Liang Сhеngmin returned hоme and disсоvеrеd thе grаin couрons in another pieсе of сlothing, fееling nоthing but rеgret. Тhе sсоlding shе had rеceived frоm Luаn Mingrui lеft her feeling uttеrly humiliatеd.
The nехt dау аftеr wоrk, she ran intо thе familу mеmbеrs of а formеr рatient. Тhеy рulled her asidе, anxiouslу аsking аbout thе next steрs in thе trеatmеnt рlаn аnd whеthеr therе wаs anу waу to savе monеу, аs their funds hаd run drу.
Liаng Сhengmin patiеntly explainеd to them: If the сhild’s surgery wаsn’t pеrfоrmed sоon, the condition would worsen, and it would be the child who suffered. The suffering would only increase.
The parents wept in front of Liang Chengmin, their tears breaking her heart. With reddened eyes, she comforted them for a long time, but there was no better solution. Liang Chengmin felt she hadn’t cultivated enough resilience—encounters like this would leave her upset for days.
By the time she parted ways with the patient’s family, it was almost dark. She stomped her foot in frustration—now she’d have to face accusations of being a deadbeat again.
She hurried to the supply and marketing cooperative on her bicycle. At the entrance, she saw Luan Mingrui sitting casually under the crooked-neck tree in front of the cooperative. His white shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the collar unbuttoned, and he frowned at her as she arrived late.
Liang Chengmin remained polite, handing him the coupons. “I’m really sorry, something came up at the hospital just now.”
Luan Mingrui didn’t reach out to take them. “Returning something late—if all doctors were like you, how would they save lives?”
…Liang Chengmin immediately grew angry at his words. She slapped the coupons onto the bench. “Here, I’ve returned them. The crooked-neck tree is my witness. Whether you take them or not is up to you. Anyway, your family is rich.”
“Keep them. Anyway, my family is rich.” Luan Mingrui placed the coupons in her bicycle basket. He was tall, casting a shadow over Liang Chengmin. Looking down, he saw her long, upturned eyelashes, but when she raised her face to glare at him, she was clearly furious.
Luan Mingrui never backed down in an argument, and Liang Chengmin’s refusal to yield, whether to soft or hard tactics, intrigued him. Whether his family was rich or not didn’t matter—he just felt this little doctor’s temper needed to be tamed. He completely forgot that he himself was the one with the infuriatingly stubborn temper.
“Who wants your stupid things!”
“Didn’t you use them to buy soy sauce yesterday?”
“……” Liang Chengmin had never encountered someone like him. Her large eyes glared at him, anger radiating from her, her chest heaving with fury. Her eyes grew moist with rage, tears threatening to spill. After a long pause, she finally managed to blurt out, “Are you sick?”
“Yeah, I’m sick.”
How was she supposed to respond to that?
“Move!” Luan Mingrui stood in front of her bicycle, refusing to budge. Seeing him unmoved, Liang Chengmin turned her bicycle around, mounted it, and rode away. A young woman riding a large-frame bicycle, swaying left and right, looked rather comical. Luan Mingrui let out a snort of laughter.
He thought this little doctor was quite amusing. Her temper was terrible—no wonder she was still unmarried at twenty-seven.
A few days later, he returned from Lianyungang and saw Liang Chengmin in front of the state-run restaurant. Strangely enough, ever since their blind date, he kept running into her. She was sitting on a wooden bench, holding a thick book. As he approached, he saw it was filled with diagrams of the human body. Her fingers traced the pages as she murmured to herself, “Like this, then like this, cut, suture.”
She looked utterly focused.
“Liang Chengmin,” he called out to her.
Liang Chengmin looked up at him, her eyes immediately narrowing—she truly remembered him now. She lowered her head, ignoring him.
“Liang Chengmin, take a look at my wound.”
Luan Mingrui rolled up his sleeve and extended his arm toward her. A deep, bloody gash ran across it."Go to the hospital and register tomorrow if you want to see a doctor!"
