A Young Woman's Heart

This move should be called "unable to escape even with wings," right?

"Whoosh—" Wang Jiale rushed forward while Mo Xueyao was distracted, caught the ball that was about to fall, and then, due to gravity, the shuttlecock landed straight on the racket and stuck into the hole in the net.

This time, no one laughed.

At this moment, Mo Xueyao came to her senses and saw that the badminton shuttlecock seemed to have enlarged the hole. This time, it slowly slid down, finally overcoming friction by using gravity, and fell through the hole.

Mo Xueyao instinctively caught the shuttlecock below and hit it upwards, only to see the shuttlecock return to the hole once again.

Hmm... this time it really got stuck again. Wang Jiale shook it a few times but it still wouldn't fall down.

Hua Yinyin threw her badminton racket aside and lay face down on the wire mesh, pounding on it while laughing loudly. She looked like she was about to catch her breath.

"Hey—hey—hey—!?" Wang Jiale had a brilliant idea. "Why don't we just leave it like this, and then use a badminton shuttlecock to hit it? That way it won't get stuck, right? I'm such a genius!"

“That’s right, you really are, cough puchi…” Mo Xueyao originally wanted to finish the sentence without a smile, but she couldn’t keep her expression in check and burst out laughing even more exaggeratedly, “Hahaha…genius…!”

Although Li Wanyan didn't laugh as exaggeratedly as she and Hua Yinyin, her body was still trembling. She clutched her stomach and squatted on the ground. She tried several times to pinch her cheeks to stop laughing, but she couldn't succeed.

"What?! I think it's fine!" Wang Jiale pouted in dissatisfaction. "What are you laughing at!"

"Hahahaha—" Hua Yinyin shook the barbed wire, her hair all disheveled, laughing as if she had just escaped from a mental hospital. She was no longer able to speak normally; we had to wait for her to finish laughing.

Mo Xueyao wasn't much better off; even as she pressed her temples hard, the veins on her forehead kept throbbing.

"Phew..." Li Wanyan was the first to stop laughing. She stood up, clutching her stomach weakly, and said, "Then when the badminton shuttlecock comes over, it might combine with the one stuck on your racket, or it might hit it away and replace the one stuck in the net, while the previous one will hit your face."

"It seems so. How about we use tape then?"

"Then the flexibility wouldn't be enough."

"Hahaha—" Hua Yinyin laughed so hard she almost fell over, then walked over to Mo Xueyao and used her shoulder to steady herself. "The badminton shuttlecock went through the hole and was hit back by Xiaoyao. What were the friction forces when it first fell and when it got stuck the second time... Hahaha..."

So, was Hua Yinyin thinking of a physics exam question just now, which is why she was laughing so hard?

That's a really weird sense of humor.

She always seems to think of all sorts of crazy things.

"Have you laughed enough?!" Wang Jiale muttered, hands on her hips. "Are you still going to fight or not?!"

"Fight, fight, fight..." Hua Yinyin roused herself, stopped laughing, and then couldn't help but laugh out loud again.

Wang Jiale was so angry that he wanted to hit her with his racket.

A few minutes later, the four of them resumed playing badminton.

Oddly shaped rackets and tattered shuttlecocks always create a variety of laughs.

Fortunately, no one laughed that outrageously afterward, but in short, they laughed non-stop throughout the whole process, playing ball while laughing.

This is probably the most comical badminton game Mo Xueyao has ever played in her life:

Hua Yinyin missed hitting the shuttlecock with her crooked badminton racket, so she immediately stepped back and used the shaft to hit the shuttlecock back.

Li Wanyan's oddly shaped badminton racket always has a surprising effect with its deformed parts;

The shuttlecock slipped through Wang Jiale's racket, and Mo Xueyao immediately ran behind her to catch it, then hit it to the other side.

The shuttlecock flew at high speed in a spiral motion and then got stuck in a gap in the wire mesh.

The badminton shuttlecock got into Mo Xueyao's collar and fell to the ground, but after it got into Hua Yinyin's collar, it took her a long time to get it out...

The effort you expend playing badminton might not even amount to the effort you expend laughing.

Anyway, everyone was too tired to continue laughing, so they returned the rackets five minutes before get out of class ended. After the PE teacher had dismissed the students, they went to the cafeteria with the other students.

The seventh window in the cafeteria offers snacks, but it also requires a meal ticket. It's suitable for students who don't want to eat anything for lunch or who are tired of the cafeteria food.

Although there are only a few kinds of snacks, they are not easy to get tired of.

After all, the dim sum is provided in limited quantities, and most people might not be able to get any if they are too slow.

Those boys who can run fast definitely won't choose snacks—because they won't be full at all.

The four of them, who had just finished exercising, didn't have much of an appetite for a proper meal, so they each ordered a snack instead.

Of course, it's also because today's dessert is a super rare treat that only comes once every two weeks—a cream cake!

Each cream cake is a whole one, about the size of a girl's fist, or slightly larger.

The cake was simply decorated with white cream and a small red strawberry on top, making it look refreshing and cute.

Mo Xueyao actually quite likes sweets, but he never had the chance to eat them when he was a boy.

Because they have always been bound by outdated ideas such as "men who eat sweets are effeminate".

Being a girl actually has many advantages.

Thinking this, she scooped a spoonful of cream cake into her mouth and savored it slowly.

Cream cakes were a rarity in this era, but they also began to become increasingly popular from this time onward.

