Gui Ying couldn’t speak, but her hands could.
Feifei later understood that her mother had woven words into every stitch of her work throughout her life.
Gui Ying’s hands looked rough at first glance – she had done a lot of farm work, with bulging knuckles and cracked palms.
But when it came to needlework, those hands seemed to have a whole new set.
She embroidered cushion covers with great precision.
The red ones were石榴 flowers, the blue ones were scroll-embroidered lotuses, and in the middle was a pair of “喜” characters, straight and upright, more neatly written than what the teacher could do.
Every family in the village would come to ask for a pair of the cushion covers she embroidered, hoping for good luck.
A pair of cushion covers could be exchanged for two cents.
Two cents, in that era, was the salt money, matches money, and lamp oil money for an entire family.
Feifei remembered that the coal oil lamp at home always had a little oil left.
Gui Ying didn’t like to light it fully.
She always waited until it was completely dark before turning the lamp on a little, using that little light to stitch one stitch at a time.
When she was embroidering, she held the needle under the lamp, squinted her eyes, focused her gaze, and then lowered her head to insert it.
Up and down, up and down, the shadow of the oil lamp flickered on the wall, and her hands swayed along with it, but not a stitch was off.
So she first brought her hands close to the oil lamp to warm them up, then continued embroidering.
The cracks on her fingers were soaked with lamp oil, shining brightly.
Feifei saw this and grabbed her mother’s hand, forcing it into her own to hold.
Gui Ying withdrew her hand, touched her face, shook her head, and picked up the needle again.
Feifei often watched beside her.
Once in the middle of the night, she woke up to drink water and saw Gui Ying still sitting under the lamp.
There was a stack of cushion covers on the table, red and blue ones, all gathered together, not ready for sale in small quantities, but waiting for the market day.
The lamp oil was almost gone, and the flame flickered, about to go out.
Gui Ying reached out, carefully raised the wick a little higher, and the flame “puffed” up, illuminating her face with light.
She lowered her head and continued embroidering.
Feifei stood behind the door and watched for a long time.
At that moment, she suddenly understood – her mother couldn’t speak, but her words were all here.
Each pair of cushion covers, each stitch, was what her mother wanted to say all day long: she wanted her daughter to be fed, to be warm, to go to school, to not be like her and spend her entire life trapped in this village, unable to even say “疼”.
The next morning, Feifei got up earlier than her mother.
She boiled water, cooked porridge, and swept the yard.
Feifei didn’t speak and picked up the bowl, filled it with porridge, and held it out to her mother.
Gui Ying took the bowl, looked at her daughter, and then at the extinguished oil lamp on the table.
Her eyes suddenly reddened.
She reached out and touched her daughter’s head gently, very lightly, as if afraid of breaking it.
Feifei went to school that day and looked back at her mother.
Gui Ying stood at the door, waving her hand, the gesture swaying like a flag in the wind.
That winter, Gui Ying sold a complete set of cushion covers and got a pencil, a notebook, and a small bag of red sugar.
She didn’t dare to eat the red sugar, but gave it to Feifei to mix with water and say: Drink, it will help you grow taller.
Feifei held the bowl of red sugar water in her hands, sipping it.
The sweet water warmed her from her throat all the way to her stomach.
She thought that the best sound in the world was not singing, not broadcasting, but the quiet light in her mother’s eyes when she looked at you.
She didn’t know that at that time.
She didn’t know that many years later, after traveling a long distance and seeing many large scenes, every night at nightfall, she would still think of that lamp, those hands, and that up-and-down needle movement.
That was the loudest silence she had ever heard in her entire life.