A Young Woman's Heart

What he said made some sense, and the older women nodded in agreement, so they didn't continue the conversation.

The conversation turned into: Who had a son, who was chubby and healthy at birth; Who had a daughter who was about to be sterilized, and that family wanted to have a son before that happened; Who had triplets, all of whom were daughters, and how badly the mother-in-law scolded the daughter-in-law, and so on.

The sunlight outside the barbershop began to slant slightly, slowly casting beams of light in, making the shadows shorter and shorter, while the area covered by the light expanded.

"Ring ring—" The middle-aged man riding a bicycle with a crossbar rang the bell loudly, while the little boy behind him shouted things like "Get out of the way, get out of the way!" as if he wanted to stir up trouble.

"DouDou, come here!" An elderly woman with curly hair called to her dog—it seemed many dogs were named that...

Otherwise, it's something like Little White, Little Black, or Little Yellow.

A beat-up silver minivan was slowly making its way down the narrow road, honking its horn every now and then.

The middle-aged woman riding the bicycle in front turned around impatiently and shouted at the van, the last part of which was in dialect: "If you're so capable, why don't you fly over there! Why are you driving into such a narrow road?! What an idiot!"

Life is all about noise and commotion.

Mo Xueyao grew up in such an environment and had long been used to the noise. Sometimes, when she couldn't hear it, she felt a little empty.

Lost in thought, the proprietress waved to Mo Xueyao: "It's your turn, little girl."

"Oh, do you want your hair washed?"

"Look at you, if you don't want to wash, I can use this bottle to spray water."

"Then let's cut it first and then wash it..." If it were a boy, Mo Xueyao would definitely choose to wash his hair first, because short hair is very convenient, but as a girl, such long hair is not easy to dry.

"How would you like your eyes trimmed? Oh, your eyes are blue." The proprietress glanced in the mirror first, then immediately turned her head curiously, blinking as she looked at her a few more times. "Is it one of those trendy things called... colored contact lenses?"

As she spoke, she wrapped the 'cloak' that was used to cover her hair around her neck.

"No...it's innate."

"Oh, mixed race? Indeed, the features are somewhat similar."

"Um……"

"What mixed race?"

"Russia……"

"No wonder it's so beautiful." The proprietress smiled happily, and the middle-aged woman next to her also crowded around to take a closer look.

An older woman exclaimed, "Wow, this girl is so pretty! If she weren't so young, I'd want to take her home and make her my son's wife!"

"Ha ha--"

The barbershop was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

But Mo Xueyao felt a little embarrassed.

She actually dislikes being joked about like this the most.

Moreover, there was a hint of disrespect in her words, but since they were all adults, all she, as a child, could do was ignore them.

……

Chapter Nineteen Pruning

Cutting a woman's hair is a delicate job.

The proprietress moved swiftly—she took a pair of scissors and snipped away, occasionally asking Mo Xueyao if it was the right way to do it.

Li Wanyan looked at it very seriously, as if she was even more worried than Li Wanyan about her hair being cut badly.

"Your hair is a bit rough. Did you not use conditioner?" After trimming for a while, the proprietress used a comb to comb Mo Xueyao's long hair that was draped over her shoulders from top to bottom. Occasionally, the hair would get stuck in the middle, making her grimace.

"Conditioner? Hmm..." Mo Xueyao glanced at Li Wanyan in the mirror and coughed lightly, "Ahem... I use it occasionally..."

"That might be because the conditioner isn't very good." The proprietress didn't notice the slight change in her tone.

Li Wanyan glared at Mo Xueyao in the mirror, who looked like a child about to be disciplined for doing something wrong.

Mo Xueyao remembers a time when her mother's friend came to visit when she was little, and she insisted on extorting money from her to buy toys. Her mother's eyes probably looked like that back then.

A chill ran through her bones, but it was quickly smoothed out by the slight upturn of Li Wanyan's lips.

What a terrifying aura...

It's strange, but children who grow up in families like Li Wanyan's usually tend to be withdrawn or impulsive and irritable. How did she develop this kind of personality?

Perhaps it was thanks to her mother's constant companionship?

"Snip, snip—" The sound of scissors continued, trimming the crooked and somewhat excessive hairs neatly, and making all the uneven parts the same thickness.

"Should we change the style of your bangs? Or keep it like this?" Before Mo Xueyao could answer, the proprietress continued, "How about trying straight bangs, the kind that subtly reveals your eyebrows? It's very popular now."

"Hmm, let's give it a try."

"Then I'll thin it out a bit for you." The proprietress nodded, took out a smaller pair of scissors, and carefully began trimming.

A girl's haircut usually doesn't change much, but after a trim, she does look much fresher.

Because all the rough, unruly hairs at the edges have been neatly trimmed.

The most direct feeling is probably that the whole person suddenly "brightens up".

"How are you, satisfied?"

"Hmm, not bad..." Mo Xueyao stood up, shook the hair on her 'cloak', looked at herself in the mirror from left to right, and then nodded in satisfaction.

"Want to get your hair washed?"

"Hmm... I'll wash my hands." Mo Xueyao walked to a corner of the barbershop, where there was a ceramic sink and a slightly wobbly stool next to it.

