A Young Woman's Heart

Even so, the tombstone still bears many traces of time.

There are pits and cracks...

However, they are all very small and cannot be noticed without careful observation.

The Hua family doesn't have any particular customs when visiting graves; as long as the sentiment is there, that's enough.

So they didn't bring any gifts, but bought a bouquet of flowers at a nearby fruit shop before coming up.

Actually, that was Mo Xueyao's fruit shop, but Hua Yinyin was asleep in her chair at the time, so she didn't notice it at all.

Everything here seems to be the same as when I last came.

Hua Yinyin took the flowers her father handed her and slowly placed them down.

"Sister, you can rest assured and be reincarnated. I will enjoy the blessings you didn't get to enjoy in this life!" Hua Yinyin clasped her hands together and muttered some words, but what she said was both funny and sad.

"They've probably already been reincarnated." The father chuckled as he squatted down in front of the grave, stroking the rough ground with a nostalgic air. "Ah, what a pity. Back then, I thought, you two sisters would grow up and be inseparable, wouldn't that be a beautiful sight?"

"You can think about it now," Hua Yinyin blinked.

"Haha—" The father chuckled dryly, neither confirming nor denying.

Hua Yinyin's mother took a rag from the car and carefully wiped the grave clean, making it smooth and bright again.

"Mom, have you ever thought about having another child? Maybe it'll be my sister reincarnated!" Hua Yinyin joked.

Before the mother could speak, the father's expression turned somewhat flustered: "Sigh, how old are you? Why are you having children? Why think so much..."

……

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Brand New Convenience Store

The warm winter sun bathed Su Tang in its brilliant light. From eight in the morning until eleven in the morning, it didn't move an inch from its bed. Its barbed tongue lolled out slightly, and its small, squinty eyes, which looked tiny because it was too fat, were rolled back, as if it were about to fall into a deep sleep.

Mo Xueyao stood beside it, looking at the convenience store across the street. One by one, the workers who had been called out came out of the store, holding the money that Grandma Jin had given them after inspecting and approving their work. Everyone was beaming with joy.

With the New Year approaching, such an instant settlement income allows you to buy more New Year's goods when you go home, or buy some small gifts for your children.

"If only every boss were as principled as you." The last one to come out was probably the leader of the group of workers, a foreman, but more like a matchmaker. "Sigh, we still haven't been paid for the work we did on the construction site last year!"

"Hehe! I never like to delay payments, especially since you didn't dawdle at all; you did a good job quickly and well." Grandma Jin was in high spirits, as if she had become ten years younger. She couldn't help but look back at the brand-new shop, nodding repeatedly. "It's all about reciprocity, isn't it?"

"Yes Yes."

"Boss Jin, we're off then!" The workers waiting outside waved and said goodbye as their leader returned to the group.

"You all rode motorcycles back?"

Yes, that's right.

"It's over a thousand miles to Province A. How long will it take you to get there?"

"If it's fast, it'll arrive in about ten hours. If it's slow, since it's not open at night, it'll take two days."

"Okay, you're all still young, so don't drive when you're tired, or you won't have a good year."

"Don't worry, Aunt Jin, haha—" A younger man in the crowd laughed, lit a cigarette, and straddled the motorcycle parked at the door. His companion followed him.

On average, a motorcycle carries three people; as for someone riding alone, that's simply impossible.

From here, they embarked on their journey home.

Grandma Jin looked at them, waving her hand gently. Beneath her slightly droopy eyelids were a pair of eyes filled with emotion and vicissitudes.

She remembered that time when she was standing by the roadside, waving, watching her husband and son get on that green truck, their figures gradually disappearing into the distance, never to return.

The convenience store has been thoroughly cleaned; the workers helped with the cleaning.

However, the shelves in the store are still empty, with nothing inside. It seems that it will have to wait a few more days before it can officially open, or perhaps it will simply open next year.

Mo Xue waved her hand, as if to lift the blinding curtain of sunlight.

She and Li Wanyan had been at home for the past few days, but when she came here again, she felt that the grocery store had completely changed.

It wasn't very noticeable before it was tidied up, but once it was tidied up, it immediately made people feel that the class had become much higher.

"Grandma Jin!" Mo Xueyao ran over and lightly kicked the husky that was lying on the ground sunbathing. The husky whimpered and cursed a few times, but still didn't get up to 'retaliate'. Perhaps the sunshine was just too comfortable.

"You're here today?"

"Hmm, is it all done?" Mo Xueyao tiptoed to look inside.

"Yes, shall we go in and take a look?"

"Okay!" Although there was nothing inside, she was still full of curiosity.

The entire grocery store has been completely renovated and is now very different from what it used to be.

The original vintage feel has been completely erased, replaced by a modern one.

The old wooden sign has been replaced with a neon sign, which is now on and shimmering with colorful light around the outline of the lettering—it's absolutely beautiful.

The shop name has also been changed, no longer carrying a distinct personal style, and unlike Mo Xueyao's fruit shop and noodle shop, which very directly display the owner's surname.

Its current name is: Yinshan Convenience Store.

On the wall next to the automatic sliding glass door hangs a small sign that emits a warm glow, with the number '24' appearing exceptionally large.

