A Young Woman's Heart

"Has it been so long since I called him?" Mo Xueyao looked up at the leaden clouds in the sky with a somewhat bewildered expression.

When the wind blows through them, they seem to gain color.

The wind today, too, carries a gray hue.

Those old friends will be left behind.

Until one day when I think back on it, I won't even feel sad.

Mo Xueyao stood at the bottom of the fruit shop steps and slowly took a step, but a somewhat surprised voice came from behind her.

"Xiaoyao!"

"Atao?" Mo Xueyao suddenly turned her head, and there he really was standing behind her, smiling and waving. Although he seemed a little reserved, his smile was as cheerful as ever.

"Ah, I was just thinking you might have the day off too."

"Your school is on holiday too?"

In fact, Li Gutao's vocational high school is not too far from here; in fact, they are even in the same area.

But that distance, neither too close nor too far, kept the two apart, making their interactions increasingly rare.

"I was thinking of giving you a call..."

"Haha, you remember my number?"

"Uh, well... I don't remember. Oh right, let's save it now!" Mo Xueyao shook the flip phone in her hand, and the phone strap hanging on it swayed gently, with various small accessories making a pleasant 'jingling' sound.

Li Gutao looked at the few sparkly stickers on his phone with a strange expression, and couldn't help but laugh: "Haha... girls will be girls."

"what?"

"I never expected you to buy a pink phone. Back in junior high, didn't you hate pink the most? You said it was too girly and you preferred black."

Mo Xueyao covered her phone cover somewhat helplessly, stammering as she tried to explain, but she couldn't remember ever saying such a thing.

"Um... well, this color wasn't what I wanted to choose. It was a gift from the school's vice principal after I got good grades."

"Wow! That's amazing." Li Gutao gave a thumbs up. "To be honest, I never imagined you could get such good grades back in seventh grade."

“Yeah… even when I graduated from junior high, my grades weren’t particularly outstanding, I was only in the dozens.” Mo Xueyao cleared her throat. “Alright, alright, let’s not talk about this, hurry up and give me your number.”

"186..."

Mo Xueyao wrote down Li Gutao's phone number with satisfaction, and then asked, "By the way, do you remember Xiaoming's phone number?"

“Of course! We used to call him from the landline and have him call the other one of us out to play, haha—” Li Gutao laughed, but then his expression froze. “Uh… how many was it again? Eight…”

"You've forgotten too?"

"Impossible, impossible." Li Gutao looked nervous, clutching his pants pocket anxiously. "Let me think, let me think, maybe I just can't remember it right now... Hmm, right, 818..."

He breathed a sigh of relief and read out the complete number.

In fact, when he said those three numbers, Mo Xueyao also remembered them.

What an easy string of numbers that is to remember!

Why did I forget it just now?

It's as if something has temporarily erased this piece of memory from my mind, making me forget how to walk—it's unbelievable.

"I invited Xiaoming along today. He quit his job and is resting at home now. Let's invite him to go out and have some fun, let's go for a bike ride!"

“Okay.” Mo Xueyao suddenly felt that the strong wind was just right. In such a wind, there would definitely be very few cars on the road, which would be perfect for a long bike ride.

—Although in fact it is only in a very small area of ​​Hangzhou, which is not a large city to begin with.

……

Shi Haiming did not live at home.

It is said that his parents have returned to live in the countryside.

He rented a cheap room, no doubt about it, in a farmer's house in that urban village.

A small room without even a toilet.

The two did not go inside, but stood in front of the garbage room at the entrance, which was filled with trash, and waited.

Shi Haiming was wearing his old clothes, but he looked completely different from before.

His hair was a mess, like a bird's nest. He rubbed his sleepy eyes, which still had some unwashed eye boogers. His beard must have been shaved a few days ago, as it had already grown back.

He was wearing a pair of dirty sneakers. I remember when I first bought them, I cherished them very much and would gently brush off the dirt with an old toothbrush every day.

"Yo..." He forced a smile, trying to greet people with sunshine and energy as usual.

"Xiao Ming!" Mo Xueyao waved vigorously, letting him feel her enthusiasm. "Let's go, let's go!"

"Wait a minute, I haven't ridden my bike in ages, I need to pump up the tires, they're all flat." Shi Haiming patted the mountain bike seat, his brow relaxing slightly.

Only he had a bicycle with gears; Mo Xueyao and Li Gutao both had very ordinary household bicycles.

Look at that rusty chain; it's definitely been a long time since I've ridden it.

