A Young Woman's Heart

"Pretty much, I feel like I could play it with my eyes closed..." Mo Xueyao waved to Wang Jiale, who was putting chopsticks in the classroom, "Lele, let's play together."

"Come on~"

"By the way, when is the competition?"

"I heard there's a school competition next month," Hua Yinyin replied.

"Hurry up, I can't wait any longer!" Mo Xueyao made a few piano-playing motions in the air, "Shalala—"

"Just don't get stage fright."

"I think I need to practice more..." Wang Jiale wasn't very confident. "At first, I thought the bass was easy, but I didn't expect the piano to be the easiest..."

“Stringed instruments are generally quite difficult, especially the pipa and the like.”

"I always feel like you're praising yourself in a roundabout way..." Mo Xueyao muttered, her eyelids drooping.

……

Friday afternoons are for two consecutive physical education classes, but swimming lessons have ended this semester, so everyone can only play on the playground now.

It seems the higher the grade, the lazier the PE teacher becomes. Ye Ran waved his whistle and stopwatch, spitting on the flower bed like a hooligan: "Alright, I know you all just want free time. Run five laps, and then you can all go on your own. If anyone walks around instead of running, let me tell you, you can forget about playing for the next two periods. While others play, you keep running!"

"The faster you run, the sooner you can have free time! Get moving!" Ye Ran flicked Gao Yuan's bottom with the stopwatch string. "Little fatty, run faster!"

"Teacher, this is the fastest I can do," Gao Yuan said, looking aggrieved.

"You call that the fastest? If you can't run as fast as that skinny kid, you'll have to run a couple more laps later!"

"Holy crap, no way? Liu Xiaogou, you fucking wait for me!"

"Damn it, don't pull me!"

"Don't run faster than me!"

"hey-hey……"

"I'll treat you to something to eat later!"

"Okay!" Liu Xiaowei immediately agreed.

Ye Ran ran up behind him and said, "You two, don't pretend I didn't hear you! Between you two, whoever runs slower has to run two more laps!"

"Damn it!" Liu Xiaowei and Gao Yuan both cried out in pain.

"Little Liu, I'll treat you to something delicious after school!"

"Cough!" Liu Xiaowei didn't agree immediately, but he did deliberately let Gao Yuan overtake him, while he lagged behind and pretended to run.

He was willing to run two extra laps for the sake of the big meal after school.

The boys and girls ran together, but as they ran, most of the girls fell behind.

The boys generally stayed half a circle ahead, with only a few lagging behind the girls, and some even blending in with the girls...

The whole team was in a mess. Some people had only run four laps, but they pretended they had run five to get by.

Actually, the PE teacher wouldn't pay much attention. He was chatting with another PE teacher right now, the two of them joking and laughing, having a great time, they were just missing a bottle of wine to liven things up.

After jogging five laps, Mo Xueyao felt relatively relaxed, and her breathing was not rapid. This was mainly because she had been getting up early to exercise on weekends whenever she had free time. Her routine involved jogging from her home to the fruit shop, or from the fruit shop to the hillside and then jogging down the hill.

The excess fat on my thighs has decreased slightly—although they still look quite fleshy now.

"Phew... I'm so tired, I hate running!" Hua Yinyin exclaimed, clutching her chest.

The other girls, however, looked at her with envy and jealousy.

She herself probably felt both pain and pleasure, right?

Speaking of which, when Hua Yinyin runs, her chest bounces up and down, and Mo Xueyao feels that she must be heavy and troublesome just by looking at it.

Fortunately, it seems that she has stopped growing. Her current size is about a B cup, which is the domestic standard, so unless you try to squeeze her up, she won't look particularly big.

As for Hua Yinyin's size, it's probably more than a D cup...?

Perhaps there is E...

Mo Xueyao squinted at her, wondering if she had been drinking too much milk lately and had gotten bigger.

"Xiao Yao," Wang Jiale wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, "Shall we go to the band room?"

"Uh? Should we just go?"

"Yes, that way we can practice for almost the whole afternoon, about four or five hours, and then we can go home earlier, since it's Friday."

"What about the rest?"

"We'll go call them later."

Mo Xueyao wasn't worried that the girls would run away with them; the main concern was Mr. Xue. If he wanted to participate in the boys' basketball activities, he might not be able to come.

