[The map is unrolled, the real intention is revealed.]
[Family, is this a proper doctor?]
[I also want to sign up to join Xiao Snow Cat’s little snow cat, let’s distribute it like this: me one day, me one day, me one day, the little cat rests one day, me one day, me one day, the little cat rests one day…]
[First day reporting to Little Snow’s primary school…Mom your primary school has so many people >_< I’m getting crushed to death >_<]
[Accidentally slipped into Snow Cat’s Xiaoxue, so much water… ○○°° ○○○○ Oh no, I’m drowning… ○○ . ○○ Help… 0000○○○○ Gurgle gurgle ○.○° ]
[***, *** and other users have been banned for 3650 years. This is a public warning: Please do not send pornography and other harmful information in the live stream.]
Gu Mifeng’s gaze swept over the hand He Qinghong had placed on the young man’s waist, his phoenix eyes narrowing slightly. “Madam, what is your opinion on this?”
“I mind.” Xin Hexue spoke calmly, “Too many people poses risks. If my husband finds out, he will hit me.”
The corners of his eyes were burning with a feverish red. His usually light pink lips also took on a bloody hue, and they were curved slightly. When he looked at someone with a hint of a smile, he looked like a foxy wife who had been lovingly kissed thoroughly by her husband.
Gu Mifeng took a deep look at those lips.
“Is that so? Does he use his face to hit your hand?”
“Then he’s really good at getting a bargain.”
The smile at the corner of Xin Hexue’s lips faded. “Are you the doctor of this clinic? Aren’t there any medical ethics requirements during the medical qualification exam?”
Covering his mouth with his hand, he coughed listlessly. “I’d better go to another clinic.”
Just as he turned to leave, Gu Mifeng spoke from behind. “Apart from mine, none of the other clinics in the Walled City have a Western medicine qualification.”
Xin Hexue’s steps paused and he turned back.
……
A small wooden sign with chalk writing hung swaying from a small nail on the red wooden door;
“Temporarily Closed.”
The handwriting was flamboyant and cursive, with a heavy dot at the end, as if carved deep into the wood.
He Qinghong’s face was gloomy, his emotions unreadable. He just stood there in the room like a long spear, steady and fierce, his sharp edge overflowing.
Gu Mifeng treated him as if he weren’t there and looked at his patient. “Where do you feel unwell?”
Xin Hexue pulled his coat tighter. “I started feeling chills all over last night, then I woke up this morning with a feverish forehead, muscle aches, and a bit of a cough.”
“Let’s take your temperature first.”
Gu Mifeng handed a mercury thermometer to Xin Hexue.
After a few minutes of silence, Gu Mifeng took the warm thermometer and glanced at it. “38.6 degrees.”
He took a stethoscope from a stand nearby and gestured to Xin Hexue. “Unbutton your coat.”
Xin Hexue slowly undid the buttons of his outer garment. The diagonal fastening, high-collared satin cheongsam wrapped around a thin, flat chest.
A mischievous smile flashed in Gu Mifeng’s eyes.
Actually, Xin Hexue’s disguise was successful. Combined with the lighting in that photo, the facial features weren’t very clear. The first impression people had of the person before them was of a tall, slender, beautiful woman. Even if the height was noticeable among the same sex, the delicate aura and subtle charm he carried was prominent, along with a glass-like fragility, which covered up some of the abrupt details. Even if the facial features were similar to the young violinist in the photo, people wouldn’t directly think of a man disguised as a woman.
Unfortunately, Gu Mifeng knew him.
So he could recognize him at a glance.
The flat chest piece of the stethoscope was cold and Xin Hexue unconsciously frowned.
After a while, Gu Mifeng removed the stethoscope and scribbled something on a prescription pad with a pen, the handwriting style possessing the profession’s characteristic illegibility.
“Any abdominal pain?”
Gu Mifeng asked as he wrote.
Xin Hexue’s coat was still unbuttoned. His lower abdomen was already being pressed in various directions by a large, broad hand.
Gu Mifeng raised an eyebrow. “Does this hurt?”
