A Young Woman's Heart

Time slips through our fingers like that.

……

Chapter 159 Listening to Some Stories from the Elders

The night was dark.

The treetops droop slightly.

Starlight fell.

Inside the noodle shop, a few incandescent bulbs cast a dim, yellowish light.

When the wind blows, the light flickers with the light bulb.

It's like the flickering candlelight of the old society.

In front of Mo Xueyao was an empty bowl with a little noodle soup left. She held onto the edge of the stool with both hands and gently swayed her body.

The bench swayed back and forth with her.

"Click, click." It's like tapping out some kind of rhythm.

Li Wanyan sat beside her, the bowl in front of her as clean as if it had never contained noodles.

It's getting late.

The alarm clock hanging on the wall is pointing to ten o'clock.

Mo Xueyao yawned, but showed no intention of going back to sleep.

Father, Old Chen, Turtle, and Chen Cheng were playing Dou Dizhu (a card game) at a table.

They used the bottle caps left over from drinking as stakes; if all the bottle caps were lost, the card game, meant for after-dinner entertainment, would end.

Perhaps skilled card players want to play a little longer, or perhaps everyone's skill level is similar, so so far no one has managed to lose all the bottle caps.

"Yaoyao," Li Wanyan gently poked her arm, "Aren't you going to sleep?"

"Listen a little longer." Mo Xueyao yawned widely, tears streaming down her face, but she still forced herself to stay awake.

"Hey—Lianlian, could you turn off all the lights in the other places for us, just leave the lights on in our area, to save electricity?" Old Chen glanced at the cards in his hand, then turned to Zhuang Lianlian, who was sitting with Mo Xueyao and the others, and said.

"Hmm." Zhuang Lianlian got up like a normal person, turned off most of the lights, leaving only one on.

The single incandescent light bulb swayed in the breeze, appearing even more lonely.

It had already gotten dark on Mo Xueyao's side. She yawned unconsciously and leaned against Li Wanyan's chest.

The adults were all there today, and the wives of both men were chatting with them—that's what they said on the surface, but actually they were just worried about the two men gambling.

"Oh dear, thinking back to those days, that's really how it was... those glorious years? Right?"

"Oh ho, Old Chen, you're pretending to be a cultured person now?"

"Haha—no, no." Old Chen laughed twice. "Ah, we were rich back then, spending money like water, eating fish and meat every day..."

"Do you miss those enjoyable days?"

"No, actually, for me, life is better now." Old Chen took a deep drag on his Daqianmen cigarette. "It's just that we were all young back then, and there were more interesting things to do."

"Ha, yes, the older you get, the more things you have to do, but the fewer things are worth remembering." The father took a sip of beer. "One against seven!"

"What, did you two have any glorious deeds when you were young? Tell us about them," the tortoise asked with great curiosity.

"Tsk, what could it be? Just some embarrassing stories, haha... By the way, Ali, do you remember? Back when we ran a breakfast shop in Gudang, we had an apprentice who was probably only fourteen or fifteen years old."

"Well, what happened?"

"That day, we asked him to ride a tricycle to deliver goods, but he ended up riding the tricycle into the water. Luckily, he was rescued!"

"The tricycle wasn't retrieved from the back, was it?"

"Yes."

"Oh my, haha, tricycles were so expensive back then, and you had to register them. There were only so many available. That particular tricycle was transferred to us by the previous shop owner!"

"Yeah, speaking of that kid, he was really funny. I wonder how he's doing now." Old Chen looked nostalgic. "Sigh, do you remember that day he got drunk and yelled that he wanted to marry a dog!"

"Hahahaha—" Mo Wenli laughed so hard he could hardly breathe. "Yeah, that kid is really interesting."

"Youth is fleeting, gone forever. Back then, we went to casinos and lost everything. We almost got our hands chopped off. Sigh," Old Chen sighed. "Gambling is truly a terrible thing!"

The tortoise who runs the mahjong parlor coughed awkwardly twice: "Well, you still have to act within your means. Anyway, my mahjong parlor doesn't lend money. If you don't have money, just leave or borrow from someone else. Just don't let me get blamed if something goes wrong."

"Haha, that's great!" Old Chen complimented. But in reality, how could someone who runs a mahjong parlor, a kind of borderline 'casino,' not lend money at exorbitant interest rates?

It's just that other partners might be responsible for the payment, so he can appear to have no involvement but still secretly receive some interest.

However, since we are all friends now, it's not appropriate to discuss these matters in detail.

