A Young Woman's Heart

He slowly got up and then slowly tried to bend his knees.

"Hey, Xiaoxue!" Gao Yuan saw Mr. Xue walking over quickly.

He had never seen Mr. Xue with such an expression before.

Even when he was falsely accused by a girl, he had never been this angry.

His eyes widened in anger, and his handsome face appeared somewhat ferocious at that moment.

"Get up! Don't kneel!"

He grabbed the little boy's shoulder.

The latter was still somewhat bewildered, not knowing what had happened.

Mr. Xue's words reached his ears once again, as deafening as the roar of thunder.

"Stand up! No kneeling!"

He slowly stood up in a daze.

The fair-skinned young man, however, was furious: "You did nothing wrong, so why are you kneeling before him?"

"He, he..." The little boy couldn't speak for a long time.

“Yes, yes, she struck first, he was just retaliating passively, I saw the whole thing!” Gao Yuan also rushed over to speak up for Mr. Xue.

"They are nothing but barbarians who eat raw meat and have little skill in even preparing food, yet they call us, the sons and daughters of China, barbarians? Who is smearing the facts? Who can't distinguish right from wrong?!" Mr. Xue's voice grew louder with each word, his fiery gaze fixed on the foreigners before him. "You must apologize to him!"

He seemed to understand Chinese, but he wasn't very good at saying, "Are you kidding me?"

His expression was exaggerated, as if he were watching some huge joke.

"Times have changed. This is no longer a land where you can run rampant!"

A man next to him cursed in English, spat at his feet, and raised his fist, ready to attack.

"You insulted me! Kneel down and apologize!"

He was so arrogant that it seemed unreal.

Unfortunately, this real scene actually happened right in front of Mr. Xue.

"Then you should all kneel down first." He suddenly suppressed his anger and appeared calm and collected.

……

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Where You Came From, Go Back

(One)

Mr. Xue looked up at the bear-like man without the slightest fear. The man looked down at him with disdain and didn't even bother to use his fist, but instead kicked him.

Mr. Xue slightly turned to the side to dodge, his knee slamming into the inside of the man's thigh, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground. Then, he threw a punch, and just as the man sensed the danger and instinctively closed his eyes, the slender fist stopped right in front of his nose.

"Trying to make a move on our turf? You're asking for death, aren't you?" Just as tensions were rising and a full-blown fight seemed imminent, and with so many people involved, even if Mr. Xue managed to defeat one of them, it was highly likely he would be the one getting beaten up, a loud, somewhat thuggish roar came from not far away: "Go back to where you came from, you son of a bitch!"

Gao Yuan subconsciously looked in the direction of the sound and saw a group of thugs carrying all sorts of gadgets as weapons walking out of the alley with their heads held high, their faces practically screaming "I'm a bad guy."

The three parties exchanged glances, and then the foreigners carrying photography equipment went back into the cars parked nearby.

It was as if nothing had happened.

There were no further conflicts, no fights, and no higher-ranking leaders were summoned.

There wasn't even any communication.

Everything went smoothly.

It's like a silent film.

Of course, they didn't back down on the surface; they still looked fierce, as if they had just had something to do and were in a hurry to leave, not wanting to stoop to their level.

The dozen or so thugs didn't actually make a move; they just watched them leave with disdainful expressions.

This bizarre yet comical scene made Gao Yuan want to laugh.

"What are you laughing at?" Mr. Xue looked at him calmly and asked indifferently.

"It feels like a director who insisted on filming a comedic scene, but because the script was so bad, all they could come up with was this awkward scene..."

The thugs next to him interrupted him, all of them politely greeting Mr. Xue: "Sir!"

Some people even bowed slightly to him, displaying a certain literary refinement.

Of course, some people, with a chivalrous spirit, simply cupped their hands in greeting.

"Sir, it's been a long time!"

"Long time no see. Are you still petty thugs?" Mr. Xue smiled slightly.

"No, no, we just often get together to chat, haha." The man in the lead put down the stool he was holding. "We're planning to rent a place here because we heard the rent is cheap."

"What are you going to do with the rented space?"

"Well, most of the time it's a tea room, where you can drink tea, sit down, and rent out books, DVDs, and things like that. We'll work on that later. Some of us are even thinking of starting a magazine publishing house in the future..."

“Then I will definitely come to help.” Mr. Xue nodded earnestly.

"Oh? A magazine publishing house? That publication number isn't something just anyone can get!" Gao Yuan's eyes lit up. "I'll go back and discuss it with my parents; I'm thinking of investing in you!"