Xin Hexue shook his head.
Just as Gu Mifeng was about to withdraw his hand, there was a strange movement beneath the supple curve where his fingertip pressed, as if something had kicked him.
“Huh?”
Gu Mifeng pressed a few more times.
“…It doesn’t hurt.”
Xin Hexue thought the other party was insisting on a verbal answer rather than a shake of the head, and patiently answered again.
He Qinghong, who had been half-leaning against the wall, straightened up, his pitch-black eyes locking onto this doctor who was groping a patient and disregarding medical ethics.
That kicking sensation disappeared again.
Gu Mifeng withdrew his hand sheepishly, raising it slightly to show his harmlessness.
“Any drug allergies?”
“No.”
While writing the prescription, Gu Mifeng asked one more question. “Have you been feeling nauseous suddenly during this period?”
Xin Hexue: “Once this morning, after suddenly drinking cold water.”
He didn’t understand why Gu Mifeng suddenly asked this.
When Gu Mifeng handed him the medicine packaged in a white plastic bag, Xin Hexue noticed there was one particularly different item inside.
The brand was a foreign name. Xin Hexue had seen its advertisements in S City. It was a domestic brand’s… pregnancy test.
“You have a common cold. I’ve prescribed some fever reducers and cough medicine for you. Drink plenty of water and get more rest.” Gu Mifeng paused for a moment. “The extra one is a free gift, just in case.”
Remembering something, he added: “Oh, right, remember to tell this gentleman you’re having an affair with to be more careful during this time. Sexual activity shouldn’t be too frequent.”
……
The key was inserted into the lock, turned right three times, and the door opened with a light sound.
Xin Hexue lowered his eyes. “Please come in.”
He Qinghong stood at the doorway for a while, until the other person reminded him, “Same as last time, no need to change shoes.”
“Mm.”
When He Qinghong entered, he instinctively surveyed the surroundings out of habit.
It was even messier than the last time he came.
The drawer pulled open in the TV cabinet had its contents rummaged through and not put back. The laundry basket had toppled over, and the unwashed clothes inside were spilling out at a corner. A teacup on the dining table wasn’t placed neatly in its proper position…
To be honest, it was a bit messy.
For He Qinghong, it was messier than he could bear.
Xin Hexue looked listless, and his speech was tinged with a soft nasal tone. “Sorry, usually my husband is the one who tidies up…”
He Qinghong did not comment.
A moment later, when Xin Hexue looked at him again, He Qinghong had already started putting on the apron that Zhou Liao usually wore.
His expression was cold and detached as he picked up the things from the floor, neatly categorizing and storing them in the drawers.
One illiterate, honest husband leaves, and countless capable husbands rise up to take his place.
Xin Hexue smiled with satisfaction, but his tone pretended to be apprehensive. “Mr. He, you don’t have to do these things, I’ll tidy up later…”
“What do you want for lunch?” He Qinghong was still organizing things, as if he hadn’t heard. “You can’t take medicine on an empty stomach.”
Xin Hexue: “Scallion oil noodles, no scallions, add an egg, is that okay?”
He Qinghong: “It’s better not have eggs with a cold.”
Xin Hexue: “Okay, change it to minced meat.”
Xin Hexue said with a smile, picking out the sole foreign-branded item from the plastic bag of fever reducers and cough medicine and discreetly tossing it into the trash can by the bed.
He had checked around as they returned. Among the several clinics in the Walled city, apart from Gu Mifeng, the rest were all traditional Chinese medicine clinics, naturally without Western medicine qualifications.
…What a quack.
……..
At night, He Qinghong left the apartment.
When he closed the door, Xin Hexue had already taken the medicine and was sleeping soundly in bed. The light from the bedside lamp was soft and yellowish, making the young man’s sleeping face appear beautiful and peaceful, the hollow of his collarbone holding a little light.
It reminded him of the white java sparrow not yet fully feathered that had crashed into the brown glass during the typhoon rain evening.
He Qinghong burned one of the three photos of the targets.
