A Young Woman's Heart

To prevent anyone from passing things through the car window.

Even so, it still couldn't stop A-Guang's wife from handing over the three bottles of honey, and Bao Cheng from hurriedly stuffing in a small bag of rice cakes.

"Hey, hey, I can't put it all down!" Mo Xueyao tried to refuse by pushing away the things they were offering, but the things still ended up in the carriage.

"What? It's so empty, how come there's no room? Just stuff it anywhere!"

"That's right! Ah-Guang said you especially loved his family's honey when you were little!"

"That was when we were kids..." Mo Xueyao was a little embarrassed, because back then, she almost got into a fight with him over a sip of honey...

Before we knew it, we had all grown up.

Things that were once cherished no longer hold much place in my heart.

"Bye-bye!" Bao Cheng waved vigorously, and snow fell from the branches beside him, covering his head and landing on his coal-like face...

The van began to move slowly forward.

Finally, they left everyone far behind.

Its speed increased, and it moved forward like a snake along the winding path.

"Phew..." Mo Xueyao initially felt a sense of relief, but then she felt a sense of emptiness and loneliness.

Because that excitement is eventually gone, and before the next New Year arrives, I may not be able to experience such a lively festival again.

The festive atmosphere of the New Year is something that is hard to replicate in other holidays.

Is the so-called New Year's flavor firecrackers and fireworks, or the gathering of relatives and friends?

Actually, neither of those are likely true.

The harder life is in ordinary days, the stronger the festive atmosphere will be during the Spring Festival.

Because the flavor of the New Year is mostly not sweet, but bitter, yet like tea, it has a bittersweet aftertaste.

It is precisely because the sweetness is not enough that it becomes all the more precious.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, seemingly without end.

Once they were far from her grandmother's house and the car had passed the dusty dirt road, Mo Xueyao rolled down the car window again.

When she was bored in the car, she liked to turn the window handle. After turning it so many times, she even figured out how to make the hand-cranked window feel as smooth as an electric window.

Although the fifth day of the Lunar New Year was not as busy as the eighth, there were still more cars returning to the city.

After all, many shop owners need to prepare goods for the Lunar New Year, go back to their homes in the city to rest, or open for business immediately on the same day...

Most people choose this day.

Not to mention the many buses that are also returning home.

The main road was extremely congested.

It's not that it stops every few steps, but it's just driving at a slow speed the whole time.

The speed of forty miles per hour made my father drowsy.

He took a puff of the soft-pack Zhonghua cigarettes someone had given him, and the entire car instantly filled with the smell of smoke. Mo Xueyao waved her hand dismissively and rolled the window down quite a bit: "Ugh, at least open the driver's side window when you smoke, right?"

"Haha, I'm so sleepy, I need to have a smoke, or I'll fall asleep on the steering wheel." As her father spoke, he leaned out the window. Mo Xueyao followed his gaze and saw many tiny sparks of fire flickering in the dark sky.

It seems that many people are getting sleepy because they are driving too slowly.

"How about we take a shortcut?" Mo Xueyao said casually.

"Alright... let's just take the back road, there are fewer cars, and it'll be faster."

"That's not a good idea," the mother said hesitantly.

"It's alright, it's the Lunar New Year, it won't be that serious."

"What is it?" Mo Xueyao felt like the two of them were speaking in riddles.

The candy lying on her lap meowed twice, as if it were asking the same question as her.

After spending a few days at her grandmother's house, Su Tang the cat has gained even more weight. Sometimes when Mo Xueyao sees it, she worries that she might have eaten too much...

So not only did I not gain weight during this Spring Festival, I even lost a little weight.

However, her grandparents didn't know that she and Li Wanyan were trying to maintain their figures. They thought she just couldn't get used to the food here, so they kept cooking all sorts of different dishes for her these past few days, which made the two of them feel a little awkward.

The van finally slowly drove to the vicinity of the entrance. The father tried to change lanes for a long time, and finally encountered a person with good manners, or rather, poor skills, who finally managed to turn into the right-turn lane. After a while, it finally turned.

Although the road was narrow, there wasn't a single car in sight; it was surprisingly empty.

"We can't be the only ones who know this shortcut, can we?" Mo Xueyao asked curiously. "What if it doesn't connect to the main road?"

“How could that be? Last time I came here, I saw the exit of this road from the other side. It’s definitely open, but it’s a village road inside, so it probably won’t be easy to drive through.” The father had a cigarette in his mouth and spoke in a relaxed tone, but his brows were slightly furrowed. The mother leaned forward slightly, as if she wanted to ask something, but in the end, she didn’t ask anything.

A long country road, and the ever-changing scenery outside the window kept Mo Xueyao's curiosity alive.

Li Wanyan has already tried drawing several sketches on the sketching board. Although they are not very detailed, they have accurately captured the essence of the subject.

Along the way, I only saw two cars coming from the opposite direction, with red ribbons hanging on their rearview mirrors, which seemed to be brand new cars that had just been bought not long ago.

Not far away, wisps of smoke could already be seen rising from the chimneys. Then, her father suddenly slammed on the brakes, causing Mo Xueyao, who was in a daze, to turn around and glare at him angrily: "What are you doing? You braked suddenly, I almost crashed into the window!"

"Shh—" The mother turned her head slightly away, a little nervously. "Yaoyao, don't talk."

"What? What happened? Did you bump into something?" So she curiously looked up and looked ahead.

