At the temple gate

A co-worker, Lao Chiang, gives Tao Ying a free ticket to a famous temple. Children under 110 centimetres go in free, so she takes Xiao Ye with her.

At the gate, a young guard in red says the boy is over the height limit, and must have a ticket. He points to a red line on the wall, which looks like an earthworm.

Tao Ying is confident: she knows Xiao Ye is under the limit. She lets the crowd gather to watch. But when the boy stands against the wall, the red line reaches only his ear. She slaps the top of his head, meaning to flatten his hair, and the crowd condemns her as a cheat who hits her child.

The guard sneers. He talks about the platinum standard ruler in Paris, and demands that she buy a ticket and apologise.

Then Xiao Ye asks quietly whether she really did not buy a ticket. Tao Ying refuses to buy one now: that would look like confessing that she had tried to cheat. She leads him away. He falls silent, suddenly grown up, and she feels she has lost something precious: her son's trust.