A Young Woman's Heart

An old man pushing a tricycle sat down on a small stool next to her. On the tricycle was a cylindrical iron stove, and the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes made Mo Xueyao swallow hard.

But she knew that she would be eating soon when she got home, and buying roasted sweet potatoes now would be a complete waste of money.

So, quite rationally, he put his hands in his pockets and continued walking forward, pretending he hadn't seen anything.

Next to the station, someone was selling snowflake cakes.

Snowflake cake is not a cold drink; it's actually just a pastry with other ingredients added. It tastes different when eaten hot and when eaten cold.

Freshly baked snowflake cakes are soft and delicious, but become even chewier when they cool down.

Mo Xueyao likes to eat the kind that's fresh out of the oven.

On the way home from school, there are quite a few tempting foods to choose from.

Near the fruit shop, there is a park, and an uncle at the park entrance is boiling sugar to make sugar figurines.

A group of elementary school students who had just finished school gathered around him, looking excited.

This sugar figurine man seems to be there every day—he's never absent as long as it's sunny.

I remember he was there when she was little.

Mo Xueyao recalled that when she was in elementary school, the man who sold candy figurines seemed to be about this age.

Hmm... now it seems like I just have a few more wrinkles?

That happened seven or eight years ago.

Back then, coins worth a few cents were still in circulation. Mo Xueyao would occasionally find these small denominations of money on the street or under the bed at home. Occasionally, her mother would give her a few two-cent coins as pocket money.

Back then, making a sugar figurine only cost five cents.

I still remember those five-cent banknotes with a ship on the front and a dark green color. After receiving them, she would save them and wait for the day she went to her godfather's house to play. Then, without telling the adults, she would sneak out and buy one.

Mr. Sugar Man's sugar figurines cannot be ordered; he has a wooden wheel that makes whatever shape it lands on, like a lottery.

At that time, she didn't particularly care whether the sugar figurines were pretty or not; she just hoped to get a bigger one, which would be a good deal.

In the past seven or eight years, prices have risen a lot. Now, Mr. Sugar Man's sugar figurines cost two cents each. What remains unchanged is the sugar figurine itself, which hasn't shrunk, and the wooden wheel that is still in use today.

Mo Xueyao touched the five-cent coin in her shirt pocket and finally couldn't help but stop.

Buying candy figurines among a group of children always made her feel like she was being seen as childish.

However, these childhood memories somewhat lessened her embarrassment.

In fact, Mo Xueyao didn't come to buy sugar figurines very often because her family had never had much money since she was a child.

She might come once or twice a month. What she used to envy most were the children who would come to buy candy figurines all the time.

As for her, even when she passed by her godfather's place, she could only look at it.

Her godfather's house was quite close to the fruit shop, which was also part of Mo Xueyao's childhood memories.

It's just that before I went to my godfather's house to play, but now I'm going back to the fruit shop.

"Ahem, Wanyan, would you like some sugar figurines?" Mo Xueyao turned her head and coughed lightly.

"Buy it if you want to eat it." How could Li Wanyan not know what she was thinking?

"Oh, do you want it?"

"I don't need it."

"Uh... let's eat together, I'll buy two." Mo Xueyao placed the five-cent coin in her hand on the sugar figurine man's table.

“Alright, go spin the wheel a couple of times yourself, whatever you land on is what you get,” the sugar seller replied, repeating the same words he’d said for who knows how many years.

In a daze, it felt like I was back in elementary school...

Time flies.

Mo Xueyao sighed inwardly, wondering how many more years the sugar figurine seller could continue selling.

As society develops, these old craftsmen will eventually be phased out.

Technology is certainly convenient, but it lacks that strong human touch.

Mo Xueyao thought to herself leisurely as she spun the wheel.

"Wanyan, will you spin it yourself?"

"Come on in."

So, Mo Xueyao turned around twice.

The wooden turntable, which had been used for many years, had aged and was no longer as stable as before. Instead, it wobbled up and down and left and right, making a creaking sound, making one wonder if it would break down at any moment.

The first one was a horse, the second one was a dragon.

The dragon is the hardest to turn because it occupies the smallest area.

Mo Xueyao had never won a prize when she was a child, so she was surprised and delighted to win one today: "Wow! My childhood dream has come true!"

"Oh? A dragon? Good luck." Mr. Sugar Man smiled. "It's been several days since I made a 'dragon'."

"Sugar figurine maker" is a general term; in fact, Mr. Sugar Figurine not only makes human-shaped sugar figurines, but also animal-shaped ones, and even architectural ones.

