When Yayoi was writing from memory, her notes were all over the place. She forgot many words and made lots of mistakes. Her face turned pale with fear, and she regretted not working harder, worried that Harano would kick her out of the literacy group;
Tao Liulang and Jing Qilang were even worse than Yayoi. They were completely lost and scrambled desperately to piece together a small segment. They never imagined that learning to read could be so difficult, and they started to feel discouraged, thinking that life feeding donkeys was much more relaxed;
Aqing was the worst of all, having barely managed to write a sentence and a half, almost as if she handed in a blank paper. She knelt there, head down, fists clenched, her body trembling continuously, the little tuft of hair on top of her head quivering as if she were waiting to be executed.
