①奶奶拿起剪刀，鉸下一方紅紙。心中忽然如電閃雷鳴般騷亂。身在炕上，一顆心早飛出窗欞，在海一樣的高粱上空像鴿子一樣翱翔……奶奶自小大門不出，二門不邁，悶在家裡，幾乎與世隔絕。略略長成，又遵從父母之命，媒妁之言，匆忙出嫁。十幾日來，千顛萬倒，風吹轉篷，雨打漂萍，滿池破荷葉，一對鴛鴦紅。十幾日來，奶奶一顆心在蜜汁裡養過、冰水裡浸過、滾水裡煮過、高粱酒裡泡過，已經是千種滋味，萬條傷瘢。奶奶祈望著什麼，又不知該祈望什麼。她拿著剪刀，不知該鉸什麼，往日的奇思妙想，被一串串亂紛紛的大場面破壞。正胡思亂想著，奶奶聽到從初秋的原野上，從漾著酒味兒的高粱地裡，飄來一聲聲悽婉的、美麗的蟈蟈鳴叫。奶奶仿佛看到了那嫩綠的小蟲兒，伏在已經淺紅的高粱穗子上，抖動著兩根纖細的觸鬚剪動翅膀。一個大膽新穎的構思，跳出了奶奶的腦海：
②一個跳出美麗牢籠的蟈蟈，站在籠蓋上，振動翅膀歌唱。
③奶奶剪完蟈蟈出籠，又剪了一隻梅花小鹿。它背上生出一枝紅梅花，昂首挺胸，在自由的天地裡，正在尋找著自己無憂無慮、無拘無束的美滿生活。
④奶奶剪紙時的奇思妙想，充分說明了她原本就是一個女中豪傑，只有她才敢把梅花樹栽到鹿背上。每當我看到奶奶的剪紙時，敬佩之意就油然而生。我奶奶要是搞了文學這一行，會把一大群文學家踩出屎來。她就是造物主，她就是金口玉牙，她說蟈蟈出籠蟈蟈就出籠，她說鹿背上長樹鹿背上就長樹。
⑤奶奶，你孫子跟你相比，顯得像個餓了三年的白蝨子一樣乾癟。[14]165-166
As she picked up the scissors and cut a perfect square out of the red paper, a sense of unease struck her like a bolt of lightning. Although she was seated on the kang, her heart had flown out of the window and was soaring above the red sorghum like a dove on the wing. … Since childhood she had lived a cloistered life, cut off from the outside world. As she neared maturity, she had obeyed the orders of her parents, and been rushed to the home of her husband. In the two weeks that followed, everything had been turned topsy-turvy: water plants swirling in the wind, duckweeds bathing in the rain, lotus leaves scattered on the pond, a pair of frolicking red mandarin ducks. During those two weeks, her heart had been dipped in honey, immersed in ice, scalded in boiling water, steeped in sorghum wine.
Grandma was hoping for something, without knowing what it was. She picked up the scissors again, but what to cut? Her fantasies and dreams were shattered by one chaotic image after another, and as her thoughts grew more confused, the mournful yet lovely song of the katydids drifted up from the early-autumn wildwoods and sorghum fields. A bold and novel idea leaped into her mind: a katydid has freed itself from its gilded cage, where it perches to rub its wings and sing.
After cutting out the uncaged katydid, Grandma fashioned a plum-blossom deer. The deer, its head high and chest thrown out, has a plum tree growing from its back as it wanders in search of a happy life, free of care and worries, devoid of constraints.
Only Grandma would have had the audacity to place a plum tree on the back of a deer. Whenever I see one of Grandma’s cutouts, my admiration for her surges anew. If she could have become a writer, she would have put many of her literary peers to shame. She was endowed with the golden lips and jade teeth of genius. She said a katydid perched on top of its cage, and that’s what it did; she said a plum tree grew from the back of a deer, and that’s where it grew.
Grandma, compared with you, I am like a shriveled insect that has gone hungry for three long years. [15]131-132