13 Hello, my name is Master!
Ni Yue stared at Chen Yuang blankly for a few seconds.
It wasn't because of anything else, but it was like I was possessed by a ghost. The image of the male nurse giving me an injection suddenly appeared in my mind, and it was... an injection in the butt.
It wasn't until she felt her cheeks getting hot that she came back to her senses. She quickly drove the shameful thought out of her mind and said politely, "I didn't expect you to come over after your night shift to chat with me. I'm really sorry. Let me treat you to dinner!"
"Hey, of course it's my treat. How can I let a girl pay?" Chen Yuang also spoke in an official tone. "It just so happens that I'm craving yakitori! This restaurant is my second canteen. I come here every few days. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry, I just buy takeout and eat it back."
"Oh?" Speaking of being in a hurry, Ni Yue couldn't help but be curious, "You're a nurse, so you must be very busy. How do you have time to read online novels?"
Chen Yuang smiled and said, "Of course I can't watch it while I'm on duty. I only take a few minutes to watch it before and after get off work."
Like Ni Yue, he has loved reading since he was a child. He calls himself a half-literary youth, and he has a wide range of interests in various fields. He reads all kinds of books. The number of books he has marked on Douban is as high as hundreds of pages.
However, in the past few years since he started working, he has read more non-fiction literature in the social sciences and less novels.
"This book by Paoqiu Jie is the first and only online novel I've read. Fortunately, she updates slowly, so I can just read it when I have time, and it doesn't interfere with anything else!"
"Huh! Is this your first online novel about buying stocks, a female-oriented one?"
It feels a bit weird.
Seeing Ni Yue's incredible expression, Chen Yuang laughed, and his laughter was mixed with nasal trills, which was very pleasant to hear.
In fact, the book "Love and Night on Changle Road" was recommended to Chen Yuang by a patient who had stayed in Huajin Hospital for half a year.
The little girl was supposed to take the college entrance examination in June this year, but during Christmas last year, she suddenly had a high fever that wouldn't go away. After being admitted to the hospital, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and has never left the hospital since then.
That day, the little girl had just finished chemotherapy, and Chen Yuang was helping her with potassium infusion. Seeing that she ignored him and kept giggling with her cell phone, he curiously asked her what she was looking at. She grinned and put the phone in front of him, then pointed to the road outside the window and said that this was a love story that happened on Changle Road.
"This story is so so so so so so so so so... so good!"
Chen Yuang imitated the little girl and said a series of "special" in a shrill voice with pinched throat.
Ni Yue was amused by him, "No wonder! Do you discuss the plot often?"
"Not often, just occasionally. I'm usually too busy. But whenever I go to her ward to make rounds, draw blood, give injections, dispense medication, take her temperature... no matter what, as long as she's awake, we'll chat for a few minutes. Occasionally, when she's feeling better, she'll come to the nurses' station to find me. And, you know what?"
Chen Yuang pretended to be mysterious and stretched his neck forward. Ni Yue also leaned forward unconsciously. Above the narrow wooden square table, their foreheads were very close.
"...This little girl is quite clever. One day, she was lying in bed, watching me change the dressing on my IV drip, and suddenly said with conviction: 'Nurse Chen, that 'lantern goddess' who was arguing with 'Uncle Ni' in the comments section is you!"
"Aha!" Ni Yue leaned back and laughed, "She really has a sharp eye!"
"Of course!" Chen Yuang's eyes curved with laughter. "I thought I was hiding it well!"
"I guess..." Ni Yue suppressed his smile and raised his eyebrows slightly, "She also likes the male lead?"
Chen Yuang snorted, his tone casual, "That's right, she's just like you, love-brained and Stockholm syndrome, there's no cure."
Upon hearing this, Ni Yue straightened his back abruptly – this guy was actually dancing in his own minefield, wasn't that a bit too outrageous?!
She pursed her lips and pretended to be angry, but she saw Chen Yuang's mouth twitching unnaturally, and a trace of sadness appeared between his brows.
She had a bad feeling, and her attitude softened again. She asked with concern, "What's wrong?"
"Oh, I won't have the chance to discuss the plot with this little girl anymore."
"She's been discharged?"
"She passed away yesterday," Chen Yuang added, fearing Ni Yue might not understand. "She left this world."
"Ah!" She shuddered.
"Sometimes I think maybe she was just relying on reading online articles to stay alive. The doctor in charge said her condition was very serious. If it were someone else, they might have passed away two months ago, but she managed to hold on until yesterday."
After saying that, Chen Yuang picked up the cup and took a sip of tea, suppressing the grief in his heart.
