A Young Woman's Heart

Li Wanyan turned around, leaned half her body on the chair, and stretched out her arm to take a large black plastic bag.

The biggest advantage of cheap snacks is that they come in a wide variety and are inexpensive, so you can eat them without feeling guilty about the cost.

Like drawing a lottery ticket, Mo Xueyao closed her eyes and drew a bag.

It was a bag of instant noodles from a relatively unknown brand, with a large advertisement on the packaging, and the words "Collect Cards for Prizes" were particularly eye-catching.

After opening it, there was a character card from Journey to the West, but it wasn't Tang Sanzang and his disciples, but a monster called the Black Bear Spirit.

The back has small print introducing it, and the card feels very thick, making it seem like the most valuable item in the whole bag of instant noodles...

"Wanyan, you take some too." Mo Xueyao clasped her hands together and pressed down on the instant noodles, crushing them into small pieces, and then ate them little by little.

In her hands, the already inexpensive snacks became even more delicious.

"Hmm." Li Wanyan followed Mo Xueyao's example, squinting her eyes and reaching her little hand into the bag. After stirring it for a while, she finally pulled out a package.

It was a bag of pale yellow twisted candy.

Twisted sugar is actually maltose syrup. Because it is sticky and somewhere between a liquid and a solid, two sticks wrapped around the sugar can be pulled into strands of sugar.

"Wow, Wanyan actually got this! I think I only bought one pack?" Mo Xueyao said in surprise. "You've won the lottery!"

“I took a bag for myself too.”

"Oh—but the probability isn't very high either."

"How do you eat this?" Li Wanyan opened the packaging, but was somewhat dazed as she held the wooden handle of the twisted candy.

"Ah, this, this is something you eat by licking it slowly. Hmm, you have to stir it before eating, otherwise it will be very hard." Mo Xueyao demonstrated the action by holding the wooden stick, but Li Wanyan, who had never eaten this kind of candy before, was still a little unsure of where to start. "Wanyan, have you never eaten this before? It used to be sold on the roadside. I used to buy five cents' worth back then."

“I’ve never eaten it before, I’ve only ever eaten hard maltose.” Li Wanyan shook her head. “The people who sell maltose use a small hammer to knock the sugar out of the mold piece by piece, that kind of maltose.”

"Uh... um." Mo Xueyao grabbed Li Wanyan's hands that were holding the wooden stick and gently stirred them. The twisted candy, which had been a little hard due to the cold weather, quickly softened.

Her father slammed on the brakes, and the twisted candy was immediately stuffed into Li Wanyan's mouth, causing her to let out a muffled groan.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" the father asked, looking back in the rearview mirror.

"Hmm." She shook her head, bit off a small piece of candy, and then took out the twisted candy, which had become even stickier after being moistened with saliva.

Several long strands of syrup were still stretched out from the part that hadn't been completely bitten off (Note 1).

"Be careful, be careful not to get it in your hair, otherwise it will be very difficult to remove." Mo Xueyao, who knew this all too well, quickly reminded her.

When she was little, she had seen girls being pranked by boys who threw twisted candy on their heads. Their hair would immediately become tangled up, like a messy ball of yarn, which was a headache to look at.

"Okay." Li Wanyan slowly began to lick the candy, and the van slowly drove forward after passing the traffic light...

—At several traffic lights after that, I didn't brake as suddenly.

……

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Note 1: This is a tribute to Kon.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Journey Home

In big cities, the only quiet time is probably just before and a few days after the Lunar New Year.

Most migrant workers have gone home early for the Spring Festival, and the streets are even emptier than usual.

Not only could you not see any vehicles passing by, but you couldn't even see any pedestrians.

Although Hangzhou is not a first-tier city, it is still a bustling provincial capital.

But now it's like a ghost town.

Shops were closed everywhere except for the large supermarket, which was also very deserted.

"Dad, you ran a red light again!" Mo Xueyao smacked her lips as she chewed on her instant noodles, yelling in dissatisfaction. A few crumbs flew out the window with her clinking lips.

"What does it matter? There are no people or cars on the road. It's so empty, why would I waste my time waiting for the traffic light?"

You've violated traffic rules!

"Don't worry, there are no traffic police, you won't get points deducted," the father said, then stepped on the gas and ran another red light.

This quiet, deserted city seems to possess a certain unbridled power.

"That's dangerous! What if someone sees the green light and speeds up from a distance, or what if they run into a pedestrian who suddenly appears?"

"Don't worry, your dad only runs red lights at these empty intersections. I'll slow down when the road conditions are complicated."

"Tsk." Mo Xueyao clicked her tongue. "You're happy now that something's happened."

