Lin Niangzi said she would teach Ye Tao how to do embroidery, but after all, she had never taught an apprentice before, and it had been over thirty years since she first learned the craft herself, so her memory was a bit hazy. After much deliberation, she decided to have Ye Tao start by practicing on a silk handkerchief.

Since there were no brushes or ink at home, she used silk thread to directly embroider the outline of a lotus flower onto the thin silk cloth.

“In ordinary households, embroidery just needs to capture the general shape—it doesn’t have to be very detailed. Just fill in the design stitch by stitch, and that’s enough.”

Ye Tao had only ever embroidered small flowers with four or five round petals. Pointing to the edge of a petal, she asked, “From here to the center—it’s this long—do I just use one stitch?” 

“Of course not,” said Lin Niangzi, tapping her fingertip halfway along the outer edge of the petal. “The first stitch is about this long, and then from here to here…”

As she spoke, Lin Niangzi picked up the needle to demonstrate. Her slender fingers flitted up and down with the embroidery needle, and in no time at all, she had finished half a petal. She stopped there: “That’s enough for now. My eyes are getting tired, and since you’re just starting out, three stitches will do.”

In other words, the so-called “filling in” actually involved using three different lengths of stitches, arranged in a staggered, harmonious pattern. Ye Tao placed the thin silk cloth in his basket to take with him to the banyan tree.

There hadn’t been much business all morning, so after embroidering two flower petals, Ye Tao rubbed and stretched her fingers to loosen them up. Old Man Hong said, “That embroidery hoop belongs to your aunt, doesn’t it?”

Ye Tao nodded. Old Man Hong said, “Since she’s a woman, this size fits perfectly in her hands. With hands as big as yours, doesn’t it feel a bit cramped?” Ye Tao did indeed feel a bit cramped; he always felt his two hands didn’t coordinate well, but he hadn’t attributed it to the embroidery hoop until Old Man Hong mentioned it.

When asked, he flashed a mischievous smile: “Uncle Hong, you can definitely make one, right? Can you make me one that fits just right?”

Old Man Hong could indeed make one. He wove a circle out of bamboo strips for him to try on for size. As soon as Ye Tao held it in his hand, he immediately felt the difference and gave Old Man Hong a thumbs-up.

Old Man Hong said, “These bamboo strips are too thin. To make an embroidery hoop, I’ll need thicker ones. I’ll bring them to you in the afternoon, but it’ll be a little later.”

Ye Tao knew Old Man Hong lived on the opposite bank of the Jin River, and getting back and forth wasn’t exactly convenient. He usually spent his lunchtime under the banyan tree instead of going home, so he hurriedly said, “No rush—it’ll be just as good if you bring it in a few days.”

Old Man Hong shook his head. “I’ve been meaning to go cut some bamboo anyway. I’ll do it today.”

He didn’t pack up his stall; instead, he tidied up his wares a bit and said to Ye Tao, “I’ll leave my things here. If anyone comes to ask about prices, please take care of them for me.”

Ye Tao readily agreed. Old Man Hong’s prices were based on size, so they weren’t hard to remember; after sitting nearby for a day, he’d have a good grasp of them.

That afternoon, with Old Man Hong away, Ye Tao sat alone under the banyan tree embroidering a thin silk handkerchief.

A boy who looked about two years older than Zhenniang was pacing back and forth nearby. He watched Ye Tao embroider flowers for half the afternoon, and only after Ye Tao had greeted a customer inquiring about the price of a small bamboo basket did the boy finally speak up: “Can you embroider? Can you sew clothes?”

Ye Tao had noticed him long ago—there was a hole in his shoulder.

“Do you need to mend your clothes?”

The boy said, “I want it sewn so you can’t tell it’s been mended.”

Ye Tao shook his head: “It has to be from the front—it won’t work from the back.”

“It’s fine if you can’t tell from the front,” the child said, sounding a bit skeptical. “Is that really possible?” 

“If it’s not good, I won’t charge you.”

Ye Tao was very confident. When he first started making doll clothes, he set his prices high, and to attract customers, he had once advertised “free after-sales service.”