Even if it were left on the roadside looking like this, probably no one would steal it.

"Hey kid, how long has it been since you've had a proper walk?" Shi Haiming patted his shoulder hard, and the latter, feeling the concern from his best friend, couldn't help but burst into laughter.

"Haha, ah, what a pity, I should have gone to vocational high school with you back then."

"What, now you realize it's good to go to school?"

"Tch, don't get cocky, kid. Didn't you also fail to get into high school and end up in vocational school?"

"That's still more ambitious than you, kid."

"Fine, you're just too scared to step into society. By the way, where's your girlfriend? Didn't she come? Or did you break up with her?"

Li Gutao hooked his arm around his neck, pulled him close, and said through gritted teeth, "Can't you be nice to me for once? What do you mean we broke up? We're still together, okay?"

"Hahaha—" Shi Haiming also hooked his arm around his neck, "So, you fucking plan to get married?"

"I'm not old enough yet."

"I'm serious. Will your parents agree? Didn't they say last time that she was born without a part of an organ and couldn't have children?"

"...I will persuade them."

"Or we could just do it first and ask for permission later. Actually, procreation isn't very interesting, is it? Repeating the same old routine is so boring." Shi Haiming slapped Li Gutao hard on the back, breaking free from his enthusiastic embrace. "We're here. I'm going to get an abortion!"

"So, where are we going to play today?" Mo Xueyao asked, tilting her head. Her rainbow-colored bicycle stood out against the leaden gray weather.

"Xiaoyao, we've known each other since elementary school, right? We were classmates for nine years, from elementary school until we graduated from junior high."

"Yeah, otherwise how could we be considered best friends?"

"Even though we're still in the same city, it seems like you haven't been back to visit the school since graduation, right? What about you, Xiaoming?"

"Me? I didn't."

"Ah... I really don't have it." Mo Xueyao nodded.

Li Gutao rubbed his nose: "I'll go back for a bit."

"Middle school or elementary school?"

"As for junior high, I'm afraid the three of us haven't been back to elementary school even once since graduation, right?"

"That's it."

"So let's go to the elementary school first, and then the middle school."

"Huh—they must be on holiday there too, right?"

"That's not necessarily true. That area is close to the city center, so it shouldn't be that easy for the power to go out there."

"Hmm—that makes sense, after all, there was no power outage when I left my house this morning."

Mo Xueyao's home is located on the edge of the city center, but because Hangzhou's development is not particularly good, that area is as desolate as the suburbs of Shanghai.

Shi Haiming inflated the tire, pressed it hard, tossed down a penny for the tire repair, and straddled the seat, which was still somewhat dirty even after wiping away the dust with his hand.

"Let's go, guys! By the way, has the abandoned street been demolished yet? Should we go check it out?"

“Sure, it’s on the way anyway.” Mo Xueyao squeezed the brake lever. “As for the route—let’s go to my house first, and then go there. Let’s take the old route.”

"Okay, I've almost forgotten how to get there anyway."

“My family has moved from where we used to live, and I haven’t walked that road in ages.” Li Gutao was the last to get on his bicycle. “So, how about Xiaoyao leads the way today?”

"No problem. By the way, if I told my former elementary school homeroom teacher that I was her student, would she not think there was anything wrong with it at all?"

"After all, I've taught so many students, who knows, they might say something like, 'You're so-and-so?'" Shi Haiming joked with a laugh. The longer the three of them spent together, the more he seemed to resemble his past self.

"Haha, they probably don't even remember who we are, do they?"

"Tsk, even if we got there, we probably wouldn't be able to get in, right? If it weren't a holiday, it should be during class time now, right?"

"What's wrong with class time? Just say you're going in to see the teacher."

"It's not Teacher's Day..."

"It's not just Teacher's Day that's meaningful." Shi Haiming's words sounded a bit strange at first, but upon reflection, they actually made a philosophical point.

So Mo Xueyao teased, "Xiao Ming, long time no see! How come you've become a philosopher? Have you come up with some philosophy of life?"

"Haha, no, the philosophy of life I've come up with is that life is a fucking mess!"

"Hahaha—why have you suddenly become so pessimistic? This isn't like you at all!"

"At least I'm still alive, aren't I? Even if I'm so pessimistic, hey."

……

Chapter 208 Memory Bias (Part 2)

(One)

The wind blew up the pebbles on the ground, making the discarded plastic bags spin and dance in mid-air.

The bicycle wheel hub occasionally made a soft sound as stones were being struck.