Chapter 9: Outliers
Cheating in a relationship is like cheating on a dental project. First, you have to be quick, and second, you have to be proactive. The deal is done in a flash, exploiting human weaknesses and emotional impulses. Once you give them time to think, and once their rationality kicks in, the deal is done.
Jiang Ranxu didn't like being passive; being passive only delayed defeat. Before he could confirm Meng Weishen's sexual orientation, he couldn't be too proactive. Why flirt with a straight man? Wasting time was a minor issue, but embarrassing was a major one.
But Meng Weishen could be called a number one genius. Jiang Ranxu had already wasted a lot of time on Meng Weishen and lost face a lot, and he still hadn't figured out whether he was straight or not.
Or perhaps, he was completely aware intellectually that the other person was most likely straight and that he should have given up long ago, but emotionally he just didn't want to be clear.
Meng Weishen's blind date arrangement is equivalent to forcing Jiang Ranxu to think clearly.
From New Year's Day to the Spring Festival, time seems to have stopped. People are busy finishing up old things, and always want to put off new things until after the festival.
Jiang Ranxu also wanted to postpone it until after the holiday, whether it was Meng Weishen's orthodontic treatment or their emotional problems.
He therefore declined Meng Weishen's invitation to see a doctor. Meng Weishen then wanted to invite him to dinner privately, but he also adopted a passive attitude of reading but not replying.
For the umpteenth time, the watch face flashed a frustrated red expression, warning him of an overload and requiring immediate adjustment. Jiang Ranxu finally turned away from the screen, his mouse hovering over the canine of the tooth model. The tooth was unusually positioned, protruding slightly outward. Everyone, including its owner, was dissatisfied with it and insisted on dragging it into the group.
Jiang Ranxu was a bit absent-minded, casually browsing his Moments. His finger had already swiped across Yan Cunrui's nine-square grid of selfies when his brain went off the alarm. He immediately swiped back and, for the first time, carefully studied Yan Cunrui's Moments updates.
In every selfie, Yan Cunrui's face is nestled against a round medal. The beauty filter is overly exaggerated, distorting the edges of the medal, leaving only a faint glimpse of the embossed logo of a neighboring internet giant.
Yan Cunrui wrote in her circle of friends: Who is so outstanding that he won the company's annual evaluation trophy? I borrowed it to take a photo, hehe~
Who was it? Could it be her ten-year-old son, the goblin?
The watch face began to flash red again, indicating that his heart rate was too fast. After all, he had never seen a harmonious green light many times. Jiang Ranxu simply took off his watch and gave Yan Cunrui a "don't check each other's dynamics" reward.
Yan Cunrui seemed to have received a system prompt from afar, and sent the photos from the circle of friends to his private message, and also attached a few hidden ones.
[Gui Yi Life] Doctor Jiang, I always feel that my breasts are not full enough. Can you help me take a closer look and see if they are full enough?
Jiang Ranxu couldn't help but focus on the medal, trying to make out the name on it that had been erased by the skin smoothing function. After a while, he finally figured out that the other party meant that the teeth were not full enough.
[R Jiang] Your teeth are already quite straight. If you're looking for a perfect shape, you could consider having a doctor design a smile line and then getting full-mouth veneers. Veneers made of Dentsply's Lingxi porcelain are a good choice; they'll create a more natural effect, with noticeable depth and clarity. The price won't be a problem for you.
[Gui Yi Life] You are the doctor, can you do it with me yourself? I want you to do it with your own hands (shy)
Among the mothers who took their children to the dentist, Jiang Ranxu had long since lost his chastity. There were those who invited him to dinner, drinks, and mahjong alone, those who video-called him in the middle of the night to lament their unhappy marriages, and those who took their children to the dentist and ended up lying on his chair. There was everything.
He didn't mind sending some ambiguous messages to the mothers to achieve the revenue-generating goal emphasized by Director Tan. But when faced with such a proactive Yan Cunrui, Jiang Ranxu still hesitated.
