A Young Woman's Heart

Thinking this way, Mo Xueyao felt inexplicably much better.

……

Mo Wenli's tricycle was loaded with several boxes of fruit.

Actually, when I go to buy supplies every day, I don't need to buy that much fruit.

After all, the daily sales volume is only so much. If you buy too much fruit and can't sell it, the losses will be huge.

Moreover, the fruits we receive every day are relatively inexpensive and are the kind that most people would buy.

Such as bananas, apples, and oranges.

Most people buy in batches of one or two kilograms, so we need to stock up on more.

There are also some more expensive fruits, such as dragon fruit and king bananas, which must be carefully selected, and each one must not have any rotten or overripe parts.

I spend most of my time here every day sourcing goods.

This is, after all, a fruit shop next to a hospital, and there will still be people who buy expensive fruit, especially when it's in a fruit basket, which makes customers feel particularly prestigious.

"Ah Li, where did you go last night? Did you go out and cheat on me?" An acquaintance saw him with dark circles under his eyes and yawned several times, and teased him with a loud laugh.

"How could he dare? He has a shrew at home. He's probably exhausted from delivering his 'labor tax' last night, hahaha—"

Many people burst into laughter.

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Mo Wenli said lazily. "I just got back from the hospital. My wife has hemorrhoids, so I took her there."

"You didn't sleep all night, so can you still pull the cart?"

"You think I can't move this little bit?" Mo Wenli sneered. "Boss, the usual, a small box of Emperor Bananas, please!"

"You're going to pick and choose again? I'm telling you, if you do, the price will go up," the shopkeeper said, half-jokingly and half-seriously.

"Damn, does that mean I have to accept your trash too?"

"I believe in honesty in business..."

"Come on, come on. I'm a businessman myself. What businessman isn't cunning? If you run into someone you know, you can say you just bumped into them while you were transporting the goods. If you don't want to sell, fine. You're not the only one in the market."

"Hey, Brother Mo, why are you taking this so seriously? Just kidding, you go first. I'm a regular customer, why are you being so meticulous?"

"I don't think you're joking." Mo Wenli yawned as he offered the other man a cigarette. After picking and choosing, the tricycle was soon filled with more and more goods, and the small tricycle was almost full.

He checked the list in his mind and, after thinking it was about right, carefully arranged the flowers on top of the goods to prevent them from falling off. Then he rode his tricycle away from the wholesale market.

He fell asleep several times while waiting at the traffic light, and each time he was woken up by the horn behind him.

When he arrived at the shop entrance, he had just parked his tricycle when he felt sleepy, so he leaned on the handlebars and fell asleep.

……

Chapter 231 The Frail Mother

Tuesday, April 2000, 4.

It was a cloudy day.

The gloomy sky weighed heavily on Mo Xueyao's heart, giving her a suffocating feeling.

At noon, all the students in the classroom had gone to the cafeteria, leaving her alone sitting quietly at the table, staring blankly at the gray sky outside the window.

Li Wanyan, who had just stepped out of the classroom, glanced at Mo Xueyao and then came back inside.

"distant."

"distant."

"Mo Xueyao!" Li Wanyan suddenly raised her voice and shouted loudly from beside Mo Xueyao.

"Ah...Eh? What's wrong?" Mo Xueyao suddenly came to her senses, staring blankly at Li Wanyan and asking in confusion.

“It’s lunchtime already.” Li Wanyan gently smoothed her messy hair with her hand. “I’ve called you several times, and you answered before leaving the classroom, but you’re still standing here in a daze.”

"Oh...did I agree?" Mo Xueyao had no recollection of it at all.

"What's wrong?" Li Wanyan took out a cola candy that Mo Xueyao had given her from her pocket, unwrapped it, and put it in her mouth.

"Hmm..." Mo Xueyao used her tongue to push the cola candy, letting it roll from left to right and then from right to left. "I'm a little worried about Mom."

"It'll be alright." Li Wanyan grabbed her arm and pulled her up somewhat forcefully. "Let's eat first."

"Oh... um, it should be fine, right? Although it might require surgery, it should be a minor procedure. But I wonder if our country's medical standards are high enough... and there aren't any particularly well-known hospitals in Hangzhou..."

"Nothing will happen," Li Wanyan repeated.

This time, however, she said it with a smile.

When a person who rarely smiles occasionally laughs, it always gives people a strange sense of power.

