Luan Mingrui was thoroughly annoyed with Liang Chengmin.
Doctor? Teacher? Factory worker? Keep dreaming. In this life, she'd be lucky to end up running a little shop of her own.
He came home scowling, and the moment Luan Mingcheng saw his face, he sidled over. "Brother, did you get your dressing changed?"
"Mm."
"Did you see that terrifying woman doctor?"
"Who are you calling terrifying? Wasn't it you who made a scene at the hospital, and now she's the one who's supposed to be in the wrong?" The woman wasn't even in the family yet, and already Luan Mingrui wouldn't let his brother speak ill of her.
"No, that's not what I meant. Guess what? That doctor is my classmate's cousin. Her name's Liang Chengmin."
Luan Mingcheng knocked on his own head and muttered to himself, "Liang Chengmin? Wasn't there someone who tried to set you up with a Liang Chengmin a while back? Also a doctor?"
Luan Mingrui cut him off. "Just say what you mean."
"Oh, right. They say that doctor's twenty-seven and still not married. Word is she was seeing a boy in her class back then. Then he left."
Liang Chengmin? Seeing someone?
Looking the way she did, thick as a brick and clearly never woken up to romance, who would she have been seeing?
Luan Mingrui laughed at the idea of Liang Chengmin being slow to romance, as if he himself were any better. Twenty-nine years old and he'd never once been in a relationship. Back in those days, that made him something of an oddity. It was only because heaven had been generous enough to give him a decent face that people didn't call it strange. An ugly man past thirty who wasn't married was a bachelor nobody wanted; a man who looked like him and wasn't married was simply called picky.
He'd made up his mind to marry Liang Chengmin, and he filed away every ridiculous thing she'd said, planning to settle accounts with her later. For now, the priority was getting her to marry him. Better not let some other fool swoop in and cause trouble.
The next day, he went back again just before her shift ended, asked the nurse if she was still seeing patients, and when he heard she was, he got himself another number. He pushed open the door and found her giving herself acupuncture. Luan Mingrui hadn't had much contact with doctors before and had no idea this was simply how many doctors and nurses trained. To him, the sight of Liang Chengmin sticking needles into her own hand looked bizarre, like all that studying had addled her brain.
Seeing him come in, Liang Chengmin pulled the needle out of the Hegu point and looked him over sideways. "What are you here for?"
"Dressing change."
"You don't need it changed every day. Go on, out."
"The wound looks like it's gone bad."
"Nonsense!" Liang Chengmin had full confidence in her own skill. How could a wound she'd bandaged possibly go bad? She stood and began cutting his gauze, and when her cold fingertips brushed his arm, he teased, "Doctor, no gloves? Isn't that against procedure?"
...
Liang Chengmin was about to chase him out when he caught her wrist. "Can't take a joke?"
She shook his hand off. "Why do you keep putting your hands on me? Are we close enough for you to be teasing me like this?"
"Wouldn't we get close if we kept seeing each other?"
"Who's seeing you?"
"An exchange of glances, then?"
Coming from a man like Luan Mingrui, none of this sounded like flirting so much as needling for its own sake. Liang Chengmin, thoroughly out of patience with him, unwound the gauze. "Gone bad? Where's it gone bad?"
"If it hasn't, good. Wrap it back up for me."
Liang Chengmin nodded. "Fine, I'll wrap it." As she wound the bandage, she deliberately pulled it tighter than necessary. Luan Mingrui grunted low in his throat and lowered his head, the back of his neck going red from the pain.
Liang Chengmin suddenly laughed.
She was lovely when she laughed.
She was a fine-featured girl to begin with, though her usual stiffness made her seem a little severe. When she smiled like this, it was like a single small flower blooming alone in a crack between southern flagstones, the kind of thing that stirred a person's pity without meaning to.
Luan Mingrui watched her laugh, his gaze dark and hungry, as though he meant to swallow her whole.
Liang Chengmin caught his look and flushed, scolding him. "What are you staring at!"
