A Young Woman's Heart

"Do you guys still do the bonus questions? I can't even understand those!" Lu Chengyuan felt hurt. "Is this the difference between me and you guys...?"

"Well, it's okay, it's okay. You might not even get points if you do it anyway. Maybe it'll be easier if you don't do it," Mo Xueyao comforted her.

“That doesn’t sound like comfort at all,” Lu Chengyuan rolled her eyes.

"So, you're going home now?" Mo Xueyao stretched and yawned with a smile. "Finally—vacation time!"

"We still have to wait two more days to get the report cards," Lu Chengyuan said expectantly. "Then we can go to the beach with Awen together!"

“Mmm.” Mo Xueyao was also full of anticipation.

The date was set according to the free time of most people, so those who had other commitments had to regretfully withdraw.

But in the end, quite a lot of people still participated.

The date was July 5th, by which time the report cards had already been issued.

Everyone will gather at the school gate on July 5th to prepare for the trip to the small city. The return date is set for July 20th, but it may be extended or shortened if there are any unforeseen circumstances.

"Will you need to charter a car?" Lu Chengyuan asked.

“I’m not too sure either, it was Wen who arranged it herself.” Mo Xueyao shrugged. “But with so many people, we should probably charter a car, right? At least a minivan would be necessary.”

How many people are there in total?

"Hmm... I haven't counted either. You should ask Wanyan for details." Mo Xueyao pushed Li Wanyan over. "The class monitor is here. Why are you asking me?"

"It's not completely certain yet," Li Wanyan shook her head.

"Wow—I can't wait—!" Lu Chengyuan shouted, raising her hands as if she wanted to embrace the soft white clouds in the sky.

The incessant chirping of cicadas along the roadside created a summer symphony.

Several children were walking along the roadside, stopping every now and then to pounce on the tree trunks. One of them quickly grabbed a large cicada, pinching its thin, translucent wings and showing it off to his friends.

When Mo Xueyao was a child, she wouldn't dare to pinch these kinds of insects directly.

Even though cicadas don't seem disgusting anymore, there's still an instinctive resistance.

But her best friend, Li Gutao, was an expert at catching insects. Even in junior high school, he loved catching insects. Whenever summer vacation came, he would always call Mo Xueyao to go out and catch cicadas or crickets together. Sometimes he would even take her to the pond to catch tadpoles and frogs.

By the way, she doesn't like frogs either...

It looked slippery and sticky, with its eyeballs bulging out, and its lower body resembled that of a muscular man, which felt very strange.

It's like a deformed, muscular man.

She doesn't like frogs, bullfrogs, or toads.

But Li Gutao really liked catching them, and after catching them, he would roast them and eat them. Over the years, he hasn't gotten any parasitic diseases, which is truly a blessing from God.

"Ugh, it's so hot. I'll get a haircut once my report card comes out!" Mo Xueyao tossed her increasingly long hair. "I'll get a short, ear-length haircut."

"Isn't it too short?" Lu Chengyuan felt sorry for her. "We finally grew it this long, is Xiaoyao really planning to cut it off?"

"It's okay, it will grow back anyway, and it's summer, short hair is definitely more comfortable."

"At least leave it up to your neck."

"That's quite long, isn't it?"

“Hmm, let’s leave it down to the neck,” Li Wanyan agreed.

"Grow it down to the neck... um... a watermelon head? No, no, that's too ugly."

“There are some nice ones too. If we go to the hair salon, I’ll go with Xiaoyao. I’ll tell the hairdresser what kind of hairstyle you want. Xiaoyao doesn’t seem to know much about hairstyles.”

"Well, because... I haven't had my hair cut much."

"Oh, so you've had long hair for a long time? It's heartbreaking to think about it. Do you really have to cut it?"

"You've asked that question so many times..." Mo Xueyao muttered, her eyelids drooping.

"You could get a wispy, neck-length cut, which would suit Xiaoyao's cool and carefree personality... or you could get curly hair with wispy bangs, like Lin Daiyu from Dream of the Red Chamber!"

"I don't want to dress up as Lin Daiyu," Mo Xueyao said, her eyelids drooping.

"It's just the bangs, the hairstyle is still short, but I'll curl it."

"Curly hair, the school doesn't allow dyed or permed hair, right?"

"Hmm...actually, it doesn't really matter if we don't do it, because I feel that Xiaoyao's hair is naturally a bit curly." Lu Chengyuan started thinking about what hairstyle Mo Xueyao should get, just like a hairstylist.

……

Volume Three: Lush Summer Scenery, Chapter One: The Cicadas' Song in Summer

The sound of cicadas is an indispensable part of summer.

A summer without cicadas is like listening to music without a record; a summer without cicadas only brings heat, but lacks the charm of midsummer; a summer without cicadas is like a flat can of soda...

2000 7 Month 1 Day.

It was the height of summer.

The chirping of cicadas outside the car window was incessant.

