Aran paced back and forth in the room, examining and touching everything in sight. There were trinkets here she had never seen before—nine-linked rings, a clay rattle, a small mud cart—and even a yellowed cloth tiger. Aran picked it up and patted the dust off it.
"This is so lifelike," she remarked. Having once fought a real tiger, the memory of what one looked like was still fresh in her mind.
"My mother stitched that herself. Her needlework was so fine that even the palace embroiderers could hardly match it. If she were still alive, she surely would have sewn our wedding attire herself." When Chu Hengyuan thought back to his childhood, he remembered that apart from his formal robes, every piece of clothing he wore had been made by his mother; his brothers had been endlessly envious of him. As he grew older, he had insisted she stop staying up late to make clothes for him, yet she still managed to stitch two or three items for him every year.
Chapter 197