Her blush pleased him, so he teased her further. "How about it, Dr. Liang, want to marry me? Once we're married you can yell at me all you like and I won't get angry. Nobody else will dare marry someone with your rotten temper anyway, so you might as well settle for me."
"Who's settling for you? I'd rather never marry at all than marry you." Liang Chengmin couldn't stand the way he was, always scowling like the world owed him money, blunt to the point of rudeness, every decent thing that came out of his mouth twisted into mockery. Even something as serious as marriage sounded like a joke in his mouth, with no trace of sincerity in it.
Her anger only made her flush deeper.
Luan Mingrui glanced at her and smiled. He rarely smiled, and when he did, there was a certain gentleness to it.
Luan Mingrui came every day after that. Once his arm healed, he waited for her outside the hospital gate instead. Liang Chengmin took to avoiding him, asking a young nurse each day before her shift ended whether the plague god was still out there. The nurse would check and confirm he was. So Liang Chengmin would slip out the back door.
That day, the moment she stepped out the back door, there he was. "Hiding from me?"
"You keep coming to the hospital and it doesn't look good," Liang Chengmin said.
"Look good how? I'm unmarried, you're unmarried, what's wrong with me waiting for you?"
"You're willing, I'm not, and it doesn't look good for me." She argued back without daring to meet his eyes.
"Fine." Luan Mingrui left it at that and walked off. Liang Chengmin kept avoiding him like this, the two of them like a cat and mouse, one chasing and one fleeing, until after a while it started to feel pointless. It suddenly dawned on Luan Mingrui that courting only worked when there was give and take.
The next day, he really didn't come.
Liang Chengmin couldn't say exactly what she felt about Luan Mingrui. The sight of him made her want to pick a fight, but when he didn't show up, something felt hollow inside her.
Her coworkers at the hospital, not having seen Luan Mingrui in several days, teased her about it. "The young master's stopped coming?"
Liang Chengmin flushed. "What does it matter to me whether he comes or not?"
She rode her bicycle home, weaving left and right. At dinner, her mother asked her, "Old Mrs. Wang from next door said she saw you talking to a young man outside the hospital the other evening. Who was that?"
"A patient."
"Which patient?"
"...I don't remember." Liang Chengmin knew exactly who Old Mrs. Wang meant. Who else could it be but that young master? But she didn't want to tell her mother, afraid of what she'd make of it.
"I see."
After that, she went on a few more blind dates.
To her, blind dates felt like political duty. She had to go; not going would mean her thinking wasn't sound enough. Afraid of her mother's nagging, she went along with it.
This particular date was at a state-run restaurant. The moment she walked in, she saw Luan Mingrui sitting by the window, fiddling with a button from who knew where. She thought about avoiding him to sidestep the awkwardness, but their eyes met, and he gave her an indifferent glance and pretended not to know her.
A little while later, his date arrived. She heard him ask the girl, "What do you like to eat? Order whatever you want." The girl was pretty, with delicate features and a soft, gentle way of speaking, the very picture of a southern girl.
"Anything's fine." Unlike Liang Chengmin, the girl didn't order freely, choosing only a plate of stir-fried greens. Luan Mingrui, by contrast, ordered shrimp and crab. "No need to save money," he said. "You can't take it with you anyway."
While talking to the girl, Luan Mingrui kept one ear on Liang Chengmin's table. When he heard the young man across from her say he was a teacher, he glanced over. The young man was neatly dressed and fine-featured.
"Teaching is a wonderful thing," Liang Chengmin said earnestly, nodding. "Shaping young minds, students everywhere who owe you their education. It's very noble."
"A doctor saves lives. That's noble too."
The two of them went on complimenting each other.
"So do you often travel for work?" the girl asked Luan Mingrui.
"Yes."
"The matchmaker said you're looking for someone who can take care of the household." The girl's face reddened slightly. She'd known of Luan Mingrui before, having seen him from a distance a few times. Plenty of girls in this small town liked him. "Do you think I'd do?"
