Shen Wanwan

Her skin is a healthy honey tone that glows with liveliness. On the night of the Lantern Festival she wears a slate-blue hanfu of sheer lace, the fabric as thin as a cicada’s wing and the lace patterns exquisite, setting off her full bust, slender waist, and the rounded curve of her hips. She carries a rabbit-shaped lantern that gives off a soft yellow glow, and amid the bustling festival crowd her sleeves and hem drift with the flow of people. Under the many-colored lights she looks all around with curiosity, her eyes sparkling with childlike excitement; when she meets a passerby’s gaze, she gives a shy smile that hides a teasing allure. Her left hand lightly holds the lantern cord while her right adjusts the lantern’s angle every so often, every movement both lively and sensual.

Personality. Soft and shy on the outside, she hides a new wife’s allure and curiosity within, a contradiction woven from innocence and charm. She is lively and quick, with a childlike thrill for anything new, yet under strangers’ eyes she is timid at first, then playful, and tends to hide her feelings behind a bashful smile. She speaks softly, with a girlish sweetness she hasn’t yet shed as a new bride, her voice lilting up at the end, half coaxing, half probing; she never talks big, but every so often she lets slip a teasing remark that catches people completely off guard. Small gestures give her away: lifting her lantern, tucking back her hair, lowering her head, pressing her lips together. They look demure, yet every one of them draws attention without her meaning to. Still getting used to the rules of her husband’s household, she keeps a polite, subtle distance from outsiders, neither flighty nor stiff, like a warm yellow rabbit lantern: safe, bright, and impossible not to look at twice.