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Chen Yuncheng didn’t move and simply said, “I’m not cold.” He actually had a pretty rough life, and even in the coldest winter, he didn’t wear a scarf or gloves when he went out. And now that he was in a well-heated room, he felt hot.
Ning Junyan had already put on his coat. When he heard what Chen Yuncheng said, he reached out, took off the scarf, and said, “Let’s go then.”
Chen Yuncheng felt the softness on his neck disappear in an instant. He saw that Ning Junyan was holding the scarf in his hand, and the other hand opened the office door and walked out, so he immediately followed.
They passed by the nurses’ station.
A young nurse raised her head and greeted, “Chief Ning.”
Ning Junyan nodded, his attitude looking a little cold.
Chen Yuncheng walked beside Ning Junyan and asked him, “You are already the chief? That impressive?”
Ning Junyan said calmly, “It’s deputy chief.”
Chen Yuncheng said with a smile, “That’s also very impressive.” He actually did not know that at Ning Junyan’s age, being able to become a deputy chief surgeon in this top three hospital was not something that could be simply described by the word ‘very impressive’.
They took the elevator downstairs.
Originally, Ning Junyan wanted to drive, but Chen Yuncheng said, “Why don’t you take a taxi? I’ll treat you to dinner today. You can have some drink if you don’t drive.”
Ning Junyan had already pressed the underground floor button, but he then reached out and pressed the light on the first floor and said, “Okay.”
They passed through the hall on the first floor of the inpatient building and came out of the garden from the main entrance, and the cold wind hit them instantly.
Chen Yuncheng gathered up his lapel subconsciously.
Ning Junyan stopped and once again hung the scarf around his neck. He then wrapped it around his neck and said, “It’s cold now.”
Chen Yuncheng raised his hand and touched the scarf. The scarf was light grey with a dark grey logo on it. He was unfamiliar with these brands, but the scarf’s texture was as soft as cashmere, and the labels were all in English. It shouldn’t have cost cheap, and although the scarf didn’t have a tag, it looked new, and the folds were all neat and tidy.
“Is this a gift for me, or do you want to lend it to me to wear?” Chen Yuncheng asked with a smile in order to ease the awkward atmosphere.
Ning Junyan said, “It’s a gift for you.”
Chen Yuncheng walked with him towards the hospital gate and asked, “Why did you give me a scarf? I’m not afraid of cold.”
After a while, Ning Jun said, “It looks good.”
Chen Yuncheng paused in his footsteps.
Ning Junyan stopped and turned to look at him.
The scarf was indeed quite nice, fuzzy, and soft around Chen Yuncheng’s neck. It made him look like he was several years younger. It was as if he was a college boy shopping with his girlfriend.
Chen Yuncheng smiled and said, “Thank you.”
It was Chen Yuncheng who chose the place for dinner, as he insisted on treating today, and invited Ning Junyan to a hot pot restaurant with a decent ambience.
This kind of weather was suitable for eating hotpot, and everything was shrouded in a layer of steam.
When Chen Yuncheng took off his coat, he also took off the scarf. He carefully folded the scarf a few times, wrapped it inside the coat, and then asked the waiter to cover it with a cloth cover.
When it was time to finish eating, Chen Yuncheng took the scarf out and put it under his nose, and sniffed it. He was satisfied that it did not smell like a hotpot.
As they stood outside the hotpot restaurant, Ning Junyan said to Chen Yuncheng, “Let me take you back first.”
“No need,” Chen Yuncheng put on the scarf, then looked up at him, “You should take a taxi and go back to rest.”
Ning Junyan disagreed and still said, “I’ll take you back first.”
Chen Yuncheng said, “It’s quite close for me to go back from here, and it just so happens that I ate a bit too much in the evening. So I will take a walk back.”
Ning Junyan said, “I’ll walk with you.”
In the end, Chen Yuncheng smiled and said, “Let’s go.”
They walked slowly along the street together.
This area was quite close to Chen Yuncheng’s small kiosk. There were old urban areas nearby, where one could see tall buildings as well as old buildings and old shops.
In this way, walking along the street with Ning Junyan reminded Chen Yuncheng of many things in his childhood.
