After evening self-study ended, at the River Dam bungalow.
Xue Yuantong hopped off the vehicle with flair and dashed into the Main Room.
Under Aunt Gu's "kindly" gaze, Xue Yuantong brazenly opened the refrigerator and took out two Mung Bean Ice Cream bars.
She had cooked the mung beans and made the ice cream herself. It was clean and delicious.
Generously, she gave one to Jiang Ning. The two leaned against the doorway and ate their ice cream.
The summer night in the countryside was extraordinarily quiet, with hardly any noise to be heard. Clear, pristine moonlight poured down, soft and tranquil.
The distant Wheat Field had already been harvested, leaving the ground bare in patches, like it had been plucked clean.
Amid such an idyllic scene, Xue Yuantong took a bite of ice cream. The cold made her little tongue dart about, and she said vaguely, "Vacation's almost here."
Jiang Ning gave a soft "Mm."
Then silence fell between them.
Xue Yuantong slowly ate her ice cream, wondering how she should spend this year's full two-month summer break.
She knew some classmates who traveled out into the wider world during the holidays and took lots of pretty pictures.
Xue Yuantong had never gone traveling, but she did not envy them. To her, vacation itself was the greatest happiness.
During many past summer breaks, her mother went out to work while she stayed home to watch the house, wash clothes, clean, and turn on the television to watch cartoons.
Her home had a satellite dish that could receive cartoon channels such as Kaku Animation and Golden Eagle Cartoon.
The two channels had countless good cartoons.
If she ran into a cartoon she did not like, she would turn off the TV and go outside to pick wildflowers and weeds, or