Excerpts from Zhang ailing's collection of essays

Autumn rain

Rain, like silver-gray sticky spider silk, weaves into a soft net, covering the whole autumn world. The sky is also dark, like a roof covered with cobwebs in an old house. The gray clouds piled in the sky are like peeling powder on the roof. Under the cover of this old roof, everything is extraordinarily dull. The green pomegranates, mulberry trees and grapevines in the garden only represent the prosperity of the summer in the past, and now they have become the relics of ancient Roman architecture, shrinking restlessly in the rustling rain and recalling the glorious past. The grass color had turned to a melancholy pale yellow, and no fresh flowers could be found on the ground; the delicate daffodils planted outside the dormitory wall, with their heads bowed and eyes full of tears, sighed for their misfortune. Only two days of fine days have passed and encountered such a musty and rainy day. Only the sweet-scented osmanthus in the corner, the branches have been decorated with several precious gold stamens, carefully hidden under the green oval petals, revealing a little hope of new life sprouting.

The rain was falling quietly, with only a slight patter. The orange house, like an old monk in bright cassock, hung his head and closed his eyes and was baptized at the bottom of the rain. The damp red brick, the irritating color of pig's blood, contrasts strongly with the green cinnamon leaves under the wall. The gray toad, jumping in the wet, moldy mud, is the only thing full of joy and vitality at the bottom of the dreary net of the autumn rain. It has a gray-yellow mottled pattern on its back, which corresponds to the dreary sky, creating a harmonious tone. It danced from the grass nest into the mud, splashing dark green spray.

Rain, like silver-gray sticky spider silk, is woven into a gentle web that covers the whole autumn world.