A Young Woman's Heart

As a result, everyone's eyes turned to Li Wanyan.

But after nodding slightly, Li Wanyan stood at the door of the second-to-last room, which was room 302, counting from the inside out.

"Hey—why didn't Wanyan choose the first one?"

"If it's too close to the sea, it will feel very humid."

Mo Xueyao scratched her head, somewhat hesitant.

Logically, she should be sharing a room with Li Wanyan...

At that moment, Qiu Yi's voice came from downstairs: "Where do you two live? The innermost room, right? Okay, here's the key. I live next door to you, haha. Here, one for each of you. I'll go upstairs and bring the other keys over."

Then came the sound of keys clinking together.

"Ah Qiu, can I have a room by myself?" Duanmu Ji's voice suddenly came again.

"Oh? Theoretically it's possible, but let's keep it to two people per room, that way we can save on electricity bills."

"Wow, they installed air conditioning this time?" Hua Yinyin asked excitedly upon hearing the noise downstairs.

Wang Qianyu stopped at the entrance of room 304 with Taiyin in her hand, waving her hand and saying, "No, it's just that a ceiling fan was installed."

Indeed, I didn't see the air conditioner unit at all when I walked over...

"Wenwen, shall we share a room?" Wang Qianyu looked at Qiu Yi, who was coming from the stairs, and beckoned with her finger, "Qiu Yi! The key to room 304!"

"Here it comes! Here it comes!"

Mo Xueyao scratched her head vigorously: "Wanyan, then... I want a room by the sea..."

"Ah."

"So, I've made my choice?" she asked cautiously.

"it is good."

"Is it okay?"

"of course."

Ye Wen, who was standing to the side, finally couldn't help but laugh: "What are you two doing, especially Xiao Yao? You're acting like a henpecked husband."

"What's wrong? Are you talking about me?" Qiu Yi, who had just walked over, didn't hear what was said before.

Ye Wen grabbed his ear with one hand: "Hey, do you consider yourself henpecked?"

"No, no..."

In the end, Mo Xueyao chose the room closest to the sea.

Hua Yinyin naturally chose to go with her immediately.

Having no other choice, Wang Jiale could only be with Li Wanyan.

Xuan Anyi and Cha Li, who were left out, didn't seem to mind much and got the key to room 303 from Qiu Yi.

"Alright, everyone, put down your luggage and clean up. It's going to pour rain soon, so if you're tired, you can rest for a bit. We'll call you when it's time to eat—well, that should be dinner..."

……

Chapter Fourteen: A Real Ocean View Room

After getting the key, Mo Xueyao and Hua Yinyin couldn't wait to sneak into the room one after the other.

The room wasn't big; there was a washroom right at the entrance.

Compared to last summer, Ye Wen's villa is quite shabby.

There isn't even a separate shower room here. The toilet is placed in the middle, and the small empty space next to it serves as the shower area—because the shower head is hung there.

There is a small sink on the left. Because there is a small frosted window here, it is not too dark and gloomy.

This made Mo Xueyao even more glad she made the choice, because this was probably only available in the rooms furthest to the side.

Further inside is a small living room, where two desks are placed facing each other. They are not made of solid wood, but they look quite sturdy and have many built-in drawers, making them very convenient for storage.

The desk was placed by the window facing the door, and on the wall next to it was a large floor-to-ceiling window with a small round table on it, and on each side was a small chair in a color matching the round table.

There's a booth sofa in the corner next to the washroom wall, so you can rest there for a while if you get really tired.

This made Mo Xueyao seriously doubt whether the room was designed according to the standards of the principal's office...

The bedroom is to the right of the living room.

There were two single beds and their respective bedside tables, and the layout was similar to that of a typical hotel double room. Because there weren't many things, it looked quite spacious.

—Of course there are windows here too, right in the middle.

As soon as the luggage was pushed in, the first thing Hua Yinyin did was to push the two beds together.

"Heave-ho—!"

"What are you doing..." Mo Xueyao said with a helpless droop of her eyelids, "Are you going to turn two perfectly good beds into a double bed again?"

"Wouldn't it be more comfortable to sleep together?"

"Without air conditioning and everyone crammed together, we'll all die of heat," she muttered, glancing up at the ceiling.

There's a ceiling fan here and in the living room. To make room for the ceiling fan, only a long white fluorescent light was installed on the right wall. In this weather, which is getting close to night, the light is a bit glaring when it's turned on.

—It could also be because Mo Xueyao was used to the incandescent light bulbs used at home and in the fruit shop.

That gentle, slightly dim, pale yellow light always made her feel warm and cozy.

"Yinyin, where did you put your suitcase?"

"In the closet? Or under the bed?"

