The days passed one by one, and before long, the New Year was approaching.
At school, everyone was talking about the upcoming festivities—who had bought new clothes, who had prepared New Year’s goods, whose family was slaughtering the New Year’s pig. The chatter was lively and excited.
Shen Qingyou listened, her own heart filled with anticipation.
In her past life, when she had lived at her third uncle’s house, he had probably sensed that she was afraid of him, or perhaps he felt it wasn’t convenient for a young girl to share the same space with him. Whatever the reason, he had stayed busy almost all the time, rarely coming home—even for the New Year.
On New Year’s Eve, she had huddled alone in her room, eating a bowl of noodles with pickled vegetables, and called that her celebration.
This life was different.
She wasn’t afraid of her third uncle anymore, and he had sensed that too.
So she wanted to celebrate the New Year properly with him.
One day during recess, Li Hongmei pulled a ball of yarn out of her schoolbag.
Attached to it was the beginning of a scarf—uneven stitches, some loops too loose, some too tight.
“What’s that…”
“A scarf I’m knitting for my dad!” Li Hongmei lowered her voice, looking a little embarrassed. “My dad gets really cold in winter. Every year, he’s always hunching his shoulders against the chill. I thought I’d knit him a scarf as a New Year’s gift.”
Shen Qingyou was taken aback.
“You know how to knit?”
“I just learned!” Li Hongmei said. “My mom taught me, but I keep messing it up. Look here, and here—I dropped some stitches.”
She pointed at the crooked spots and laughed at herself.
Shen Qingyou also wanted to knit something for her third uncle. She had even already bought the yarn.
But when she had tried knitting a little, the result was even worse than Li Hongmei’s.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands.
These hands could cook, could write, could ride a bike.
So why couldn’t they knit a sweater?
“Hongmei,” she looked up. “Is knitting a sweater hard?”
Li Hongmei blinked. “You want to learn?”
Shen Qingyou nodded.
“For your third uncle?”
Shen Qingyou nodded again.
Li Hongmei grinned and threw an arm around her shoulder. “Awesome! Let’s learn together! I’ll ask my mom to teach us!”
Shen Qingyou’s eyes curved into a smile. “Okay.”
After school, the two of them went to Li Hongmei’s house together.
Li Hongmei’s mother was a cheerful, straightforward woman. When she saw Shen Qingyou, she was incredibly warm.
“So you’re Little Miss Shen? Hongmei talks about you all the time. Come, come, sit here. Auntie will teach you!”
She pulled out two pairs of bamboo knitting needles from a cabinet, along with a few balls of leftover yarn from previous projects—mismatched colors, but perfect for practice.
“Watch carefully,” she said, picking up the needles. Her fingers flew as she worked. “Casting on is like this—loop it around, pull it through, tighten…”
Shen Qingyou stared at her hands, not daring to blink.
It looked easy, but the moment she tried it herself, it was a completely different story.
The bamboo needles wouldn’t obey her, and the yarn kept slipping off. She clumsily looped it around, pulled it through, tugged… and the yarn ball unraveled.
“No problem, no problem,” Li Hongmei’s mother said with a laugh. “Everyone starts out like this. Just keep practicing, and you’ll get better.”
Shen Qingyou nodded and started casting on again.
This time, she looped it correctly, pulled it through, and tightened it. But the stitch was so tight that she couldn’t even insert the needle for the next one.
She pulled it apart and started over.
By the end of the afternoon, she had finally knitted her first row.
A crooked, wobbly row—loose in some places, tight in others, lying there like a fuzzy caterpillar.
But as Shen Qingyou looked at that caterpillar, she felt genuinely happy.
On the way home, she carefully tucked the yarn and needles into her schoolbag. Every few pedals, she couldn’t help touching the bag to make sure nothing had fallen out.
After dinner that evening, she cleaned up the dishes, told Yan Tingxu she was going to her room, and left.
Once the door was closed, she took out the yarn, sat on the edge of her bed, and began practicing under the light of her desk lamp.
Cast on. Knit the first stitch. The second stitch…
After three or four rows, she held it up to look. The stitches were still crooked. Some gaps were so wide you could see light through them; others were so tight the needle couldn’t even pierce through.
She bit her lip, pulled the needle out, and started over.
She knitted a few more rows. Still no good.
She lost count of how many times she unraveled it. Her fingers were red and raw from the yarn rubbing against them, hurting at the slightest touch. But she didn’t stop. Unravel, knit, unravel, knit—over and over again, practicing relentlessly.
The desk lamp cast its glow over the yarn, over her bent shadow.