Since the clothes were for dolls—which don’t go out or move around—he assumed the worst that could happen would be minor issues like a thread coming loose while dressing them or a decoration falling off. But for some reason, the clothes sent back were always torn in the most bizarre ways.

Thanks to these bizarrely torn garments, he’d gained a bit of experience in mending. 

The tears in the clothes weren’t large—one was L-shaped, and the other was a small hole. To mend them so they wouldn’t be noticeable, he definitely couldn’t just slap on a rough patch; he’d have to put in a little effort, but it’s still much easier to handle than, say, “glue getting on the clothes and accidentally distorting them when you pull them apart.”

Ye Tao asked, “Do you have three wen?”

The boy replied hesitantly, “I only have two wen.”

“Two wen is fine.” Since he had no other work to do, Ye Tao wasn’t picky. “But you’ll have to take your shirt off.”

The boy handed him the money along with his shirt and ran off to play in the stream nearby.

Ye Tao examined the clothes closely. They were made of persimmon-dyed cloth, and since the color of persimmon-dyed cloth changes over time, it would be very difficult to find thread that matched exactly—not to mention that Ye Tao didn’t have much thread to choose from anyway.

So he’d have no choice but to unravel the threads from the clothes.

Clothing makers should have anticipated the need to adjust the size as children grow, so the hem and sleeves have been taken in quite a bit; unpicking a few stitches along the edges shouldn’t be a problem.

Clean up the torn edge, fold the ragged, frayed edges inward slightly, align both sides neatly, and then you can start sewing. Sew along the direction of the yarn; once finished, there will be only a thin stitch line. Since ramie fabric has coarse yarn and natural knots, this stitch line won’t be very noticeable.

There was no way to hide the inside, so to reinforce it, Ye Tao tucked a small piece of interfacing inside—anyone with eyes could see it. 

The little boy had gone to play by the stream a while ago and hadn’t come back yet. Worried something might have happened, Ye Tao stood up to look for him. When he saw the boy holding a large leaf and searching for snails—and with rows of people washing clothes along the stream bank—he decided not to interfere. 

Business was unexpectedly brisk that afternoon. Originally, the women in the village had thought there was no need to pay someone to mend clothes, but after seeing with their own eyes how he’d mended the child’s garment so that the repair was almost invisible, they realized there were benefits to paying for the service. Immediately, two of them went home to fetch their clothes.

One of them was also a linen shirt with a large tear in the back. It had been mended before, but the stitching wasn’t very neat; the seam allowance took up part of the fabric, and it was noticeably shorter than the adjacent fabric, looking lopsided and resembling a long scar.

The shirt was its natural hemp color, and Ye Tao had thread on hand, so there was no need to unravel the original stitching—but the shirt still had to be taken apart.

“Here, you’ll definitely have to unpick the stitches you sewed earlier—including the side seams and the center back seam.”

“Why do I have to unpick so much? I didn’t see you unpick that other garment just now.”

Ye Tao explained patiently, “That one was just torn, and the tear was small, so the patch wouldn’t be noticeable after mending. This one, however, has already been mended once. If we unpick it again, the tear might not line up properly, and I’ll have to tuck in more fabric, which will throw off the front and back lengths.”

“How much will that cost?”

Seeing that she seemed concerned about the price, Ye Tao estimated the amount of work involved: “This garment must be one you made yourself; I imagine the stitching is quite good. I’ll only charge to unpick and mend this tear and the center seam; you can take the sides home to sew yourself. I’ll charge four wen.”

The woman breathed a sigh of relief and immediately produced four wen: “Go ahead and take it apart.”

Without a specialized seam-ripper, Lin Niangzi’s scissors had sharp, pointed tips that could easily pierce the fabric. Ye Tao worked carefully, cutting almost stitch by stitch. After finishing the seam, he noticed an elderly woman holding a garment nearby and asked her, “Need your clothes mended? I’m busy right now. If you’re in a hurry, just tell me exactly where to mend it and leave the garment here.”