The girl was direct, wanting an answer from him. "I'll tell the matchmaker when I get back." Luan Mingrui pointed at the shrimp and crab on the table. "Eat more, don't be shy."
"Do you go on a lot of blind dates?" the girl suddenly asked him. "Have you been on many? Is there someone you already have your eye on?"
"Been on one. A doctor. Thinks too highly of herself. I didn't like it."
Hearing "thinks too highly of herself, I didn't like it," Liang Chengmin felt, for no reason she could name, as if something had struck her in the chest.
The girl felt awkward, self-conscious about peeling shrimp in front of Luan Mingrui, nothing like Liang Chengmin, who had her pinky raised and was going after the shrimp and crab like she meant business.
When Liang Chengmin finished eating with the male teacher, he asked her as she was leaving, "Would you like to go to the library together sometime?"
"Sure."
Hearing her say "sure," Luan Mingrui finally looked up and studied her properly. Every day he went and waited outside the hospital for her, and she looked at him like he was a ghost. Someone else asks her to the library, and she says sure.
Great.
Luan Mingrui got up to walk his date home. Her house happened to be in the same direction as Liang Chengmin's, straight down the same road. He said little the whole way, in a foul mood, and only turned back once he reached her door. On his way back he saw Liang Chengmin walking with the male teacher. She wasn't at all like she was in front of him, taking off running; here she was, perfectly composed.
Luan Mingrui thought, marry whoever you like, what business is it of mine? He walked past her, face blank.
Liang Chengmin suddenly felt a flash of anger. He was the one who kept coming around, and he was the one pretending not to know her. She called out loudly after him. "Luan Mingrui!"
Luan Mingrui turned to look at her. "Something the matter, Dr. Liang?"
"You didn't see me?"
"I didn't. My eyesight's bad. I'm four-eyed."
With that he walked off, leaving Liang Chengmin choking on her own words, her face flushed with anger. Tears welled up in her eyes without her quite understanding why, and she took off running. The male teacher stood frozen behind her, unsure whether to follow or let her go.
A few days later, she finally had a day off. At lunch her mother brought it up again. "Put in some effort this afternoon. You remember that Luan Mingrui you went on a date with before? The matchmaker says it's settled for him."
"Who's settled?"
"Luan Mingrui. They say both families are arranging to meet."
A mouthful of rice caught in Liang Chengmin's throat, and no matter what she did, she couldn't swallow it. Only then did it strike her: the man who'd asked if she wanted to marry him had only been playing around with her.
After the meal she went back to her room and lay on the bed, feeling listless without quite knowing why. Maybe it was what her mother had said at lunch, bringing Luan Mingrui to mind. Nothing held her interest. She'd flip through a couple of pages of a book and set it aside, staring blankly at the sprig of osmanthus in the bottle by the window. After a while she dozed off where she lay, and slept straight through until dark. Her mother, seeing her sleeping so soundly, knew how hard she worked and didn't have the heart to wake her.
A small pebble struck her window with a crack. She lay still, assuming it was just some mischievous child. A moment later, another one hit, with about the same force. No child's hand was that steady. She sat up and pushed the window open, and there was Luan Mingrui standing on the flagstone path, moonlight wrapped around him, washing him clean.
Her face went hot at once, and she shut the window quickly, sitting alone by it trying to catch her breath, her heart pounding for reasons she couldn't explain.
Another pebble struck the glass.
She pushed the window open and asked him quietly, "What are you doing throwing rocks at my window?" Her voice was as small as a mosquito's whine, though her eyes were still sharp.
"Come out," Luan Mingrui called back, just as quietly.
"It's time to sleep!"
"Come out."
"I'm not coming out!"
She shut the window with a bang again.
Luan Mingrui threw another pebble, and Liang Chengmin, thoroughly fed up, snatched it up and flung it right back out the window. She heard a muffled grunt and pushed the window open again, to find Luan Mingrui with a hand over his eye.
"Did it hit you?" she asked.
Luan Mingrui said nothing, and that was how Liang Chengmin knew he was truly angry.
