A Young Woman's Heart

"Hmm... Haruka? Are you cleaning?"

"Hmm, today is the Little New Year, aren't you going to clean?"

"It's all cleaned up..."

"Oh—your parents are home, right?"

"Ah."

Just then, Yu Shu's father's voice came from inside: "Who's outside the door?"

"It's Haruka."

"Shall we invite her over to our house for a while?"

"No need, no need." When Mo Xueyao goes to other people's houses to play, she doesn't really like it when the parents are home because she feels it's a bit oppressive. "How about Yu Shu comes to my place to play? We can play games later."

"Um..."

“Go if you want to,” her father said with a smile from inside the room.

……

Chapter Twenty-Two: Snuggling into someone's arms

There are many things that seem troublesome before you do them, but once you do them, you find yourself enjoying them.

For example, a thorough cleaning.

Before taking action, there's a sense of helplessness, not knowing where to begin.

But once you actually start doing it, you begin to enjoy the pleasure of tidying up and cleaning everything.

The house isn't actually that dirty, but there's still a lot of trash that can be cleaned up.

Although Mo Xueyao suggested that Yu Shu come over later, she still insisted on helping with the cleaning.

The house wasn't big to begin with; although it had two rooms, it was only about 50 square meters in total.

The three of them worked together and quickly cleaned the house spotless.

Even the windows were thoroughly cleaned, and the fine dust that had been clinging to them was wiped away, making the sky outside seem much brighter.

There was already a lot of trash piled up at the entrance. While Li Wanyan was still finishing up, Mo Xueyao and Yu Shu carried the trash downstairs.

Fortunately, the community hasn't implemented any garbage sorting yet, so the two of them can just throw all their garbage in at once.

In fact, although the concept of garbage sorting was proposed in 2001, it was only at the conceptual stage, and no one thought that it could be followed up to the level of developed societies so quickly.

The significance of propaganda outweighs its practical significance.

But just like publicizing the scarcity of water resources, this doesn't mean much to people in southern cities.

The pale sunlight still shone through the sky, but it brought a touch of warmth.

Mo Xueyao swung the trash bag high in the air and threw it into the trash can with a 'thud'.

Yu Shu tilted her head and glanced at her, then imitated her, swinging the trash bag and throwing it into the trash can. However, compared to Mo Xueyao, she held the trash bag closer to the can—perhaps because she was worried that she wouldn't have enough strength to break open the trash can's barrier.

"Alright." Mo Xueyao clapped her hands, as if that would clean the dust off her palms. "Let's go back and watch TV? Uh... or play games?"

"Let's watch TV."

Yu Shu is clearly different from the child she was back then. You know, back then she was always pestering Mo Xueyao to play games.

Although there were no Little Tyrant games back then, no, no learning machines, there was only a controller for playing Tank Battle.

People always change.

Mo Xueyao was like this, and so was Yu Shu.

The two walked side by side towards their apartment building, but a black Santana sedan slowly drove past them and pulled up to their building.

Mo Xueyao felt that the car looked familiar, but before she could take a closer look, she saw a familiar person get out of the car.

That's my godfather's daughter—Yu Jinyu.

A lively little girl who has just started elementary school and is still full of interest in learning.

As soon as she got out of the car, she looked around curiously.

Although this is also a residential community, its greenery and other aspects of the community environment are far inferior to the kind of civil servant residential community where she lives.

At least she rarely sees grasshoppers scurrying around in the flower beds downstairs in her apartment complex—it's already winter, how can there still be those grayish-yellow grasshoppers?

"Hey, Xiaoyu!" Mo Xueyao waved her hand vigorously, and Yu Jinyu immediately turned her head to her side.

"Xiao Yao!" Godfather poked his head out of the car. This familiar Santana was indeed his car.

Come to think of it, this is clearly a government vehicle, but he's been driving it around all the time. After a while, people almost thought it was his own car.

"Godfather, what brings you here?" Mo Xueyao picked up Yu Jinyu, who had jumped into her arms, and asked her godfather who was peeking out. She felt that her god-sister seemed to have gained a lot of weight—and of course, she had also grown taller.

