Feast of Flowers: 1.Dragon and Phoenix Quilt

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On an early morning in March, the warmth suddenly turned cold. The sound of chopping vegetables, the sizzling of fried pancakes, and the sound of a woman scolding her child in a high-pitched voice came from the shabby small building.

Hua Jin opened the door. In the corridor, a boy wearing a blue school uniform and carrying a schoolbag stood with his head lowered. He didn’t even raise his head when he heard the door open. However, the woman who was scolding saw Hua Jin come out and smoothed her messy curly hair: “Xiaohua, you went to work so early?”

Hua Jin exchanged a few words with her, and Sister Qin used her hands to pull her hair and cuffs from time to time. Her child stood silently beside her, like an inconspicuous potato.

Aware that Hua Jin had turned her attention to her child, Sister Qin stopped holding her hair and began to count the child’s shortcomings.

“Sister Qin.” Interrupting the other party’s eloquent words, Hua Jin took out her mobile phone to check the time, “I can’t catch the subway, let’s talk tomorrow.” After saying that, he quickly walked downstairs, and the voice control on the corridor The streetlights did not flicker even amidst the sound of footsteps.

When she walked downstairs, she heard Sister Qin start scolding the child again.

Hua Jin finished breakfast at a roadside breakfast shop. When she walked out, she saw Sister Qin’s son walking to the roadside with his head pulled up. He walked very slowly, like a snail unwilling to crawl out of his shell. .

The streets were crowded with densely packed cars. In the gray morning, there was a dull feeling of being powerless but having to fight for life.

“Be careful when you walk.” Hua Jin took two quick steps, grabbed the boy’s schoolbag strap and pulled him back. At this moment, a car drove over at the corner of the street, only two or three steps away from the child.

The little boy looked up at Hua Jin, with a dull and confused expression on his face. It took him a long time to whisper: “Thank you, sister Hua Jin.”

“You’re welcome.” Hua Jin smiled. What woman in her twenties doesn’t like children to call her sister?

“Pay attention to passing vehicles when walking. Safety is important.” Hua Jin helped the child straighten the turned-up collar of his school uniform. After watching the child leave, he rubbed his aching kneecaps and turned around to walk in the other direction.

In this bustling city, everyone cannot stop. They want to survive, take root here, and get a better life. Some people come and some leave, but this city will always stand here, becoming more and more prosperous, and becoming the dream city of countless people.

Getting off the crowded subway, Hua Jin saw someone performing a show, and the hurried pedestrians had no time to stop. Hua Jin rummaged around in his coat, took out a few coins, and put them into the box in front of him.

“Thank you.” The little performing girl thanked her in a low voice.

This is a little girl with baby fat on her face and clear and hopeful eyes. Hua Jin put her hand into her coat pocket and said with a slight smile: “You’re welcome. Many people are rushing to go to work in the morning, so they can’t take care of other things.”

After speaking, he pointed to the staff member who was walking this way: “It seems that talent shows are not allowed here. How about changing to another place?”

Obviously she was just doing art to make a living, but she was gently called a “talent show” by the other party. The little girl smiled gratefully at Hua Jin.

Jin smiled back and followed the flow of people out of the subway station.

She shivered from the cold wind outside and walked quickly towards her work place.

“Little Huahua.” When Tan Yuan saw Hua Jin coming, she opened the door from the inside and asked Hua Jin to come in quickly. “It’s windy outside today. Are you cold?”

“It’s okay.” Hua Jin rubbed his hands, took off his coat, folded it and put it in the locker, and sorted the things in the store. The furnishings in the store are all embroidery and lacquerware, many of which are handmade by Tan Yuan’s parents, which can be regarded as the store’s sign to attract customers.

The second boss doesn’t care much about the store now, so Tan Yuan is the big boss of the store. She can barely be regarded as the second boss, and they get along quite happily with each other.

“I received a custom carp embroidery ornament last night. You know that I have never been good at carp embroidery, so I can only do this for you.” Tan Yuan leaned back on the table and yawned lazily, “Today’s young people , I just indulge in worshiping koi and sucking pandas. There are so many interesting embroidery items in our Sichuan embroidery circle, but these two are the most popular.”

After saying that, she turned to look at Hua Jin and saw that she was carefully wiping the screen of the koi carp and lotus fan, as if it had mysterious power that could make people make money every day.

“Shh.” Hua Jin put the fan screen in place, turned to Tan Yuan and said, “Little Tang Yuan, the mysterious power of koi is something that a vulgar and ordinary person like you cannot understand.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Tan Yuan nodded, “Actually, you shouldn’t be called Hua Jin, you should be called Hua Koi.”

“If the police officer doesn’t mind it, I would like to change the name to Hua Koi Panda. There are cats and fish, which is auspicious!” Hua Jin walked to a chair and sat down. Although their store is small, it is better than the decoration. Exquisite, looks quite stylish.

The price of customized products is higher, and they are all hand-embroidered, using the best colored embroidery threads and Shu brocade. Unfortunately, modern life is fast-paced, and few people go out of their way to pay high prices for customized embroidery pieces. In order to keep up with the times and escape poverty and become well-off, they also sell small pendants, prayer bags, scarves and shawls with Shu embroidery style.

Some literary and artistic young people are still willing to spend some spare money to buy these things with traditional artistic styles and sentiments as accessories.

