Chapter 3 Unrefined and Inexperienced

When Qin Kai caught sight of the wonton soup in the glass container on the small table, he immediately reminded the patient that no food was allowed. Tang Songyuan hurriedly picked up the container and placed it inside the storage cabinet.

Li Tian'er had never intended to eat the wonton soup anyway. She had yet to adapt to her new identity as Li Ya, especially the identity of a patient. She felt full of vitality, yet she was confined to a hospital bed, forced to obey the hospital's arrangements—a sensation akin to a lamb awaiting slaughter.

"There is really no need to be nervous. I've performed this kind of surgery easily ninety times, if not a hundred."

Qin Kai smiled gently at Li Tian'er.

The tense muscles on Li Tian'er's face relaxed. She understood, of course, that a doctor was a patient's closest ally, and a doctor's duty was to ease all of a patient's anxieties before an operation, including apprehensions regarding various physical indicators.

"Rest assured, our Director Qin is a renowned scalpel master."

Liu Yan said with a sweet smile toward Li Tian'er. Li Tian'er understood full well that the young nurse wasn't doing this to alleviate her negative emotions, but rather to ingratiate herself with Doctor Qin.

At that moment, Qin Kai's phone rang. Looking thoroughly apologetic, he pulled out his phone, pressed the mute button, and offered Li Tian'er a polite smile, signaling that he had to take the call.

With half of her chest exposed by the nurse's pulling aside of her gown, Li Tian'er grew displeased. She pulled her clothes down to cover herself and shot Liu Yan a resentful glare.

"...Chaosheng is coming back?"

At the doorway of the ward, Qin Kai raised his voice in surprise, but realizing he was still inside the patient's room, he hurriedly covered his mouth and stepped outside. A few minutes later, Qin Kai walked back in. With a look full of apology, he said:

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting so long."

Qin Kai's expression held a trace of helplessness. After finishing the routine examination of Li Tian'er's condition, he scribbled rapidly on the medical chart, crossed out a few lines, and reached up to adjust his silver-framed glasses.

"Director Qin, are you alright?"

Liu Yan looked at Qin Kai with worry, her pure eyes blinking.

This young nurse must definitely have a secret crush on Qin Kai!

Thinking this, Li Tian'er could not help but pay closer attention to every move Liu Yan made toward Qin Kai.

Qin Kai waved his hand to indicate he was fine, though his expression was indescribably complex. He struggled to control his emotions, trying his best to utter comforting words to the patient. Then he strode out of the ward, and Liu Yan hurriedly chased after him.

"Nurse Liu—"

Tang Songyuan caught up with Liu Yan to clarify the schedule for the upcoming medical tests, and when he re-entered the room, he could not help muttering to himself.

"That nurse Liu is definitely interested in that Doctor Qin..."

Tang Songyuan stared at the nursing card hanging at the foot of the bed, his gaze lingering on Liu Yan's name.

An older uncle loves gossip too! It seemed Tang Songyuan's spirits were still quite good; he wasn't about to lose all hope in life simply because his wife had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Li Tian'er stared at Tang Songyuan, and the more she looked, the more she felt that Tang Songyuan bore a striking resemblance to that charismatic older celebrity from the gossip columns years ago who had sent his mistress to prison.

When a wealthy man loses his wife, he will immediately have lines of young, beautiful women queuing up to pursue him.

No wonder Tang Songyuan's mood didn't seem sorrowful at all!

Li Tian'er had never been interested in gossip; she only wanted to delay her discharge date, or figure out a way to sleep in separate rooms with Tang Songyuan once she left the hospital.

As long as she didn't have to share a bed with the older uncle, she would gladly play the part of a shrew whom her husband loathed.

Seeing Li Tian'er gazing listlessly out the window, Tang Songyuan raised his head, assuming his previous subconscious gossip had angered his wife. But words spoken were like water spilled—they could never be taken back.

Just as Tang Songyuan was racking his brain for a way to salvage his compromised image, the phone in his pocket hummed.

"Songyuan, get down here right away. The hospital security won't let me up to see Li Ya, and you'll have to come down and swap places with me so I can go up."

