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The gallery's overhead lights cast fragmented spots of light on the canvas as Xiao Ya's fingertips glided over the texture of her new work, "Silent Scream." The gritty feel of the acrylic mixed with sand scratched at her fingerprints. From outside the exhibition hall, the faint voice of a tour guide could be heard: "This piece uses wood shavings from old desks recycled by the Deaf-Mute School..."
"Teacher Lin!" A girl in an orange volunteer uniform rushed over, breathless. "The kids from Star House have arrived." Xiao Ya turned to the entrance of the exhibition hall, where seven children tied with yellow ribbons were pressing their noses against the glass door, their nostrils flattening against it.
Suddenly, a little girl in a wheelchair broke free from the volunteer's grasp and dashed uncontrollably toward the Bronze Sculpture in the center of the hall. The cold metallic light reflected off her distorted Hearing Aid. Xiao Ya quickly approached, kneeling on one knee, her fingers tracing smooth arcs in the air. "Do you want to touch it?" The girl stared at her flowing Sign Language, placing her palm against the cold base of the sculpture.
Three months later, at the Art Foundation's inauguration ceremony, that girl's artwork, "Metal Temperature," was printed on the front page of the commemorative booklet. As Xiao Ya entered City Hall holding a gold-embossed invitation, the security guard frowned at her Hearing Aid peeking out from behind her ear. When the award speech reached the words "Resilient Despite Physical Limitations," she suddenly stood up and signed: "Please remove the lens of pity; we do not need specimens of virtue."
In stunned silence, a documentary began to play on the big screen. The camera swept over a tunnel where homeless youths were painting, zooming in on oil paint embedded in their cracked fingernails. When it showed hundreds of paper airplanes taking flight from the rooftop of the Deaf-Mute School, judges in the front row took off their glasses to wipe them.
On the night of the publication of "Light in the Cracks," Xiao Ya curled up among stacks of boxes in a publishing warehouse. Her fingertips traced over the embossed Braille on the cover when she suddenly heard rustling sounds— that reporter who always threw erasers at her during press conferences was secretly stuffing a copy of the book into a homeless man's woven bag.
At the auction, when "Eternal Day" sold for an astonishing price, Xiao Ya abruptly grabbed the auction hammer and struck it heavily. "Now please turn off the lights." In darkness, glowing veins began to emerge on the canvas; these were replicated Auditory Nerve Dendrites made with luminescent paint. Gasps filled the room like a tide as she turned toward the camera and gestured: "Can you hear it? The shape of silence."
On stage, rain poured down heavily; artificial rain soaked her chiffon skirt. Xiao Ya suddenly turned the trophy upside down, allowing rainwater to flow into the microphone. Amidst crackling sounds, her hoarse mechanical voice emerged: "This is the dosage of sleeping pills swallowed at sixteen."
On her wedding day, all frames in the gallery suddenly turned collectively toward her. As her groom signed "I do" in Sign Language, Xiao Ya lifted her veil and splashed paint across her canvas. Bright red paint flowed down her wedding dress, eventually pooling on the ground to form two intertwined sign symbols. Outside, shadows from sycamore leaves danced across the canvas, reminiscent of flickering light from that year's infirmary.
Inside a museum's climate-controlled case, "Hope Seed" was undergoing subtle changes. Buried beneath layers of oil paint, wild pea seeds broke through cracked color layers and began to sprout under surveillance cameras. When security rushed in rubbing his eyes, tender leaves had already climbed up Monet's "Water Lilies" frame.
Years later at an anniversary celebration, an elderly principal pointed at a photo on the honor wall with emotion choking his voice. In that photo, Xiao Ya was holding hands with an autistic boy as they doodled together; his other hand tightly gripped her Hearing Aid. The sunset streamed through their space between them, casting a rainbow across their palette.
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