A silenced female family history, a silent inquiry spanning half a century.
In 1982, the sudden disappearance of Wang Ling, a mute from a mountain village, left an eternal mystery in the heart of her twelve-year-old sister Wang Rong. This mystery leads to a deeper silence in the family - how the grandmother Chen Xiuzhi, a Jiangnan embroidery girl, buried her talents and dreams in the dust of the times amidst the war and separation; how the mother Li Mingzhen repeated the depression and helplessness of the previous generation in the changes of New China.
In the past forty years, Wang Rong has moved from a mountain village to the city, and grown from an ignorant girl to a university scholar. She learned sign language, devoted herself to special education, picked up a pen, and tried to use words to salvage those sunken voices. She gradually understood that Wang Ling's "muteness" was not only a physical defect, but also a symbol of the "aphasia" of an era and a group.
This is an epic about silent people. It tells the individual destiny of several generations of Chinese women outside the grand narrative, their tenacity and agility, their sacrifice and unyielding. When the echoes of the silent world are finally heard, what we have accomplished is not only a comfort to a soul, but also a re-examination of a period of history.