Zhou Xiangxiang's shrill voice pierced Tang Songyuan's eardrums with pain.

"Alright, okay, I'm coming right down."

Tang Songyuan put down his phone with a sense of relief and said with a smile to Li Tian'er:

"Your mom is here. I'm going downstairs to switch places with her so she can come up. The hospital rules don't allow family visits during doctor's rounds."

"Oh, my mom..."

Li Tian'er watched Tang Songyuan's hurried retreating figure, and a sudden wave of anxiety washed over her regarding her current predicament. Having an older uncle for a husband was distressing enough, and now here came a shrill and aggressive mother! Judging by the sound of her voice, she was not going to be an easy person to get along with.

Having transmigrated through several identities, it seemed that aside from Li Jixiang's grandmother, no other elder had ever offered her warmth. She rapidly searched Li Ya's memories concerning her mother, racking her brains without unearthing much more information.

Li Ya's mother had been widowed at a young age and remained unmarried in order to raise her children to adulthood.

Li Tian'er forced herself to calm down; right now, she had no choice but to let soldiers be met with arms and water with earth, adapting to constant changes with unshifting composure.

In less than two minutes, a woman in her sixties appeared at the doorway of the ward.

Catching sight of her daughter half-reining against the elevated hospital bed, Zhou Xiangxiang hurried forward in quick steps and threw herself over the bedside.

"Yaya, why didn't you tell me when you fell ill? If I hadn't gone to your place last night and found nobody home, and then called Songyuan to find out you were having major surgery, when did you ever start treating your mother like an outsider!"

As she spoke, Zhou Xiangxiang grabbed Li Tian'er's hand, her eye rims suddenly turning red.

Looking at the old woman's reddened eyes, Li Tian'er suddenly thought of her own maternal grandmother, and she couldn't help shifting her body forward slightly.

"It's all Mom's fault for coming to see you so late."

"I'm fine."

Though she felt a shred of warmth toward the old woman and didn't want her to worry, calling the old woman "Mom" was something she simply couldn't bring out from her throat. It felt as though an entire generation was missing; calling her "Grandma" would have felt much more fitting.

"As long as you're fine, as long as you're fine. Since Songyuan got you such a fine hospital hospital, I just knew whatever ailment you had could be cured."

Zhou Xiangxiang straightened her posture, leaned back naturally, let go of Li Tian'er's hand, and used the corner of her shirt to dab at her eyes. Her cloud-cast, sorrowful face smoothed out. Raising her eyes to survey the ward, she let out sounds of clicking praise.

You'an Gynecology Hospital was located by the shores of Bailu Lake in the center of the city. It consisted of two interconnected six-story buildings made of red brick and grey tiles, covering over a hundred acres and nestled amidst green woods and blooming flowers. Every window framed a scenic view, and the hardware and software facilities within the rooms were of cutting-edge, high-tech standards. Gathering the nation's top gynecological experts and physicians, it was a nationally renowned gynecological hospital.

Legend had it that You'an Hospital's founding patriarch bore the surname An and had served as an imperial physician in the imperial palace. Starting from a small medical clinic, through over two hundred years of ups and downs and the diligent efforts of several generations of the An family, it had achieved its present glory.

"This ward must be twenty or thirty square meters, right? It looks bigger than your younger brother's new apartment. How much does it cost to stay here for a single night? Look at this bed, this cabinet, the sofa, and these curtains..."

Zhou Xiangxiang felt as though her eyes couldn't take it all in, pinching the curtain and reluctant to let go. The smoky-blue silk curtain was twisted into a ball by her hands before being smoothed out again. Staring at the flatness and luster that instantly recovered, she exclaimed in wonder:

"This is flocked fabric! I've seen people wear dresses made of this material; it's so expensive, a single skirt costs tens of thousands of yuan. Heavens above, using such expensive material for curtains is just too extravagant."

The hospital's curtain fabric was indeed of fine quality, but surely it wasn't quite like Scarlett O'Hara in *Gone with the Wind* having to fashion dresses out of curtain cloth.

Li Tian'er was left between laughter and tears by this provincial old woman.