A Young Woman's Heart

"I feel as heavy as a solid ball..." Mo Xueyao muttered, pouting.

……

Chapter Thirty-Two: Building Sandcastles

After the fierce battle, everyone just wanted to play some easy games on the beach.

They went back to their original state of gathering in small groups.

Chatting while building sandcastles is the most fun entertainment at this time.

"Yinyin, don't come any closer. I just built this sandcastle." Mo Xueyao pushed Hua Yinyin, who was trying to join in the fun, aside. "If you come closer, you'll crush it."

"Okay~ then we'll wait until Xiaoyaoyao finishes before pressing it up."

"Hey, what are you doing? Are you trying to mess with me?"

"It's going to collapse anyway."

Mo Xueyao was taken aback and didn't know how to retort for a moment. After a while, she said, "Then you're going to die sooner or later anyway, why don't you jump into the sea and commit suicide?"

"Alas—Little Yao Yao actually wants me to die so badly, sob..."

"Go away, stop pretending to be pitiful!" Mo Xueyao slapped away the groping hand that was trying to take advantage of her.

This is a fairly large beach.

It can easily accommodate more than thirty people.

If everyone were scattered, it would even feel a bit deserted.

After all, beaches like this, if they've been developed, usually have at least three or four hundred tourists during peak season, and in busy areas, it's normal to have over a thousand.

In those circumstances, there were plenty of places to go on the beach, let alone now.

Building sandcastles is similar to kneading clay, except that sandcastles are much more fragile than claycastles. Although they won't collapse at the slightest touch, you still have to be careful.

I guess every boy wants to play in the sand when he's little, right?

Mo Xueyao remembers that there was a ladder to climb in the park near her home, with sand underneath. She used to run there to play when she was a child.

But the sand there isn't as clean as here. Not only do cats and dogs use it as a dumping ground, but sometimes people even use it to relieve themselves in the middle of the night...

As she grew older, she stopped going to play in the sand there, because she knew how dirty it really was.

But the beaches at the seaside are very clean, especially deserted beaches like this.

There will be no industrial waste, and the daily washing of seawater will wash away most of the dirt.

The sand felt like granulated sugar, and it was exceptionally pleasant to touch.

Several seabirds were calling out loudly on the horizon, swooping down from time to time, seemingly hunting prey.

The azure sea connects seamlessly with the turquoise sky, making it feel as if the entire world consists of just this one beach, with the rest of the world an endless expanse of blue.

A slightly salty sea breeze carries in the air. You might not be used to it at first, but after a while, you get used to it and even find the air here particularly fresh.

The undeveloped area had a primitive purity. Mo Xueyao hummed a little tune as she built sandcastles, feeling as if she had returned to her childhood.

However, she had never been to a beach like this during her childhood.

Her memory was a little hazy, but she was pretty sure that even if she had been there, she must have only been to the kind of beach full of pebbles.

The beach is all pebbles, which means it hasn't been near the sea long enough. Otherwise, given enough time, the erosion from the sea and wind would have turned it into a golden sand beach.

"Whoosh—" Just as Mo Xueyao was getting into the swing of things, a yellow and white figure suddenly darted past. It was Ye Wen's cat, Milk Candy.

It leaped swiftly across the sandcastle, followed by a large black dog—Black King—who came to play with it.

Unlike Milk Candy, Black Emperor was not agile. To Sandcastle, it was like a giant beast, directly smashing the castle down and leaving Mo Xueyao alone, bewildered in the wind.

"Ugh—you stinky dog!" Mo Xueyao shouted in dissatisfaction.

"Whoosh—" Just then, a cat and a dog darted back, as if they were playing a game of cat and mouse, and completely destroyed the sandcastle that had collapsed halfway.

The ruins are so bad that you can hardly tell that they were originally sandcastles.

"Ah—!" Mo Xueyao got up in anger and tackled Hei Huang to the ground.

"Waaah—" Yet this big dog made a sound of begging for mercy.

It twisted its body violently and turned its head to lick Mo Xueyao's cheek with its tongue, trying to get her to let it go.

"No way! You destroyed my sandcastle! Pay me back!" Mo Xue shouted, pointing at the ruins of the sandcastle.

"Woof...?" Black King raised its paw and touched its head in a very human-like manner, seemingly not understanding the situation.

"How could a dog possibly understand what you're saying?" After Mo Xueyao stopped letting Hua Yinyin lean on her, she leaned against Li Wanyan instead.

However, Li Wanyan did not look down on her, or simply pretended that she did not exist. She calmly watched Mo Xueyao build the castle while sipping the juice in her glass.

"No, you destroyed my castle, you must be punished!"

"Woof?" Black King looked at her pitifully, as if he already knew he was wrong.

