A Young Woman's Heart

"I think there's no need to pretend anymore. Everything's fine as it is. Why bother pretending? It's a waste of money." Old Chen had a two-yuan Shuangye cigarette dangling from his mouth, and a cheap menthol flavor wafted from it.

"No, it won't look too old if we don't install it."

"Then let's just paint it," Old Chen insisted, trying to save costs. "No need to be so fancy."

"Then we won't even need to paint. We can just add a few tiles in the kitchen and wallpaper the outside, the thicker kind."

"Okay, this is good." Old Chen casually flicked his cigarette ash onto the ground. "Let's settle on this."

"We'll buy secondhand tables and chairs."

"What kind are you planning to buy? Solid wood?"

Mo Wenli waved his hand: "Haha, why buy solid wood? It's a waste of money. Second-hand wooden tables and chairs are fine. Actually, hard plastic would also work, but it would look too cheap."

"That won't do. The bowl will wobble if you put it on top of it. That's not good."

So that's why.

"That's about it. The rest are just some simple kitchen utensils."

"There's also a noodle machine here. Wow, this is a real bargain! We can make our own noodles just by buying flour. It's convenient and cheap."

“Yes.” Old Chen finished smoking the last bit of cigarette butt in one go, then threw it on the ground and stomped on it. “We can install the tiles and wallpaper ourselves. We only need to pay for the materials, and we’ll save some money.”

“Yes, we can both do this. We’ll save money wherever we can.” Mo Wenli looked leisurely at the setting sun outside the window. “This shop will definitely be a success. The new signboard will be delivered in a few days.”

"What name did you choose?"

"Old Mo's Noodle Shop".

"Why not call me Old Chen?" Old Chen joked.

"Oh ho, you're paying for it?" Mo Wenli laughed and punched him in the chest.

Just then, his phone rang.

"Oh, I'll take this call." He walked to the store entrance with his phone in hand, seemingly worried about poor signal inside. "Wow, an unfamiliar number, but it seems kind of familiar."

"Could it be debt collectors?"

"You think you're me? I don't owe any debts." Mo Wenli stammered as he said this, but ultimately didn't explain and simply answered the phone.

Before he could even ask who the other person was, he heard Mo Xueyao's urgent voice calling out, "Hello? Dad, Dad?"

"Yes, yes, yes." Mo Wenli lit a cigarette with one hand. "Why the rush?"

"Dad, would it be convenient for you to send a few people over in a van?"

"What's wrong?" Mo Wenli frowned. He had already walked from the noodle shop to the entrance of his own fruit shop.

"A fight has broken out! Hurry up!"

"What?!" Mo Wenli, who had just entered the store, suddenly raised his voice, startling Yang Xiaoyu. She gave him a disapproving look, but at this moment he had no time to consider other people's feelings. "Where? Can I go to your school gate?"

"Okay, okay, come to the school gate!"

"Okay, I'll be right there!" Mo Wenli slammed his phone on the table, not even having time to hang up, and started looking for something that could be used as a weapon. Just then, he saw Old Chen walking over and called out loudly, "Old Chen! Grab your weapon and come with me!"

Yang Xiaoyu hadn't quite figured out what was going on. While complaining, she picked up her phone, which was lying on the table: "Honestly, they don't even hang up when they make a call. Do they think phone calls are free?"

"What happened?" the mother asked calmly.

"It's urgent!" Mo Wenli hesitated for a moment, but still didn't tell her that it was her daughter calling. "I need to go and help out at a certain place."

"What's it to you?"

"Of course it's related." He casually made up an excuse. "If you don't help others this time, they won't help you next time you're in trouble. We're all in the same place, so we have to look out for each other!"

"What's wrong?" Old Chen had already walked up to them.

"We'll talk on the way." Mo Wenli didn't have time to explain. In fact, he himself wasn't fully clear about the situation. He just knew that his daughter seemed to be in trouble, and who knows, she might have been surrounded by a group of thugs!

Just as he was about to leave, he saw Old Lu from the shop next door come over for a visit, so he pulled him along: "Old Lu, let's go, let's keep things in order!"

"To keep things in order? Oh... okay." Old Lu seemed to have run shops in other places before, and knew what this meant. In this era where public security was still relatively chaotic, mutual care between people was especially important.

"Where the hell is my phone?" He was about to leave when he couldn't find his phone.

"Here it is, the call just ended." Yang Xiaoyu handed him the phone with a hint of annoyance. "You'd better be careful if you go out to fight. You're not young anymore."

"Don't worry about that." Mo Wenli picked up the phone and dialed another number. "Hello? Turtle? Can you do me a favor and call some people over to keep things in order? Where? Call me after you've called them, and I'll let you know. Or you can drive to the entrance of Yukong High School first."

Turtle is considered Karen Mok's drinking buddy, but that's not a derogatory term; it just means they met through drinking.

That guy was practically a local bigwig, and his family was also related to Grandma Jin, which made his relationship with Mo Wenli exceptionally good.

After hanging up with the turtle, Mo Wenli hesitated for a moment, then called Yu Liang: "Liang, are you busy?"