Liang Chengmin looked down again, unable to bear the sight. Snap! She closed the book, grabbed his arm. The wound was too deep, and so long: "How did this happen? Did you get a shot? Why didn't you go get it bandaged?"
"I got a shot. There's no medical gauze at home." Luan Mingrui lied; he hadn't gone home at all.
"Come with me!" Liang Chengmin stood up with a stern face, about to leave, only then remembering she was here for a blind date today: "Wait a moment!" She ran to the front of the restaurant and said to Barber Wang: "Uncle, could you keep an eye out for me? In a little while, a tall man with a rolled-up newspaper will sit in that chair. Tell him I have a patient and will be back soon."
After saying that, she turned to Luan Mingrui: "Let's go."
Luan Mingrui walked beside her, glanced back, and saw the man with the rolled-up newspaper arriving, but he didn't say anything. Turning back, he mocked her: "Another blind date?"
"What's it to you?"
Liang Chengmin led him to her doorstep: "Wait here." She dashed inside.
Luan Mingrui heard a woman's voice scolding her: "Why are you running? How old are you, still so restless?"
"I'm saving a life!" Liang Chengmin ran out holding a small box, sat on the old stone slab in front of her house: "Come here."
Luan Mingrui crouched before her, extending his arm. She was really bold—his wound was so gruesome, yet she didn't even flinch, deftly applying iodine and bandaging it. You could call her foolish, but her expressions were lively. Luan Mingrui didn't know why, but his heart itched a little.
"You got a shot? Got a shot but didn't bandage it?" Liang Chengmin finally realized.
"No, I didn't." Luan Mingrui pulled down his sleeve. Crouching there, he was shorter than Liang Chengmin sitting on the stone, looking up at her slightly. The eyes behind his glasses were like a hawk's, unsettling to behold.
"...Ignorant!" Liang Chengmin got angry again. Ever since she met Luan Mingrui, he always managed to upset her. She didn't know why herself—usually, when not working, her temper was incredibly mild, yet Luan Mingrui repeatedly drove her to the brink of fury.
After returning the medicine box, she remembered someone was still waiting for the blind date at the state-run restaurant and turned to run outside, only to see Luan Mingrui still standing there. On the southern bluestone-paved road, he stood blocking half the path, like a menacing thug.
"Why aren't you leaving?"
"Are you going to the state-run restaurant for the blind date?" Luan Mingrui asked her.
"Yes."
"Let's go, it's on my way."
Tall and long-legged, he dawdled behind Liang Chengmin. Anxious, she turned and said to him: "Hurry up, will you!"
"My arm hurts."
"Your arm hurts, not your leg! What are you dawdling for?"
"Late for a date with me, but in a hurry for someone else?" Luan Mingrui said this indifferently, refusing to walk faster.
Liang Chengmin ignored him, quickening her pace on her own. Her floral-patterned shirt billowed slightly in the breeze at the back.
Luan Mingrui followed behind her, thinking, So eager for a blind date—you really are desperate to marry.
The man with the rolled-up newspaper was also hopeless—impatient, he left without a trace.
Luan Mingrui remarked sarcastically from the side: "You think everyone is like me? You're late, and they still wait for you?"
"Is your life all about work and blind dates? Are blind dates that interesting?"
"If you don't go on blind dates, you'll never get married?""Luan Mingrui!" Liang Chengmin was annoyed by his nagging. "Aren't you tired of this?"
"What does my blind date have to do with you? Why do you care so much?"
"Aren't you going on blind dates too? How dare you criticize me?"
"And why was I late today? It's all because of you!"
"Then who made you late the day we met?" Luan Mingrui suddenly shot back.
Luan Mingrui really held a grudge.
Liang Chengmin couldn't be bothered with him and turned to leave, but then she heard Luan Mingrui ask, "Are you hungry?"
"No!"
"I'm going to eat. Are you coming?"
"No!"
"Do you dislike blind dates?" Luan Mingrui asked again. Seeing her eyes flicker, he knew she didn't like them either. "If you join me for a meal, I'll give you an idea to avoid blind dates forever."