Outside, the wind howled. Inside, it was perfectly still, save for the soft clinking of the bamboo needles.
…
For several days in a row, Shen Qingyou kept at it.
She learned from Li Hongmei’s mother during the day, then practiced on her own at night.
She remembered the stitching techniques Li Hongmei’s mother had taught her, but her hands wouldn’t obey. Whatever she knitted came out crooked and uneven.
The red marks on her fingers multiplied. A few of the deeper indentations were tinged with faint traces of blood.
She didn’t feel the pain. She was just anxious.
The New Year was just around the corner, and she still hadn’t knitted the sweater.
That evening, she sat by her bed practicing again.
She had just started knitting when a knock suddenly came at the door.
“Asleep yet?”
Shen Qingyou’s hands jolted, and the bamboo needles nearly fell to the floor. She quickly stuffed the yarn under her blanket, stood up, and went to open the door.
The door opened. Yan Tingxu stood outside.
“Third Uncle?” She tilted her face up to look at him. “Did you need something?”
Yan Tingxu looked at her, his gaze lingering on her face for a moment.
“Nothing in particular,” he said. “I saw your light was still on, so I came to check.”
Shen Qingyou’s heart tightened.
She had no idea whether Third Uncle had seen her shoving the yarn under the blanket.
“I-I’m doing my homework,” she said, her voice a little weak. “I’ll go to sleep when I’m done.”
Yan Tingxu didn’t say anything. He just looked at her once more.
In that single glance, Shen Qingyou felt as though he could see right through everything.
But he didn’t say anything. He only nodded.
“Get some rest early.”
With that, he turned and left.
Shen Qingyou closed the door, leaned against it, and let out a long breath.
That was terrifying.
She walked back to her bed and pulled the yarn out from under the blanket. She had stuffed it in so hurriedly that two of the needles had fallen off. She crawled around on the floor looking for them for ages before finally retrieving them from under the bed.
She sat back down and continued knitting.
This time, she didn’t dare stay up too late. After a few rows, she put everything away, turned off the light, and lay down.
In the darkness, she touched the red marks on her fingers and smiled.
Tomorrow, she would keep going.
…
The next morning, Shen Qingyou got up to make breakfast.
She pushed open the door, and the cold air hit her face. She shrank her neck a little and headed toward the kitchen.
After a few steps, she suddenly stopped.
On the stone steps by the gate sat a paper package.
She blinked, bent over, and picked it up.
The package was small, tied with hemp string. Nothing was written on it.
She opened it and froze.
Inside was a ball of yarn.
Dark gray, soft to the touch—clearly the good kind sold at the supply co-op, the kind that required both a ration coupon and money.
Beside it lay two bamboo knitting needles. They were new, smooth and fine—much better than the old pair she had been using.
Shen Qingyou held the ball of yarn in her hands and stood there, not moving for a long time.
She looked up, toward the main room.
The door to the main room was closed. The windows were closed too. She couldn’t see anything.
She lowered her head and gently ran her fingers over the yarn.
Soft. Warm. Just like him.
So Third Uncle had seen everything after all.
Shen Qingyou stood there, her eyes suddenly stinging.
She blinked hard, forcing the ache back down, then clutched the yarn to her chest and turned to walk toward the kitchen.
…
With good yarn, Shen Qingyou knitted with even more enthusiasm.
During the day at school, she would take out her knitting between classes and work a few stitches. Li Hongmei would come over to look and click her tongue in admiration.
“Your stitches are so much better than when you started! Look at this row—so even!”
Shen Qingyou looked down. It really was better than before.
At night, back in her room, she kept knitting. Stitch by stitch, row by row, the dark gray sweater slowly took shape.
But when she got to the collar, she ran into trouble.
She didn’t know her third uncle’s measurements.
Not how thick his neck was, not how broad his shoulders were, not how long his arms were. Nothing.
She thought for a moment, then set the sweater aside, pushed open the door, and went out.
In the yard, Yan Tingxu was wiping down the car.
She walked over and stood beside him.
Yan Tingxu looked up. “What is it?”
Shen Qingyou blinked. “Third Uncle, could I take your measurements?”
Yan Tingxu looked at her.
“What do you need measurements for?”
Shen Qingyou pressed her lips together and didn’t answer.
Yan Tingxu watched her for a couple of seconds, didn’t ask further, stood up, and straightened his posture.
Shen Qingyou pulled a length of string from her pocket—something she had prepared earlier in the day. She stepped closer, stood on her tiptoes, and reached up to drape the string over his shoulder.
But Yan Tingxu was too tall. Even on her tiptoes, she couldn’t reach.