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Nothing ever came in return.
    I touch these carved ones now, amazed at how his skill has progressed in the last two years. Bittersweet memories cling to me, and then, reluctantly, I let go of them and continue my observation.

CHAPTER 3
    BOTH LI WEI AND HIS FATHER are on my mind that night when Zhang Jing and I return to the school. Seeing her reminds me of Bao and how both of them are trying so desperately to hide their blindness from the rest of the village. How many others are like that? How many other villagers are making a slow descent into darkness?
    When we begin our evening work on the record of the day’s events, I have difficulty staying focused. My mind keeps wandering, making it difficult to paint the scenes I need to. Elder Chen notices as he strolls by.
    Are you daydreaming again, Fei?
he asks, not unkindly.
Imagining beautiful colors and wonders that you’d rather be painting?
    Yes
, I lie, not willing to tell him what’s truly on my mind.
I’m sorry, master. There is no excuse.
    A mind like yours, one capable of appreciating and imagining beautiful things, is not a detriment, not by any means
,
he says.
But unfortunately, it is not necessarily called for here. This is the fate we have been given.
    I bow in acknowledgment.
I will not go to bed until this piece is flawless.
    The other girls are all asleep when I finally return to our dorm room. Once in bed, I realize I never got a chance to go over and check Zhang Jing’s work. By the time I finished with mine, I was so tired I probably wouldn’t have been much help anyway. We still have more work to do on the record in the morning, and I make a mental note to check her portion of it then. Sleep consumes me quickly, but I don’t find peace.
    I dream I am walking in a field of pink orchids, just like I imagined earlier. They transform into chrysanthemums, and the richness of their petals is intoxicating, making me run my fingers through them. Soon I find myself walking out of the flower field and onto the path that runs by the cliff’s edge. It takes me to the supply line, where the crowd gathered this morning. They are here again, waiting for some important news. Only this time it’s me who stands on the crate, forced to deliver a terrible message to my fellow villagers. My hands move quickly as I sign the news, and I barely process what it is I’m telling them, only that it signifies a bleak future of worse conditions and no hope. When I finish, I find the courage to look out at the faces of the crowd, and I gasp at what I see.
    All of them gaze up at me with blank eyes, their irises gone white. And even though their faces are lifted in my direction, it’s clear none of them can see me. Everyone around me is blind.Only I have been left with all my senses. Despair fills the villagers’ features, and they all open their mouths at the same time.
    What happens next is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, a sensation that’s almost like a vibration and yet something more. It seems to reach a part of my brain I didn’t even know existed. I have no words for it, no way to articulate this experience. The villagers open their mouths wider, and the sensation grows more intense, pulsing in my ears. My head begins to ache. Then, as one, they all shut their mouths. The sensation abruptly stops, and all is still. I feel a pull in my chest, as though I am reaching out to someone or something far away.
    And then my own vision goes black.
    Panic fills me until I realize I’ve simply awakened and am looking around the girls’ bedroom of the dormitory. I sit up in bed, gasping, peering around me and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Faint moonlight trickles in from behind the window blinds, and eventually I can see well enough to make out my surroundings. Zhang Jing sleeps peacefully in the bed beside mine, and beyond her, the other girls are asleep as well.
    But something is different.