The reason was that he still hadn’t collected the three hundred thousand from Zhou Liao. So, someone should be able to take on Zhou Liao’s debt.
He couldn’t let his money go down the drain.
That was probably the simple logic behind it.
………
Xin Hexue recovered by the third day.
At the same time, he discovered one thing.
The top left corner of the identity card displayed the real-time number of surviving players. When he first passed the trial level, the number was ten.
Now it was nine.
Xin Hexue took out the folded recruitment notice from the coat he wore that day and let out a breath.
When he left home carrying his violin, he originally wanted to thank He Qinghong, since the other party had been taking care of his meals for these three days.
But knocking on the neighbor’s door yielded no response.
A note was tucked in the door crack. Xin Hexue pulled it out; “I have a matter to attend to, I’m out.”
So that was it.
Xin Hexue stuffed the note back into its place and went downstairs.
…….
Flowers Kindergarten was one of only two kindergartens in Nanwan Walled City. After Xin Hexue entered the office and demonstrated his violin skills to the principal and exchanged a few simple questions, his interview was successfully passed.
After all, apart from his actual gender, the conditions listed on the recruitment notice were practically a tailor-made position targeted at Xin Hexue.
The principal of Flowers Kindergarten was a woman who looked like the stereotypical image of a head teacher, efficient in style, her eyebrows, eyes, and bone structure giving a sense of sternness.
“Can you start work today?”
Xin Hexue nodded. Just as the principal was about to say something more to him, the office landline phone rang at the right moment.
Another teacher knocked on the office door.
The principal dismissed him: “Just right, let Teacher Li take you to the class first. The kindergarten uniform will be given to you tomorrow.”
There were about five hundred preschool-aged children in Nanwan Walled City. Flowers Kindergarten accommodated nearly three hundred of them, divided into ten classes, with roughly thirty students per class.
Each class was assigned two teachers.
Teacher Li led Xin Hexue forward while talking. “With a new colleague coming, it’ll be much easier for me. We just hired a new teacher a while ago, but for some reason, she suddenly stopped coming the last couple of days. We can’t find her anywhere, it’s really strange, like she vanished into thin air…”
“Make way, teachers, please make way…”
Two staff members were each pushing meal carts. On them had the large stainless steel buckets commonly seen in cafeterias. The corridor wasn’t very wide, so Xin Hexue and Teacher Li had to stand against the wall to let them pass first.
Teacher Li said: “That’s the food being delivered to the classes. It’s 9:30 now. Some children might not have eaten breakfast or eaten much when their parents dropped them off in the morning and are hungry. Let them have some congee and buns to tide them over.” Xin Hexue nodded.
Perhaps it was because the floor tiles were uneven, the meal cart jolted, and the lid on the stainless steel bucket fell off with a loud clatter.
“Aiyo, how careless.”
The delivery staff bent down in annoyance to pick it up.
At this moment, Xin Hexue saw through the steaming white mist what was floating in the bucket.
Those things, which he didn’t know if they were fish heads, were tumbling in the scalding hot soup. Clusters of swollen tumors were inflated like blisters, or like bloated, waterlogged human skin from faces.
Xin Hexue took half a step back. “These… are all for the children to eat?”
Teacher Li stood behind him, but his voice seemed to come from far away. “Yes. It looks very appetizing, doesn’t it.”
Suddenly, Xin Hexue heard a trembling, squeaking, gurgling sound.
“Mother…hungry ..”
“Who’s talking?”
Xin Hexue looked around.
Teacher Li felt puzzled and asked: “What’s wrong with you?”
“Didn’t you just hear someone calling ‘Mother’?”
Xin Hexue’s brows were knit together, and his face was somewhat pale.
Teacher Li: “No, no one was speaking just now. Teacher Xin, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”
Xin Hexue adjusted his expression and raised a smile again. “It’s nothing. Maybe my cold from the last couple of days isn’t completely better yet, I’m not in good spirits and misheard.”
His gaze intentionally or unintentionally looked into the bucket again, and he actually, bizarrely, felt an appetite for those things, as if something was affecting his body and thoughts.
“Mother…hungry…”
