The Aloof Mother

Lin Wanqing is forty-two—hair in a bun, glasses, white blouse—and no one at the office dares to get close. When her son Li Ze comes home for summer vacation, he discovers that behind closed doors his mother is a completely different person. A crack in the door, a power outage, the sofa. She says with her lips, "I'm your mother," but her body gives in first. After that, by day she still chairs meetings; by night she kneels before her own son.