"What's with the formalities? Are you asking to borrow money again? I heard you're opening a noodle shop soon, are you short of funds? I happen to have some here..."

"It's not about that. I just wanted to let you know in advance that we might have to go and get into a fight later."

"What did you do?"

"A group of student thugs are bullying my daughter!"

"Oh? Is that so?"

"Yes, so if anything goes wrong, I'll have to rely on you."

"You really know how to give me something to do, huh? Okay, okay, I'll try my best to smooth things over for you if the problem isn't too serious."

"I'll leave the favors to you; I'll handle the meals and gifts."

"I know, it's been so many years, why are you still being so polite with me?"

"Haha, I'm off then!"

"Be careful, don't go too far."

How do you know I definitely won't be the one who gets hit?

"Haha, you can't even beat a bunch of student thugs? Then you might as well quit being a thug!"

"Come on, Lao Chen, Lao Lu." Mo Wenli drove out the van, beckoned the two men to get in, and told them what he knew and guessed on the way.

"It's probably a huge melee, with at least twenty or thirty people on each side." Old Chen lit a cigarette.

"Don't smoke in the car, my daughter doesn't like the smell of smoke."

"Which daughter wouldn't like that?" Old Chen joked.

I don't like either of them.

For a car, the short distance from the fruit shop to Yukong High School is practically gone in the blink of an eye, even if it involves taking a detour.

In comparison, I actually spend more time on the phone.

Next came the scene at the school gate where they met Mo Xueyao and the others. In a very short time, through Zhou Yong's explanation, the adults finally managed to understand what had happened.

Immediately following, we will enter into this chaotic battle.

Mo Wenli had just pinned a man with a knife to the ground and tossed the knife into the nearby bushes when he received a call from Turtle. He answered quickly: "They're already calling! It's the vacant lot in the urban village next to Yukong that hasn't been built yet. Hurry!"

"Good!" the tortoise shouted with great energy, sounding almost excited.

"You brats, you dare to fight on my turf?!" Soon, Turtle's booming voice rang out, and three cars stopped in succession, from which a dozen or so adults emerged, followed by five motorcycles, from which another five or six people got off.

It's amazing that this turtle was able to gather so many people all at once; he truly deserves to be called the local tyrant.

Mo Wenli suspected that he had invited the people who looked after his family's mahjong parlor, as well as some of his close mahjong partners.

"Rainy Sky High School students, stop and step back! Leave the rest to the adults!" Mo Wenli walked at the front, looking every bit like a gangster boss.

Those who don't know the situation might be quite taken aback.

But those brats, relying on their numbers and the fact that they had knives, and with the fearlessness of newborn calves, dared to shout and charge forward to continue fighting.

"Is he fucking addicted to this?" Mo Wenli laughed and cursed, and a group of adults immediately swarmed forward.

He himself didn't back down either, wielding a crowbar as if he were in an empty field. The key point is that he hit their butts every time, like a father disciplining his son, with a somewhat relaxed and carefree feeling.

The others clearly knew their limits, and mainly focused on disarming and pinning them down. After pinning them down, they didn't beat them, but just slapped them across the face.

In fact, it's often the students, not the adults, who are the ones who really fight without restraint.

When it comes to rationality, adults are miles ahead of them.

Street fights aren't particularly exciting; they're basically just using whatever moves are available, as long as the goal is achieved as quickly as possible.

The adults would avoid vital points and deliberately hold back, but these students hit quite hard.

"Damn it, you little brat, that hit pretty hard?" Mo Wenli was hit on the arm with a baseball bat, which aroused his anger. "When I was beating your dad, you were still inside him before you came!"

He's not very tall and looks like an ordinary southerner, but when he gets into a fight, he really does have the feel of a northerner.

Especially since he charged around recklessly, no one could stop him.

"Ali's gone crazy." The turtle smacked its lips.

"One person taking on five or six, that's impressive!" someone who came to help out laughed loudly.

"Haha, that's pretty impressive!" The tortoise laughed smugly, then bent down and slapped the boy on the ground who had just tried to hit someone on the head with a brick twice. "You little brat, you like using bricks so much? And you like hitting people on the head? Don't you know how scary dead people are? Hmm?"

"It seems... we're not involved anymore?" Li Hongran scratched her messy hair and asked with a dry laugh.

"Uh...maybe..." Duanmu Ji was also a little confused.

……

Chapter 46: He Gained a Group of Followers

"There are only so many people like Dad, will they be alright..." Mo Xueyao muttered worriedly.

"They'll definitely call for backup, right?" Mo Zhuyou pouted, putting her hands behind her head. "Why do boys like to fight so much?"

"It's probably just hormones acting up," Mo Xiaoxiao said with a light laugh, covering her mouth. "Xiaoyao, go change quickly."

It was really uncomfortable to be soaking wet down there, and blood was still flowing out. If I hadn't wiped it off with a tissue in time, my over-the-knee socks would probably have gotten dirty.

Once clothes are stained with blood, they are very difficult to clean.

"Let's go to the infirmary; the restrooms there are clean," Mo Xiaoxiao suggested.