On the country road not far away, there were three or four chairs in the middle of the road, where several old men and women sat with their legs crossed. Behind them, by the fields, some young and middle-aged men were leaning on hoes and smoking, seemingly doing farm work, but their attention was entirely on the van that was covered in dust.

The father rolled down the car window, and an old man walked over with his eyes narrowed. Seemingly finding him unfamiliar, he gave a cold laugh.

The father forced a hearty smile and offered him a cigarette: "Uncle, what's going on? Is there roadwork ahead?"

The young man next to the old man noticed that his father's accent sounded like that of someone from out of town, so he said in Mandarin, "This road was built with money from our village. If you want to cross it, you have to pay first."

"Toll fee?" The father's smile widened as he saw the other man accept the cigarette he offered. He took out another cigarette and handed it to the young man.

"Correct."

"How much?" The father's cooperative demeanor relaxed the other party considerably, but it also brought a hint of disdain to their eyes—in their view, a guy who backs down so easily is spineless.

Perhaps arguing a bit would make them think I'm a real man.

But as the saying goes, one doesn't hit a smiling face, so the other party didn't say anything. The young man simply held up five fingers and raised an eyebrow slightly: "Five hundred yuan."

"Hahaha... Sorry, I didn't hear you?" the father asked again with a dry laugh.

"Five hundred. It's the Spring Festival, and the roads are difficult to drive on. This price isn't expensive. This road is very long, and I guarantee you'll have a smooth journey." The young man raised his other eyebrow as well.

The father looked like he was about to back up the car: "Ah... I'm sorry, I didn't bring that much money. Can we take another route?"

"The road you came from is our village road. Now that you've left, you still don't want to pay?"

"No, no, I was just asking." This was the first time Mo Xueyao had ever seen her father so 'obsequious,' he was just like a eunuch in a TV drama.

But the sight of the villagers who were now subtly gathering around her made her feel no joy whatsoever.

"If we withdraw now, how much money do we need to pay?"

"Tsk." The young man spat on the ground, as if expressing extreme disdain. The finger he raised wasn't his index finger, but his middle finger. "One hundred!"

"Okay, okay... uh, can you make it cheaper? Sigh, it's almost Chinese New Year, I've already been home, I don't have much money left." The father's expression was still like that of a humble 'eunuch', but his tone remained perfectly calm.

"No, not a penny less!" The young man immediately glared, glanced inside, and threatened, "Heh, do you have two daughters?"

"Haha..." The father continued laughing, this time handing over a pack of cigarettes, "Young man, don't be in such a hurry..."

"How about we marry your daughter to one of the bachelors in our village? That way, you'll be related by marriage, and we won't have to pay you anything," he said with a hint of malicious sarcasm.

The clouds in the sky grew increasingly gloomy.

……

Chapter Forty-Six: Reckless

The father glanced warily at the back door, making sure it was locked from the inside before relaxing slightly.

He had a forced smile on his face, his hand already reaching into the small drawer next to the driver's seat, ready to take out money to avoid trouble.

In fact, being able to pay money to avoid trouble is a good thing.

In those days, it wasn't uncommon for entire villages to go out and rob people. What was even more terrifying was when an entire village banded together. If someone was killed, even the police couldn't do anything about it because everyone would cover for each other, making it impossible to continue.

Besides, there are bound to be a few people in the nearby police station who are related to the village...

Complete fairness and impartiality are simply impossible in such a completely opaque environment.

In some extremely vicious places, men will actually abduct women to take home as wives. If they refuse, they will imprison them. After all, in these rural areas that still retain feudalistic elements, it is very normal to favor sons over daughters, which is why the male-to-female ratio is particularly unbalanced, and there is a strong motive to abduct women.

Especially Mo Xueyao and Li Wanyan, they are both beautiful girls.

The wind pressed the treetops low, and although there was a group of people around, Mo Xueyao felt a kind of oppressive silence, and the hum of the van's engine was particularly jarring.

"Boom—whoosh—" Suddenly, the sound of a truck came from behind, and even the road seemed to start to shake.

A large truck, completely covered from head to toe, drove up from a distance. The troublemakers who were blocking the road to collect fees immediately lit up and rushed to meet it.

You know, if that truck were to run them over, they would all be turned into mincemeat, but they didn't seem afraid at all. Instead of dodging, they charged forward.

The truck finally came to a slow, inevitable stop.

The arrogant young man from before suddenly revealed a smug expression on his face, walked to the car, and knocked hard on the car door.

The uncovered car door was painted a dark green, and apart from some dirt, it looked quite new; perhaps it had only been bought recently.

"Comrade, what can I do for you?" The car window rolled down a little, and a young man sitting in the driver's seat asked with a gentle smile.

The man in the passenger seat squinted, his expression looking rather serious.

"Of course there's something wrong. Let me tell you, this used to be farmland. We built the road here, and now look at it, it's wide enough for big trucks to drive on. But building a road costs money, and repairing it costs money too. If you drive your big truck over here, we'll have to spend a lot of money repairing the road, right? So, you have to give us some money to maintain the road."

"Road maintenance fee?" The young man chuckled, then opened the car door and jumped out. "That's easy, how much?"

"Hehe, it's the New Year, delivering such a big truckload of goods, you must have made a lot of money, right? I don't need much, just a thousand yuan will do!"

"A thousand yuan?" The young man didn't even frown. "Okay."

"Hey, pretty straightforward, huh? Much more sensible than that poor bastard in the van." The young man walked smugly around the truck, then approached and tugged at the gray tarpaulin covering it. "Looks like I didn't take enough? What are you transporting? How about you sell me a few for a discount?"