PSE - 23

The weather was bad on Sunday, the streets were empty, and business was slow. Ha Yue took advantage of the lull to organize the stock in the store.

Previously, the small grocery store’s business relied entirely on Zhao Chunni going to the wholesale market on a tricycle to stock up. Her energy was limited, and she was not good at dealing with people. Despite her hard work and personal involvement, the items sold in the store were limited to snacks and toys that children liked.

Since Ha Yue took over the store, she proactively sought out several distributors in the wholesale market, established cooperation, streamlined the categories of snacks and toys, and focused on restocking items that power plant workers would buy.

From daily necessities to groceries and cooking oil, all products were regularly restocked by the distributors’ employees who drove to the store.

At the beginning of the year, she obtained a liquor business license and started regularly purchasing from a beverage and alcohol wholesaler.

The number of customers coming to the store to buy beer increased. Additionally, to earn a monthly display fee of two hundred yuan, Ha Yue would periodically change the display of alcohol on the counter as requested by the manufacturers.

In the morning, the beer manufacturer paid for price tags and posters to change the display in the store. Ha Yue was behind the counter, counting the stock and returning unsold, near-expiry items.

In the afternoon, the best-selling washbasins and toothbrushes were almost out of stock. She sent a WeChat message to the hardware supplier, listing the products she needed, but there was no response for a long time. When she called, she found out that the supplier’s elderly parent had broken an arm, and the owner was taking care of them in the hospital, so delivery was temporarily unavailable.

So Ha Yue closed the store and, in the windy weather, personally drove the tricycle to the wholesale market.

After chatting with the hardware supplier’s wife, Ha Yue returned to Chunni Grocery before dinner, unloading the dozen or so boxes of goods from the tricycle into the store.

After finishing all the trivial work, she unscrewed her water bottle and took a big gulp of cool boiled water, feeling refreshed all over.

Today, her mood was good. After a full day of work, her hair was full of sand, and even her fingernails were filled with dust, but she still found time to sit down, put on her headphones, and listen to some of her favorite music.

The headphones were playing a band’s cover version of “First Love,” with lyrics that said, “I stayed up all night, my shadow appeared in my heart.” But reality was the opposite. After a brief meeting yesterday, her first love had sent her a message in the morning saying, “Did you get home safely?” and then fell silent again.

Ha Yue felt that the polite gesture of her and Xue Jing turning their backs and waving to each other was the best outcome.

After tonight, Xue Jing and she could officially say goodbye. She felt no resentment, only peace, and she was relieved.

He should be on a plane by now, right? Last night, on her way home from the hotel, she checked the flights from Lincheng back to Jicheng on her phone. Due to the recent resurgence of the pandemic, the number of flights between Jicheng and the border regions had drastically decreased, with only one flight back in the past three days.

She hoped he would have a safe journey and a prosperous future in Jicheng.

Yawning, Ha Yue felt a bit hungry. She got up, holding her phone, as the playlist moved to the next song.

She walked briskly to the shelf, found a bag of instant noodles with a not-so-great expiration date, crushed the noodle block through the packaging a few times, then opened it and sprinkled half the seasoning packet inside.

This was a method taught to her by Ha Jianguo. Ha Yue vaguely remembered that before she completely stopped sharing a bed with her parents in elementary school, Ha Jianguo had faced a wave of layoffs at local companies.

That year, he repeatedly hit walls in his job search and, idling around, he once again entertained the idea of starting a business. He wanted to open a stationery store near Ha Yue’s school.

But Zhao Chunni, who had already experienced a business failure with him before their marriage, firmly opposed him using the family savings. She said that money was a fixed deposit for Ha Yue’s college education.

The couple argued many times over their differing opinions. Zhao Chunni was resolute, and eventually, Ha Jianguo compromised, promising not to bring up the idea of starting a business again.

At that time, Zhao Chunni had a job as a promoter at a local supermarket. The newly appointed supervisor didn’t like her, so besides working nine-to-five, she was often forced to work overtime. Since Ha Jianguo was temporarily unemployed, the task of taking care of their daughter naturally fell to him.

But like most young fathers, Ha Jianguo neither knew how to cook nor how to comb his daughter’s hair.

From Monday to Friday, Ha Yue often went to school with a messy ponytail. After being scolded by Zhao Chunni too many times, Ha Jianguo simply took Ha Yue to a barber shop on their way home from school one day, riding his 28-inch bicycle, and had her hair cut short.

As for meals, Ha Jianguo made do as best as he could. On school days, he almost always bought cooked food and cold dishes from the market for Ha Yue to eat. On weekends, the father and daughter would sit in lottery shops all day long.

Ha Jianguo was so engrossed in studying lottery tickets that he didn’t have time to take Ha Yue out to eat. Instead, he bought two packs of instant noodles from the neighboring store and ate them dry with his daughter.

Besides dry chewing instant noodles, Ha Jianguo also taught her to eat peanuts and tofu together in her mouth, claiming it would taste like pork ham.

In Ha Yue’s memory, Ha Jianguo was just like this—more of an eccentric older friend than a father.

That year, Ha Yue ate too many instant noodles and wrote countless homework assignments at the lottery shop. But heaven rewards hard work; after painstaking research, Ha Jianguo actually won the lottery.

Third prize: 2,800 yuan. Without batting an eye, he generously used the money to buy his daughter a single wire-mesh bed.

Ha Yue sat back behind the counter, gnawing on the packaging of instant noodles with one hand while crumbs occasionally fell from her pocket.