He had been a nurse for several years and should have been accustomed to the comings and goings, but the departure of this little girl made him particularly sad.
"It's a pity that she didn't live to see the end of the story!" Ni Yue lowered his eyes and sighed, with sparkling eyes.
Seeing the atmosphere become heavy, Chen Yuang quickly calmed down and made a light-hearted joke, "So you have to live well and witness the successful pairing of the heroine and your domineering male lead!"
As expected, Ni Yue burst out laughing, picked up a tissue and wiped the corner of his eyes, and said hurriedly: "Don't worry, that day will definitely come!"
No way! he thought to himself.
The waiter brought the first batch of yakitori, two skewers of each type, served on thin plates.
"Eat it, you're welcome!" Chen Yuang picked up a bunch of chicken legs and put them on the plate in front of her, then picked up another bunch and brought it to his mouth.
The chicken thigh was grilled to perfection, sizzling with oil and not burnt. He ate half of it and asked as he ate, "So you're a bath assistant, right?"
For Chen Yuang, who studied nursing, the term "bath assistant" is not a new one. He has known for many years that bath assistants are very common in Japan.
"That's right!" Ni Yue replied while eating, with oil on her lips. "But I've only been in this business for a few weeks. Before that, I worked as an early childhood educator in Beijing!"
"No wonder! I just remember your previous IP address was in Beijing. So, when you asked me out today, did you want to talk about work? Or...?"
He probed cautiously.
Seeing that the topic was getting on track, Ni Yue threw the bamboo sticks into the small bamboo tube at hand, picked up a tissue to wipe his mouth, sat up straight, and was about to speak when he heard a "buzzing..." sound like an electric drill coming from the table.
It was her cell phone that was lying upside down on the table.
The uneven wooden tabletop aggravated the vibrations, which spread along her arms and instantly spread throughout her body like an ant climbing a tree. Even her upper and lower teeth began to vibrate unconsciously.
A bad premonition arose in her heart, and she immediately swallowed her words. She turned over her phone and saw that it was Zhang Chenling!
Without caring about avoiding suspicion, she answered the phone in front of Chen Yuang, "Cousin, what's wrong?"
"Ni Yue, are you home?"
"I'm not here. I'm outside."
"Something happened to Xiao Ma!"
"Ah! What happened to him?"
"He just had blood in his stool at home and is now in the emergency room of the hospital."
"Ah! How could that be? Which hospital is he in?"
"Joaquin Hospital!"
"I'm near Joaquin Hospital. I'll go over and take a look right away!"
"Great, I'm already at the hospital entrance. See you in the emergency room!"
"Okay, okay!" Ni Yue hung up the phone in a hurry, looked up and saw Chen Yuang snapping his fingers at the waiter, indicating that he should take away the food and pay the bill.
Then he turned and winked at her, "You're not familiar with Joaquin, let me show you the way!"
Two people, carrying a bag of fragrant yakitori, trotted all the way to the emergency room of Joaquin Hospital.
On a hospital bed in the corner, Xiao Ma Ge was lying on an IV drip. He seemed unaffected by the noise in the emergency room and fell asleep with his eyes closed.
The hand connected to the IV bottle was pressed on my lower abdomen, and it seemed that it still hurt.
Sitting beside the bed was a middle-aged woman with short hair and a sad face, probably his wife.
Zhang Chenling stood beside the woman, looking at Xiao Ma Ge with a serious expression. She saw Ni Yue coming out of the corner of her eye and immediately nodded to her.
Ni Yue came close to his cousin and asked quietly, "Is Xiao Ma brother okay?"
"The doctor said that based on his symptoms, he initially diagnosed something growing in his intestines. After the injection, he will be transferred to the gastroenterology ward and scheduled for a colonoscopy tomorrow morning."
"Ah..." Ni Yue choked, feeling that the situation was not good.
"The doctor said that no matter whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, it has to be operated on!" His wife looked up and added, her eyes full of bloodshot.
Ni Yue exchanged a few pleasantries with her, reassuring her not to worry too much, and then asked her cousin with a worried look on her face, "What about this afternoon?"
Zhang Chenling put her arm around Ni Yue's shoulders and whispered, "Only the two of us can take that order this afternoon!"
Her other hand subconsciously touched the small shoulder bag slung across her body, and through a thin layer of nylon cloth, her fingertips rubbed repeatedly on a hard object.
Just now, Xiao Ma Ge’s wife handed the keys of the van to Zhang Chenling, and they will go downstairs of Xiao Ma Ge’s house to pick up the car later.
