery, her true successor. Not a biological daughter, but better than one.

To allow Hua Jin more time to work on the embroidery, Tan Yuan greeted most of the customers who came into the shop that day. After closing the shop in the evening, Hua Jin went to Tan Yuan's house for a late-night snack before slowly heading home.

Tan Qing and Gao Shulan wanted Hua Jin to stay the night, but Hua Jin didn’t want to trouble their family and was even more afraid of Auntie Gao urging her to get married, so she made an excuse and slipped away.

Even though it was past 10:30 pm, the bustling city was still lively. Hua Jin walked down the street, looking up at the lights on the buildings, feeling the unique vibrancy of the metropolis.

After walking for a while, she bent down and rubbed her aching knees, then took out her phone from her bag and checked the time. At this hour, she didn’t want to wait for the bus, so she decided to call a ride.

It wasn’t rush hour, so a driver quickly accepted the order. The map on her phone showed that the driver would arrive in about five minutes.

Putting down her phone, Hua Jin realized she was standing at the edge of the sidewalk. She took a few steps back. Seeing countless cars whizzing by on the road, and knowing she was a safe distance away, she hummed a tune in good spirits.

A few drunk men came swaggering over, arm in arm. Seeing Hua Jin, they whistled at her, emboldened by the alcohol.

Hua Jin didn’t yell or shrink back in fear. She simply looked at them calmly, reached into her bag, and then continued to look down at her phone.

Seeing no reaction from Hua Jin, and with other pedestrians nearby, the drunkards lost interest and staggered away.

Once they were gone, Hua Jin deleted the 110 digits from her phone's dialing screen and put the personal alarm and the antique-style hairpin back in her bag.

Having lived alone for so many years, who didn’t have a few tricks up their sleeve for dealing with hooligans?

Skilled in embroidering elegant landscapes and capable of scaring off thugs, Hua Jin considered herself a truly versatile woman of the new era.

The car she had ordered arrived quickly. After Hua Jin got into the back seat, the driver reminded her that there was water available if she was thirsty. Hua Jin thanked him but didn’t touch the bottle. Seeing that Hua Jin wasn’t talkative, the driver didn’t insist on making conversation and turned on the traffic report.

The radio reported a traffic jam due to an accident on a certain road section, advising pedestrians and vehicles to avoid the area.

“Luckily, we’re going through the side road; otherwise, we’d have to take a long detour.” The driver sighed, then remembered that the woman in the back seat didn’t seem to like talking and closed his mouth again. He had no other faults, except for his love of chatting. A customer had once given him a bad review because he talked too much, so now he was calm and restrained.

“Yes, luckily we’re in luck.” Hua Jin replied.

“That’s for sure.” The driver said proudly, “I’ve been lucky since I was a kid. Even dogs wag their tails when they see me.”

Hua Jin didn’t know how to respond for a moment. The example the driver gave was simply too powerful.

The driver, noticing that Hua Jin wasn’t cold or aloof, couldn’t resist his enthusiasm for conversation and started talking about recent events. Hua Jin found that these drivers, who were often out and about, were particularly well-informed. They knew things that weren’t even online and could recount events in a dramatic and engaging way.

Passing by the scene of the accident, Hua Jin glanced over. She could hear the sirens of ambulances and police cars, but nothing else.

Arriving outside her apartment building, the driver poked his head out and looked. The alley was narrow and small, and the road surface was uneven. “Passenger, we’ve arrived at your destination. Please give me a five-star rating.”

“Okay.” Hua Jin opened the door and got out. After taking a few steps, the small alley was brightly lit. She looked back and saw that the chatty driver hadn’t driven away but had turned on his headlights, illuminating the alley in front of her.

Stopping, Hua Jin thanked the driver.

With the doors and windows closed, the driver couldn’t hear what Hua Jin said. Seeing her turn around, he waved at her, urging her to go home quickly.

It wasn’t easy for young women working hard away from home. Such a small, effortless act, if it could ensure a woman's safety, was also a way to accumulate good karma.

Walking in the dark stairwell, Hua Jin heard Qin Jie yelling. Was she scolding her child again?

The building Hua Jin lived in was an old, single-row building, only six stories high. Each independent room had a kitchen and bathroom, and outside was a large balcony that connected the entire floor. There were rumors that the building might be demolished, but after two or three years, there had been no movement. The residents were mostly renters from all over the country, maintaining a superficial politeness, but due to the high turnover rate, they were destined not to form deep relationships.

Upstairs, as Hua Jin was unlocking her door, she heard the sound of a bowl breaking next door. She tilted her head and listened carefully. There was no sound of a child crying.

She had heard from Grandma Chen downstairs that Qin Jie was a local. Her husband gambled, cheated, and was abusive. After divorcing him, she took her child back to her parents’ home. But after a short stay, because her brother’s children bullied her son, she moved out again with her child.

Perhaps due to the immense pressure of life, her temper was short, and she sometimes couldn’t help but scold her child, though she had never been seen hitting him. Hua Jin couldn’t judge whether Qin Jie was right or wrong, nor did she have the right to.

After embroidering for a few minutes, the noise next door continued. Hua Jin sighed helplessly, got up, took a small bowl of jujubes from the refrigerator, and went out to knock on Qin Jie's door.

“Qin Jie, I bought some fresh jujubes yesterday. They taste pretty good. Here are some for you and your child.” After Qin Jie opened the door, Hua Jin didn’t go inside. She glanced inside. The little boy was sitting quietly on the worn sofa, with no injuries and his clothes neat.

“Thank you.” Qin Jie looked at Hua Jin, took the bowl from her, and quickly came back out. The jujubes were gone, replaced by a few slices of peeled pineapple. “This is some pineapple I just cut. It’s quite sweet. Take it back and eat it.”

“Thank you.” Hua Jin tasted a piece. The pineapple was sweet and fragrant, not tart at all. When she returned to her room, there were no more loud noises next door, and soon it became completely quiet.

The mother and son must have fallen asleep.

She yawned, turned up the light, and began embroidering the dragon and phoenix on the large red wedding quilt.

She had accepted the job, and even if it meant staying up all night, she would finish it.

An hour later, she got up and walked around her room. A news app on her phone pushed a notification with the headline: "His Life Makes You Sympathize, But Its Life Makes You Cry."

Clicking on the headline, she saw the content was about a wealthy person taking their pet to another city. Unwilling to let the pet suffer during the flight in the cargo hold, they flew their pet on a private jet.

“Clickbait!”

Author's Note:

Hua Jin: Skilled in embroidery, capable of scaring off thugs. I am me, a unique firework.

ʕ◉ᴥ◉ʔ

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