Mo Yan returned home and immediately wrote a letter to Xiao Ruiyuan, informing him that her best friend was pregnant and that she was about to become a godmother. In her words, an unconcealed joy shone through for her friend, who had a gentle and considerate husband, and soon they would welcome a new life, causing her, an outsider, to feel happy too.
The letter was just some trivial family matters, plain and no different from usual. But to Xiao Ruiyuan, the words took on a different taste.
The next day, after lunch, while Mo Yan sprawled in a rattan chair, fanning herself and eating watermelon pulled up from the well, she asked Lixiu when the start of autumn was as the bells under the eaves in the courtyard started to ring. When Liyan ran to open the gate, a procession of bulky items wrapped in old quilts was carried in, one after the other.