Jiang Ranxu was about to edit: I don’t do dental veneer projects very often, so should I ask other doctors in our hospital for you?
[Gui Yi Ren Sheng] Stop chatting, Xiao Meng and I are having dinner. We shouldn’t talk too much recently, don’t let the little boy misunderstand us (shy)
Jiang Ranxu deleted the reply word by word and rewarded Yan Cunrui with a "message do not disturb" message.
——
There are seven days left until the Spring Festival, and the dental clinic has posted a holiday notice from New Year's Eve to the third day of the New Year.
Jiang Ranxu was accustomed to working overtime in the days leading up to Chinese New Year's Eve, finishing up the previous year's work. In an attempt to escape or perhaps retain him, he left Meng Weishen's orthodontic plan to last. By the time he finished building the animation demonstrating the orthodontic process, it was already approaching the early hours of Chinese New Year's Eve.
His colleagues from the clinic had already left; even the cleaning lady had gone home for the Lunar New Year. The corridor outside the clinic was empty and dark, its hard, squared corners leading to the glass door, like a monster ambushing its prey, its maw agape.
Jiang Ranxu used the light of the emergency light to walk through the corridor and the front desk, and was finally responsible for hanging the chain on the door of the outpatient department.
As the Lunar New Year approaches, the streets of the imperial capital are emptying. In the biting cold wind, there are more standing trees than pedestrians.
With the strict enforcement of various prohibitions in recent years, the sight of children tossing firecrackers carelessly through alleyways and the wild acrobatic performances at temple fairs now exists only as a vague memory. Today's Spring Festival is no different from any other ordinary day, except that it's noticeably more empty.
As expected, he had booked the entire bar tonight, and the bartender only had to serve him. As soon as he sat down at the bar, the bartender came over:
"It's almost Chinese New Year and you still want to work overtime? Master, what do you do for a living?"
"I'm a decorator."
“Not really.”
"Decoration in the mouth."
The bartender was in awe of him. "Excuse me, sir. I didn't recognize you because you were wearing all black. Thank you for your hard work. On behalf of the people, I thank you for your dedication."
"Private hospital. You should thank me for my hard work in generating income on behalf of our director." Jiang Ranxu declined the other party's compliment.
The bartender laughed. "What would you like to drink?"
"Where's your boss Asher? Hasn't he arrived yet?"
"He's still at the New Year's Eve blind date party in Sanlitun. The place hasn't heated up yet, so he'll have to stay a while. Hey, sir, do you want to drink first? Or do you want to go to Sanlitun to meet him?"
His account contained numerous records of this friend's broken appointments, but Jiang Ranxu was too lazy to argue with him. He definitely wasn't going to a blind date anyway; crowded places meant exchanging germs, and that was what he hated most.
Jiang Ranxu replied, "Please open me a bottle of Solvay from Islay, something with a strong peat flavor. Make sure it's sealed tightly. Also, I brought my own glass, so please rinse it a few times for me. Thank you, I'll give you a tip right away."
The bartender immediately grabbed a peat monster and meticulously cleaned the bottle of dust. Apparently, few people could handle the heavy peat flavor, so today he was helping to clear out the stock.
Jiang Ranxu wiped the bottle mouth and the wall of the cup with an alcohol cotton pad before pouring the first cup of pure drink.
Very good, it's this disinfectant mixed with iodine that kills the gastric mucosa and bacteria. When he thought of the bacteria in his body being wiped out in the high concentration of alcohol, a sense of satisfaction swelled up morbidly, filling his entire heart.
He finally got rid of the stress and boredom and relaxed completely.
When Jiang Ranxu's eyes regained sensitivity, his watch showed that it was noon on New Year's Eve.
The sleep monitoring function on his watch recorded that he had fallen into a deep sleep at 2 a.m., waking up intermittently several times before returning to a deep sleep again in the morning. He couldn't recall when he had fallen asleep on the table. Looking around, he saw that even the bartender had left. The only thing left on the bar was a half-empty whiskey bottle. The winter light filtered through the glass, casting a spectrum of colors on the table.