But Mo Xueyao still had no appetite.

She had this worry because she had witnessed the deaths of other people.

Until everything settles down, that heart can never truly settle back down.

I remember it was when I was in elementary school.

At that time, she was just a second-year student.

The house across from Mo Xueyao's was the previous neighbor of the house she now lives in.

That family had a little girl the same age as her.

Because we've known each other since kindergarten, we're very familiar with each other; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we're childhood sweethearts.

Every day after school, the two of them would get together to do their homework, and their parents would often joke about arranging a marriage between them.

We went to school together, came home together, and went out to play together on weekends.

Childhood sweethearts, inseparable – that's the best way to describe them back then.

But the change came very suddenly.

At first, it was just a cold, and no one took it seriously, but her condition got worse and worse, just like she had pneumonia.

Her parents became worried and took her for a checkup, but the answer they received was not pneumonia, but a significant drop in immunity caused by another serious illness.

That was also the first time Mo Xueyao had heard the name of this disease—leukemia.

As a child, she didn't know what leukemia was. She thought it was a disease that would turn a person's blood white or their skin white. She didn't know how terrible it was and instead found it very novel.

Later, the girl didn't go to school for a long time and stayed in the hospital. Mo Xueyao often visited her on weekends, and her complexion did indeed become paler and paler.

Even at this point, Mo Xueyao still didn't realize that it was a serious illness.

Because the doctors and nurses often joked with them, and the other party's parents didn't seem that anxious.

But she later realized that it was just the adults pretending.

To make the girl's remaining days as happy as possible.

It wasn't that there was no hope for a cure, but it seemed that the light of hope ultimately didn't fall upon her.

After returning home for the New Year that year, Mo Xueyao suddenly learned from her parents that the neighbor next door had sold their property and moved away in order to pay for their daughter's medical treatment.

At first, she kept insisting on visiting her, but the other person was no longer at the same hospital.

Children are always very forgetful, or rather, people will always forget some things to survive.

In the past six months, Mo Xueyao has made new friends and learned a lot of new knowledge.

She no longer constantly insists on going to see her; she only thinks of her occasionally.

It wasn't until one day, six months later, that her parents suddenly brought it up during a conversation.

That girl is dead.

She was never able to obtain a matching bone marrow donor, and her parents spent their entire life savings on her.

Children have no concept of death.

At that time, Mo Xueyao didn't have much of a feeling; she was just sad that she would never see her again.

But after attending the funeral of a relative I was fairly familiar with, this long-buried memory was unearthed.

Human life is so fragile; it all started as just a seemingly minor cold...

That incident was also one of the motivations that made Mo Xueyao start working hard again.

Life is both long and short, because you never know when it will end.

Whether it's your own or someone else's.

She was worried that her mother would develop this condition, which is why she seemed absent-minded all day.

Because it was already very late when they arrived at the cafeteria, the line was incredibly long. By the time Mo Xueyao and the others started eating, there were actually quite a few empty tables available.

Mo Xueyao made a plate of egg fried rice and picked at it bit by bit with her chopsticks, eating only five or six grains at a time. If she kept eating like this, she probably wouldn't finish it before lunchtime was over.

Li Wanyan brought out two bowls of egg drop soup and placed them in front of Mo Xueyao: "Are you going to play badminton at noon?"

"No... I don't want to move at all right now..." Mo Xueyao drooped her eyelids and poured the soup into the egg fried rice, turning a perfectly good egg fried rice into a lump that was neither rice porridge nor fried rice, but she ate it without any problem.

It seemed unable to taste the food at all; it just wanted to swallow it as quickly as possible.

Li Wanyan nodded silently and said nothing more.

She knew that there was no point in saying anything at this point, so she could only wait until she got home from school and let Mo Xueyao go see her mother in person to make sure that she was really alright.

The time she spent waiting for school to end was unusually agonizing for her.

I barely listened to the lectures today. Although I took notes, I just copied the words verbatim without thinking at all.

It wasn't until the school bell rang that she finally perked up, and her lifeless eyes began to regain some sparkle.

"Yaoyao, go home first," Li Wanyan said understandingly, not making her wait for her to go home together today.

“Okay…!” Mo Xueyao immediately slung her backpack over her shoulder and rushed out without the slightest hesitation.

"What's wrong with Xiaoyao today? Is she on her period?" Ye Banxia asked, but she didn't get a reply from Li Wanyan.