MTB - Chapter 5
Chapter 5: “Little Girlfriend”
“Dianqing, Dianqing… Holy crap, I can actually find it.”
At one in the afternoon, the other two roommates had gone to class. Hearing this, Yun Yang lifted her bed curtain and raised her steam eye mask to create a small gap. “What?”
“It’s a porcelain brand, take a look.” Guan Yan held her phone up in front of her, and Yun Yang leaned over the edge of her bed to glance at it.
Dianqing was a porcelain brand founded over a decade ago, targeting the collectible and mid-to-high-end market. Although its history wasn’t long, it already had a certain degree of market influence. One of its founders was none other than Tang Yuelou herself.
Guan Yan had found Dianqing’s official website. The porcelain displayed on the homepage all indicated the designer’s name, featuring everything from European-style coffee cups to antique-style Chinese vases. Yun Yang gave it a quick look. She couldn’t understand the professional materials, patterns, or painting techniques; she was simply shocked by the most direct thing: the price.
“Teacher Tang is the designer of this set, and it even won an award… Damn, it’s so expensive.” As if she had discovered a whole new world, Guan Yan browsed the entire website with great enthusiasm. “Founded thirteen years ago… Doesn’t that mean Teacher Tang started this business before she was eighteen? She’s so amazing.”
Shouldn’t a normal boss be in an office, directing their empire? How could she be so hands-on and still have the leisure to teach at a university? Yun Yang grumbled inwardly, not wanting to make any comment, and pulled the eye mask back down.
“Are your eyes still bothering you? It’s been three or four days now.” Seeing her lack of interest, Guan Yan asked, “Are you still going to the escape room tonight?”
“I’ve already made an appointment. I’m going to the hospital to get it checked out later.” Yun Yang thought for a moment. “I also have dinner plans with someone tonight, so count me out.”
“Zheng Yufan just asked me if you were going. I’ll turn her down for you then.”
With her eyes closed, Yun Yang gave a muffled response.
Probably due to a long-term lack of sleep, her mind felt groggy. Guan Yan’s chattering voice was right by her ear, yet it seemed to grow increasingly faint. She vaguely heard Guan Yan leave a few words of advice like “get some rest,” and then, with the sound of the door closing, the dorm room fell silent.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Yun Yang’s sleep was not peaceful.
She dreamed of the bar’s glaring colored lights. Amidst the noisy music, Tang Yuelou was leaning alone on the booth’s sofa. As if sensing her gaze, she casually adjusted the loose collar of her shirt, leaving behind an indifferent glance. Perhaps the music and cheers were too loud, but she could feel the violent pounding of her own heart in her chest. As if under some kind of spell, she couldn’t help but want to get closer.
Then the scene shifted. That faint, elusive scent of perfume seemed to linger at the tip of her nose. Yun Yang subconsciously frowned, wanting to pull away, when a pair of cool hands covered her eyes. The woman’s voice was like a small pebble dropped into a calm lake. Layered over her heightened sense of touch in the darkness, it pressed against her neck along with the fingertips, possessing a soul-stirring magic.
“Yangyang, be good, close your eyes.”
…
The alarm clock rang, and Yun Yang woke with a start.
She fumbled to turn off the alarm. The blackout curtains were drawn in the dorm room. Outside, the sun was brilliant and the autumn air was crisp, but the room was dim. The steam eye mask had completely lost its warmth, leaving only cool, damp vapor. She rubbed her dry, aching eyes and held her throbbing head, feeling for the countless time in the past few days that this was all absurd and speechless.
“What a nightmare. Get lost.” Yun Yang frowned, cursing as she threw the eye mask into the trash can.
“…It’s hard to say the specific cause. It could be dry eye syndrome, or it could be a neurological issue. In any case, let’s run some tests first.”
The doctor was a slightly overweight, middle-aged woman with thick glasses. Seeing how young she was, the doctor couldn’t help but nag a little: “Young people these days, you’re just too reliant on electronic devices. Staring at that screen for eight or nine hours a day without blinking—tell me, how could your eyes not have problems?”
Yun Yang could only give a dry laugh. “You’re right.”
“Dry eye syndrome is a real pain, you have to take good care of it. I’ll prescribe you some eye drops for now. Then take this form, go downstairs to pay, and come back to see me once you have the test results. Remember, get more rest, use a warm compress if it’s uncomfortable, and most importantly, stay off your phone!”
Leaving the consultation room, her ears ringing with “stay off your phone,” Yun Yang went to pay the fee, only to find that the next available appointment for a comprehensive ocular surface examination was next Tuesday. She looked out the window at the approaching dusk and, thinking about her current situation of possibly having a “terminal illness,” once again felt her heart grow weary.
“Sir, this is the outpatient clinic! What are you doing!”
Two people pushed through the patients queuing in the hallway. A nurse behind them, shouting “Please don’t run and shove,” was knocked to the ground. Yun Yang was bumped by her and stepped on the foot of the person next to her. She frowned and apologized, first helping up the fallen nurse. Before she could get a clear look at what had rushed past, she saw them grab the collar of a doctor who had just come out of a consultation room.
“You’ll pay for my son’s eye!”
Yun Yang froze.
The people who had just stormed in were surrounding a man and a woman. The woman was sobbing uncontrollably, loudly accusing the doctor while she and her husband gripped the doctor’s collar. A nurse tried to mediate: “Ma’am, please calm down! All surgeries have risks, and if your son’s eyeball wasn’t removed promptly, the risk of infection was very high…”
“You shut up!” The woman raised her hand and slapped the nurse who was trying to reason with them. Her shrill voice tore through the hallway’s calm. “It’s because your skills are incompetent that my son lost his eye! He’s only five years old…”
A surgery lasting several hours was enough to exhaust anyone. The doctor’s eyes were bloodshot, and her appearance was clearly disheveled. The man had just punched her in the face, and now, in a sorry state with her clothes being grabbed, she stretched out her arm to shield the young nurse who had been hit.
The man, having lost control of his emotions, was surprisingly strong. The nurses who rushed over at the sound of the commotion couldn’t pull him off. Cries of “Call security!” mingled with the man and woman’s curses and the whispers of onlookers. Seeing the man grow more agitated, raising a hand from his pocket toward the doctor’s shoulder amidst the chaos, Yun Yang knew this was bad. Without a second thought, she lunged forward and kicked at the man’s hand.
Yun Yang was not the delicate, fragile type of girl. The man was caught off guard and was sent stumbling into the wall by the kick. The object in his hand fell with a clatter.
It was a box cutter. The hallway fell silent for a second. Yun Yang kicked the small knife away and took a sharp breath. In the midst of her lingering fear, she felt an overwhelming anger.
This was the hand of an ophthalmologist. Who knew how many pairs of eyes it had helped to see the light again, only to be nearly destroyed here today.
“The doctor is hitting people!”
After that moment of silence, the man’s voice rang out again. He was immediately restrained by the security guards who had rushed to the scene, with the help of some onlookers. A man hurried over from the end of the corridor with a group of people, arranging for someone to handle the scene and call the police.
Yun Yang pressed the side of her neck and her fingertips came away with a trace of blood. It seemed she had been scratched by someone in the chaos. She let out a long sigh. To come in for a check-up and run into a scene of medical dispute—her luck was really something else.
“This righteous hero… oh, what are you doing here?”
Hearing someone call out, Yun Yang turned her head and saw the male doctor who had brought the people over looking at her with some surprise.
Yun Yang found the man vaguely familiar but couldn’t recall where she had seen him. Then he spoke again: “Isn’t this Yuelou’s little girlfriend? What a coincidence.”
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