A Young Woman's Heart

It's very simple, just separate the bread slices, lettuce, and fried meat patties...

A perfectly good Western fast food meal has been turned into a half-Western, half-traditional lunch, making Mo Xueyao shake her head in disbelief.

Hamburgers should be sandwiched together and taken in one bite to be truly delicious!

It's like how a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) loses its soul completely if you eat the meat and the steamed bun separately.

"Hmm...right." Wang Qianyu seemed to remember something and took out four envelopes from the delicate little paper bag by the window. "These were originally intended for the first few first-year high school students who saw them after lunch. Since you got there first, here they are for you~exactly four envelopes."

"Hmm? What's this?" Wang Jiale took the envelope and naturally distributed it to the other three, then curiously looked through it and asked.

"Do you know Xinyou?" Wang Qianyu smiled slightly and took a sip of black tea.

"Ah, I know that! It's friends who exchange letters, right?"

"Yes, every letter here is sent by someone who wants to become a letter writer with someone else."

"Huh? Where did these letters come from?"

"Hmph~" Wang Qianyu laughed smugly, "Of course, they are all friends that I, the teacher, have collected. Actually, they are friends I met through some magazines. I have already communicated with these four through letters, and they all expressed their willingness to make new friends, so I want to recommend them to my students."

"Interesting!" Wang Jiale exclaimed excitedly, holding the letter in her hands. "Don't worry, Teacher Wang, I will definitely send the letter to them carefully!"

"I hope you all have a good time. By the way, these four are all foreigners, from the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Japan respectively. When they communicate, they may use their own national languages, or they may use English or Chinese. Well... they will probably use English more often, since English is an international language."

"Does that mean it has to be sent overseas?" Mo Xueyao didn't take the letter, afraid that her oily hands would get it dirty. "Lele, please take it for me. I'll wash my hands before I take it."

"That's right, the letters will travel thousands of miles overseas, and it will take at least a month to receive and send them, so every letter you send and receive is precious and shouldn't be wasted!"

"How much would it cost to ship it overseas?" Mo Xiaoxiao was concerned about the cost.

"It depends on the distance, right? Hmm... Generally, it's between five and ten dollars. Sending it to the US is the most expensive." Wang Qianyu blinked. "Don't worry, I'll give each of you a stamp booklet with stamps ranging from three cents to five hundred cents. Just ask at the post office when you send it for the first time, and then use the same denomination stamps every time after that!"

As Wang Qianyu spoke, she took out four more booklets from the paper bag.

"This is a stamp album. You can carefully tear off the stamps from the letters you receive and put them in this small stamp album to keep. Although they may not be of much value, they will be a beautiful memory in the future!"

"Wow—Teacher Qianyu!" Wang Jiale's address became affectionate. "The stamps in this booklet must be worth tens of yuan in total, right?!"

“Each booklet adds up to fifty yuan.” Wang Qianyu nodded gently.

"Fifty! That's a lot!" Wang Jiale seemed a little embarrassed. "Isn't that a bit too much?"

"It's okay~ It's only two hundred yuan for the four of you combined, it's nothing."

Mo Xueyao, who was eating a hamburger nearby, was incredibly envious.

Look, this is what a rich person looks like, isn't it?

Two hundred yuan is spent like two yuan.

Speaking of which, why are all the English teachers so rich...?

……

Chapter 120 Faithful Friends (Part 2)

The afternoon sun was gentle, or rather, it was only gentle on Mo Xueyao.

Because the clouds in the sky blocked out the sunlight, there wasn't much sunlight on the playground, and only a few beams shone into the classroom. One of those beams happened to fall on her.

It was just like being under a spotlight on a stage.

"He's dazzling wherever he goes," Zhou Yong muttered to himself as he passed by.

The classroom was quiet. As long as it wasn't raining, there were always many students on the playground.

Playing soccer, basketball, badminton, table tennis...

With so many sports available, there's bound to be quite a few people who enjoy them.

If you really don't like moving around, just stay in the classroom and watch the students on the playground freely sweating with youthful energy.

Wang Jiale, who was standing nearby, was opening an envelope, trying to see which country her letter writer was from.

Mo Xiaoxiao didn't seem to be in a hurry to open it; instead, she was admiring the stamps in the album.

Her younger sister, Mo Zhuyou, was already asleep, seemingly suffering from severe sleep deprivation every day.

"Xiaoyao, aren't you going to open it and take a look?" Wang Jiale asked curiously from the side. "The letter here is from someone in the United States."

"Hmm... let me see." Mo Xueyao took out the envelope and examined it carefully for a while.

