On New Year's Eve, Ning Chen and Qin Yu changed into pairs of new clothes and sat on the floor covered with luxurious wool blankets. They snuggled and watched TV together.
"In the past New Year's, the Shi family would sit around the living room watching TV and making dumplings." Qin Yu shook her head and smiled as she recalled the New Years' that she had spent more than a decade ago.
"But... that didn't include me. Sometimes, I could find a safe corner to stay by myself. When it was bad, I would be locked in a dark and isolated basement. At first, I was especially afraid of that place because there weren't even any lights there. Later, I wasn't afraid anymore. I could even secretly do things there that they didn't know about. However, in all these years in the Shi family, I have never experienced a festive atmosphere."
To be more precise, it was the atmosphere of home.
