A Young Woman's Heart

Many items in a fruit shop are displayed outside, but they have to be put away when the shop closes.

The main reason is that displaying the items makes them easier for people to see. Most of the items displayed outside are low-priced fruits, such as bananas or apples of poor quality.

Su Tang stretched out a big yawn, and only then did she realize that when stretched out, she was already such a big cat.

"Screech—hiss." After a slow braking sound, a truck stopped in front of the fruit shop, and a young man with tanned skin jumped out. "Good morning, boss lady!"

"Good morning, you're here early today?"

"Hmm, this is the first one delivered to your house—hmm?" He was clearly taken aback when he saw Mo Xueyao and Li Wanyan.

Although they hadn't met many times, Mo Xueyao recognized him immediately, mainly because she saw Huang Yuxi sitting in the passenger seat.

"Brother Huang Yuxi!?"

"I never expected to run into you here."

"I never expected you'd actually deliver goods to my house." Mo Xueyao waved vigorously at Huang Yuxi in the passenger seat, who smiled and rolled down the window.

Although he couldn't speak, he made a gesture of greeting.

He seemed quite surprised as well.

"These are today's bananas." Huang Zhengyang carried a large wooden crate down and took back the wooden crate from last time.

"Let me weigh it to see if the weight is correct." The mother took out the large electronic scale for weighing goods, and together with Huang Zhengyang, they lifted it and placed the box on it.

She knew the weight of the box; she could simply subtract it from the total weight.

It's normal for fruit to have some error, since different scales are used, and it's acceptable within a certain margin of error.

Today's bananas were only an ounce or two short, which is fairly accurate.

"Same old price, please?"

"It's two yuan cheaper today than last time."

“Okay.” The mother nodded and handed the money to Huang Zhengyang, who then handed her the invoice that had already been written.

"I've brought you the things you asked me to bring. They're free, but they're all junk, so you'll have to pick them out and pack them yourself," Huang Zhengyang said, dragging an old burlap sack full of things off the truck.

Mo Xueyao peered inside curiously and found that it was filled with various planks and strips of wood, seemingly salvaged from abandoned crates.

Thank you.

"It's nothing." Huang Zhengyang laughed twice, waved his hand, and said, "Then I'm off."

"Come on, take two apples to eat on the way."

"No need, no need."

"Why are you being so polite with me?" His mother insisted on giving Huang Zhengyang two apples.

“Every time you come, you give me some fruit. I can’t accept that.”

"It's alright, it's alright, you can keep it."

"Okay, okay, thank you, thank you." Huang Zhengyang could only get into the car with the apple in his arms and then put the apple on his younger brother's lap.

After Huang Zhengyang turned and left, his mother asked curiously, "How do you know him?"

“Because his younger brother is our classmate, and he also went to Hua Yinyin’s birthday party last time.” Mo Xueyao kicked the sack at her feet. “Mom, what do you need all this stuff for?”

"You'll find out soon enough," her mother said mysteriously, leaving her to guess for herself.

It was almost seven o'clock when my father rode his tricycle back to the shop. The tricycle was loaded with watermelons—watermelons sell particularly well in the summer, so fresh ones need to be delivered almost every day.

Although you can have it delivered, it's definitely not as good as picking it out yourself at the wholesale market.

The watermelons my father bought were all loose and unpackaged. After he selected them, they were practically guaranteed to be sweet.

This way, you won't feel guilty when writing promotional slogans.

"Ali, where can I borrow a ladder?"

"Go ask Aunt Jin," the father said, pointing to the newly opened grocery store next door.

In the grocery store, Grandma Jin was sitting at the cashier, checking the accounts with a magnifying glass, while Zhuang Lianlian was organizing the goods on the shelves, especially picking out the food that was about to expire and putting it in a cardboard box to sell at a low price as near-expiry goods.

"Yaoyao, go get a ladder from Grandma Jin!"

"It's me doing the hard labor again."

"How much have you done already, and you still call it hard labor?" Her mother rolled her eyes at her, annoyed. "Go on!"

"Okay—" Mo Xueyao drawled as she walked into the general store.

"Hey, Xiaoyao, is something the matter?" Zhuang Lianlian, who was standing in front of the shelf and bending over with some difficulty to sort the goods, turned her head and asked.

"Do you have a ladder?"

"In the small warehouse at the back."

"I'll take it and use it."

"Hmm, ask Grandma Jin."