Ni Yue nodded reluctantly. She couldn't help feeling anxious. The client she was going to have this afternoon was a polio patient, and there were many things that needed to be paid attention to. Could she and her cousin handle it together?
If it really doesn't work, I can only ask the patient's family to help.
"Huh?—" An idea suddenly flashed through her mind, and she blurted out: "I almost forgot! We have reinforcements!"
Then he turned and walked towards Chen Yuang.
The emergency room was in a mess with people coming and going. Only then did Zhang Chenling notice that the man who came in after Ni Yue was standing at the end of Xiao Ma Ge's bed listening to their conversation.
Her eyes swept across the man's face like a radar. Hmm, he's good-looking!
To describe it in Northeastern dialect, it is "having a nose and eyes": high brow bones, lively single eyelids, straight and strong nose bridge, fair and translucent skin, and a fashionable Hong Kong-style 3:7 back hair. The whole person looks energetic and fashionable.
Wait! That cleavage in the middle of his chin looks familiar, like I've seen it somewhere...
Ni Yue walked up to the man, grabbed his shirt sleeves with both hands and begged, "Chen Yuang, are you off work this afternoon? Can you help me out? We need to bathe a client with polio this afternoon, and I'm afraid the two of us can't handle it. Please!"
"No problem, no problem. I was just about to volunteer!" The man agreed with a red face, his chin nodding like a pile driver.
Zhang Chenling couldn't help laughing: Cousin, sure!
The three people left Huajin Hospital and took a taxi to pick up the car downstairs of Xiao Ma Ge's house. Then, the experienced driver Zhang Chenling stepped on the accelerator all the way to the downstairs of a high-end residential area in People's Square.
Ni Yue and Chen Yuang sat in the back, ignoring the bumpy road, and wolfed down the roasted bird they had just packed.
It wasn't until the van drove into the residential complex that Ni Yue opened the window, looked up at the tall buildings in the garden community, and asked curiously, "The housing prices in this community are probably not low, right?"
"About a few hundred thousand!" Chen Yuang said expressionlessly, "Not as expensive as Jing'an Temple."
"Of course!" Zhang Chenling looked at the young face in the rearview mirror and sneered, "How can it compare to Jing'an Temple? Jing'an Temple is the pinnacle of the universe!"
Chen Yuang twitched the corner of his mouth, "That's not the case."
Zhang Chenling added, "This client must be well-off, otherwise they wouldn't have raised a son with polio for over 20 years. His mother said she spent a ton of money on him—not just his medical expenses."
How much money can you spend staying home every day? ...Ni Yue disagreed.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she walked into the customer's house, she was stunned by the scene before her.
It's a large flat with a very spacious living room, about 50 to 60 square meters, but there is no TV or sofa. The two facing walls of the living room are occupied by huge glass display cabinets.
Each display case has five layers: the top two are densely packed with wigs, worn on mannequins—long, short, straight, curly, black, white, yellow, gray... Look closely, and you'll see each mannequin has a slightly different expression. The middle two layers are filled with transparent storage bags, seemingly filled with clothes. The bottom layer is filled with all sorts of bizarre objects: long white feathers, a long-handled sword like an unearthed artifact, giant scissors with multiple prongs, and black riveted leather boots that could kill with a single kick...
There is also a large floor lamp in the corner of the living room for lighting.
Ni Yue couldn't help but recall that when she went back to her hometown for the Chinese New Year last year, Wu Xia dragged her and Ni Ying to a photo studio in the town that had been in business for decades and took a set of parent-child photos worth 199 yuan.
This client's home is very similar to that photo studio, both are a bit weird and creepy.
"Coser!" Chen Yuang leaned over and whispered to Ni Yue.
"Huh?" She didn't understand and looked up at him, her gaze lingering on his Adam's apple that was jumping up and down for a few seconds.
"These are all the equipment for 2D cosplayers!" He answered for the second time, and he moved closer, his hot air blowing on her face, making her feel warm.
As soon as he finished speaking, the aunt who had opened the door for them came out of the bedroom pushing a wheelchair.
The boy sitting in the wheelchair is today's client.
He had a mop of unkempt hair and a tiny face, like the pointed faces of the female influencers on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). His eyes were barely visible beneath his hair, and his skin was pale, almost bloodless, probably from staying indoors all the time, never getting any sun. He wore clean, plain house clothes. He wasn't big, and his legs, dangling down, were twisted pigeon-toed, with his trouser legs looking empty.
The aunt pushing the wheelchair smiled and said, "He insisted on coming out to say hello to you first!" She was the boy's mother.
The boy had a blank expression on his face and a somewhat arrogant attitude, "Hello, my name is Master!"
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