As I approached the door, the sliding door opened automatically to both sides. The floor tiles were a light color, and now they were so clean they could even reflect light.

Rows of empty shelves are displayed quietly. Next to the floor-to-ceiling glass, there is a tall table and several small high stools.

In mainland China at that time, there weren't actually that many convenience stores.

Mo Xueyao found everything novel and fascinating.

"What's this for?" she asked, seemingly never having been to a convenience store before.

"If anyone wants something to eat, they can just sit here," Grandma Jin explained with a smile.

"Oh... what do you want to eat? Snacks? Instant noodles?"

"There will be hot food then."

“Uh…” The empty shelves weren’t really that interesting, so she went to the checkout counter instead.

The original cashier counter was an old solid wood table, but now it has been replaced with a table that I can't tell what material it is made of, but it's quite sturdy anyway.

All sorts of electrical appliances were already displayed on it.

Mo Xueyao recognized a few of them, such as a sausage grill and a radio. There were others that she couldn't tell what they were used for, but they were probably used to keep food warm.

"Isn't it great?" Grandma Jin was unusually proud.

"Not bad, not bad... It's very convenient. You can buy ordinary daily necessities, snacks, and even some cooked food." Mo Xueyao ran to a small door, pushed it open, and there it was—the old small warehouse.

The inside has been emptied out, and now there's a shelf with many compartments, which should be able to store a lot of items.

That's all there is. There's probably more than enough room to put a bed in there.

There are several lights overhead, and if all the switches are turned on, it can be as bright as day.

Even with only a portion of it open, the brightness was so great that it brought joy to both body and mind.

However, the empty convenience store didn't have much to offer, so after wandering around for a while, Mo Xueyao returned to her own fruit shop.

It's daytime now, and the sun is still so bright, so of course there's no need to turn on the lights in the fruit shop.

But when she returned here, she could clearly feel that everything had become much darker.

The rough cement floor in my own shop felt rather unrefined.

"So, isn't Grandma Jin's renovated shop beautiful?" The mother broke open a pomelo with her hands, peeled off half of the skin, and placed it on a cardboard box next to her. "Yan Yan—you and Yao Yao can take them yourselves. I've peeled the pomelos for you. Remember to eat them."

"Aren't you cold eating this in the dead of winter?" Mo Xueyao teased, pouting. "Grandma Jin's convenience store is much more upscale than ours. Compared to that, ours is like a dilapidated thatched hut from thirty years ago!"

"We need money to renovate, right?" Her mother, unusually, didn't scold her. "We can renovate when our business grows bigger, right, Ali?"

"Yes, we'll turn it into a fruit supermarket. Of course, the prices will be higher then," the father said with a smile. This seemed to be part of his parents' plan.

"Forget it, let's just renovate our house." Mo Xueyao remembered this and said, "Dad, you haven't mentioned it in ages. You're not thinking of renovating it, are you?"

"What's the rush? We can install it next year." The father walked to the counter, wanting to grab a pack of cigarettes. After hearing his mother and Li Wanyan cough together, he awkwardly touched his nose, picked up a lollipop, tore open the wrapper, and put it in his mouth like a cigarette. "I've already pretty much figured out the market. Next year, we can just go and buy the materials directly."

"Toilet, shower! Water heater!" Mo Xueyao shouted, these were the three things she wanted most right now.

Ever since she started taking baths at Grandma Jin's house, Mo Xueyao has become increasingly unable to bear the feeling of taking baths at home.

Once, when I went back home with my parents, it was late and the nearby bathhouse was already closed. So we had to use the old method—mixing hot and cold water into a basin, then wetting a towel and scrubbing myself over and over again.

This feeling was so frustrating, and because she hadn't taken a bath like this in a long time, she was rusty and even caught a cold that day!

"I know, I know, do you want me to get you a bathtub too?"

"No need for that." Mo Xueyao wasn't greedy at all. "Anyway, once these are packed, my soap will never fall into the toilet again."

The soap in her house is rarely used up normally. Every time she uses up a small piece of soap, it is difficult to hold and it accidentally falls into the toilet.

Unlike Western-style toilets, squat toilets don't allow you to fall in and get out...

And even if it were possible, I probably wouldn't want to use it anymore.

—I can't get over that psychological hurdle.

She only remembered that when she was a child, her mother seemed to have used a wire to retrieve a piece of soap that had fallen into the water and then used it.

Because we were really poor back then, my father went out to gamble every day, and we only had leftovers to eat at home, we never even had any vegetables.

"By the way, Dad, are you sure you went back the day before Chinese New Year?"

“Yes, go back to your maternal grandmother’s house,” the father emphasized.

"It's all the same anyway, so Wanyan and I will go to the supermarket today and buy some snacks for the trip!"

"What number is this?" The father twirled the plastic handle of the lollipop, letting it rub against his teeth, making a 'crunching' sound.

"We're leaving the day after tomorrow! What date is it? If we don't buy now, it'll be too late."

The mother chuckled and teased, "If you go buy them now, you'll probably finish them all by tomorrow, won't you?"

"Am I that kind of person?!"

"Of course I would! When I was in kindergarten, I bought two backpacks full of snacks..."