"You're lying."
"If I'm lying, I'm not human."
The two entered a state-run restaurant and sat facing each other.
"What do you like to eat?" Luan Mingrui asked her.
"Crab and shrimp." Liang Chengmin wasn't lying. In the past, shrimp and crab were hard to come by, but her father always managed to get them for her. She'd never lacked for good food since childhood.
"Oh."
Luan Mingrui ordered boiled shrimp, drunken crab, and stir-fried vegetables. The dishes looked quite appealing together.
Liang Chengmin didn't hold back, delicately peeling the shrimp with her fingers.
Luan Mingrui was too lazy to peel them, finding it messy, so he seized the opportunity to snatch one after she peeled it. Liang Chengmin swiftly snatched it back. "You can't eat this! You need to avoid certain foods!" Seeing Luan Mingrui still trying to grab it, she glared. "Try eating one! I'm a doctor!"
He withdrew his hand and only ate the vegetables, watching as Liang Chengmin polished off all the shrimp and crab.
After finishing, she asked him, "Didn't you say you'd tell me how to avoid blind dates?"
"Do you really dislike them that much?"
"Do you like blind dates?"
"I don't like them either." Luan Mingrui crooked his finger. "Come closer, and I'll tell you how to avoid them."
Liang Chengmin actually leaned forward a little, listening as Luan Mingrui said, "It's simple. Marry me."
At first, Liang Chengmin didn't react. Two seconds later, her face flushed bright red. She threw out, "Are you crazy?" and stood up, running out.
What kind of person says something like that after only meeting a few times!
She had run dozens of meters away before turning back. Seeing Luan Mingrui standing there watching her, her face flushed again. "What's wrong with you! How can you joke about something like that so casually? How can you be so frivolous!"
"We've only met a few times! Do I even know who you are? Do I understand what kind of person you are?"
Luan Mingrui didn't speak, his dark eyes fixed on her as she rattled off words like a machine gun.
He knew exactly what he was saying.
That day, he saw her standing in line to buy soy sauce, her back as still as a monk in meditation—a genuine fool. He didn't know why, but something stirred in his heart.
He really wanted to provoke her.
Seeing her flustered amused him.
After scolding him, Liang Chengmin ran off again, like a gust of wind.
The next day, she was on duty. After seeing all her patients, she sat at her desk, flipping through papers while waiting to clock out. After a while, someone knocked on the door. She looked up to see Luan Mingrui enter with a ticket. "I need my dressing changed."
"Go to the nurse for that."
"Are you turning away a patient? Where's your medical ethics?"
Luan Mingrui sat down and refused to leave. Liang Chengmin had no choice but to ask a nurse to bring gauze and medical alcohol to clean his wound.
The wound itched and ached slightly, and his gaze fell on Liang Chengmin's earlobe.Luan Mingrui is quite a character. He's always decisive—when he said he'd go into business, he dropped everything to do just that; before, when he said he wouldn't marry, he meant it, and now, for reasons unclear, he's set his sights on this one, so it has to be this one.
He must marry her.
After Liang Chengmin finished changing his bandages, she said to him, "You don't need to register tomorrow for a bandage change."
"I registered just to ask you one thing: are we still going to eat crab?"
...
"I'm in the seafood business, not as noble as your work as a doctor. I'm just a self-employed individual others look down on, but there's one thing: if you marry me, you can eat shrimp and crab whenever you want. As much as you like."
What kind of talk is that!
"Can't my family afford crab?" Liang Chengmin retorted angrily. "I can't marry you. My parents said I should marry someone with a stable job—a teacher, a worker, a doctor, anything. Just not a self-employed individual."
"You're serious, aren't you?" Luan Mingrui looked at her.
"Why would I lie to you?" Her parents had never said any such thing; Liang Chengmin was deliberately provoking him. Who told him to look down on her family's financial situation in the first place? As if having a bit of money made him so special.
She lowered her head to write his prescription, telling him to change the bandages at home, when she heard the door slam shut—he was gone.
What a terrible temper!
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