Chapter 19: Supermarket

“You can’t keep crying. Wipe your tears and move forward.”

“Ahem, nonsense, I wasn’t crying.”

Sang Shen said stubbornly.

Yin Xing glanced at him, a faint smile on her lips.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait, let me rest a bit. Kinda tired.”

Sang Shen sat on a flowerbed’s edge, leaning against a tree, gazing at the iron fence merging with the blue sky.

“In school, I loved gym class. While others played ball, I’d find a corner to sit and feel the breeze. Looking out, I’d think—man, the outside world’s so free. People go wherever they want.”

Yin Xing slowly chewed her egg burger, silent, but her gaze followed his upward, as if lost in memories under the same sky.

“But after dropping out, working, I realized the outside world isn’t as free as I thought. Invisible rules bind everyone, forcing you from here to there, there to here. The patch of sky I saw in school?

No different from the vast sky out there.”

“Free or not, it’s how you see it.”

“The material world’s concrete, the mind’s idealistic… ha, am I spouting nonsense?”

Sang Shen scratched his head.

“Honestly, I’m not big on studying. What I miss is the classmates, the daily routine of school.”

“What’s the difference between school and work?”

“School ends—you graduate after a few years. But work? Feels endless, just going on forever… Thinking like that makes life feel so dull.”

“Life’s always been like that.”

“But I think I’m just resisting it. Even work should have its joys, right? I only remember the bad stuff, not the good.

Even as an adult, your heart can stay carefree, can’t it? Carrying too much responsibility, you’re just moving for the sake of moving, missing all the scenery…”

“…That’s escaping.”

“Not escaping. If you can’t carry it all, drop it. Travel light, you’ll go farther. Those responsibilities you think are yours? Maybe they’re just forced on you.

We’re not gods, just ordinary people. If you can’t do it, don’t. If you can’t finish, give up. We only hold on for what we truly love.”

“…Back then, I loved her too.”

“Uh.”

Sang Shen choked.

“Do you know if what you love is worth loving?”

“This time, I’ll figure it out.”

Sang Shen grinned, undeterred by the verbal stumble.

“This time, I won’t mess up.”

“You say that like it’s guaranteed.”

“I say it won’t, so it won’t.”

“…Last bite, can’t finish.”

Yin Xing held out the remaining bit of egg burger. After he took it, she stood slowly.

“Let’s go home.”

“Alright, home. Oh… next time we go out, bring your phone? We could take photos for memories. So small, way better than a camera!”

“…You use it.”

“Really? Can I?”

“…Doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll take tons of photos! Years later, we’ll look back and be shocked at how you were always so expressionless, never smiling! Heh.”

“…Talk about it years later.”

***

On the bike’s back seat, the girl’s pale green hair fluttered, like an elf stepping out of the lush mountains.

They didn’t take the main road—it was a constant uphill climb, tough even for Sang Shen alone, let alone with a passenger.

So they zigzagged onto a village path.

Villages connected to each other; heading one way would lead to You Hu Village.

The path allowed cars, but few came. The widest parts barely fit two vehicles passing, and narrower spots required pulling over at turns.

Compared to the main road, it was much quieter.

The sun blazed overhead. The bike rattled along the textured cement road, occasionally passing farmers on tricycles.

Maybe because of larger fields here, some plots weren’t planted yet. Elders worked the land, some resting under the shade of a leafy tree in the field’s center.

That was the tree’s simple purpose.

“Hot?”

“Not bad. Sweaty, but the breeze while riding’s nice.”

Sang Shen squinted, easing up on a downhill stretch.

“Oh, let’s stop at the supermarket by that village entrance. Stuff’s cheaper there than in town.”

“Okay.”

It was a long, straight road, the village’s small supermarket visible in the distance.

It was called “Lianhua Supermarket,” but clearly unrelated to the town’s “Century Lianhua.”