It seems she's entered puberty too.

However, this should only be the first stage of development; the real development will begin in middle school...

And this is specifically for girls.

Many boys don't start developing rapidly until the third year of junior high or even the first year of senior high.

Before that, girls were even taller than many boys, and they held a dominant position in terms of both intelligence and strength.

"I came over to take care of something." Yu Liang closed the window a little more. "Are you home alone?"

"No, Wanyan is here too."

"Oh, that's perfect. Xiaoyu can come to your house to play for a while, and I'll come pick her up tonight."

"what?"

"Yes, some business matters."

Although my godfather is a civil servant, he still inevitably needs to do business.

Although Mo Xueyao didn't understand, she still understood one thing: adult matters are always complicated.

So even if a section chief from the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau went to discuss business, it didn't seem strange at all.

"Oh, Xiaoyu, how about coming to my house to play with your brother... sister?" Mo Xueyao lifted Yu Jinyu above her head, looked at her fair and rosy little face, and asked with a smile.

"Great! Does Sister Xiaoyao have any games to play at home?"

"Hey, didn't you never like playing games before?"

"But Xiaoyao's family doesn't have a video recorder, so we can only play games."

Mo Xueyao chuckled, speechless.

"By the way, let's play together as a trio!"

"Three people... how do we play?" Yu Jinyu asked in confusion.

"Well, the one who plays the worst will... uh... uh... no, the one who plays the worst will be replaced!"

"No, no, that's not fair! How could I possibly beat Sister Xiaoyao!"

When she was at her godfather's house, Mo Xueyao occasionally played games with Yu Jinyu on his PSP a few times, but she was no match for him at all.

After all, given her age, even with a completely new game, Mo Xueyao's learning ability is far faster than Yu Jinyu's.

When she got home, Li Wanyan had already finished the finishing touches.

It's really just about cleaning cleaning tools like rags and mops.

The house, after being cleaned, is much more spacious than before.

However, the amount of stuff in the house is still the same; it's just that the way it's arranged is more space-saving.

Li Wanyan boiled water and was pouring tea into three teacups, clearly including the one for Yu Shu.

Pine needle tea is an inexpensive type of tea.

In fact, in the eyes of city dwellers, this doesn't even qualify as tea.

However, its slightly bitter taste is welcomed by many common people.

A little moisture had condensed on the window, perhaps because there were more people in the room earlier, making it a bit hotter.

Mo Xueyao pulled up a stool for Yu Shu and herself, and sat down in front of the television.

Although Yu Shu wanted to watch a movie, she first tried out her Little Tyrant game console, which she hadn't used in a long time.

The box was covered in dust. Mo Xueyao searched under the TV cabinet for a long time before finally finding her game cartridge in a small shoebox.

"Whoosh—" She blew hard on a game cartridge and then inserted it into the game console.

The screen briefly displayed a distorted image, but quickly returned to normal.

"What do you want to watch?" After confirming that her game console was still working, Mo Xueyao unplugged the power and sat down next to Yu Shu with the remote control.

Yu Jinyu naturally sat in Mo Xueyao's lap, as if from the very beginning of her memory, whenever she watched TV, watched movies, or played games, she would habitually snuggle into her arms like this.

"The Central Government..." Yu Shu was interrupted by Yu Jinyu before she could finish speaking.

"Watch cartoons!" Yu Jinyu shouted, swaying her body.

"Hmm, cartoons, please." Yu Shu finally decided to give in to the child.

"Is everything alright?" These were the words Mo Xueyao asked her.

"It's okay, I can watch the replay tomorrow anyway."

"oh oh……"

Mo Xueyao switched to several channels, eventually settling on the one that was playing the original Ultraman series.

Perhaps influenced by her, Yu Jinyu became very interested in this, and was even able to sing the theme song of Ultraman Gaia from memory, even without knowing Japanese.

This channel always replays the original Ultraman series, so even if you miss an episode, there's always a chance to catch it.

This episode happened to be one that Mo Xueyao had never seen before.

The face, which looked as if it had been corroded by sulfuric acid, felt exceptionally fresh to her.