Liang Chengmin returned home and found the ration coupon in another piece of clothing, feeling deeply regretful. After being berated by Luan Mingrui, she felt utterly embarrassed.
The next day after work, she ran into a previous patient’s family members who kept asking her about the next treatment plan and whether they could save some money, as the family had spent all their funds.
Liang Chengmin patiently explained to them: if the child’s surgery wasn’t done soon, the condition would worsen, and it would be the child who suffered. The situation would only become more agonizing.
The parents cried in front of Liang Chengmin, breaking her heart. With red eyes, she comforted them for a long time, but there was no better solution. Liang Chengmin felt her training was insufficient; encountering such situations would upset her for days.
By the time she parted with the patients, it was almost dark. She stomped her foot—now he would accuse her of defaulting on her debt again.
She rode her bicycle to the supply and marketing cooperative. Upon arrival, she saw Luan Mingrui sitting casually under the crooked-neck tree in front of the cooperative. His white shirt was rolled up to his elbows, with two buttons undone at the collar, frowning as he watched her arrive tardily.
Liang Chengmin was still polite, handing him the coupon: “I’m sorry, I was held up at the hospital just now.”
Luan Mingrui didn’t reach out to take it: “Returning something late, how can doctors like you save lives and heal the wounded?”
…Hearing him say this, Liang Chengmin immediately became angry and slapped the coupon on the bench: “I’ve returned it to you, with the crooked-neck tree as witness. Whether you take it or not is your business. After all, your family has money.”
“I’m giving it to you. After all, my family has money.” Luan Mingrui placed the coupon in her bicycle basket. He was tall, casting Liang Chengmin in his shadow. Looking down, he saw her curled eyelashes, but she raised her face to glare at him, clearly angry.
Luan Mingrui never yielded in conversation. He found it refreshing that Liang Chengmin was unyielding to both soft and hard approaches. Whether his family had money or not didn’t matter; he just felt this little doctor’s temper needed to be dealt with. He completely forgot that he was the one with the disagreeable, dog-like temper.
“Who wants your worthless thing?”
“Then why did you use it to buy soy sauce yesterday?”
“…” Liang Chengmin had never encountered someone like this before. Her large eyes glared at him, anger bursting outward, her chest heaving with rage. Her eyes were moist with anger, tears about to emerge. After a long while, she squeezed out a sentence: “Are you sick in the head?”
“Mm, I am sick.”
How was she supposed to respond to that?
“Move aside!” Luan Mingrui was blocking Liang Chengmin’s bicycle and wouldn’t budge. Seeing he wouldn’t move, she turned her bicycle around, mounted it, and left. A young woman riding a Flying Pigeon bicycle, swaying left and right, looked quite comical. Luan Mingrui let out a laugh.
He found this little doctor quite amusing. Her temper was bad; no wonder she couldn’t get married at twenty-seven.
A few days later, returning from Lianyungang, he saw Liang Chengmin in front of the state-run restaurant. It was strange that since their blind date, he kept running into her. She sat on a wooden bench in front, holding a thick book. As he approached, he saw it contained diagrams of the human body. Her fingertips were gesturing over it, muttering to herself: “Like this, then like this, cut open, suture.”
She looked completely serious.
“Liang Chengmin,” he called her.
Liang Chengmin raised her head to look at him, her eyes immediately standing at attention—she truly remembered him now. She lowered her head, ignoring him.
“Liang Chengmin, help me look at my wound.”
Luan Mingrui rolled up his sleeve and extended his arm in front of her. There was a very deep cut on it, bloody.
“If you want to see a doctor, go to the hospital and register tomorrow!”
Liang Chengmin lowered her head to continue reading, but couldn’t concentrate. Smack! She closed the book and grabbed his arm. The wound was too deep and so long: “How did you do this? Did you get an injection? Why didn’t you bandage it?”
“I got an injection. There’s no medical gauze at home.” Luan Mingrui lied; he hadn’t gone home at all.
