Yes, if they had felt the same, that would have been strange.
In Zhang Xiaohua's imagination, his mother should have had graying hair and wrinkles covering her face. His father's hair should have been even whiter, his back bent from toil, and the large hands that had supported him since childhood should have been exceedingly rough. His eldest brother should have gone gray early, his face etched with bitterness and hardship, his body ruined by farm work. His sister-in-law should have seen her beauty fade before its time, taking on the appearance of a village woman.
But what was the reality now? When he had thrown himself into his mother's arms just now, her hair had seemed jet-black, and her skin had been quite good. Though there were crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, there were not many. The large hand his father had used to pull him along had seemed even smoother than when he had left home, without the slightest roughness. And when his father had walked back just now, his back had been straight as a ramrod. Where was there even the faintest sign of it being bent from exhaustion?
He had not gotten a clear look at his eldest brother and sister-in-law, but they clearly did not look as he had imagined either.
Why was everything so different from what he had imagined?
Zhang Xiaohua looked at Zhang Cai's head full of black hair beneath the oil lamp, as well as the face that had barely changed since he had left two years ago, and asked, "Father, why is your hair so black? I remember when I left, it was already gray."
Zhang Cai unconsciously touched his hair and smiled. "Who knows? Last year, it slowly started turning black. It was still gray then,