Chapter 59: The cake is really sweet and delicious.
The two of them walked into the shop, and Han Mo glanced down at the owner. “Two dresses. Wrap them up.”
The owner finally couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. “Wrap~them~up~ Where’s this punk from? Coming to my shop to scam a young girl! Get lost! I’m not doing business with you!”
A twenty-odd yuan sale wasn’t worth the trouble anyway.
Nothing disgusted her more than a man fooling a young girl.
She gave Han Mo’s wrinkled shirt and dress pants a once-over, then looked at He Huanhuan’s cartoon T-shirt and her flashy, colorful hair.
She sized up the situation in an instant: a rebellious girl falling for a con man!
She yanked He Huanhuan over to her side and lectured her earnestly, “Little miss, a man’s mouth is a ghost’s lie. This guy here doesn’t look reliable at all—don’t you dare believe him, you hear?”
He Huanhuan tried hard to suppress a smile. “He does lie to me a lot. He said he’d take me out every day, but after two days he stopped.”
The owner glared at Han Mo, indignation burning in her eyes. “Men are all the same! All talk, no action whatsoever!”
Han Mo had nothing to say for himself. He really had broken his promise for a few days.
But those few days...
“I’m sorry.”
He apologized sincerely. His original intentions had indeed not been pure—there was no denying that.
He Huanhuan tilted her head up, the corners of her mouth curling involuntarily. “Which one are you apologizing for?”
Before Han Mo could answer, the owner exploded. “There’s more than one?! Good grief! That’s exactly what I said—men are useless! Little sister, don’t you dare stay with him! A good-looking man is good for nothing...”
He Huanhuan nodded with a pleased grin. “He is pretty good-looking.”
Han Mo’s frustration vanished in an instant, a smile rising unbidden in his eyes.
The owner saw it and felt the world go dark. A lovesick fool—hopeless.
She rolled her eyes at Han Mo. “Do you still want the dresses or not?”
Since she couldn’t talk sense into the girl, she might as well just do business.
Twenty-five yuan was twenty-five yuan.
Han Mo nodded. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
The owner pursed her lips. Handsome and polite—no wonder the girl was head over heels.
Back in her younger days, she wouldn’t have been able to resist either.
Sigh. Fate!
It was destined that she would end up selling middle-aged women’s clothing!
He Huanhuan carefully picked out two terribly frumpy floral dresses—one rust-red, one bronze.
When she was little, she never understood why her grandmother wore those dresses every summer.
When she got older, she realized: because they were cheap and wouldn’t wash out.
Twenty or thirty yuan could cover an entire summer.
Her grandmother’s summer was dresses for twenty or thirty yuan, bruised apples, a fan she was too stingy to run.
And a son who never stopped owing money.
She looked at the dresses in her hands and suddenly felt less drawn to the world she had left.
The grandmother who loved her most was already gone. Back home, there was only a drunkard father who gambled like his life depended on it.
And a pile of gambling debts dumped on her head.
Aside from Qi Meili, that world had treated her terribly.
She blinked, then asked the owner, “Can I change clothes here?”
The girl, who had been all smiles a moment ago, suddenly drooped, her face crumpling as if she was about to cry.
The owner nodded without a second thought. “Change, go ahead and change. No one else is in the shop anyway.”
The roadside shop had no fitting room, so the owner held up a piece of cloth to screen off a corner. He Huanhuan stripped off her T-shirt and pants and slipped into the rust-red rose-print dress.
The dress had no shape to it, hanging loose and baggy on her body.
She asked Han Mo, “Do I look good?”
Han Mo nodded seriously. “You look good. Beautiful, like a flower.”
“I think so too.”
He Huanhuan smiled lightly. “Han Mo, buy me a cake. I want to eat cake.”
“Okay.”
Han Mo changed into the school uniform as well, and the two of them asked the owner for a bag, stuffed their dirty clothes inside, and headed out to buy a cake.
The owner watched their departing figures and couldn’t help but sigh. “If you’re going to have kids, raise them right! Such a pretty girl—she’s got to be out of her mind!”
People online always said that spoiling a daughter too much, never letting her face hardships, would make her run off with some punk.
But the truth was, the girls who got taken in by bad boys were the ones who never got love at home.
Love is the foundation of a person’s growth.
Only a child who never received love at home would be moved by the slightest bit of kindness and charge headfirst into a wall.
And a child who grew up with plenty of love at home wouldn’t even bother to look twice at that kind of gesture.
The electric scooter sped down the road, a gentle breeze brushing He Huanhuan’s skirt.
And stirring her heartstrings.
Grandma, I’m free!
She thought she had been so stupid, even wanting to go back—back to work, back to paying off debts.
Those debts could never be paid off!
“Hahaha...”
She laughed out loud. “Han Mo, I’m so happy!”
She didn’t explain why she was happy. She just laughed freely. “Hahaha... I was so dumb! I’ve been free this whole time!”
The moment she had been pulled into the world of the book, she was free!
She no longer had to be trapped by that man, no longer had to be cornered by debt collectors, stuck at home with no food and no way out.
She no longer had to count down the days until she turned eighteen so she could go work in a factory and pay off his debts.
She no longer had to cling stubbornly to her grandparents’ old house, refusing to let go.
She was truly, genuinely free!
“Hahaha...”
The tears at the corners of her eyes were blown away by the wind, landing on the back of Han Mo’s hand.
He instinctively clenched his fist.
Why was she crying?
Was it because of her grandmother?
What did she mean by freedom?
Sitting on the back of the scooter, he reached out and patted her shoulder. “You will always be free.”
“Mm!”
They rode to the cake shop, where He Huanhuan rushed in, bought a small cake, and asked the clerk for two candles.
Out on the street, she couldn’t wait to open the cake and stick the two candles in.
Han Mo held the cake in his hands and stared at the number 18 on the candles, unable to stop himself from reminding her, “Huanhuan, you’re twenty this year.”
He Huanhuan ignored him. She lit the candles without looking away, then blew them out with focus.
“Han Mo, I’m an adult now!”
Han Mo stressed, “You became an adult two years ago.”
Uncle Gu wasn’t a monster—he would never arrange a betrothal for a minor.
He Huanhuan beamed. “Not my body. My spirit. My soul. I’ve become an adult for real, completely and utterly.”
The words seemed to come out of nowhere, but she didn’t explain further. She leaned in and took a big, greedy bite of the cake.
Cream smeared across her face, and she squinted in pure bliss. “Han Mo, do you know? This is the first birthday cake I’ve ever had that was truly mine in my whole life.”
Even the rebellious girls—Qi Meili and the others—had lived better lives than she had.
Their parents were unreliable too, sure, but at least they just ignored them.
Qi Meili could still squeeze some pocket money out of her folks now and then.
Only she had nothing.
Oh, wait—she had a mountain of debt waiting for her to repay.
She had never eaten a birthday cake. Not once, ever.
Grandpa and Grandma loved her, but they were too old, too old to know that kids nowadays ate cake for their birthdays.
They would only cook her a bowl of long-life noodles and add two poached eggs on top.
When Qi Meili and the others had their birthdays, she never touched their cakes.
Every time, she would shake her leg and act all high and mighty, claiming she didn't like cake.
The birthday cake was the inferiority and pain she hid deep inside.
She licked the cream at the corner of her mouth and smiled with relief: "It's really sweet, really delicious."