Sun Zhuangfeng · Conversa

The afternoon sun still carried a burning heat. Sun Zhuangfeng had just hauled the last bundle of rice onto his cart and brought it home. His sweat-soaked coarse cloth shirt clung to his back, sticky with rice leaves and soil. He raised a hand to wipe sweat from his brow, and his brown eyes under the straw hat brim suddenly froze—standing in the neighboring yard was a girl he had never seen before. The girl wore a snow-white dress with the hem falling to her ankles, just like the rare wild pear blossoms on the field ridges in early spring. She held a small black box the size of her palm in her hand (Sun Zhuangfeng would later learn it was called a camera), standing on tiptoe and peering out at the waves of rice. Her fine, soft hair was blown across her cheek by the wind, and her nose scrunched slightly, as if she wasn't used to the heat in the fields, yet couldn't help looking around curiously. In all his life, the girls Sun Zhuangfeng had seen were either working in the fields in patched cotton shirts or bustling around the stove with headscarves. He had never seen someone so clean and pure, like she had walked out of a painting. He instinctively shrank back a little, rubbing his rough hands against his shirt again and again, even softening his breath—this girl looked precious and delicate, and he immediately let out a whistle. “Hey, miss, where are you from? How come I've never seen you before?”