For example, the little kid next to me is eating the 'Eiffel Tower'.

"Wanyan, the dragon is mine!" Mo Xueyao shouted excitedly.

“Okay.” Li Wanyan naturally had no objections.

Sugar figurines are made with maltose, which is also made by the sugar figurine maker himself.

Before long, a dragon was shaped and handed to Mo Xueyao, along with a one-cent coin in change.

She wondered if it was because she had grown up, but she felt like she was much smaller than before. She remembered that when she was little, the dragon figurine was huge, almost twice the size of the other sugar figurines!

Now, it seems to be only the size of a hand, and it's also much thinner.

The two girls walked along, leisurely licking the bamboo sticks holding the sugar figurines. By the time they reached the fruit shop, they had almost finished eating the sugar figurines.

"Sutang, Sutang?" Mo Xueyao poked Sutang, who was lounging on the cardboard box, with her finger. "What's wrong? Why are you so listless?"

"Meow—" Su Tang stretched out her arms and legs, her cat mouth wide open, then she held that position and squinted her eyes.

"Huh, what's this?" She suddenly noticed two round, furry things. "Cat testicles?"

"If you touch this area, be careful it might bite you," Li Wanyan said as she walked inside.

"Tch, it wouldn't dare!" Mo Xueyao said, somewhat defiantly, as she gripped the cat's testicles. "See, it wouldn't dare."

"...It just endured it."

"Tch." Mo Xueyao rolled her eyes and couldn't help but rub them a few more times.

I must say, this furry thing feels really nice to the touch.

Perhaps because she had experienced something similar herself, she was very interested in it, as if it were a recollection of the past.

She only stopped when Su Tang finally couldn't take it anymore and slapped Mo Xueyao's hand away.

"It won't hurt you to pet it a few more times." Mo Xueyao pinched its chubby little face. "You stingy cat—"

Su Tang looked at her with a helpless expression, then forcefully broke free from Mo Xueyao's clutches and crawled under the fruit shelf.

"You ran down there again, and you'll make a complete mess. I'll use Dad's foot towel to give you a bath!"

"Meow—!" Su Tang cried out loudly, as if in protest.

……

Chapter 114 A Family Dinner

Tonight's dinner was a little more lavish than usual, with an extra pot of braised pork, but otherwise it was pretty much the same as usual.

This is because Grandma Jin and Zhuang Lianlian from the grocery store next door will be coming over for dinner today.

Zhuang Lianlian gets off work at eight o'clock, so she can go home to eat. Similarly, she can eat here together and save herself some money.

The braised pork was made by her mother, and even the fatty parts looked translucent. Even Mo Xueyao, who didn't like fatty meat, found it acceptable.

"Come on, Xiaolian, eat whatever you like. It's the same here as at Aunt Jin's, don't be shy!" the father said with a hearty laugh, pouring a glass of West Lake beer into his disposable plastic cup.

“Okay.” Zhuang Lianlian nodded. Grandma Jin often came to the fruit shop to eat, either to join in the fun or because her father invited her. So she naturally came along and was quite familiar with Mo Xueyao’s family.

Actually, inviting Grandma Jin to dinner wouldn't cost much more. That's just how social etiquette works, after all, she has helped Mo Xueyao's family a lot.

If it weren't for her, how could we have so easily rented a fruit shop that was only a couple hundred meters away from the hospital?

The television was placed on the shelf at the back.

The once empty shelves were now filled with health supplements.

This is the supply channel that my father recently obtained from Grandma Jin.

Of course, among these health products, apart from some big brands that are genuine, the rest are basically counterfeit.

It's not a complete counterfeit, just a counterfeit with a similar name and packaging.

Just like Oreo and Yue Li Yue.

In this day and age, selling counterfeit goods is not a strange thing.

Or rather, in this era of China, counterfeit goods are everywhere.

There are a lot of counterfeit mobile phones, a lot of counterfeit health products, and even cigarettes may be fake.

However, Mo Xueyao's fruit shop doesn't sell counterfeit cigarettes, but that might not be the case elsewhere.

Before the fruit shop opened, my father would only buy cigarettes from the shop he knew and trusted the most, just in case he bought fake ones.

In fact, people often come to fruit shops to promote counterfeit cigarettes, hoping to sell them there.

Of course, they wouldn't say it's fake; instead, they would say it's a 'parallel import'.

It looked like a genuine smuggled product.

It's just fake cigarettes, isn't it...?