People like Mo Xueyao's father's generation couldn't afford cream cakes at all, but for her, she could finally eat one occasionally on her birthday.

As cake-making techniques become more widespread, recipes and seasonings are no longer so mysterious, and with rising average wages and relatively lower raw material prices, more domestic cake shops have emerged, making cream cakes available even in small towns.

Even so, only wealthy families can afford to eat it regularly.

"Delicious!" Mo Xueyao expressed her approval of the cake.

"If you want to eat it, you can come to my house to make it next time!" Hua Yinyin ate the strawberry on top of the cake in one bite. "I have plenty of milk at home! And I have an oven too."

"Can Yinyin do it?" Wang Jiale asked, turning his head.

"Ah...no."

"Hmph." Wang Jiale immediately laughed smugly, "I can do it!"

"Looks like I'll have to drag you into hard labor next time." Hua Yinyin glanced at Wang Jiale and took a small bite of cream cake.

A cream cake isn't a large portion, but it's enough for girls who have just finished exercising.

And if there were any more, the girls probably wouldn't dare to eat it.

Because this stuff makes you gain weight easily...

Girls from well-off families are especially afraid of overnutrition.

Mo Xueyao didn't dare to eat too much, not only because the food at home had been pretty good lately, but also because she hadn't been exercising much recently.

Although she has never been fat, she absolutely does not want to try being fat.

Because she knew that losing weight after gaining weight would be an extremely painful experience.

It's okay for boys to be a little chubby, but if girls get fat, they'll even dislike themselves.

So, it really is better to be a boy.

Mo Xueyao, who had just been remarking on the advantages of both men and women, was now reflecting on this again.

"I have to go to the club today!" Hua Yinyin said, gently patting Huang Yuxi's head as she ate at another table. "Remember to come later, Xiaoxi!"

Huang Yuxi nodded, her face flushed.

"A club? Oh right, my club has an event today too!" Wang Jiale suddenly remembered. "We need to prepare for the school anniversary celebration."

"Okay, see you later then." Li Wanyan smiled gently; she had smiled more times today than in the entire month combined.

"Yeah, we have to go to the club too—I wonder if Ms. Qiu is here," Mo Xueyao muttered, tilting her head. "She's probably playing games with the physics teacher again...?"

……

Chapter 161 Cooking in Home Economics Class

The first period on Friday afternoon is home economics class.

This is probably the class that boys are least interested in, but girls love the most.

"Ugh, another home economics class. What am I, a grown man, supposed to learn about home economics?" Liu Xiaowei sighed, tilting his head back like a pig about to be dragged to the execution ground.

“Exactly, exactly. Men earn money and women manage the household, isn’t that perfect?” Gao Yuan expressed her complete agreement.

Zhou Yong, who was about to agree with Mo Xueyao, saw her walking over from behind and immediately swallowed back what he was about to say. After a second, he changed his words and said, "I'm saying, your thinking is too outdated. Why does it have to be that men earn money and women take care of the house? Can't it be the other way around? Besides, nowadays women and men both have to go out and earn money. Household chores should be done by everyone. Men should also know how to cook, sew, and mend things."

"Isn't that just a pretty boy and a sissy?" Liu Xiaowei retorted without any politeness.

Upon hearing this, Mo Xueyao turned to look at them, and Zhou Yong, as if emboldened, immediately retorted, "Your understanding of these things is too rigid! This is a new era, how can you be so old-fashioned?"

“Yeah, Liu Xiaowei, you’re such a person. Don’t tell anyone I know you when you get out of here!” Gao Yuan chimed in.

"Holy crap, your attitude changed way too fast?!"

"I haven't changed my mind at all. I've always been against you, okay?"

“Okay, the guy who said ‘men earn money and women manage the household’ wasn’t Gao Yuan, he was just a dog.” Liu Xiaowei said, stroking his chin, with a hint of ‘provocation’ in his eyes.

Of course, this was all just playful banter between friends. After they finished talking, they burst into laughter again and pretended to chase and fight.

"Boys really have inexhaustible energy from morning till night," Mo Xiao said with a smile, her dimples seeming even deeper than before.

"Hmm... Xiaoxiao, do you like home economics class?" Mo Xueyao turned her head and asked.

"It's alright. Sometimes it's quite nice to learn some skills I didn't know before," Mo Xiao said with a smile, and Li Wanyan nodded in agreement.

Mo Xueyao silently rubbed her cheeks. As a boy, she wasn't really interested in home economics classes, but now that she was a girl, she would have agreed with what Liu Xiaowei and the others had said earlier.

In 2000, most school teachers dressed in a very conservative way, and very few people dyed their hair.

In this respect, Yukong High School is much more open.

For example, chemistry teacher Yao Gugu has dyed her hair red, while Shui Zhishi recently dyed her long hair a dark gold color. In low light, it looks black, but when the sun shines on her head, it appears to be gold.

"Students, please take your seats in your respective groups, and then check the items on your tables to make sure all the materials are complete." Teacher Shui, wearing a white dress with gold trim, stood on the podium and smiled. "Today, we are going to make a home-style dish. Many of you have probably eaten this dish before. It's called Kung Pao Chicken."

Classes hadn't officially started yet, so some students were still walking in one after another.

"Those of you who haven't taken your seats yet, please hurry up and take your seats. We need to start as soon as possible, otherwise we won't have enough time for class."

Upon hearing this, Mo Xueyao quickly nodded and walked to her group's table to sit down.

The same teammates that Mo Xueyao chose herself when the home economics class first started.