A Young Woman's Heart

"It's best to be careful. Some things are none of your business, so it's best not to get involved to avoid trouble."

"How could you do that? Helping those around you is just the most basic act of kindness, isn't it? It's nothing."

“If those things really happen, you won’t be able to explain it.” Li Wanyan shook her head. “Let’s go.”

"Tsk, no way, no way, people aren't as bad as you think~"

"It's not as good as you think," Li Wanyan frowned slightly. "It's just that you live in an environment where everyone takes care of you."

"Really? Then isn't Wanyan one of them?"

"Of course not. The poorer the place, the more chaotic it is. You are already very fortunate to live in such an environment."

"Huh? I didn't say I was unhappy. Although I didn't have such a good life before opening the fruit shop, I didn't have any complaints. I'm easily satisfied."

Li Wanyan bit her lip, seemingly deciding to continue her lecture: "I used to have a neighbor next door who smelled gas coming from the apartment across the hall. He rushed out and knocked on the door, then broke it down and rushed in, saving an elderly person living alone who was almost poisoned by gas at home."

"Oh, isn't that a good thing?"

"But afterwards, the landlord first demanded that he compensate for the damaged door, and then the elderly man woke up and said that he had turned on the gas and wanted to poison him."

"Seriously? How could something so absurd happen? I can understand the first one, but the second one is just too ungrateful!"

Li Wanyan turned her head and glanced at her, then continued, "Later, that person was taken to the police station for interrogation. Because there were no witnesses, it took a long time before he was released without charge. After he got out, he lost his job and couldn't pay his rent, so he was kicked out by his landlord."

"and after?"

"I don't know."

"Ah...how could this be? Good people don't get good rewards! But, these are just a minority, right?"

Li Wanyan smiled gently and shook her head, then lightly touched Mo Xueyao's hair: "Yaoyao, don't overestimate people's bottom line."

“But we can’t underestimate people’s nobility!” Mo Xueyao insisted on her point of view. “Bad things are always in the minority, and it’s precisely because they are few that they are talked about. Just like the news, if you don’t see something often, is that news? So I think there are definitely more good people than bad people in this world! Wanyan, don’t always be so wary of others.”

Li Wanyan didn't answer, it seemed that neither of them could convince the other, so they simply ended this meaningless topic.

……

Chapter 106 The Adult's Confusion

The midday sun was blazing down.

My mother was too lazy to cook, so she just made some cold dishes and a plate of poached chicken to eat with soy sauce.

The staple food wasn't rice, but chilled mung bean porridge from the refrigerator, which was perfect for summer like this.

"Oh, the girls are back?" The father lazily tossed a rotten flower into the trash can. "Perfect timing for dinner."

"Okay—but I don't have much of an appetite."

"I have to eat even if I don't have an appetite, just a little." He said, walking to the refrigerator, opening the cabinet door and rummaging around for a while. "Hey? Where's my chilled beer from today?"

"Ha..." Old Chen, sitting next to the tap at the entrance of the fruit shop, chuckled and raised his beer bottle. "Hey, sorry about this."

"It's alright, it's alright, I'll go buy two more bottles of ice-cold beer." Her father shook his head and tossed a five-yuan bill to Mo Xueyao. "Go, Xiaoyao, buy two bottles of beer, West Lake brand."

"Aren't you going by yourself?" Mo Xueyao looked at him with droopy eyelids.

"I still have business to do."

"I'll go, I'll go," Old Chen said awkwardly as he stood up.

"It's alright, Lao Chen. You can sit down. It's a rare day off, so don't run around."

"Tch—" Mo Xueyao glanced at her father with disdain, took the money, and ran across the road.

Grandma Jin next door doesn't sell bottled iced beer; you have to cross the street and walk three minutes to a tobacco and liquor store to buy it.

A short while later, Mo Xueyao came running back with two bottles of beer, her tongue lolling out from the heat.

"Haha... We're here, we're here. Honestly, we had iced mung bean soup and beer for lunch today."

"Beer, that's the romance that belongs only to men in summer!"

"Oh my, you've really gotten cultured," his mother rolled her eyes at him. "You're just a middle school student, what are you showing off for?"

“That’s called ‘artistic’, okay? You’re so uncultured.”

"Then you might as well skip lunch."

"What does this have to do with lunch?"

"I'm uneducated."

"That won't affect how well you cook, hehe..." The father quickly said a few nice words with a shameless smile, which made Li Wanyan, who was standing to the side, unable to help but laugh.

Mo Xueyao was already used to it. Her parents had always been bickering like this since they were little. When her father used to gamble, they really argued. Now, it should be called flirting.

