Interweaving of dual timelines, collage of memory fragments, blurred boundaries between reality and surreality
The intergenerational transmission of female trauma, the intertextuality of physical perception and mental pain, and the ambiguity of redemption
Chapter 1 Camphor Temple in the Rainy Season
In Hangzhou in 2019, Lin Man received a restoration commission: a 1972 wedding dress that was damaged by red wine stains. When my fingertips touched the satin, I saw a woman in a wedding dress giving birth in an air raid shelter. The client was Su Zhenshu. The two sat across from each other in the smell of camphor permeating the wardrobe, and the cheongsam glowed with the moonlight of 1934 in the darkness.
Chapter 2 Prenatal education with scissors
Flashback to 1987, 6-year-old Lin Man was playing under the table in his mother's tailor shop. My mother sewed a wedding dress for her neighbor who was about to remarry, and said softly "Okay" every time she cut the thread. Late at night, the unfinished wedding dress crawled towards the sewing machine, and the stitches oozed the smell of rust.
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This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.
