Chapter Thirty: The Dressing Mirror

“What… what do you want to buy?”
“This floral print fabric.”
“How much do you need?”
“Just enough for a jacket, for my little sister.”

---

The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered, casting Xu Chengjun’s shadow against the earthen wall.

He loosened his grip on the pencil.

That idea which had sprung up at the entrance of the department store—he decided to write it down.

And while he was at it, he’d break a few rules he’d stuck to since coming to this world.

Even civil servants can’t just write work reports every day, can they?

...

That shop assistant secretly touching the floral fabric, the shimmer of cloth reflected in the mirror—like a seed just sprouted, making his chest itch with anticipation.

---

“Still writing?” Qian Ming squatted across from him, hugging his knees. “Haven’t you finished venting?”

He still didn’t quite understand Xu Chengjun. Just yesterday, hadn’t he called all those comments petty and self-serving? Didn’t he say that history would judge everything?

Chengjun was getting harder and harder to read!

Xu Chengjun didn’t look up. “I’ve finished venting.”

The pencil paused, then he added, “It’s exactly when you’ve finished venting that you have to write.”

He licked the tip of his pencil.

Wait a minute—wasn’t this stuff carcinogenic?

Bah!

From his forty-years-ahead perspective on literature, “The Head Teacher” was too deliberate, like slicing flesh with a dull knife, always trying to steer toward the grand theme of “save the children.” “Scar” was too forceful, tears flooding the pages so much that it diluted the real pain.

Both had their time and literary merit,

But he wanted to write something different.

Just a mirror, a young woman, and a floral blouse she longed to wear but didn’t dare.

“What are you writing?” Qian Ming leaned closer, his glasses nearly brushing the rough paper. “Speaking up for the self-employed again?”

---

“No.” Xu Chengjun shifted the paper aside, revealing the freshly written title. “It’s about a shop assistant.”

“The Fitting Room Mirror”

The title’s three characters flowed with a certain elegance.

In his previous life, his handwriting had always been his pride.

His bosses admired it, so he’d been tasked with writing all the Spring Festival couplets for the office each year.

Tilting his pen, he wrote on:

“The fitting mirror in the department store had a patch of paint missing, like a mouth with a broken tooth. Chunlan wiped it three times a day, her cloth dipped in soapy water, rubbing the mahogany frame until it gleamed, but that crescent-shaped chip in the corner never went away.

Some holes—can’t be hidden, can’t be fixed.

Xu Chengjun didn’t pause, his pencil whispering across the page:

“Today, a batch of new floral print Dacron arrived at the counter. Pink background, sprinkled with white stars, like the rouge she’d seen under the commune’s stage last year. As soon as the fabric was hung on the rack, her reflection reached for it in the mirror, fingers tracing an arc across the cloth—half a beat quicker than her real movement.”

“Is this mirror coming to life?” Qian Ming asked, a bit perplexed.

Xu Chengjun glanced up and saw his pupils contract behind the lenses.

See? The fish is on the hook.

That reaction was more invigorating than the anger he’d felt reading those critical letters.

A good story ought to be like this—a pebble tossed into water, first stirring ripples, then slowly sinking to the bottom.

“It’s not coming to life.” He smiled, twirling his pencil. “It’s just that the longing in her heart is so heavy, it makes even her shadow restless.”

He remembered when he wrote “The Granary,” always circling between “the collective” and “the individual.”

But this time was different. Chunlan’s mirror was a demon-revealing glass, showing not doctrines but the unspoken desires buried deep in people’s hearts.

It was…

It was wanting to wear a pretty dress, wanting to walk with her head held high, wanting to live days that felt like something.

He drew a wavy line beneath “pink floral print,” suddenly reminded of Zhai Ying’s daring, era-defying clothes.

He kept writing:

“When Director Wang passed by the counter, Chunlan was still posing before the mirror. The floral fabric in the mirror suddenly wrapped around her, the collar tied into a butterfly knot, while the real fabric still hung obediently on the rack. The sound of Director Wang’s leather shoes echoed from behind. In the mirror, Chunlan hurriedly undid the buttons, but the thread snagged her fingers, binding her tighter, like a trapped butterfly.”

“And what then?” Qian Ming pressed.

Xu Chengjun tucked the pencil behind his ear and leaned back against the earthen wall.

The plaster crumbled down onto his neck, tickling him.

“And then?” He gazed at the moonlight outside the window. “Then she realized that her reflection in the mirror was always bolder than she was. The new dress she didn’t dare try, her shadow would. The words she couldn’t say, her shadow spoke for her. Even when Director Wang gave her a lecture, the Chunlan in the mirror dared roll her eyes.”

This was wilder than anything he’d written before, wilder than anything from this era!

It had a reckless edge.

No metaphors, no probing—just baring the heart open, letting all those secret thoughts spill out.

---

He knew this wouldn’t fit in.

But he wanted to try.

---

“This is even stranger than ‘The Weighing Star’,” Qian Ming said, stroking his chin with a sudden grin. “But I like it. In the end, does the shadow escape?”

“What do you think?” Xu Chengjun folded the paper into a square and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Some people live their whole lives as a shadow, while for others, the shadow lives as themselves.”

He remembered that shop assistant in the department store—her eyes shining as she gripped the corner of the fabric.

Her shadow had probably already donned the floral blouse, spinning in the mirror, skirt brushing the chipped glass, just like a bird finally spreading its wings.

Qian Ming suddenly pulled out two fruit candies. “Here, have one to moisten your pen. If you get tired, take a break—don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Xu Chengjun unwrapped a candy and popped it into his mouth, sweetness blooming on his tongue.

That anger had long since turned into something else.

It wasn’t fire—it was tenacity.

A greeting from him to this era.

Hello, 1979!

smile.jpg

---

He picked up the pencil again.

“Keep writing,” he told himself.

This time, Chunlan would discover that every day, the floral fabric in the mirror crept half an inch closer to her.

He’d write how Director Wang’s shadow always wore an old jacket in the mirror, never matching his lectures about “plain and simple living.”

And he’d write how all the fitting mirrors in the warehouse bore the same chipped corner, like a crowd of open eyes, watching as the girls tucked their hopes into the frame’s edge.

The kerosene lamp’s flame flickered anew, casting the two young men’s shadows on the wall: one bowing his head over his writing, the other resting his chin on his hand, watching—a picture of quiet contentment.

At some point, the cicadas outside had fallen silent, leaving only the whisper of pencil on paper.

Xu Chengjun’s pencil paused on the line, “the reflection in the mirror secretly swapped out a red button,” and he suddenly felt this story would never be finished.

There were too many mirrors in 1979—the ones in the department store, the warehouse, the supply co-op. Every mirror held a hidden shadow, waiting for the day it might step out and bask in the sun.

“I’ll write more tomorrow,” he told Qian Ming, and himself as well.

Tomorrow, Chunlan would discover that in the pocket of her reflection’s floral blouse, there was a red hair ribbon she’d long since lost…

What kind of -ism was this?

“A realism tinged with modernism!”