A Young Woman's Heart

"Mom, I'm the class monitor again this time!"

"Mom, if it really doesn't work out, let's get a divorce."

"Mom...I'm so cold."

Then, light and darkness began to alternate.

The alternation between cold and heat began.

A piercing sound echoed in Li Wanyan's mind.

Suddenly, I felt like I couldn't hear any sound from the world anymore.

The sense of touch seemed to be fading away from her.

Then I felt a violent drop...

……

Chapter Ninety-Eight: A Replay of Life (Part Two)

One day in second grade.

The sun was shining brightly that day, but the wind was a bit strong.

It was already winter by then.

An extra layer of clothing was added, but it didn't provide much warmth.

After school, Li Wanyan, unusually, spent one cent to buy a bag of snacks at the school gate.

It's the kind of spicy strip that's very, very thin.

She's not very good at handling spicy food, but after eating this, she feels warmer and less cold.

The buses home were still crowded.

She was squeezed into the carriage and barely managed to eat a few bites of spicy snacks before finally getting off.

A handsome little boy followed behind her, seemingly going the same way.

"Are you in second grade or first grade?" he asked excitedly as he ran up to Li Wanyan, walking alongside her. "It seems like you take the same route home as me every day."

"Ok?"

"I've seen you a few times already. How about we walk home together sometime? That way we'll have company after school."

"Oh." Li Wanyan took a bite of the spicy strip and answered indifferently. She hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she didn't share the spicy strip with him.

"By the way, what grade are you in, sister?"

Second grade.

"Wow, that's amazing! I'm in first grade, but I'll be in second grade next year."

"I was originally a first grader too."

"Uh...last year?"

"No, it was during the first-year exams that I applied to take the second-year qualifying exams, and then I enrolled as a second-year student."

Wow, skipping a grade?

"Hmm." Li Wanyan's tone carried a hint of smugness.

"That's amazing..."

From that day on, Li Wanyan got to know this boy.

Neither of them asked about the other's background, or even their names.

He called her "hey," and she called him "you."

Children make friends very quickly; they can become best friends in as little as an hour.

After a few days, her relationship with him had become quite harmonious.

That day, he bought a bag of instant noodles with a powder packet and shared half with her.

"I've finished my homework today, can I come to your house to play?"

"My home...?" Li Wanyan hesitated for a moment, "Well... it should be okay before my parents come back."

"Okay~"

"Let him play in front of my house." She didn't really want him to come inside.

"Anything's fine, what do you want to play?"

"A shuttlecock, I guess." She pointed to the colorful feather shuttlecock in the outer pocket of her backpack.

"Okay~ Let's play shuttlecock!" He was very happy, not because the other person was a girl, but because he finally had a playmate.

He probably had no shortage of playmates at school; he just didn't know anyone near his home.

"Hmm, it's so far in." He followed Li Wanyan into the urban village and stopped in front of a low, single-story house.

This is Li Wanyan's home.

A small hut that was originally used as a warehouse.

It's probably one of the cheapest rentals around here.

To cook, you have to take out the stove; to use the toilet, you have to go to the public restroom.

The two of them started playing shuttlecock right at the doorway.

However, his skill level was really mediocre, and sometimes his inexplicable actions made her laugh so hard she couldn't breathe.

"Hey, I want to skip a grade too."

"As long as your grades are good, that's enough."

"Hey, my grades... they're alright, um, I got at least a 90 in every subject?"

“It has to be perfect scores on all of them,” Li Wanyan replied.

"Ah—that's too difficult! Forget it, I won't skip a grade. Besides, I'll be meeting all strangers after skipping a grade. It'll be too much trouble."

"Ah."

"Six years of elementary school is so long. When will it be over soon? I heard that you'll be free when you go to junior high school."

"Perhaps."

"Hey!" He kicked it hard, and the shuttlecock flew onto the roof, clearly impossible to get down.

Li Wanyan was so anxious that she kept wiping away tears.

"Huh...it's just a shuttlecock, is it really that serious?"

"My parents will scold me!" She covered her face with her arm. "Waaah... What are you doing? You kicked it so high..."

"Uh...sorry..."

The fog once again veiled the memories, as if a filter had been added.

The sounds behind faded into the distance, and the images behind became blurry.

She only remembered that she cried a lot that time, and she didn't know whether he returned the shuttlecock to her afterwards.

So much time has passed that the memories have become unclear.

The only thing she remembered was that not long after that, her family moved away to avoid debt collectors.

In my memory, she seemed to move frequently. It wasn't until junior high school that she moved back to the vicinity of the original urban village and rented a house from another landlord.

Later, due to her parents' situation, she had to take a year off from junior high school to work. She was very grateful that she was finally able to go back to school.

……

The withered yellow leaves fell, only to be swept away by the wind and carried into the distance.

Her mother was holding her and sobbing.

"Yanyan, don't be afraid, Mommy will always be by your side..."

"Mom, I'm not afraid."

"Yan Yan, if you don't have a dad anymore, will you feel like something is missing?"

"No." Fifth-grader Li Wanyan shook her head, her pigtails swaying gently. "As long as Mom is here, it's fine."

"Yan Yan, be good..."

"Does Mommy not want Daddy anymore?"

"...Not yet, I can't bring myself to do it right now... Let's wait until later, if he still doesn't change by then..."

"But Mom has already given him several chances."

“No matter what, he is still your biological father.” The mother smiled and patted her head. “Children with fathers and children without fathers are ultimately different. When he gets older, he may mature and become more sensible.”

"Why does Mom like him?" She nestled in her mother's arms, gently swaying her legs.

"You like him? Hmm... even if I told you, you probably wouldn't understand."

“Tell me—Mom always says this, that she’ll wait until I’m older to tell me, but I want to hear it now!” she said, blinking her eyes and pleading.

"Well... because, well, I was married off to him."

"Wasn't it Mom's own choice?"

"Well... back then your dad's family still had some money, enough to support our family. But later, everyone declined..."

"Oh..." Li Wanyan seemed to understand, but also seemed not to understand.

"It's probably that simple. Actually, your dad was just a spoiled brat before. It was only after the family fell on hard times that he started to become even more dissolute."

"Hmm... then why didn't Mom resist? Why didn't she refuse to marry him?"

"That's how it was back then. Whoever your parents wanted you to marry, that's who you had to marry."

Why is this happening? Is there no freedom?