For many ordinary people, they don’t care whether the embroidery they buy is Shu embroidery, Hunan embroidery, Su embroidery, Cantonese embroidery, etc. As long as it is beautiful and the price is satisfactory, they are likely to spend money on it. Hua Jin and Tan Yuan are well aware of the current situation. In order to run this store well, they must not only keep in line with the times aesthetically, but also try to retain the characteristics of Shu embroidery.

Tan Yuan’s parents are relatively traditional craftsmen. The two elders did not understand what “keeping in line with the times” meant. However, as there were more and more young customers in the store, the two elders did not say much.

Hua Jin sat next to the embroidery stand, embroidering the previously unfinished picture of fame and wealth. Tan Yuan lit incense and placed it in the shop, barely giving the shop a bit of ancient charm.

Embroidering samples in the store can not only arouse the curiosity of customers, but also make them believe that the things in the store are all hand-embroidered by hand, rather than embroidered by machines and then sold at high prices under the banner of hand-embroidery. Sell.

In recent years, as some young people have paid attention to traditional arts, some unscrupulous merchants have begun to sell sentiments. They take ordinary embroidery embroidered by machine and brag about hand-made embroidery, which leads some deceived customers to think that the so-called traditional embroidery art , nothing more than that.

Tan Yuan’s mother, Hua Jin’s master Gao Shulan, often sighed helplessly because of these things. However, the world is so big that many things will not change due to personal will. The only thing they can do is not to change their original intentions and let every object in their hands have its own characteristics.

At first o’clock in the morning, there were basically no guests. After spending some time, I heard footsteps coming from the door. I looked up and saw a middle-aged man wearing a gray and white coat standing outside the door and looking in. He drew back his neck. His arms hung unnaturally behind his back, looking a little cramped.

Putting down the needle, Hua Jin stood up and walked to the door: “Welcome. If you need anything, please come into the store and take a look.”

The man smiled at her, and Hua Jin noticed that he secretly wiped his hands on his pants twice before gently stepping into the door. He moved cautiously, as if he was afraid of stepping on the floor under his feet and damaging the things in the store.

His eyes moved around the store, and when he turned around and saw that Hua Jin was not staring at him, he continued to look. The store has fashionable and retro handbags, as well as exquisite and beautiful Sichuan embroidered high heels, fans, ornaments, cloaks, hats, and even a set of miniature phoenix crowns.

“Do you… have quilt covers for sale here?” The man spoke non-standard Mandarin and turned to look at Hua Jin, “It’s the red dragon and phoenix quilt cover.”

In this day and age, there are many types of quilt covers, and machine embroidery can meet a variety of requirements. Hand-embroidered quilts like Dragon and Phoenix Chengxiang are not only labor-intensive to embroider, but are still outdated and old-fashioned in the eyes of many people. Nowadays, even newlyweds don’t like to use this kind of quilt cover in their wedding rooms. Shop Naturally, Li would not prepare this: “Sorry, we don’t have dragon and phoenix quilts in our store.”

Hearing Hua Jin’s answer, the middle-aged man seemed not surprised. He nodded and walked out.

“Please wait a moment.” Hua Jin saw that the man was sweating profusely even in March weather, so she turned around and got him a glass of water from the water dispenser, “Do you have to buy a dragon and phoenix quilt?”

The man was dressed a little shabbily, and he couldn’t let go of his hands when he arrived at such a small shop with exquisite decoration. When he saw the pretty shopkeeper pouring himself water, he even embarrassedly thanked her profusely. His brows and eyes were stained with sadness, wrinkles left ravines on his dark forehead, and the rough hands holding the paper cup were trembling slightly.

Perhaps he had been depressed for a long time, and when he saw a strange young girl, he had the idea to talk to her.

“More than 20 years ago, my mother and I got married. At that time, I told her that when I got rich, I would definitely buy her a bed with a dragon and a phoenix and a red quilt. But over the years, we have paid for my son’s tuition, I had to work around to pay for house repairs and medical treatment for the elderly. Now that she is seriously ill, I remember that many of the promises I made to her have not been fulfilled.” A man in his forties squatted on the ground, covered his face with one hand and cried bitterly. . He looked very ugly when he was crying, and even the frayed long-sleeved shirt underneath his coat showed through.

“I’m nothing, useless and useless…” the man said in a hoarse voice, “I finally raised some money to send her to a big city for medical treatment, but the doctor said she had terminal cancer. That’s it, that’s it. Son.”

With a weathered look on his face, he counted the good things about his wife, talked about how useless he was, and said that he had searched many places in the city but could not find the kind of dragon and phoenix quilt that his wife wanted.

Seeing a grown man crying like this, Tan Yuan looked up at Hua Jin at a loss. Unfortunately, Hua Jin lowered her head and she couldn’t see Hua Jin’s expression clearly.

“Judging from your accent, you should be from a city in the southwest. Maybe we are still very close to each other.” Hua Jin raised her head and handed the tissue to the man, “If you really need it, I can help you. Make a set quickly.”

The red quilt with dragon and phoenix was once a very popular item in Shu embroidery.

All kinds of unfortunate things will always happen in the world. The concept that you need to be cured when you are sick is common sense among many ordinary people. But ordinary people certainly don’t know how difficult it is for a poor family to be willing to send seriously ill family members to big cities for treatment.

Emotions and humanity are sometimes vulnerable in the face of money. It is precisely in this way that the value of simple emotions is shown.

       

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