"Take it and use it," Grandma Jin said with a cheerful smile.

She would definitely agree, Zhuang Lianlian was just saying that to show respect.

"What are you planning to do?" Mo Xueyao asked loudly, holding a ladder. "Where am I supposed to put it, Mom?!"

"Place it on the left wall; that's the entrance to the warehouse area!"

"Do we have to climb up?"

"Ah."

Mo Xueyao staggered over, and Li Wanyan came over to lend a hand.

After the ladder was placed, Mo Xueyao was the first to climb it.

The fruit shop is a typical single-story building.

The top is a flat rooftop terrace with some grooves for water to flow around it and four drains.

The middle part is fairly clean, so it looks like it's been cleaned recently.

Standing on the rooftop and looking down, it felt quite novel.

Although the fruit shop has been open for half a year, this is her first time here.

"Hey—Mom—and then—?"

"I'll pass the stuff up here, you catch it up here," the mother shouted from below, then laboriously dragged the sack to the ladder.

This is an A-frame ladder, which is relatively stable, but it is still somewhat dangerous to climb it while carrying things.

"Yan Yan, help me up."

"Hmm." Li Wanyan, who had been standing by her side, immediately grabbed the two sides of the stepladder to prevent her mother from swaying too much as she climbed up.

The large sack of wooden planks was indeed very heavy. Li Wanyan even helped push it from below before her mother was finally able to lift it up.

Mo Xueyao quickly caught it, then pulled back with all her might, almost falling onto the rooftop.

"It's so heavy, so what are you going to do with it?"

"You'll see soon enough." The mother climbed up and called to Li Wanyan below, "Yanyan, bring up that black bag I put on the cardboard box, and the small bag next to it too—"

"Ah."

Before long, Li Wanyan climbed up carrying the bag.

The black bag contained tools—pliers, scissors, a hammer, nails, and the like.

The smaller bag contained packets of seeds.

If Mo Xueyao still didn't know what her mother was up to at this point, then she would be incredibly foolish.

But that wasn't all. The mother went downstairs again and carried up another large sack.

This sack is full of mud.

"Do you want to grow vegetables on top?"

"Finally guessed it? Anyway, the space above is just sitting empty, so why not make use of it instead of wasting it?"

Growing vegetables was a rather unfamiliar thing for Mo Xueyao, a child who grew up in the city, but it was also quite novel. She didn't find it boring at all; on the contrary, she found it very interesting.

Is this the genetic memory etched deep into the bones of the Chinese people?

"Come on, let's empty all the planks first, then we'll nail them together to make a wooden box. Yao Yao and Yan Yan, come and help."

The clouds overhead have drifted away, and although it is already the beginning of autumn, the still blazing sun is releasing its fiery passion.

"Be careful not to fall. Stand a little closer to the middle," the mother reminded her.

Mo Xueyao and Li Wanyan were responsible for holding onto the wooden planks, while their mother was responsible for hammering in the nails.

For a moment, a series of 'thump thump thump' sounds came from above.

The wooden crates were not all the same size because some of the wood had broken, so they had to be combined with other broken planks using a saw to form a slightly smaller crate.

Unlike crates with gaps, this wooden crate has no gaps, which prevents dirt from leaking out.

It looks like an easy task, but it's actually quite difficult to do.

The three of them worked together for a whole morning and made a total of six wooden crates of various sizes. They had almost run out of materials, and what was left were scraps that might still be useful, but they certainly couldn't be made into crates anymore.

"Ali—what time is it?" the mother called downstairs.

"11:30!"

"It's so late." The mother patted the dust off her hands. "Yaoyao, Yanyan, you two fill in the mud. I'm going downstairs to make lunch."

"Got it!" Mo Xueyao replied excitedly, even though she was already sweating profusely from the heat, she still found it interesting.

Next, we use a shovel to fill the soil little by little. The reason for not pouring it directly is that it is too heavy and it may overflow, causing waste. Wouldn't it be more troublesome to make a mess of the ground?

"This soil is so clean, there are no bugs or pebbles or anything." Mo Xueyao used a small shovel to pat the soil in the box, compacting it, then stood up and stretched.

"It must have been bought from a flower and bird market," Li Wanyan guessed. "It looks like potting soil."

"Huh? Mom actually went to buy soil? That's not like her at all. She's the kind of person who avoids spending money if she can avoid it. I thought she dug it up from the park!"

"Perhaps the price isn't too high."