The old woman waved her hand. “No rush. Take your time. I’ll just watch.” Ye Tao paid her no further attention and concentrated on her mending.

The first time he sewed this garment, the pieces weren’t aligned properly. When he unpicked it, the fabric was wrinkled. With no iron and no small clothespins, Ye Tao had no choice but to smooth out the fabric, baste it in place, and then carefully mend it.

His movements were still not particularly quick, but his hands were steady; every stitch was as precise as if he were using a ruler. The needle moved only forward, never back to unpick or mend. Before they knew it, the onlookers had watched him finish the entire process.

Four wen were added to the till. The boy, having gathered enough snails, came to pick up his shirt, and someone else asked the price of a bamboo fruit tray. Just as Ye Tao was about to speak, he heard someone behind him say, “Six wen.”

Old Man Hong had returned at some point.

Ye Tao didn’t even have time to greet him; the elderly woman who’d been waiting nearby for a while finally held out the garment for him to see.

The moment Ye Tao took it in his hands, he understood why she’d been so cautious. The garment felt soft to the touch—it was made of thin silk cloth. Though he didn’t know the exact price, he knew silk was certainly more expensive than hemp.

The pale yellow long tunic had two small holes in the chest area. The old woman chattered on about how rats had infested her home and asked him, “Can this be mended?”

“No rush—let me take a look first.” Ye Tao gently shook out the garment and examined it closely, discovering tears on the back as well. There were five holes in total: the largest was the size of a fingernail, while the smallest were no bigger than mung beans.

Ye Tao offered two options: “Either unpick the stitches at the hem or the front placket and mend it, or embroider it.” 

The old woman asked, “Embroider it? What kind of design?”

Ye Tao showed her the lotus flower he had embroidered that morning and said frankly, “I’m not very good at embroidery. If you don’t like this design, I’ll take it back and ask my aunt.”

The old woman took one look at his stiff, uneven stitches and immediately dismissed the idea. She chose to have it mended instead and asked, “I also have a handkerchief made from the same bolt of fabric. Could you take the stitches out of that to use for the patch?”

“Of course. That’ll actually save some time.” Ye Tao roughly estimated the workload and quoted ten wen. Ten wen to mend a thin silk cloth that was no longer wearable was a great deal.

The old woman said, “My house isn’t far. I’ll go home right now to find the handkerchief. When do you close up shop?”

Ye Tao glanced at the sky. “It’ll be a little while yet. It doesn’t matter when I close up—I’m here every day.” 

“I’ll bring it over today.”

After the old woman left, no one else came in for mending. Ye Tao took out his bamboo tube and took a sip of water. Old Man Hong chuckled, “Business was pretty good today.”

Ye Tao replied cheerfully, “Not bad—it was quite lively.”

In reality, even counting it all up, he’d only made sixteen wen; ten of those were spent on the way here, so he’d only actually pocketed six wen.

The embroidery hoop that Old Man Hong made to measure for him also cost six wen. Although this hoop was simply a circle—unlike plates or boxes, which are woven from many bamboo strips into complex structures—it had been heat-treated to set its shape and polished until smooth and refined, making it very comfortable to hold. He suspected it took even more time to make.

Ye Tao paid without hesitation, switched to the new embroidery hoop, and continued embroidering. When the old woman brought the handkerchief, he began earning another ten wen.

This kind of hole, gnawed by a mouse, was slightly different from one caused by snagging; it couldn’t be patched directly. First, he had to smooth it out. After carefully trimming away all the frayed edges, Ye Tao stretched the garment taut on his newly acquired embroidery hoop and examined it closely. He noticed that the warp threads were slightly denser than the weft threads, so he began by joining the weft threads. After arranging them to match the original density of the warp threads, he proceeded as if weaving a cloth, using an embroidery needle and silk thread to fill in the warp threads one by one. Once a hole was mended, he showed it to the old woman. 

The old woman held it up to the light and examined it closely for a long while before she could even tell where the original hole had been. She praised him effusively: “That’s excellent—that’s exactly how it should be mended.” Once all five small holes were mended, the golden sun sank in the west, and Ye Tao packed up his stall.