"Xiaoxue, shall we go to the band room first?" Mo Xueyao tiptoed to find Mr. Xue and quickly walked to his side to ask.

"Hmm? I'd like to play badminton." Mr. Xue's words seemed to indicate a refusal.

"Want to play badminton? Hmm, Haruka, how about we play badminton?"

"Hey, didn't you say you were going to the band room first?"

"Want to play badminton?" Hua Yinyin suddenly appeared. "It's been so long since I played! I want to join too!"

"Exactly four people?"

"Me and my sister too! Class monitor, class monitor, want to come along?"

"Wait, wait..." Mo Xueyao covered her forehead, "Aren't there too many people? Is it 3v3?"

"How about the kind where you play with two balls? What do you say, Yaoyao?"

"Do you think this is a card game? I have two decks of cards...!"

How do you play with two balls?

"It means exactly what it says. They start fighting at the same time, a bit like putting 2V2 and 1V1 together, but they can connect with each other."

"This seems quite interesting," Wang Jiale said, intrigued. "But wouldn't it be better to have one more person?"

"I'll be the referee," Li Wanyan said calmly, and so the badminton game using two shuttlecocks began...

……

Chapter 119: Breaking Up?

October 30th.

Monday noon.

The sun wasn't in the sky because a light drizzle was falling outside the window.

Mo Xueyao was the only one in the band room. She was resting her chin on her hand, reading Maupassant's novel. Perhaps because it was a translation, she couldn't concentrate on it for long and soon drifted off into her own thoughts.

The sound of rain is nature's best drumbeat. For a moment, she even mistook it for Mo Zhuyou practicing the drums.

"Squeak—" The half-closed classroom door was gently opened, and a head with two little buns peeked in. Its owner had an adorable chubby face and a slightly timid look in her eyes. When she found that only Mo Xueyao was in the classroom, she visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yu Shu?"

“I used to call her Shu’er.” Yu Shu pouted and mumbled, looking more ‘lively’ than when others were around.

"Huh, that was all when I was little..." Mo Xueyao scratched her head. "It feels weird to call her 'Shu'er'?"

"But don't you call other people by their names too?"

"Ah... but it's just that the surname was removed."

"Then let's call her 'Shu'."

"Is one word a little strange?"

"..." Yu Shu hummed softly in a voice only she could hear, then sat down in front of her, holding an exquisite black canvas bag.

"Is this a digital camera?"

"Yes, I got it from the club." Yu Shu opened the exquisite black canvas bag, which was lined with a layer of foam to prevent it from getting damaged. "Teacher Qiu gave it to me and told me to keep it safe."

"Huh, he's so generous?" Mo Xueyao recalled that Zhou Yong had to sign a guarantee when he borrowed a digital camera from Qiu Yi, and the camera was only given to him on the day he needed to use it.

Could this guy have lowered his standards just because he saw a cute girl?

"Of course it's useful."

"What are we doing? Is there a filming assignment?" Mo Xueyao nodded in sudden realization. "It wouldn't be related to the band, would it?"

"Huh? How did you know?"

"Of course, the band and the club have nothing to do with each other. You came to the band room with a camera, you didn't come here specifically to see me, right? So, it's probably something about the band that you need to film."

"Can't I just come to see you?" Yu Shu muttered to herself weakly. After noticing her gaze, her face turned bright red. "Um... I... I'll act with you guys from now on."

"what?"

"Like, um... the team photographer."

"Wow? No way? Every practice session is recorded on video? That's practically like being a team surveillance camera!"

"I don't always record videos... I usually take photos, and only record videos occasionally." Yu Shu carefully checked the camera, and a moment later, the sound of it being turned on came from behind.

"Is the memory card big enough to hold all those photos?"

"If you don't have enough, you can exchange with Teacher Qiu. The photos will be shown to you when you graduate."

"Hmm, so you're already starting to prepare for graduation? That's early."

Yu Shu didn't answer. After setting up the camera, she held it up with a very standard posture and snapped a picture of Mo Xueyao.

The film accurately captured her melancholy and wistful expression at that moment.

"Huh... you took a picture?"

"Ah."

"Let me see?"

"Here you go." Yu Shu handed over the camera.