My phone was littered with group messages of well wishes and an apology from Asher. He'd been partying all night in Sanlitun and couldn't make it back for the date, so he'd waived his meal as an apology.
Jiang Ranxu sent a copied blessing to Director Tan, but was too lazy to reply to any other messages. He planned to take a taxi home and continue sleeping.
But the moment he stood up, a sharp pain immediately penetrated his upper left abdomen, causing him to relax for a while before straightening his back and walking out of the bar.
The joys of alcohol come at the cost of a hangover. While waiting for the bus, the pain in my upper abdomen kept changing shape. It became like a dull knife cutting flesh. A churning pain. A throbbing pain. A throbbing pain. A radiating pain.
The worst thing is that you can’t get a long-distance taxi on New Year’s Eve.
Jiang Ranxu pondered for a moment. The bar was within sight of the Bell and Drum Tower, and his own residential complex was outside the North Fifth Ring Road, so it was incredibly far away. Only his parents lived near Shichahai, just a few hundred meters away.
Jiang Ranxu finally gave up taking a taxi and walked towards Shichahai in a daze.
——
During the Olympics, the government expropriated a large area of residential land near Shichahai for tourism development, creating Nanluoguxiang, the capital's most swindling tourist attraction. His family was unlucky and was still waiting in line for the expropriation notice.
The hutong, undeveloped as a tourist attraction, retains its pristine original state. The bungalows lining the hutong are painted a uniform gray-blue, with a narrow walkway running down the middle, barely wider than the corridor of a dental clinic. Strangely, finding a parking space is always difficult, and the roofs of cars practically touch the smoked meat drying outside the bungalow windows, making the hutong seem even more congested.
He stopped at the entrance of the alley and called his mother Guan Ping first.
The phone was filled with whistling noises. Jiang Ranxu took some time to hear Guan Ping say that she was not at home and had taken her grandmother to Hainan Island to spend the winter last week.
Jiang Ranxu's mind was a mess. "Island? What island? Are you guys going to make peat wine too?"
Guan Ping's tone was a little worried: "Jiang Ranxu, you've been drinking again. Be careful not to end up like your grandfather, who died of stomach cancer in his thirties.
"Don't worry about it, I definitely didn't drink." Jiang Ranxu said, "Since you weren't home, why didn't you tell me in advance? I don't have the key to the house."
Guan Ping stammered, "I didn't mean to do that. I thought you wouldn't be coming home this year, just like the past few years."
His mother's speculation actually made sense. Jiang Ranxu couldn't find a reason to be angry, so he just considered himself unlucky.
The other party suddenly lowered his voice: "By the way, your dad didn't come to play with you. He should be home now. It doesn't matter if you don't have your keys. Ask him..."
Jiang Ranxu immediately hung up the phone and turned to walk towards Shichahai.
The lakeside was deserted, and the row of pubs across the lake had temporarily closed. Only a few couples skated on the lakeside ice rink. The ice swallowed the lake surface, and wild ducks strolled freely across the ice and the dead willows.
Jiang Ranxu lit a cigarette, and when it burned clean, Shichahai remained still. Inwardly, he asked Wild Duck: "Will something interesting happen in the New Year?" He was so bored that he felt he might as well be dead.
Time completely stopped.
He forgot how long he had been idle by the lake. He only remembered that a gust of wind blew towards him, and someone running towards him grabbed him in the chaos. He let himself be swept away and followed the other person into a narrow and crowded residential alley.
The other party obviously didn't know the way, and he got dizzy after twisting and turning. Finally, he used half of his arm to press him against the door panel of the unfamiliar courtyard, making an awkward creaking noise.
A ball of warmth then came towards him. It turned out that the other party was also trying to hide in the narrow space of the door frame.
The two of them were so close together that Jiang Ranxu could hear the tachycardia alarm on his watch. As soon as he shifted his shoulder, dust began to fall from the dilapidated eaves, clearly visible in the white mist exhaled by the other person.
"I'm in big trouble. Help me, Dr. Jiang."
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