Magnolia, Blooming

Her life is a walking history book for hundreds of years. He was born at the turbulent end of the Republic of China and grew up in the war-torn years. Her childhood was shattered into fragments by the footsteps of fleeing people and the screams of alarms; her youth was quietly withering between natural and man-made disasters. She has seen with her own eyes the pain of broken mountains and rivers, and also experienced the dawn of sparks being rekindled. When the sun rose in New China, she was full of hope, but in the years of famine that followed, she carried the burden of survival on her thin shoulders. In those years, a handful of rice was a day's luxury, and a bowl of glutinous rice was a feast for the family. Suffering is like the cold north wind in winter, penetrating the walls of the times and carving into her wrinkles. But she is like grass in the cracks of rocks, flexible and tenacious. Guarding the roots during the long harsh winter, waiting for spring. Finally, the waiting time has come. She witnessed the rise of tall buildings, saw the flow of cars and horses, and the rough calluses in her hands caressed the smooth smartphone screen. In her later years, she sat in a room with bright and clean windows, watching her grandchildren talk about a world she could not imagine in a language she did not understand. Only then did she suddenly realize that the tide of suffering that had engulfed her for most of her life had really receded. In the first half of her life, she was swept away by the torrent of the times and displaced; in the second half of her life, she finally found herself in a peaceful harbor, watching the clouds roll and relax. This is the century-old journey of an ordinary Chinese woman—it has never left a name in history, but it is the most authentic footnote in history. She spent her whole life explaining: After the deepest darkness, dawn will indeed come; after tasting the most bitter taste, the sweetness will eventually overflow.