"What are you talking about during the New Year?" The father was a little unhappy.

"Tch, superstition." Mo Xueyao rolled her eyes and stopped dwelling on the matter.

In fact, running red lights is a very common occurrence these days.

Not to mention such empty times, even on busy days, people still try to cross the road.

Unless the traffic police stop the car on the spot, it's a trivial matter.

It's as ordinary as littering.

Hangzhou is not a very large city. If the traffic is not congested, you can quickly leave the city and get onto the national highway.

Once we got here, the number of cars gradually increased.

Cars from all directions converged on the main road, and there was a chaotic cacophony of horns everywhere.

Actually, these cars aren't that many on the whole road, and if everyone passes through in an orderly manner, it can be done very quickly.

But some people just love to overtake, weaving around on the road like snakes, which can easily cause traffic accidents.

If there's a minor collision or crash, the entire road will be blocked immediately.

If the car in front stops, the car behind may not have time to brake, which could easily lead to a rear-end collision...

"Beep beep beep—"

The noises swelled up together, making it feel like my ears were being pierced and uncomfortable.

"These people are so annoying! Can't they just drive properly?" Mo Xueyao angrily rolled up the window. "They're running around everywhere. Do they have polio? Or is their cerebellum underdeveloped?"

"Hahaha, wouldn't it be a disaster if you were to drive?" The father laughed and slapped the steering wheel. "Are you going to get out and fight them?"

"If it were really possible." Mo Xueyao pouted.

In order to avoid driving with these cerebral palsy kids who liked to drive bumper cars, the father eventually turned onto a side road.

He was full of confidence when he went in, but after wandering around inside for a while, he seemed to have lost his way.

"Will it work or not?" Mo Xueyao asked helplessly.

"Let me take a look." The father parked the van on the side of the road and asked the mother to take out the provincial map that she had prepared beforehand.

The map itself was very large; my father only brought the section from Hangzhou to my maternal grandmother's house.

Every road on it is drawn clearly, even the small paths.

I bought this last week, so it's practically the newest map available.

"What road is this? Oh... this road, this road, this way... and then this way... no, no, I told you it was right."

The mother coughed lightly twice, because she was the one who had just thought the father had taken the wrong turn.

She had ridden this road in other people's cars, but her memory was probably a bit hazy, which is why she always felt something was off.

The van got back on the road. It was a broken road, and no one knew whether someone was building a house next to it or it had been neglected for years. When you drove on it, yellow sand filled the air. If you didn't close the windows, the van would probably be full of sand.

The scenery on a journey is not always as beautiful as one might imagine.

The dilapidated road in this remote and desolate place also dampened Mo Xueyao's spirits.

In addition, the van was bumping around a lot, which made her a little carsick. Before long, she fell asleep leaning against Li Wanyan's lap.

The biggest advantage of a van is, of course, that you can stretch out comfortably when you lie down to sleep...

The time spent driving is probably the most noticeable factor for drivers.

For Mo Xueyao, it was simply a matter of closing her eyes and then opening them again.

Two hours flew by, and we had already driven more than halfway to my grandmother's house, now entering a country road that few people travel on.

Although the road is not wide, the river water next to it is crystal clear. To the right of the road are continuous low hills, all of which are lush and green, covered with evergreen trees that do not lose their leaves even in winter.

"Hmm..." Mo Xueyao shook her head and sat up from Li Wanyan's firm thighs, rubbing her eyes as she asked, "Are we almost there?"

"It's coming soon."

How much longer?

"About forty or fifty minutes," the father estimated.

Her mother had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, while Li Wanyan was staring blankly out the window.

When we left the city, we could listen to the radio in the van, but here the signal is bad, and all we can hear is crackling noise.

My father turned the knob and turned it off.

"It would be great if we had a car CD player, so we could listen to some music." Mo Xueyao leaned back in her chair and rolled down the window.

“You’re still listening to music? It’s good enough to have a car to ride in. Even though it’s a minivan, at least it’s your own, which is convenient.” The father said, yawning widely. “Look, the scenery outside is so beautiful.”

"Then why are you still sleepy?"

"You'll definitely get sleepy if you drive for a long time."

"How about we chat?"

"Okay."

"Uh...wait, the sun is gone?"

"I haven't seen the sun since I came here."

"So the weather is different on both sides?"

"Hmm, it's very gloomy here, and you can feel it's also cooler." The father gripped the steering wheel tightly with his right hand, slowly turning along the winding road. Then, he took out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket with his left hand, put one in his mouth, put the pack back, took out a cheap plastic lighter, and lit the cigarette with a few clicks—he was so sleepy that he could only smoke to keep himself awake.