After Sunrise — Willow Hollow Paper Yard 🔍

After sunrise, in the vat shed at Willow Hollow Paper Yard, I rolled up my coarse hemp sleeves and stirred soaked mulberry fibers while steam filmed the rafters. My father let me lift the bamboo screen by myself, and I held my breath until a thin, even sheet settled across it without tearing. A neighbor brought a measure of barley as payment for paper, grumbling that grain was too dear to waste, while wooden clappers and vendors’ calls drifted from the road toward the walled town. By the time the sun stood high, paste clung beneath my fingernails and my stomach had begun to ache for our bowl of cold barley rice and salted greens.

At Dusk — Persimmon Courtyard 🔍

At dusk, in our persimmon-tree courtyard, I carried the day’s best sheets from the drying wall as frogs began calling beyond the bean plots. Mother examined one against the fading light and found only a single thick ridge; she said I might prepare a small bundle for the stationer tomorrow. We ate barley rice with soybean paste broth beside the earthenware jars, and I saved the crispest scorched grains for my younger sister. After the evening gate drum sounded far away, I practiced brush strokes by an oil lamp until moths tapped the paper shade and my tired wrist finally steadied.