"Oh? You look like you're quite wealthy?"

"I'm generally well-off," Gao Yuan said, straightening his back. His words sounded humble, but in reality, they were anything but.

"Great! Then you, as an investor, will be our major shareholder!"

"If nothing unexpected happens, all the funding will be handled by me."

"Holy crap...really? Those few thousand dollars might not even be enough. It's just that we brothers could barely scrape together a portion."

"Several thousand yuan?" Gao Yuan frowned. "I'll buy one of these shops and let you set up your magazine."

Even in this day and age, buying a shop is not cheap. Even an abandoned street like this would probably cost tens of thousands of yuan.

Buying it isn't the end of the story; we still need to renovate and furnish it...

In addition, there is a monthly operating budget, just like a salary.

Of course, they can also solve it themselves.

"May I ask your surname, sir?"

"My surname is Gao—I must say, you guys look like petty thugs, but you speak so politely, it's a bit unusual!"

"We have to thank Mr. Xue for this. He transformed us, gave us a positive and progressive mindset, and helped us get rid of our bad habits from the past."

"Well then, sir, we'll take our leave now. We need to go inside and talk to the landlord in detail, and then we need to go and look around other places."

"I've had to run to seven or eight places today," the 'thug' next to me cursed. "I'm exhausted, damn it."

He wasn't unwilling, of course; he was just venting his emotions.

"To save money, we always walk; we only take the bus if it's too far—"

"It's too far, I don't want to go anymore. Otherwise, walking there every day would be the death of me!"

Although their language was vulgar, their spirit was high, and Gao Yuan was somewhat moved because they could freely strive and work hard for whatever they wanted to do.

As for him... although he seems to have more freedom in the eyes of outsiders, able to do whatever he wants, he doesn't have many choices when it comes to his own life. He basically just follows the arrangements made by his family and continues to live his life this way.

The general direction will not change, nor can it be changed.

After all, he's the only son in the family...

……

(two)

"Reality is even more absurd than stories." After the group of thugs left, Gao Yuan finally couldn't help but say, "I really didn't expect those foreigners to leave so easily. I thought there would at least be a fight."

"You think it's absurd simply because you haven't figured out the underlying logic. They do talk about reason, but they talk about a different kind of reason. For them, the only ones who don't talk about reason at all are 'hooligans'."

"At the very least, they should have said some harsh words, or at least had some kind of conflict. It's like they just left like that, like a videotape being played in reverse."

Mr. Xue smiled without saying anything, but said with a hint of teasing, "Perhaps he recognized that you are the eldest son of a wealthy family and felt that you have a powerful background, so he took the opportunity to back down gracefully."

"Damn, that can't be. I think they're from a major foreign TV station, backed by a powerful country!"

"Perhaps they felt this material was just right. For example, Chinese people have very poor manners, little boys bully girls, they have no gentlemanly manners, there are fights everywhere in the streets, the BBC was stopped in the street, and in the chaos, the cameramen and others could only escape."

"...It's so dark."

"It's always been like this, and their initial purpose in coming here was probably to photograph these houses to showcase China's backwardness in various aspects—people, systems, architecture, and technology..."

"Tsk tsk, Xiaoxue, how do you know so much? I really admire people like you. I definitely couldn't know so much."

“I only have a slight understanding of each one,” Mr. Xue smiled. “Let’s go to the bookstore you mentioned.”

"Come on, come on, it's at the very back of this street. You can come by yourself next time."

……

(three)

Behind the half-pushed roller shutter door is a small shop specializing in used books.

It didn't look like it was open for business. Mr. Xue and Gao Yuan walked in with their heads down. The lights weren't on, and it was rather dim.

An old man, dressed simply and with patches on his clothes, sat crookedly in a chair, occasionally tapping his small pipe against the table.

An old-fashioned kerosene lamp was still burning in the shop, and I was flipping through a book under its warm light.

There was also a small dish on the table with roasted peanuts and a generous amount of white sugar sprinkled on top.

Every now and then, he would pick one up with his hand, put it in his mouth, and chew it with a crunching sound.

"What's your name?" The owner asked this question as soon as I entered.

And it was obvious that he was looking at Mr. Xue when he asked the question.

"My surname is Xue, and my given name is Mr. Xue," Mr. Xue replied without any hesitation, seemingly unsurprised at all.

After all, Gao Yuan had said that he had a strange temper when he came.