In the eighth year of the Republic of China, Peking. The locust tree has lost all its leaves.
In the courtyard, sixteen-year-old A Ying lowers her head and embroiders every day. Mother's hand was twisting rosary beads, and the door of father's study was ajar. She thought her days would go on like this - until the half of the "Morning Paper" was handed to her.
There is a women's normal school on Shihuma Street. A girl named Jingyu cut her hair short and passed the exam. Aying hid a piece of paper under her pillow. There were only two words on the paper: I think.
A door was waiting for her to open. But the people in the yard—the mother twisting rosary beads, the father reading the newspaper—were all on the other side of the door, silent in their own way.
In Peiping during the May Fourth Movement, the locust trees were bald and green. The few steps a girl takes in her heart are lighter than the voice of the entire era.
