Half Pot of Yarn

There was a gap of seven years from the afternoon when he wrote the words "loyalty" and "faith" in the study to the morning when he stepped out of the courtyard wearing a battle armor. In seven years, he traveled through four prefectures, three states and twenty-four counties, walked through islands and prison cells, and walked through countless evenings standing facing north. She made tea at home, a cup of bud-colored tea, which she drank from hot to cold, and from cold to nothing. The ink stick on the windowsill was worn short, the bundle of bamboo in the corner was rotten, and my son was taller than the top of the wall. The letters became fewer and fewer, and finally there was only one line left: "Winter has passed, and I will be back when spring arrives." ——"Half Pot of Shame" is a story about "waiting for a long time". Waiting is not negative, waiting is a kind of completion. She makes tea, lights lamps, grinds ink, grows vegetables, and teaches her son to write every day - these things do not need results to prove their meaning. He wrote letters on the battlefield, approved official documents, took unfamiliar roads, and marked place names on maps - these things did not need to be seen by her to count. The two of them each spent their days in their own seats and finished what they had to do. The promise is not "I will definitely come back", the promise is "I know you will finish the journey, and I also know that I will finish the journey". The two men do not know that the other has accomplished the same thing, but the act itself has been accomplished. The wind blows through the bamboo leaves, the tea cools and is replenished, the hairband fades, and the wheat is cut and planted. The light on the windowsill stayed on for seven years and finally went out. But the light once shined, and no one can change that.