Every time he returned home, if his posture was even slightly incorrect, he would be chastised. But what’s going on today? There was no scolding; instead, he was met with smiles and even a compliment. However, this smile was strangely too much like that of a commissar; could there be something more to come? The soldier couldn’t help but shrink a little, feeling the hairs on his body stand on end for the first time.
Inside the house, Mr. Sun hurriedly opened the bag and took out its contents—a set of Tang attire. The dark red top was delicately embroidered with a pattern of longevity and a dragon. The embroidery was incredibly exquisite; he thought himself quite knowledgeable, but he had never seen anyone embroider something so intricate. His wife’s embroidery was good, but it couldn’t compare to this—it was not just one but several notches below. Moreover, the clothes were superbly tailored, with a hint of stiffness, perhaps due to some cotton. But what he loved most was the pair of shoes, hand-stitched with thick, thousand-layer soles. His wife used to make them for him, but now her eyesight had declined, and she could no longer handle the needle. Thus, he hadn’t worn self-made shoes for a while. These shoes were crafted excellently, with the soles thicker than usual. You could tell a lot of effort went into stitching them, and the patterns of auspicious clouds around the rims were particularly attractive, obviously embroidered in the same style as the top.
He clumsily changed into the clothes, and then called out, "Old lady, come out and see, how do I look in these clothes?"
He checked himself in the mirror from every angle and was very pleased with what he saw. The material of the top shimmered with a silvery luster under the light, and the embroidery was so delicate that it could rival a celestial palace. Especially at this moment, the dragon’s eyes and claws appeared lifelike, with a fierce gleam in its eye, and the claws looked as if they were about to break through the air, exuding an undeniable power and dominance.
When Old Madam Sun came out, she was taken aback by the clothes Mr. Sun was wearing.
"Where did these come from?"
She gently and carefully touched the embroidery on the clothes. This was purely hand-embroidered; it seemed like Su Embroidery, but not quite. Could it be Shu Embroidery or perhaps Hunan Embroidery? Each style resembled but didn’t quite match; it was as if the piece took inspiration from various traditions, combining different embroidery techniques into something unique.
"Old man, where did you get this?"
"Not bad, huh," Mr. Sun was extremely pleased, "If I wear this outfit for my eightieth birthday, those old geezers will be green with envy." He continued to admire himself in the mirror, the clothes fitting him perfectly, as if tailor-made indeed, they were tailor-made for him.
He was satisfied, very satisfied, incredibly satisfied.
"What old geezers?" Old Madam Sun frowned, "If you call others ’old geezers’, they might as well call you the same, and they’d have to casually call me an ’old geezer’ as well."
"They wouldn’t dare," Mr. Sun raised his voice, "How can my Xiuxiu ever be old? Even if she were, she would still be my Xiuxiu."
At those words, Old Madam Sun couldn’t help blushing. Even though her face had sagged with age and was lined with fine wrinkles—after all, time spares no one and her face bore the creases of time, the more creased it became, the looser it was—her heart remained as young and beautiful as ever.