Chapter 1: Waking in the Woodshed

Lin Qiaoyun was jolted awake by the stench of mold.

The smell was a thick cocktail of old chaff, wet mud walls, and rat droppings, clogging her nostrils like she’d shoved a handful of rotting cotton into them. She opened her eyes. Overhead was a pitch-black rafter. A few threads of daylight leaked through the gaps in the roof tiles, illuminating a pile of firewood stacked in the corner and the faded blue jacket she was wearing. It wasn’t her clothes. Her hands didn’t belong to her, either. The pads of her fingers were thin, the webbing rough with calluses, and her nails were clipped short and square. These were the hands of someone who spent years holding needles.

The woodshed was tiny. The four walls were pasted with old newspapers that had turned yellow and crumbled at the edges, revealing the even older earth walls beneath. The straw mat lay at the base of the firewood pile, thin and compressed so tight by long use that a distinct body-shaped dip had been pressed into it.

Memories crashed in, shattered and reassembled at random: The original owner was also named Lin Qiaoyun. She had been married into the Wang family in Liu Shu Village for three years. No kids, no news. This morning, her mother-in-law had splashed a bowl of cold water on her, slapping a divorce notice on the stove. All she was allowed to take was a single bundle of old clothes. The original owner had choked on the shock, collapsed in the woodshed, and never gotten back up.

Thinking about it, an inexplicable tightness squeezed Lin Qiaoyun’s chest, like someone had gripped her heart from the inside. The emotion had no logical reason to be there, but it pressed down, heavy and real.

Footsteps echoed outside, crunching on the gravel in the courtyard with a sharp, rhythmic snap. Two people, walking at a measured, unhurried pace.

“Where’s the bundle? She has to leave the Wedding Dress behind!”

“Mom, they’ve already kicked her out. Chasing her for clothes is just embarrassing. The whole village is watching.” This was the original owner’s sister-in-law. Her voice was sharp, the tail end trembling with anxiety.

“So what if they’re watching? That Wedding Dress was cut from Wang family cloth and sewn by Wang family labor. Lin Qiaoyun, who hasn’t even given birth to a single heir, has no right to take it.”

Before the words fully settled, the door curtain was yanked aside. A stout, thick-waisted old woman stormed in, her eyes sweeping the woodshed before landing on the indigo cloth bundle on the straw mat. “Oh, you think you can just run off.”

Lin Qiaoyun pushed herself up against the wall. Her knee hit the packed earth floor with a dull thud. She didn’t speak. Instead, she stared at the bundle. The blue cloth was tied in a tight, stubborn knot. The original owner had tied it herself, probably afraid it would come loose.

“Aunt Wang.” She spoke up, her voice raspy from disuse. “The divorce notice says ‘she may leave with her belongings.’ It does not say ‘leave with nothing.’”

“Bah! You sure know how to parse words.” Granny Wang grabbed the bundle, yanking it free. She shook it open, and clothes tumbled to the floor. On top lay the red, gold-sprinkled Wedding Dress, the collar still fresh with newly applied edging. “This is Wang family property.”

By now, a half-circle of onlookers had gathered at the gate. Liu Shu Village was small; news broken before dawn was repeated three times by noon. Some peeked over the fence, others leaned on the hedges with arms crossed. One woman still held her breakfast bowl, chopsticks suspended in mid-air, forgotten in the drama. Lin Xiaoman stood by the doorway, twisting her hem, eyes red-rimmed, wanting to intervene but too scared to speak.

Lin Qiaoyun didn’t rush to argue. She braced herself against the edge of the straw mat, slowly straightening her back. She reached out and picked up the Wedding Dress.

The moment her fingertips touched the dark red satin, the world tilted. Not her body—her vision. She saw an oil lamp, the wick short, the flame flickering erratically. A woman sat beneath it, eyes puffy with swelling. She held a needle, stitching layer after layer into the Wedding Dress’s lining. She’d sew for a while, then pause, pressing her sleeve to her eyes so the tears wouldn’t stain the satin. Outside, a voice would call out, “Lazy girl, won’t you go to sleep? It’s wasting oil!” The woman would hurriedly bite off the thread and shove the dress under her pillow.

The vision shattered like broken glass, leaving shards that cut into Lin Qiaoyun’s chest. She blinked, and the woodshed’s moldy stench rushed back in. She looked down, her fingertips tracing the seam of the Wedding Dress’s inner lining, rubbing it inch by inch.

Granny Wang was still yelling, “What have you been feeling? Say something—”

“I mended this.”

“Mended? With what? There’s no thread here—”

“I didn’t use Wang family cloth.” Lin Qiaoyun looked up. “The original fabric was cut two inches from the inner placket. I cut it. The thread was my own, pulled from my old jacket. If the Wang family feels they’ve lost out, I’ll give you those two inches back.”

Granny Wang faltered for a second, then slapped her thigh. “Nonsense! It’s the Wedding Dress *I* embroidered. Do you think I wouldn’t know?”

“You can embroider, but can you mend?” Lin Qiaoyun flipped the dress over, lining facing out. She pinched the seam and pulled, splitting the inner lining to reveal a gap. “Aunt Wang, look here—”

She pinched a small piece of thread. It was lighter in color, a size thinner than the silk thread on the front, and the end wasn’t cut with scissors—it was bitten off.

“Look at these Stitches. Each one rushed forward, the spacing three millimeters, pulled tight. That’s how you stitch when you’re working against a deadline.” She met the old woman’s gaze. “The main pattern on the front was done with a backstitch, half-needle retreats, steady and slow. The person who mended the inner placket wasn’t the same.”