On the table were cold cucumber salad, cold wood ear mushroom salad, and cold potato salad.

Cold dishes don't necessarily mean they're raw; they might be cooked, drained, and then mixed together.

In addition, there was also cold-dressed pig's ear bought from the market.

Summer is the perfect season for eating cold dishes.

Perhaps it was because Old Chen was there, but today's lunch was quite sumptuous. The poached chicken seemed to be made from a whole chicken!

"Old Chen, why are you taking the day off today? Aren't you short of money?"

“Even if you’re short of money, you still need to rest. If you keep working yourself to death, won’t you end up spending even more money?” Old Chen took a big gulp of beer. “Ha…sigh.”

"Why are you sighing?" The father picked up a piece of chicken, dipped it in soy sauce, and ate it in one bite. "What trouble have you encountered this time?"

"It's nothing." Old Chen just smiled, but it was a bitter smile.

Mo Xueyao glanced at him curiously a few times, but since this was an adult matter, she just listened quietly and didn't interrupt.

“Uh…” Old Chen looked at Mo Xueyao, as if he wanted to say something, but for a moment he couldn’t remember her name.

"Just call her Xiaoyao."

"Oh, right, Xiaoyao, you know the girl at the general store next door, right?"

"Yes, of course we know each other. We see each other often, so we're quite familiar with each other. Besides, she often comes over for meals."

"Oh..." Old Chen drawled out the words, and after a long pause, he asked again, "Do you know her boyfriend?"

"Her boyfriend? Chen Cheng, he's our classmate." Mo Xueyao took the opportunity to stuff a piece of pig's ear into her mouth while speaking, chewing the cartilage inside with a 'crunch crunch' sound.

"Ah, that's good."

"What's wrong?" Mo Xueyao swallowed the food in her mouth and asked, puzzled.

Old Chen hesitated for a moment, then after shoveling down four or five mouthfuls of mung bean porridge, he said, "Let's talk about it after we finish eating."

"Oh."

"Old Chen, how's work lately? You seem pretty busy, doing several jobs?"

"Hmm...and some are part-time."

"Why don't you just open a shop and start a business? Aunt Jin said last time that there was a shop downstairs that no one wanted to rent. It used to be a noodle shop. Why don't you rent it and continue operating?"

"I don't have your skills."

"What's so difficult about opening a noodle shop? You're sure to make money here."

"Then why did the supplier stop doing it?"

“The previous boss was over fifty years old. He was tired and didn’t want to continue running the business. His children were all grown up, so of course he was going home to retire.”

"Yeah, haha..."

"Want to buy it?"

"I have money, but not much..."

"Then think it over. If I had the money, I'd help you too. The main problem is that I'm still in debt myself." His father laughed, patted his shoulder, and clinked his own wine bottle against his. "Come on, cheers!"

"We're just chugging from the bottle, what kind of toast is this?" Old Chen said with a helpless laugh.

After lunch, my mother cleaned up the dishes and then lay down in the rocking chair and fell asleep.

In this sweltering heat, with only the ceiling fan blowing overhead, it's amazing she can still sleep...

Old Chen patted Mo Xueyao on the shoulder and smiled, "Did you know there's a school behind this fruit shop?"

"I know." Although she had never been inside, Mo Xueyao often saw students coming and going here.

The fruit shop and the grocery store are separated by a narrow alley, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. If they are about to meet, one of them has to stop and let the other pass slowly.

Cars usually don't drive in through this path because there's a back gate on the other side, and school cars all go through there.

This is just a student entrance/exit.

At the very back, there's a vocational school. It's quite large and looks pretty good, but the students' behavior is rather questionable.

Fights were a common sight. Students would often have heated exchanges, pushing and shoving each other. Sometimes, some of them would even fight next to the fruit shop, but their fathers would always manage to scare them away.

These self-proclaimed thugs still don't dare to act recklessly in front of real adults.

The main reason is that fruit shops located here are more intimidating than the average adult.

These days, how many shop owners don't have some kind of background?

Even her father had Grandma Jin protecting him.

Grandma Jin owns a whole street of shops; they all belong to her. There's no company running them. She decides who to rent to or not to rent to.

It's impossible for her not to know anyone in the police station or the underworld.

Besides, Mo Xueyao's father has a brother who is a section chief...

It was also because of the chaos at the school that Mo Xueyao had absolutely no interest in going inside.

The further you go in, the more chaotic it gets.

After all, this path is quite deep and has no forks; it's a straight road leading to the end.

I heard that someone was even killed here.

It's definitely not a place that civilized people would like.