“Come with me then!” Liang Chengmin stood up with a stern face, about to leave, when she remembered she was here for a blind date: “Wait a moment!” She ran to the front of the restaurant and said to Old Wang, the barber: “Uncle, please keep an eye out for me. Later, a tall man with a rolled-up newspaper will sit in that chair. Please tell him to wait a moment, I have a patient, I’ll be back shortly.”
After saying this, she told Luan Mingrui: “Let’s go.”
Luan Mingrui walked beside her, looking back to see the man with the rolled-up newspaper arriving, but he didn’t say anything. Turning back, he taunted her: “Another blind date?”
“What’s it to you?”
Liang Chengmin led him to her doorstep: “Wait here.” She ran inside.
Luan Mingrui heard a woman’s voice criticizing her: “Why are you running? How old are you? So unsteady.”
“I’m saving a life!” Liang Chengmin ran out carrying a small box, sitting on the old stone in front of her house: “Come here.”
Luan Mingrui crouched in front of her, extending his arm to her. She was truly brave—despite how horrific his wound was, she didn’t even furrow her brow, skillfully applying iodine and bandaging it. You might call her foolish, but her expressions were animated. Luan Mingrui didn’t know why, but he felt a tickle in his heart.
“You got an injection? Got an injection but no bandage?” Liang Chengmin suddenly realized.
“No injection.” Luan Mingrui lowered his sleeve. Crouching there, he was shorter than Liang Chengmin, sitting on the stone, slightly tilting his head up to look at her. Those eyes under his glasses, like an eagle’s, made one feel uneasy.
“…Ignorant!” Liang Chengmin was angry again. Ever since meeting Luan Mingrui, she had been constantly irritated by him. She didn’t know why; normally, her temper was extremely good when not working, yet Luan Mingrui repeatedly made her so angry she felt dizzy.
She returned the medicine box and remembered someone was waiting at the state-run restaurant for a blind date. She turned and ran again, seeing Luan Mingrui still standing there. On the southern bluestone road, he stood blocking nearly half the path, like a formidable ruffian.
“Why haven’t you left?”
“Aren’t you going to the state-run restaurant for a blind date?” Luan Mingrui asked her.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go, I’m headed that way too.”
He was quite tall with long legs, but walked sluggishly behind Liang Chengmin. She was anxious and turned back to him: “Can’t you walk faster?!”
“My arm hurts.”
“Your arm hurts, not your leg! Why are you dragging your feet?”
“Late for a blind date with me, but anxious for a blind date with someone else?” Luan Mingrui delivered this flat remark and refused to walk faster.
Liang Chengmin ignored him, quickening her pace. Her floral shirt fluttered in the breeze, puffing up at the back.
Luan Mingrui followed behind her, thinking she must be desperate to get married if she was so anxious about a blind date.
That man with the rolled newspaper was impatient too; he had left, not a shadow in sight.
Luan Mingrui offered his cold comments from the side: “You think everyone is like me? Waiting for you even when you’re late.”
“Is your only occupation besides work going on blind dates? Are blind dates that interesting?”
“Can’t you get married without blind dates?”
“Luan Mingrui!” Liang Chengmin was annoyed by his nagging: “Aren’t you being bothersome?”
“What does my going on blind dates have to do with you? Why do you care so much?”
“Aren’t you also going on blind dates? Are you in any position to criticize me?”
“Besides, why was I late today? It was because of you!”
“Then who was responsible for your lateness the day you met me?” Luan Mingrui suddenly asked her.
Luan Mingrui held grudges.
Liang Chengmin couldn’t be bothered with him and turned to leave, when she heard Luan Mingrui ask: “Are you hungry?”
“Not hungry!”
“I’m going to eat, want to join?”
“No!”
“Do you dislike blind dates?” Luan Mingrui asked her again. Seeing her eyes flash, he knew she didn’t like them either: “Have dinner with me, and I’ll give you an idea so you’ll never have to go on blind dates again.”
“You’re lying.”
“If I’m lying to you, I’m not human.”
The two entered the state-run restaurant and sat facing each other.
“What do you like to eat?” Luan Mingrui asked her.
