The little girl Qiu Qiu, whose full name was Wen Qiu, only knew her grandmother as a grave on the hill behind their house. Qiu Qiu was too young when her grandmother passed away, and her memories from that time were completely blank. She couldn't remember anything from before.
Yet everything in their home was connected to her grandmother, from the house itself down to a single needle.
Qiu Qiu could sense that her mother deeply missed her own mother. While Qiu Qiu could see her mom whenever she wanted, her mother didn't have that luxury.
Although Qiu Qiu hoped to chat with her grandmother in her dreams during their annual grave visits or when passing by the burial site, it never happened. On the contrary, she heard her mother mention a few times that she had seen grandmother in her dreams.
Dreams are usually fragmented and disjointed. Qiu Qiu had many dreams, most of which she forgot. Some were about her parents, others about stories she had read, but she never dreamed of her grandmother.
She didn't have any photos of her grandmother either, only books and notes with her handwriting. But these couldn't help Qiu Qiu recall anything about her grandmother.
Until one hot summer day, when her mother said the weather was nice and decided to air out the books in the storage room.
They only aired out a portion of the books at a time, spreading it over several days. If they laid out all the books at once and a sudden sun shower came, it would be disastrous. It was easier to quickly gather up a smaller number of books if needed.
No matter how much they tried to keep pests and mice away, there was always a lingering smell in the room. Her mother said it was the scent of wood and paper.
While the adults aired the books, Qiu Qiu was in charge of turning the pages. Occasionally, she'd become engrossed in an interesting book, forgetting about the task at hand. The adults didn't mind what she was reading, busy with their own work.
As Qiu Qiu flipped through the pages, she made a discovery. A small black card, about the size of a palm, fell out of a thick book.
Curious, Qiu Qiu picked it up and found it was a small booklet with golden letters that read "Student ID".
She opened it carefully, as it had been pressed so tightly in the book that the pages seemed fused together. She was afraid it might crumble.
Inside the booklet was a portrait photo next to a name: Wen Qian.
"Mom! Come quick!" Qiu Qiu had a hunch, but she needed her mother to confirm it.
"What is it?" The child's voice was so loud that An An was initially worried, but as she approached, she saw her daughter gesticulating excitedly, seemingly fine.
Qiu Qiu placed her new discovery in her mother's hands. An An didn't understand at first, but the small red-background photo in her palm made her freeze.
She had heard her mother talk about her experiences when she was young. The school on the ID was one her mother had attended, the name was her mother's, and the photo appeared to be from her university days.
An An cradled the small booklet, on the verge of tears from excitement. This was her mother's student ID photo from when she was eighteen.
Time suddenly rewound sixty years. The Wen Qian in the photo was different from the grandmother An An remembered, but the eyes and brows still matched her memories.
Qiu Qiu stood on tiptoes, continuing to examine the photo of her grandmother's youthful face, saying, "So this is what grandmother looked like. I finally know her appearance."
From that moment on, she could connect her grandmother to this image.
An An was overjoyed and excited, proudly showing her mother's photo to her husband when he returned home.
This single small photo brought An An happiness for a long time. She even became more indulgent with Qiu Qiu, making her egg cakes for several days.
The student ID must have been placed in Wen Qian's dimensional space when she left the city to return to her hometown. It had remained there, which explained its excellent preservation.
A few years before Wen Qian passed away, the book appeared on the outer shelves. The book containing her student ID was one of her old textbooks from her major.
Because it was so thick, and her major wasn't particularly useful in this era, An An hadn't come across this book during her student years.
Wen Qian had tucked it into the bookshelf before she passed away, where Qiu Qiu eventually found it.
An An carefully preserved the rediscovered photo, hoping it would last as long as possible since it was the only one they had.
Not only did Qiu Qiu and Yin Chuan see and discuss the photo, but when Uncle Big Jin and Uncle Little Ning came to visit, she also showed it to them for recognition.
An An successfully used the photo to spark memories in the two uncles about the past. They had met Wen Qian when they were around ten years old.
The Wen Qian in their memories was closer to the one in the photo. At that time, Wen Qian was in her thirties, but they said she looked similar to the photo, just with a slightly yellower complexion. Her facial features remained largely unchanged.
For a long time afterward, An An treasured this photo, but as time passed, the colors began to fade.
This was something An An couldn't change. She knew the photo was already over sixty years old and should have looked old when she first saw it.
For some reason, she had the mistaken impression that it aged faster in her possession, when in fact, this was the normal aging process.
The reason it hadn't changed much before was due to Wen Qian's dimensional space. Now, without the protection of the space, it naturally aged slowly in An An's hands.
An An wanted to find methods for photo preservation in books, but she only found information about the lifespan of photos. Color photos typically last about a hundred years.
This meant that by the time she was old, the photo would be completely unclear.
So she thought about preserving the photo in another form, such as a portrait drawing.
An An began to practice drawing with pencils again, using books on manga and sketching.
Wen Qian herself didn't have many talents. Given the living standards of her time, having enough to eat, drink, and study was already fortunate, so she didn't develop any artistic skills.
When she was raising An An, she didn't have many special skills to teach her. She had books on art and music, but no paints, brushes, or instruments.
The only thing she could teach An An was how to draw cartoons from books, which An An did as a child to exercise her imagination. As she grew older, she stopped drawing.
After many years, An An tried using pencils and charcoal to draw portraits in an attempt to capture her mother's likeness. Whenever she had free time, Qiu Qiu would see her mother practicing drawing.
Unlike her mother's method of drawing from photographs, Qiu Qiu preferred the cartoon-style three-head-body proportion technique, as she found the resulting figures adorable.
When An An noticed that Qiu Qiu had replaced her diary writing with drawing, she praised her daughter, impressed by her creativity.
Years later, Qiu Qiu observed her mother sketching her grandmother's face on a blank sheet of paper with a pencil. The resemblance to the photograph was remarkably high.
She realized that her mother was no longer afraid of photographs disappearing.