She instinctively sat down with her back to the sink, then leaned back.

"Haha, wait a minute, have you been to too many other hair salons? We don't have sofa chairs here where you can lie down to wash your hair," the proprietress quickly helped her up, laughing with a hint of teasing.

Mo Xueyao turned around awkwardly and buried her head in the sink.

Old-fashioned barbershops are like this. In fact, it's already good enough if they can provide a shampoo service. Although it's not very comfortable, having a skilled barber wash your hair yourself is no worse than a 'high-end' barbershop.

Long hair is troublesome to wash, but the landlady's technique was very gentle—which actually made Mo Xueyao feel a little uncomfortable.

In her memory, the proprietress always washed her hair very quickly. When she was a boy, her ten fingers were as hard as iron rods, scratching her head back and forth. When she was a child, it hurt, but when she grew up, she found that the force made her scalp feel numb and painful at the same time, which was quite enjoyable.

Mo Xueyao, rather unaccustomed to it, had the landlady wash her hair three times and dry it with a towel before sitting down in the chair with her slightly damp hair.

The old black hair dryer started blowing loudly, but its power wasn't very strong.

The tape on the handle had turned black—Mo Xueyao remembered that the shop owner used this hair dryer when she was in junior high school, and she didn't expect that it still hadn't been replaced.

The older generation is just more frugal than the younger generation...

"Young lady, the more I look at you, the more familiar you seem. Have you been here before?"

"Ah..." Mo Xueyao didn't know how to answer for a moment.

"But I don't remember ever having a mixed-race girl with blue eyes come to my hairdresser before. Someone as special as you, I could never forget."

"Hmm... before, my eyes were black." Mo Xueyao coughed lightly, not lying, but leading her to think in another direction.

"Oh, I see. Hmm, maybe it's because she hadn't fully grown in when she was little, so it's not obvious." The proprietress gently stroked her long hair, which was now much smoother than before; the conditioner had clearly worked.

Mo Xueyao doesn't use conditioner because it's too much trouble to wash her hair when she takes a shower in winter. When she does wash her hair occasionally, she just applies shampoo and rinses it once, and that's it. She doesn't want to wash it a second or third time.

After all, no one is supervising her when she takes a shower.

With her long hair left loose for the time being, Mo Xueyao sat down again on the high stool and admired herself in the mirror for a while.

Li Wanyan had already sat in the barber's chair and was being trimmed and shaved by the barber's scissors, just like Mo Xueyao had been.

"How much should I cut off below?" the proprietress asked, touching her hair.

"It's in the middle of your back, right here."

"You cut off so much? It's not easy to grow this long."

"It's alright," Li Wanyan replied casually, seemingly unconcerned.

"Then I'll cut it." After confirming several times, the proprietress finally started cutting with the scissors, quickly and deftly cutting off a small section of hair. Mo Xueyao felt a pang of heartache when she saw the hair falling to the ground like a waterfall.

Perhaps we should sell them to those people who collect hair on bicycles...

I wonder how much it can sell for?

Mo Xueyao's thoughts drifted away again. When she came back to her senses, Li Wanyan had already finished cutting and washing her hair and was drying it with the old-fashioned hairdryer.

"How much?" She stood up hurriedly.

She hadn't been here since the end of junior high, so she wasn't sure about the price of a haircut.

"It's a bit more expensive for girls, three yuan per person, six yuan in total." The proprietress's voice was drowned out by the hairdryer, so Mo Xueyao couldn't hear her very clearly.

"How much?" she asked again.

"Six yuan!" The proprietress turned off the hairdryer and raised her voice a little.

"Here you go." Mo Xueyao handed over a ten-yuan bill.

When she was a boy, a haircut only cost one yuan. Her mother's haircut cost two yuan. If we calculate it that way... the price for an average man's haircut should be one yuan and fifty cents now.

Prices have risen by a full 50%.

It's only been a little over two years.

Mo Xueyao imagined what it would be like a hundred years from now, with prices skyrocketing—at that time, the largest denomination of currency would be ten thousand or one hundred thousand yuan, and its value would be equivalent to one hundred yuan today…

If a country exists for a thousand years, then the highest denomination of currency would probably have a long string of zeros appended to it.

She was amused by her own strange and meaningless idea and couldn't help but chuckle.

Li Wanyan, who had already dried her hair, stood up. Her hair now stopped at the back of her head, probably a little below her shoulder blades. It looked much cleaner than before, and after this trim, her hair wouldn't fall out as easily, right?

Her hair was everywhere, by the bedside in the small room of the fruit shop—well, of course, some was Mo Xueyao's own, but she insisted that she didn't shed much hair, so most of it was Li Wanyan's.

"Let's go." Mo Xueyao waved to the proprietress, who lazily replied, "Take care on the road."

After getting a haircut, the sky seemed much brighter. The bicycle behind me wobbled past the two of us walking side by side.

A calico cat darted across the nearby pile of weeds, immediately spotted by the little boy next to him. He grabbed his mother's hand and pointed at the cat, shouting, "Mommy, kitty!"

"Oh, it's a cat. Don't scare it, or it will scratch you."