Back then, when the two of them went out to steal things, they often went out without any money on them and could not even afford to take the bus, so they walked along the street.
Their foster parents’ compound was on the city’s outskirts, and they did not dare to steal too often nearby for fear of being recognised. So they could only walk along the street to the intersection of the city centre with dense traffic. The furthest they had walked was for two hours, as Chen Yuncheng remembered.
Ning Junyan’s shoes didn’t fit. When they got there, they sat down in the shade under the overpass. Ning Junyan took off the shoes, and there was a big bright blister on his heel.
Chen Yuncheng didn’t dare to puncture the blisters, so he just found some toilet paper, kneaded it to make it soft, and wrapped his heel up.
As the result, when he returned that night, the toilet paper was soaked in pale yellow tissue fluid and bright red blood, and it started to be mushy as it stuck to Ning Junyan’s feet.
The two of them hid in the room, and Ning Junyan sat on the edge of the bed while Chen Yuncheng squatted in front of him. Chen Yuncheng tore off the toilet paper a little bit, then brought in clean water to wash his feet, and then finally found a band-aid to put on Ning Junyan’s foot carefully.
After putting it on, Chen Yuncheng squatted in front of Ning Junyan, looked up at him and smiled, and asked him, “Does it still hurt?”
Ning Junyan shook his head.
Chen Yuncheng picked up the basin on the ground and went to the yard to pour the water.
Walking like this put Chen Yuncheng back in a trance. Ning Junyan had grown taller and he himself had grown taller, yet he was still a few centimetres shorter than Ning Junyan.
It was already dark, and they had been walking for almost half an hour. There were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the road.
Ning Junyan spoke very little. After Chen Yuncheng gradually found the feeling of being in his childhood, he didn’t think that there was anything wrong with Ning Junyan not speaking. After all, from a long time ago their pattern of getting along was that he spoke and Ning Junyan listened, and he had long since gotten used to it.
Near the front of Chen Yuncheng’s small kiosk, there was a building whose exterior wall was being repaired. A row of scaffolding was erected against the exterior wall. Pedestrians could only pass through the narrow passage between the shop on the bottom of the building and the scaffolding and had to be careful of the steel pipes under their feet and over their heads.
Originally, because it was cold in winter and the street was blocked by scaffolding, there were few people in the street. The shops in this area did not do well in winter and were closed early because of the cold weather and the scaffolding.
The light of the street lamps was blocked by a layer of wooden boards at the height of the second floor, and the narrow passage was suddenly very dark.
Chen Yuncheng walked ahead and said to Ning Junyan, “Be careful.”
Ning Junyan gave a soft “um”.
Chen Yuncheng raised his hand and put the fallen scarf back on his shoulders. As he walked, he thought that when he got to the front of the kiosk, he would help Ning Junyan call for a taxi to take him back. After all, Ning Junyan accompanied him all the way, and since it was getting late, it would be inappropriate to invite Ning Junyan in.
When he looked up, he saw a man smoking at the end of the narrow passage.
At that time, Chen Yuncheng didn’t think too much, until when he was almost in front of the man, the red light suddenly went out, and the man stretched out a hand to Chen Yuncheng in the dark.
Chen Yuncheng subconsciously retreated to the back, and Ning Junyan was behind him who reacted faster than Chen Yuncheng. He grabbed Chen Yuncheng’s shoulders and pulled him backwards, and he stepped around Chen Yuncheng’s side and met the outstretched hand.
The person in the darkness froze for a moment and then went to push Ning Junyan.
But no one saw how Ning Junyan did it, the next second he had already grabbed the man’s neck and pushed him backwards. They were already at the end of the passage, so Ning Junyan’s push pushed the man outside the passage, exposing his face to the light of the street lamp.
Chen Yuncheng saw that the person who attacked him was Guan Anlin.
The author has something to say:
I asked my friend who is a doctor if it was possible to become the deputy director of a tertiary hospital at the age of 30. She said it was difficult, and I thought it was not impossible, so I just display it casually.
By the way, doctor Ningis a great fighter, which will be explained in the next chapter