After Ha Jianguo left, Zhao Chunni, unable to work a regular nine-to-five job due to raising a child alone, ended up spending Ha Yue’s college fund to open “Chunni Grocery Store.” Elementary school-aged Ha Yue didn’t feel happy about getting free spicy gluten in the future. Every night, she would lie in bed, using her fingers to pick at the wires by the side of the bed, silently crying with her eyes closed.

At that time, being young, she always felt that her father’s infidelity was all her fault.

If she hadn’t been so compliant and had refused to accompany her father to the lottery shop, he would never have won the lottery. If she hadn’t asked for that bed for herself, her father wouldn’t have gone to the furniture factory and started an affair with the boss’s wife.

But such thoughts only troubled elementary school students. From middle school onward, Ha Yue no longer believed this way.

Because she began to believe that her father was, as Zhao Chunni put it, scum. He had never loved his daughter or his wife. He was selfish and incapable of loving anyone in this world.

All those nostalgic memories were nothing but a mirage.

People are predestined with an ending from birth, and Ha Jianguo’s role was never meant to last. Therefore, her parents’ marriage was doomed from the start.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. If someone made a mistake, it was Zhao Chunni for not seeing through him before marriage.

People should know their limits. Thus, she shouldn’t seek a partner far superior to her in every aspect.

Fatalism allows teenagers to quickly reconcile with the past.

From the moment Ha Yue labeled Ha Jianguo as irredeemable, she no longer avoided any moments that might remind her of him.

Occasionally dry chewing instant noodles didn’t taste particularly bad. For instance, now, she was enjoying it with relish.

However, soon her comfortable rest and meal were interrupted by an urgent video call request.

The person initiating the video call was Lou Zhiyun.

She had rejected his advances on Saturday, and within twenty-four hours, he launched another attempt, which seemed unreasonable.

She couldn’t be bothered to read his text messages, let alone engage in a video call with him.

What kind of futile communication was this?

After frowning and rejecting him, Lou Zhiyun persisted and sent a voice call request.

After rejecting him three times in a row, Ha Yue brushed the food crumbs off her hands into the trash can, took a deep breath, and typed a relatively polite message.

“What do you want?”

He was completely impolite; though brief, his words carried an uncomfortable firmness: “You answer the video call, I have something to say.”

“Sorry, it’s inconvenient right now. Just type if you have something to say. Or did I give you the wrong change again when you bought something?”

The latter sentence was sarcastic.

The instant noodles Ha Yue had eaten earlier now hardened into a lump in her stomach, rising towards her throat. She drank a large gulp of water to swallow down the nausea.

Unexpectedly, the person on the other end continued sending impolite messages.

“What’s inconvenient for you?”

“It’s not midnight.”

“What are you pretending to be innocent for?”

Upon reading the last sentence, the whites of Ha Yue’s eyes turned visibly pale, and she felt an urge to run away. Her previous indifference towards Lou Zhiyun had completely turned into aversion, and her attitude became straightforward: “Did you take the wrong medicine?”

Soon, Lou Zhiyun sent her several photos taken at night. The location was Mulan Street, and the person walking while looking at their phone in the distance was her.

“So, isn’t this you? You said you don’t date, meaning you only like sleeping with people in hotels at night? If that’s the case, count me in. Or do you charge for this service? Tell me your price. Let me see if you’re worth it.”

Before Ha Yue could type a response, he sent another message.

“I’ve seen plenty of women like you. Don’t you just like sticking to rich people?”

“Gold-digger! How much do people pay you for delivering services at night?”

Anger surged from her feet to the top of her head. Without thinking, Ha Yue spoke into her phone’s voice input: “Yeah, damn it, who doesn’t like rich people? And not only is he rich, but he’s also handsome and has great physical fitness. I’m so fond of him I can’t let go. Even if I have to force myself onto him, I’ll make sure we’re together. What about you? If you don’t need your brain, donate it to the hospital. Don’t act crazy in broad daylight, acting like a fool who can’t understand human speech.”

“Talking nicely to you, and you still dare to push your luck? Are you tired of living?”

Suddenly, Ha Yue’s voice became shrill, exuding a fierce aura akin to Sun Erlang selling human meat buns in Water Margin: “Eyebrows brimming with murderous intent, eyes flashing with ferocity.”

After sending the message, Ha Yue quickly saved the screenshots of him secretly taking pictures of her on the street and warned him that if he harassed her again, she would print out large posters about how he stalked her on the streets and post them at his workplace.

If his workplace didn’t handle it, she would call the police.

If the police didn’t intervene, she would gather some strong neighbors and block him at his dormitory, asking everyone which building the man who stalked women at night lived in.

In short, Lou Zhiyun should realize that trying to make her prove her innocence was impossible. She was the shameless local thug. In a small town, gossip could be fearsome, but barefoot people were never afraid of those wearing shoes.

Here, there is no absolute chain of authority to impose sanctions. Those who have nothing and lie on the ground playing the rogue always manage to gain some advantage.

Isn’t that why the elderly often say that poor mountains and bad waters breed unruly people? She is that unruly person!

When Lou Zhiyun, frightened by her aggressive attitude, began to explain in fear that he was just momentarily indignant and had lost his temper, she directly blocked him on WeChat, exited the app, and then dragged his phone number into the blacklist in her contacts.

This was to show that her small shop no longer welcomed his patronage, and if she saw him again, she would shout “rape” at the top of her lungs from ten miles away.

After doing all this, the unruly person’s good mood was gone. Ha Yue, holding the half-eaten instant noodles, gazed sadly at the weather outside the window. She estimated that no more customers would come in the evening and lost the patience to stay in the store any longer.

After tidying up the trash and receipts in the store, she locked the door, put on a mask, windproof goggles, and a hat, wrapping herself up like a little potato in the sandstorm, and rode her electric tricycle home early.