"Wait there." Liang Chengmin threw on an autumn jacket, crept out, quietly shut the door behind her, and walked up to Luan Mingrui.
"Let me see your eye."
Without a word, Luan Mingrui dropped his glasses into her hand and turned to walk away. Liang Chengmin saw that a piece of the lens had broken off and hurried after him, following him around a corner into an alley. The alley stretched on, empty, with only a stray cat crossing now and then, its paws clicking against the stones. Liang Chengmin hurried a few more steps and caught his wrist. "Stop right there! Let me look at your eye!"
Luan Mingrui finally came to a stop.
He was too tall for her to see properly, and even standing on her toes didn't help. Growing impatient, she said, "Can you just bend down?"
Luan Mingrui bent his head, his breath falling over her forehead, and watched her tilt her face up to look at him, uncharacteristically obedient. There was a faint scratch on his eyelid, likely from a shard of the broken lens.
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
"Oh."
She stepped back from him and asked, "What did you come here for?"
"To bring you wedding candy." Luan Mingrui produced a piece of liquor-filled chocolate from inside his jacket, as if by magic. It was a rare thing back then, and Liang Chengmin had had it once or twice before and liked it very much. But she didn't want it today.
"Why are you bringing me wedding candy? Are you showing off in front of me? Trying to say that even if I won't marry you, plenty of others will?"
"Do you just ask every girl you meet whether she wants to marry you? Depends on your mood, does it?"
"Congratulations on getting married, and you have to come rub it in my face!"
"Who wants your stupid wedding candy!" Liang Chengmin's voice rose as she spoke, her eyes reddening. She couldn't have said why herself, only that she felt wronged, and something like regret besides.
Seeing a tear roll down Liang Chengmin's face, Luan Mingrui finally couldn't bring himself to tease her anymore. "It's my cousin's wedding candy."
...
If there had been a hole in the ground, Liang Chengmin would have crawled into it. She pressed her lips together, eyes brimming with tears.
"Want it?" he asked her again.
"Yes." Liang Chengmin wiped her eyes and opened her palm. Luan Mingrui set the chocolate in her hand. She peeled off the foil and put it in her mouth, unwilling to bite down on it, just letting it sit there.
"Is it good, the chocolate?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse.
"It's good."
"Let me taste it."
He suddenly bent down and kissed her lips, his tongue brushing lightly at the corner of her mouth. Liang Chengmin's mind went blank, and she froze where she stood.
When his lips came back a second time, she stood there dumbly, unable to react.
Luan Mingrui wasn't dumb, and he had no experience at this, but with his mind fixed only on tasting the chocolate, he cupped the back of her head and let his tongue slip in, and once it did, there was no stopping it. The girl's mouth was warm and sweet, faintly touched with liquor, and something in him that had gone untouched for nearly thirty years bloomed all at once. His tongue curled against hers, drawing the chocolate from her mouth into his, taking her tongue along with it, his hands cradling her face with an instinct he didn't know he had. Feeling the distance between them still too great, he pulled her hard against him.
Liang Chengmin's body collided with his, and the hardness pressing against her startled her. She struggled in his arms. "Let go of me!"
"No."
"I'll scream!"
"Go ahead."
Luan Mingrui had her trapped between himself and the wall, and the two of them stood there catching their breath in a kind of standoff. "Not going to scream?" he asked her, and looking at her pitiful, pleading eyes, he kissed her again. This time it was more urgent than before, their teeth knocking together, though he paid it no mind, tilting his head until he finally found the right angle.
Liang Chengmin's legs gave out beneath her, and he caught her up, her body wrapping against his as he became both her support and her shelter.
He'd thought of her constantly these past days but couldn't bring himself to swallow his pride. Today, watching someone else get married, he'd suddenly felt envious. What did dignity and pride matter next to getting Liang Chengmin to marry him?
Of course they didn't matter at all.
He could always deal with her properly after the wedding. Why fight her over it now?
When they finally broke apart, Luan Mingrui's chest was full to bursting. He asked her again, "Liang Chengmin, will you marry me?"