You need drinking buddies too. In this line of work, whether it's the so-called underworld or the legitimate world, you need connections to get things done.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Yang Xiaoyu frowned and glared at Mo Wenli.

"Sigh, what's there to say about this..."

"So you know how shameful you are? Why didn't I chop your hand off back then?" Perhaps thinking of the past, Yang Xiaoyu slapped him on the shoulder in annoyance. "When was that? Why did you still gamble after that?"

"Well, things were different back then... Well, he retired from the business later."

"That was a really close call... We escaped, but we were too scared to go home," Old Chen sighed. "We were afraid they would come after us to collect debts, so we didn't dare let them know our family's phone number or address. Sigh..."

"How dare you say that?" Chen Cheng's mother was also somewhat angry. "Do you think what you did was so good? You shouldn't have gambled in the first place!"

"Well, at the very least, we still have some bottom line, right?"

"Well, at least they still have some conscience," Yang Xiaoyu said sarcastically.

The older generation reminisced about the harrowing escape they had made.

They said a large group of people were chasing them, and they hadn't been able to relax for several nights.

Fortunately, the police came and destroyed the entire den. The reason the police came was not because of the gambling that was often turned a blind eye, but because... they were selling drugs.

This crossed the national bottom line, and those people deserved to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Moreover, all the main drug traffickers were executed, leaving no room for maneuver.

Mo Xueyao never imagined that her parents had gone through so much when they were young. Compared to that, life now is so much more peaceful. Although chaos still exists, things are genuinely getting better.

"The public security is actually getting better and better. Hey, there used to be a crime of hooliganism!" Mo Wenli slammed a card on the table. "Haha, a royal flush! I'm done!"

"Here you go." Old Chen tossed over a bottle cap. "I remember it was only abolished in 1997, right?"

"Yes, hooliganism used to be a very serious crime, and many crimes could be classified as hooliganism. Many people were arrested and executed for trivial matters."

"Alright, it's almost eleven o'clock. Are we going to restock tomorrow?" Yang Xiaoyu reminded her from the side. "It's time to go home."

"So fast? I thought it was only a little past nine." Mo Wenli still looked energetic. "Oh well, never mind, let's go home!"

Mo Xueyao scratched her head and stood up, stretching like a kitten: "Phew, we should go to sleep too..."

"Men just have no self-control; we women have to keep them in line," Yang Xiaoyu said, both amused and exasperated.

“That’s right, men never grow up!” Mo Wenli said with a smug look on his face.

"You'll always be a boy, even in death! Right? Hahaha—" the tortoise laughed too.

Everyone tidied up the tables and chairs and dispersed.

Mo Xueyao and Li Wanyan returned to the small room in the fruit shop. The roller shutter door was closed, and the surrounding air seemed to have a soothing quality.

"Well!"

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"Yaoyao sat on my hand."

"Ah—" Mo Xueyao hurriedly stood up and saw Li Wanyan raise her right hand, frowning as she rubbed her wrist. "How are you? Are you alright?"

"It's nothing." But Li Wanyan's tightly furrowed brows made her look like she was alright.

The healed scars seemed a little red. She reached out and took off the headband, her right hand trembling slightly.

"Are you really alright?"

"Hmm." Li Wanyan forced a bitter smile. "I'm used to it."

"Huh? I haven't been bumping into you there all the time, have I?"

"I'm not talking about Yao Yao."

"Well?"

"Let's get into bed first," Li Wanyan said, taking off her hair tie and letting her hair fall naturally.

Mo Xueyao slept inside as usual, while Li Wanyan slept outside.

She tried to move closer to the inside, since the bed was small and the two of them had to be close together so that the person sleeping on the outside wouldn't fall off.

“In the past, my dad would often beat me to vent his anger.”

"Um……"

"Moreover, he would deliberately hit my wound repeatedly."

"Huh?" Mo Xueyao was furious. She didn't know how many times she had said this before, "You're not a real man!"

“Once, he put chili oil on the wound on my back.”

"Hiss—" Just thinking about it made Mo Xueyao feel pain.

"I was in pain all night and couldn't sleep at all." Li Wanyan tilted her head to look at Mo Xueyao, a few strands of hair sliding down her cheek. "So, what happened just now is nothing."

"Don't worry, Wanyan, no one will dare to hit you like that again."

"Ah."

"A person like that would be better off dead!" Mo Xueyao said angrily. "If he comes back to you again, don't be afraid, I'll have my dad beat him up!"

"Mmm." This time, Li Wanyan's eyes held a genuine smile.

"If you don't mind, you can just treat my dad as your dad... My dad is pretty good, isn't he?"