“Crabs, shrimp.” Liang Chengmin wasn’t lying. In the past, shrimp and crab weren’t easy to get, but her father managed to get them, never depriving her taste buds.
“Oh.”
Luan Mingrui ordered poached shrimp, drunken crab, and stir-fried vegetables. The dishes looked quite good together.
Liang Chengmin wasn’t reserved, peeling shrimp with her fingers delicately positioned like orchids.
Luan Mingrui was too lazy to peel them, finding it dirty. He waited for an opportunity to snatch one after she had peeled it, but Liang Chengmin, quick-eyed and quick-handed, snatched it back: “You can’t eat this! You need to avoid certain foods!” Seeing Luan Mingrui about to grab again, she raised her eyes: “Just try to eat one! I’m a doctor!”
He withdrew his hand, only eating vegetables, watching as Liang Chengmin ate all the shrimp and crab clean.
After finishing, she asked him: “Didn’t you say you’d tell me how to avoid blind dates?”
“You dislike blind dates that much?”
“Do you like blind dates?”
“I don’t like them either.” Luan Mingrui beckoned with his finger: “Come closer, I’ll tell you how to avoid blind dates.”
Liang Chengmin leaned forward a bit, listening as Luan Mingrui said: “It’s simple, marry me.”
Liang Chengmin didn’t react at first, but after a couple of seconds, her face suddenly flushed red. She left with just one sentence: “Are you sick in the head?!” She stood up and ran out.
What kind of person was he? After meeting just a few times, saying such things!
She had already run dozens of meters away, then turned and ran back, seeing Luan Mingrui standing there watching her. Her face reddened again: “What’s wrong with you?! Is this something to joke about? How can you be so frivolous!”
“We’ve only met a few times, haven’t we? Do I know who you are? Do I understand what kind of person you are?”
Luan Mingrui didn’t speak, his dark eyes looking at her, listening to her speak like a machine gun.
He knew what he was saying.
That day, watching her queue for soy sauce, standing there reciting like a monk in deep meditation, she was truly a bit foolish. He didn’t know why, but his heart moved a little.
He especially wanted to tease her.
Seeing her anxious amused him.
After scolding him, Liang Chengmin ran off again, like a gust of wind.
The next day, during her consultation hours, after seeing all her patients, she sat at her desk flipping through a book, waiting to get off work. After a while, someone knocked on the door. She looked up to see Luan Mingrui with an appointment slip: “I need my dressing changed.”
“Go find a nurse to change it.”
“You’re turning away a patient? Where’s your medical ethics?”
Luan Mingrui sat there refusing to leave. Liang Chengmin had no choice but to ask the nurse to bring gauze and medical alcohol to clean his wound.
The wound was both itchy and painful, his gaze falling on Liang Chengmin’s earlobe.
Luan Mingrui was quite peculiar. He was always decisive—when he decided to do business, he put everything aside for it; in the past, when he said he wouldn’t marry, he didn’t marry. Now, for reasons unclear even to him, he had set his eyes on this one, and it had to be this one.
He must marry her and bring her home.
After Liang Chengmin finished changing his dressing, she told him: “Tomorrow, you don’t need an appointment to change the dressing.”
“I made an appointment just to ask you one thing: Want to go eat crab again?”
…
“I’m in the seafood business, not as noble as you doctors. I’m just a self-employed individual that others look down upon, but there’s one thing: if you marry me, you can eat as much shrimp and crab as you want. As much as you desire.”
What kind of talk was this!
“Can’t my family afford crabs?” Liang Chengmin retorted: “I can’t marry you. My parents said I should marry someone with stable work, like a teacher, worker, or doctor—anything would do. Just not a self-employed person.”
“You’re serious?” Luan Mingrui looked at her.
“Why would I lie to you?” Her parents never said such things; Liang Chengmin was deliberately provoking him. Who told him to initially find fault with her family background, as if having a bit of money made him so extraordinary?
She lowered her head to write him a prescription so he could change the dressing himself at home, when she heard the door slam shut. He had left.
What a terrible temper!