"Let's put it in the closet, otherwise it'll be troublesome to get things later," Mo Xueyao muttered, opening the closet.

The wardrobe wasn't big, but it was quite deep; the two bottom compartments were big enough to fit two people's suitcases.

Hua Yinyin is taking out the clothes she's going to wear today, all of them are blue and white...

"Little Yaoyao, aren't you going to take out the clothes you're going to change into later?"

“It’s not in my suitcase.” Mo Xueyao remembered that her mother had told her this morning that she should put her underwear and pajamas, which she would change into tonight, in her schoolbag.

She opened the backpack that was placed in the openwork hole under the bedside table and reached in to take out a bag.

The clothes to be changed into tonight were neatly folded inside.

She had just put it in the cabinet when Hua Yinyin couldn't wait to open it.

"Wow~" She held up a piece of fabric the size of her palm, "Little Yaoyao actually uses this kind of fabric with a bow!"

"What are you doing—!" Mo Xueyao snatched it away, somewhat embarrassed and annoyed, and stuffed it back into the bag. "Don't rummage through things, okay!"

"Hehehe~ How about we swap clothes?"

"What's wrong? The sizes are all wrong."

"Oh, right, Xiaoyao's is too small, I can't fit into it." Hua Yinyin said this while proudly puffing out her chest.

However, such words had no effect on Mo Xueyao. She wished she had a flat chest so that she wouldn't feel cumbersome when exercising.

Although it was about to rain, Mo Xueyao opened all the windows—except the bedroom window.

"Phew, the fresh air feels so much better." The salty sea breeze blew into the room, and she took a deep breath. She didn't feel uncomfortable at all, since she had gotten used to the smell on the way here.

"Little Yaoyao, have you noticed? There doesn't seem to be much of a smell in the room. Usually, there's a strong smell right after renovations, right?"

"It's possible that the renovation was completed more than two months ago?"

“That’s possible…” Hua Yinyin leaned closer to the wall and gently touched it. “The wall feels a bit uneven and rough.”

"Hmm, it feels a bit like a mud-brick house in the countryside."

"So it probably wasn't painted, right? I was wondering why the walls looked a little yellowish... Maybe it was rice paste?"

"Really...?" Mo Xueyao didn't know much about things in the countryside, and she asked with a skeptical attitude, "Then in the past, wouldn't a lot of rice paste be used to build houses? And could rice paste be made so white and not fade?"

“Theoretically speaking—” Hua Yinyin drawled, “Never mind, I don’t know either. Anyway, as long as it doesn’t smell, it’s fine. Otherwise, I won’t be able to sleep.”

"What's wrong?" Yi sensed something was off in her words.

"They're renovating next door, and the smell of paint... ugh... even with the windows closed, I can still smell it. It's so awful." Hua Yinyin fanned herself with her chubby little hands, as if she could smell the odor again. "So I quickly escaped to avoid this mess. It should be much better when I go back."

"Yes, it's much more comfortable here than in the city. There's no urban noise, just the sounds of nature." Mo Xueyao took a deep breath in front of the living room's floor-to-ceiling window. A gust of wind blew in from outside, almost catching her breath.

Then, at that very moment, a thunderous roar, seemingly capable of tearing the sky apart, rang out, startling Hua Yinyin so much that she immediately hugged Mo Xueyao.

"ah!!"

Faintly, Mo Xueyao seemed to hear the exclamations of the girls in the other rooms.

It wasn't a rumbling sound, but rather a 'bang-crack' sound of something breaking.

If there hadn't been no mushroom cloud, people would probably have thought a nuclear bomb had detonated nearby.

The entire sky was deathly white.

Then, they were plunged into complete darkness.

The torrential rain poured down as if seawater had been poured directly onto the surface.

The strong wind blew rain into the house in a messy manner, so Mo Xueyao quickly closed the window a little, leaving only a crack.

But you can still feel the wind swirling in the room, like an invisible dragon.

"It's so cool!"

"That feels so good." Mo Xueyao glanced sideways at Hua Yinyin, who was now clinging to her tightly. "Hey, hey, have you had enough?"

"Hehe~"

The living room uses a common incandescent light bulb, with an electric wire running from the ceiling and hanging down. It sways when the wind blows—and it's swaying quite a bit right now. If it weren't for the yellow light, you might think you'd been in a disco.

Using the dim light, Mo Xueyao and Hua Yinyin took out their books and stationery and placed them on the tables they had chosen.

Hua Yinyin's side had a lot more things, because she also had a desk lamp on it—connected to the power strip.

On Mo Xueyao's side, there were neatly arranged books, textbooks and novels were divided into two stacks, and in the middle was the New Year's gift her godfather had given her—a cassette player from Japan.