Silence crashed over the gate. The wind pushed the tattered straw hat hanging on the fence, making it sway. No one spoke.

“Isn’t that from three years ago…” someone murmured from the crowd. “When her husband died?”

The original owner’s father had passed that year. Lin Qiaoyun didn’t say it outright. She just laid the Wedding Dress flat on the straw mat, counting the folds from the collar to the third one. Her fingers stopped under the fold. There was a knot, hidden deep, barely visible from the outside as a faint shadow.

“Here.” she said. “A marker I stitched.”

She dug her fingernail into the knot and pried it loose. The thread came out, revealing a tiny “Yun” character embroidered on the underside, hidden in the interlayer. The Stitches were so dense they were nearly invisible.

Lin Xiaoman rushed over, crouching down to stare for a long moment. She looked up. “Sister-in-law, when did you stitch that?”

“The night before the wedding.” Lin Qiaoyun’s voice was low. “I was afraid I’d lose the dress and not be able to identify it.” Half true, half false. She had only just “seen” it. But she couldn’t explain that.

Granny Wang’s face flushed red, but she held her ground. “Even if it is… it’s not enough! It’s just a marker added later. Who knows—”

“Aunt Wang.” Lin Qiaoyun stood up. “The cloth is Wang family’s, I’ll grant that. But for these three years, who made Granny Wang’s shroud? Who quilted the eldest brother’s winter coat? When I moved in, the hall curtains were a patchwork of patches. I tore up two old jackets to fix them. In three years, I haven’t added a single inch of cloth to myself.”

She paused, folding the Wedding Dress neatly and cradling it in her arms.

“I’m only taking this one bundle today. Half of it is my own old clothes. As for those two inches of cloth on the dress, if the Wang family wants them, I’ll cut them off right now. If I don’t cut them, they’re mine. If the Wang family wants to play hardball, let’s call the village committee and lay out all the work I’ve done for the past three years on the ground and talk about it.”

A voice finally came from outside the fence. “You know… three years ago, she quilted that bedroll, too.”

“Your son’s smock was altered by her, too.”

Granny Wang’s anger deflated by half. She looked around, pointing at the speaker. “What’s that supposed to mean, you?” Her voice was already softening. She took a half-step back, shamed by her own reaction.

Outside, someone coughed. It wasn’t loud, but the onlookers instinctively shifted back.

Lin Qiaoyun looked up. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorway. She had short hair tucked behind her ears, wore a half-new grey-khaki jacket with rolled-up sleeves revealing sturdy arms. She didn’t enter the courtyard. She just leaned against the doorframe, her gaze sweeping over the Wedding Dress before landing on Lin Qiaoyun’s hands. Those hands were holding the split lining, her thumb pressing against the gap.

“Time to go,” Granny Wang said, fearing further scandal. She snatched the scattered clothes from the ground and turned to leave. Seeing the woman at the door, she awkwardly called out, “Group Leader Zhou.”

The woman nodded, ignoring her, her eyes still fixed on Lin Qiaoyun.

“Qiaoyun.” She finally spoke, her voice crisp, like she was cutting fabric with shears. “Tomorrow morning. Street Corner, Sewing Group. Can you come?”

Lin Qiaoyun froze, her fingers tightening around the Wedding Dress.

“The Group has a lot of jobs and needs hands.” Aunt Zhou’s tone was flat, unemotional. “I don’t care why you were divorced. I don’t care if you can do the work. Anyone with skilled hands won’t starve.”

With that, she turned and left. The grey-khaki figure rounded the wall and vanished.

The crowd at the gate dispersed, though a few elders kept looking back, whispering about how hard it was to get into the Sewing Group. Wind blew into the woodshed, scattering the last wisp of smoke from the oil lamp. The cold scent mixed with the mold, oddly more pleasant than before.

Lin Qiaoyun sat down, holding the Wedding Dress against her palm. The Stitches beneath her hand were exactly like the ones she had just “seen.” Dense, tight, slow. The work of a woman sitting up all night, holding back tears.

She wasn’t the original owner. But she absorbed this grievance, every ounce of it.

“Sister-in-law—” Lin Xiaoman had been hesitating at the door for ages before finally slipping in. She was still clutching the half-shredded sweet potato she hadn’t been able to hand over earlier. “You’re really going to the Sewing Group?”

“Yes.”

“And… are you taking me?”

Lin Qiaoyun looked at the puppy-dog expression on her face, then at the bulge in her pants pocket—the roasted beans the original owner had saved for her. She broke the sweet potato in half and handed the larger piece to Lin Xiaoman.

“Come. Learn a trade. If you can’t learn a trade, learn not to let people steal your clothes for free.”

Lin Xiaoman chewed her sweet potato, her eyes lighting up. She mumbled through a mouthful, “Sister-in-law, I’ve heard Aunt Zhou runs a dozen people under her. She’s actually going to let us in?”

Lin Qiaoyun looked down, refolding the Wedding Dress. Her fingertip brushed the split lining she had opened. The beam of light from the roof tiles had shifted, now illuminating the loose thread ends scattered on the ground.

She smiled.

“She invited me. It’s not out of pity.” She dug the needle and thread kit from the bottom of her bundle, pulled out a needle, and tested it against the split lining.

The wind blew the tattered straw hat at the gate again. Lin Qiaoyun hugged the Wedding Dress to her chest and looked up at the light leaking through the tiles.

Three years without adding a single inch of cloth to herself.

From now on, these hands were going to stitch her own way out.