But Mo Xueyao refused to give up, and she did indeed suddenly come up with an interesting way to play.

That means burying the Black King in the sand, leaving only its head sticking out.

Without hesitation, Mo Xueyao returned to the ruins and dug a large pit. Black Emperor, as if admitting his mistake, hung his head and followed beside her, surprisingly not running away.

Meanwhile, Milk Candy hopped onto a nearby rock as if watching a show, leisurely scratching its neck with its hind paws.

After digging a large pit, Mo Xueyao buried Black Emperor in it, leaving only its head sticking out. Then she filled the pit with sand and it was done.

However, since the Black Emperor is cooperating so well, she wants to add some decorations to the side.

So they simply built another sandcastle on top of it.

Unexpectedly, just as they were halfway through, the Black King struggled to climb out of the sand, and the sandcastles above were naturally all 'destroyed'.

This time, Black King simply slipped away, leaping into the sea and paddling with his classic doggy paddle to a small island not far from the coast.

Calling it a small island is an exaggeration; it's probably just a rock protruding from the water, big enough for one person to lie down in.

Milk Candy also darted down and gracefully swam to the reef, where it lazily lay down next to Black King and basked in the sun.

This cat and dog always seem to be together...

Why are there such big differences between cats?

Mo Xueyao's family's crispy candy looks down on the husky next door.

However, this is probably also related to the fact that huskies are just too stupid...

Why do you think so?

Mo Xueyao always felt that Su Tang's gaze towards Erha always carried a sense of disdain.

After trying to build a castle so many times only to have it collapse, Mo Xueyao lost some of her enthusiasm for building castles. She simply leaned lazily against Li Wanyan's lap, feeling that the sun wasn't hot at all. Perhaps it was because the sea breeze carried seawater, which even made her feel a little cool.

Mo Xueyao squinted her eyes, and drowsiness gradually crept in.

I don't know when I fell asleep, but I slept very soundly and comfortably.

I slept soundly without any dreams, and when I woke up, the sun was already high in the sky.

It was already noon.

She squinted at the sky, the blinding sun causing her to shed a few tears.

"Ugh—" Mo Xueyao yawned widely, raised her hand to wipe away the tears that had flowed from looking directly at the sun, but found that her arm seemed to be pressed down by something and she couldn't move it.

It was only then that she realized she seemed unable to move her entire body—except for her head.

She managed to lift her head to look in front of her, trying to see what was pressing down on her.

She discovered that she was covered in a pile of sand, and there was a mysterious pillar-shaped object made of sand on her stomach.

It's obvious who did it.

"Hua—Yin—Yin—!" Mo Xueyao roared in exasperation.

"What's wrong?" Li Wanyan, who seemed to have fallen asleep, trembled slightly and slowly opened her eyes.

Mo Xueyao's tone sounded like she was telling a teacher: "Wanyan, look what Hua Yinyin did!"

"..." Li Wanyan's lips twitched, but she couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"What are you laughing at? Hurry up and help me dig me out!" Mo Xueyao shouted, both embarrassed and annoyed.

"Here you are." Li Wanyan suppressed her smile, pushed away the pillar-like object on Mo Xueyao, and then dug away some of the sand. By this time, Mo Xueyao was able to get up on her own.

"Damn it, where's Hua Yinyin?!"

"I don't know." Li Wanyan clearly had just woken up as well.

But there's no doubt that she was the one who played such a terrible prank.

Mo Xueyao shook the sand off her body and looked into the distance.

They found Hua Yinyin leisurely swimming in the sea.

It seems they want to swim to the reef where Black King and Milk Candy are.

"Hua Yinyin—prepare to die!" Mo Xueyao immediately took off running. Although she was still a little dizzy from just waking up, she was more embarrassed and angry at the moment.

Moreover, while asleep, I didn't know if anyone saw me, or if anyone took pictures.

Mo Xueyao was originally a boy, so she wouldn't have cared about such a prank. But the fact that she used to be a boy but isn't anymore, and that such a large cylindrical object was piled up made her feel humiliated, even though she knew that Hua Yinyin's intention was just a simple prank—after all, she didn't know the secret.

But Mo Xueyao still couldn't contain her anger.

"Wow, Little Yaoyao is here!" Hua Yinyin laughed loudly, swimming even faster.

In her pursuit, Mo Xueyao forgot one thing: in terms of swimming performance, Hua Yinyin was far superior to her...

Moreover, she had just woken up and jumped into the sea without warming up, and the water at the bottom of the sea was still a bit cold.

This series of reasons caused her right leg to start cramping.

"Ah—!" As soon as her leg cramped up, she panicked and couldn't help but splash around in the water, trying to scream for help but unable to make a sound.