The store was in a Khrushchev-style building with an outdoor staircase for residents to reach the second floor. Nearby factory workers lived here.

The supermarket had a green-tinted glass wall, but you couldn’t see inside—shelves blocked everything.

“Evenings get crazy here; workers come to shop.”

Sang Shen parked under a mulberry tree.

“Rural factories are popping up everywhere, from town to villages like this. Maybe one day, even our mountain village’ll have one!”

Yin Xing didn’t respond, her gaze drifting to a large pen factory sign in the distance.

Fen Yue Town banned heavy industry due to Tong County’s tourism status.

But pen factories or assembly plants were fine.

With local government support, such factories sprouted everywhere, making you wonder if Z Province’s entire pen industry had moved here…

The supermarket wasn’t big but stocked everything. Even with bright sunlight outside, dim fluorescent lights lit the inside. Shelves were crammed together, some spots too tight to turn around in.

“Yin Xing, see anything you want? I’m getting an electric kettle. Boiling water with wood is such a hassle—takes forever just for instant noodles…”

Sang Shen muttered, heading deep into the shelves where appliances were usually stashed.

Yin Xing dodged an approaching young woman, circling to the other side of a shelf. When she reached Sang Shen, he was staring at price tags, stunned.

“Ugh… too expensive.”

Yin Xing followed his gaze, nodding slightly.

Electric kettles cost more than she remembered. Even the cheapest was eighty yuan.

In the future, with inflation, eighty could buy a kettle with multiple settings, even one for stewing soup. Now, it got you a basic model you had to unplug manually when it boiled.

Time moved forward, and not everything was bad.

Once-expensive things became cheap, entering countless homes.

“Eighty… eighty yuan could buy forty buckets of instant noodles at two yuan each, or a hundred packs at eight mao. Cheaper in bulk… How did I ever afford this before…”

As he wrestled with the decision, Yin Xing bent down, picking up a long object in a flimsy plastic bag from the bottom shelf and handing it to him.

“What’s this? Oh… a heating rod! Just stick it in a thermos to boil… kinda unsafe, though.”

“…Cheap.”

“Yeah, super cheap. But let’s get a better one. I think they have ones that whistle when the water’s ready…”

Sang Shen crouched, browsing the bottom shelf.

“Cheapest is five yuan, whistling ones are ten. Let’s go with the ten—it’ll last a year or two, no problem. What do you think, Yin Xing? Yin Xing?”

He turned, confused, not hearing her.

Grabbing the heating rod, he hurried around the shelf, finding Yin Xing eyeing pots.

“Need a pot? It’d be handy. Not sure which kind, though. Soup pots hold more but can’t fry. Frying pans are smaller but versatile…”

“Rice cooker.”

Yin Xing pointed at a pink rice cooker on the top shelf, the simplest kind with just cook and keep-warm settings. When done, its white “tongue” would flip to warm.

“On sale, ninety-nine. Way better deal than the eighty-yuan kettle. Oh, you can stew soup in it too!”

“Yeah.”

Yin Xing nodded, clearly experienced with household shopping.

“When we don’t feel like cooking, we can just cook rice and steam veggies. This is a must-buy…

I’ll get this one? The small size should do, and it’s cheaper. Still want a pot? For frying.”

“…Save money.”

“Uh… true, cheapest pots are seventy or eighty. So pricey.”

Sang Shen smacked his lips.

“Alright, heating rod and rice cooker it is. Anything else?”

Yin Xing shook her head, then nodded as if remembering something. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him from the back to the front, stopping at a snack shelf—

She pointed firmly at spicy strips on the bottom row, turning to him.

“This.”

“Huh… spicy strips? Sure, they’re cheap. Five mao a big pack. Let’s get five yuan’s worth—exactly what you saved haggling.”

“Okay.”

“But… can you taste them?”

“…Spicy’s pain, the only ‘taste’ I can feel.”

“Oh, got it…”