The car was a bit stuffy without air conditioning, but fortunately, Mo Xueyao had chosen a window seat. Once the car started moving, a warm breeze would blow on her face. Although it wasn't exactly cool, at least it didn't make her feel stuffy.

"We've arrived at Genshan Liushui Garden..." The car radio blared, and Mo Xueyao hurriedly stood up and gently patted Li Wanyan beside her.

Li Wanyan, who was dozing, opened her eyes, stood up, and walked with Mo Xueyao to the exit door.

The report cards haven't come out yet, but the two of them received a call from Nora today, inviting them to her house.

During this time, Nora has traveled to almost the entire city of Hangzhou, which is not very big. She has some free time at home these past two days and has nothing to do.

As for work—she seemed to want to postpone it for a few more days.

Although I had been here before when I accompanied her to look for an apartment, it had been quite a while since I last visited, and my memory of the route was somewhat hazy.

"I remember it should be opposite the Shijiaqiao campus of Kaiyuan Middle School..." Mo Xueyao racked her brains to recall.

“It’s not on the other side,” Li Wanyan denied. “It’s in the alley next door.”

"Huh? Is that so... um... hmm..." Mo Xueyao scratched her cheek. "Then let's listen to Wanyan."

The two crossed the road and walked to the side of Kaiyuan Middle School, where they saw a man and a woman, both probably close to thirty, standing hand in hand at the school gate.

Ah—I miss those days so much.

"Yes, I studied here back then."

"You always deliberately cause me trouble during class," the young man said with a smile.

"Tch, you weren't much better. Back then, you secretly knocked your pen to the ground, made me bend down to pick it up, and then secretly peeked at me through your collar, didn't you?"

"Ha...haha, how did you know?"

"Tch, although I haven't said it all these years, I've known for a long time. Do you think you could see so easily under normal circumstances? Of course, I deliberately let you see, and several times I wasn't wearing anything."

Ah—youth is so wonderful, I'm tired of seeing it now.

"You still dare to get tired of looking at it?" The woman grabbed the man's ear and tugged at it with a laugh.

"Oh dear, no, no. Speaking of which, it used to be called Anyuan Middle School, but now it's been renamed Kaiyuan."

“Back then, my mom didn’t even call it Anyuan. This place was still a private girls’ vocational school. Time flies so fast.”

"Yes, it's gone by so fast. Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye. We were only eighteen back then, but now we're already twenty-eight."

"Then let's come back in another ten years~" The young woman smiled, took the hand of the man beside her, and walked away in the other direction.

As she walked past them, Mo Xueyao overheard these words and couldn't help but look at Li Wanyan beside her, asking, "Wanyan, will we still be living together ten years from now?"

"Yes, I will." Li Wanyan smiled. "Ten years later, I'll go back to high school, just like them."

"Ten years after graduation? That feels like a very long time."

“Time flies.” Li Wanyan skillfully took a cola candy from Mo Xueyao’s pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth.

"Yes, maybe ten years from now, I'll forget that I was once a boy." Facing a friend who knew her true secret, Mo Xueyao seemed much more relaxed than before, because at least when she was alone with Li Wanyan, she no longer needed to hide or pretend.

"That wouldn't be good."

"Huh?"

"You need to remember who you are ten years from now." Li Wanyan glanced at Mo Xueyao, pushed the cola candy into her left cheek with her tongue, making a small, round bulge. "If you forget who you were in the past, are you still you?"

"Well, people change. Theoretically speaking, given enough time, they will all become different people."

“Then don’t be that kind of person.” Li Wanyan thought for a moment and added, “You can change, but you can’t forget, otherwise the past you is as good as ’dead’.”

"Oh...why does Wanyan say that?"

“Actually, my father wasn’t that bad from the beginning,” Li Wanyan said softly.

Without needing to say more, Mo Xueyao already understood what it meant.

If she doesn't understand this, then she's wasted her time learning Chinese.

The two walked along the alley, and once they passed through it, they would arrive at the neither new nor old neighborhood.

There are many types of alleys. The narrow ones are only wide enough for one person to pass through, and sometimes they are filled with garbage. The wide ones are even wide enough to see some shops. People often walk through the alleys.

In this alley, there is a laundry shop. The shop is small and crammed into this crowded corner. The owner is carefully ironing clothes with an iron.

The mundane lives of ordinary people in the city are always repetitive and somewhat monotonous.

After walking through the alley, she found the residential area, but Mo Xueyao couldn't remember which building it was.

Even Li Wanyan frowned a little, because the houses here all had the same design, each with a yard on the first floor, and each looked like Nora's rented place.

I want to make a call but I don't know the number.

Nora had used a public phone when she called them before.

It seems she hasn't gotten a phone card for use in China yet.

"Let me ask the sanitation worker," Mo Xueyao said, quickly stepping forward and stopping her. "Excuse me, ma'am, do you know where a Russian girl lives?"

"I've seen it; it should be in this area."

Which area is this?