The mailing address written on it was a string of cursive Latin characters.

It's impossible to tell what language it is.

The mailing address was written in Chinese, but it was completely different from the beautiful cursive script above. It looked stiff and clumsy, like something a primary school student who had just learned to write would write.

No, it's less like writing and more like drawing.

Tear the envelope open along the edge; inside were several sheets of paper, with page numbers thoughtfully marked in the bottom right corner to avoid any issues with the reading order.

"So, so, where are Xiaoyao's friends from?" Wang Jiale excitedly came over and asked.

"Uh...it's Russian."

Wow! It's a snow country!

Whenever the Snow Country is mentioned, Mo Xueyao recalls asking her great-grandfather when she was a child why she, a boy, was named Xueyao.

He named her that because he thought that snow country was very far away from him.

It's not that we can't go back physically, but that we can't go back spiritually.

After all, the Soviet Union has collapsed. Although Russia inherited most of the Soviet Union's legacy, it failed to inherit the spirit and beliefs of the former Soviet Union.

The beautiful world that my great-grandfather dreamed of in his youth, a world of universal harmony, has long since shattered like a dream bubble.

While she was lost in thought, Wang Jiale quietly read the contents of the letter aloud for her.

The letter began with Chinese characters.

"A lovely new friend:"

"Hello, nice to meet you."

"I don't know your height, weight, or gender."

"Pfft, this character is so ugly!" Wang Jiale couldn't help but laugh.

"This level of Chinese is already pretty good... but it feels like it was written by looking up words in a dictionary..." Mo Xueyao muttered.

"But I'm still very happy."

"I hope we can have a long and enjoyable exchange."

"I'm from Russia."

"I'm very sorry, it's too difficult for me, Chinese."

"Please allow me to speak in English."

What followed was a long letter in English.

To say that she could understand everything would be impossible for a high school student like Mo Xueyao, but understanding half of it would be no problem.

Wang Jiale, who is the English class representative, has a strong interest in English and attends extracurricular classes to improve her English level, so she can understand more vocabulary and sentences than Mo Xueyao.

And Wang Jiale translated much faster than her. Later on, Mo Xueyao stopped trying to figure out what it meant herself and simply had Wang Jiale translate it for her as she read it.

"Hmm, their English is actually quite good."

"Quickly translate this sentence, what does it mean?"

"This is slang, which roughly translates to... 'A friend has come from afar' in Chinese?"

"Tsk..."

"I am Russian, but my grandfather was actually from Kyiv. It was only because the Soviet Union was divided into Ukraine and Russia, and my family was in Russia at the time, that we became Russian."

"If you're from the same place as Yuyu, then Moscow, where I live, is much colder than where you are."

"Even so, I still love cities covered in snow."

"Actually, I didn't talk to Yuyu many times, and I didn't ask her too many questions about China. Later, she said that she was actually an English teacher and planned to randomly recommend me to a student. I was very happy because I was also a student."

"This time, I think we can have a more in-depth exchange. I'm very interested in learning about your country, and I'm sure you're interested in learning about mine too, right?"

"For me, China holds a special place in my heart. Although Russia inherited the legacy of the Soviet Union, it was China that truly carried on its will. I wonder how things are developing there now?"

"My grandfather told me that he had been there before, but it was dilapidated everywhere. There was no modern city, only ancient buildings. Although it had a strong historical atmosphere, it was filled with a sense of decay and desolation."

The letter was very long, and the other party raised many questions.

Since sending a letter is not like making a phone call with a question-and-answer format, I wanted to make the content as substantial as possible so as not to waste at least a month's wait.

The questions were numerous, and the self-introductions were extensive; one part of it read like an essay introducing one's hometown.

The letter ended with a photograph of Moscow at night.

It's snowing heavily in Moscow now, and everything is covered in white.

The photographer appears to have been standing on a very tall building, looking down and capturing the grandeur and magnificence of the city.

But at the same time, the colorful lights that dotted the night also gave people a sense of hidden tenderness.

It wasn't until the very end of the letter that the sender realized he had forgotten to say his name.

「утренняя звезда.」

This is in Russian, but neither Mo Xueyao nor Wang Jiale can understand it.

Fortunately, there is an English translation below.

"Morning star."

"I looked it up in the dictionary. It means "Morning Star" in Chinese."

"This name is quite nice. Speaking of which, it seems that all the friends have their own nicknames. What name does Xiaoyao plan to choose?"

"Me...?" Mo Xueyao curled a strand of her dark hair. "Um... I haven't decided yet."