Zhang Fan completed the three surgeries swiftly. They were two gall bladder surgeries and one appendectomy. Actually, Carte City Hospital’s doctors were quite capable of performing these surgeries through open surgeries. However, the patients refused. They didn’t want to have themselves cut open in open surgeries when there was the newer and less damaging to the body laparoscopic technique. However, the study of how to perform laparoscopic operations hadn’t spread yet in Carte City and the other nearby smaller cities around Chasu City. Thus, Zhang Fan enjoyed a good demand for his services. He received a total of 3,000 yuan for performing the three surgeries.

Zhang Fan gave 1,500 yuan to Carte City Hospital’s doctors, and then gave another 500 yuan to Wang Yanan, who refused the money. She was even confused, and asked, “Why are you giving money to the doctors here when you did all the work?”

“You’ll grow wrinkles if you keep worrying about everything! Understand?” Zhang Fan didn’t want to explain things to her. How to cultivate relationships with others wasn’t something explained so easily. Since Wang Yanan was from a really well-off family, it would be difficult for her to understand such things, so Zhang Fan felt that there was no need for him to explain anything.

“Just know that you must take this money. If anything happens to any of the three patients, you’ll also have to take responsibility, after all.” Zhang Fan instead used a scare tactic on Wang Yanan.

“Oh! Fine then. Still, you’re making some nice extra income here!” Zhang Fan’s income was slowly accumulating from these surgery side jobs. Of course, instantly striking it rich would be nothing but a dream. Still, this was quite a decent amount of money to Wang Yanan. Her current salary was just slightly more than 1,000 yuan per month as she still didn’t have a medical license yet, and without a license, she wouldn’t be given any bonuses etc. However, since she was from a well-to-do family, she didn’t care too much about her salary.

It was a bit after 1 pm by the time that Zhang Fan and Wang Yanan finished the surgeries. Shao Hua and Jia Suyue had yet to eat lunch as they were waiting for them. Carte City was renowned for having especially delicious Xinjiang style pit meat, which was made from young tender fatty lamb and special spices and cooked in a pit. This pit meat would be especially crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, with a fragrant aroma spreading everywhere the moment you bit into it.

Even Zhang Fan, who wasn’t very fond of mutton, ate several pieces of the Xinjiang style pit meat. This restaurant was relatively small, but was filled with people. The restaurant was only open for a few hours, from 12 at noon to 2:30 pm, its closing time. Jia Suyue had been here several times before on her previous visits to Carte City. Being familiar with this place, she had gotten into line to wait quite early. She ordered enough food for everyone, so Zhang Fan got to eat right when he arrived. After the Xinjiang style pit meat, everyone drank some special brick tea that really warmed their stomachs.

The primeval forest wasn’t very far away from Carte City, just a few kilometers away. They soon arrived there by car. Carte City was at a slightly higher elevation than Chasu City, and had a cooler climate. The forest mostly had conifers, with only a few broadleaf trees.

The forest’s air in spring tasted sweet. It felt especially nice to walk on the forest path. Everyone felt really relaxed, and the three women chatted quite happily with each other.

Zhang Fan acted as their photographer. He used a camera that Jia Suyue had prepared beforehand to constantly take pictures of the rest. He also had Wang Yanan take a picture of him and Shao Hua together under a gigantic tree. Shao Hua was slightly embarrassed about this in front of her two friends.

Actually, Carte City wasn’t very large, and could be toured in a single afternoon. All it had was this primeval forest. There was nothing noteworthy to tour in Carte City itself. The population here was also rather small. However, since they had already reserved hotel rooms here, they decided to treat this as a short one-day vacation.

After dinner, the three women were tired, so everyone returned to the hotel to wash up and rest. Zhang Fan had a room all to himself, while the three women shared a hotel room. Jia Suyue was the first to take a shower, so Shao Hua and Wang Yanan came over to chat with Zhang Fan while waiting to use the shower.

The three of them decided to play some cards. Both women were rather inexperienced at card games, while Zhang Fan was an expert, so he soon got bored. After some time passed, Wang Yanan stood up, and said, “I’m going to take my shower now. You two have fun.” She then ran off.

Shao Hua tried to leave as well, but Zhang Fan pulled on her to stay.

“Don’t be like that! This isn’t good!” Shao Hua said as her face instantly went bright red; this was the first time that Zhang Fan had held her hand like this.

“Haha, I just wanted to talk to you alone about something.”

“Okay, let go of my hand first, and sit down over there.” Shao Hua pointed at a mini sofa beside the bed in the hotel room.

“Alright.” However, Zhang Fan was unwilling to let go of her hand.

“I’ll be going, then.” Shao Hua was getting slightly angry. She didn’t consider herself to be an easy girl, nor did she want to leave Zhang Fan with any impression that she would be an easy girl, and most of all, she didn’t want her friends to look down on her.

Zhang Fan hurriedly let go of her hand and properly sat down. Shao Hua sat down on another mini sofa.

“What is it?” Shao Hua asked after she regained control of her emotions.

“It’s almost May 1st, International Labor Day. I wanted to take advantage of the vacation starting with this holiday to visit my home. I haven’t been home for almost two years now.”

“Are both your parents well? I recall that your younger sister is about to take her college entrance examination soon, right?”

“My parents are both doing well. Yeah, my younger sister is taking her college entrance exam soon. That’s why I want to go see her. Otherwise, I won’t feel reassured.”

“Oh! How about I give you a suggestion, then?”

“Sure. Please go ahead.”

“It’s like this. Even if you use all your vacation time, at most you’ll have about a month, right? This means that you’ll be leaving your hometown at the end of May, right before your sister is about to take her exam. That will probably affect her mood. My suggestion is, why not wait until the end of May to take your vacation instead? This way, you’ll be able to be by your sister’s side as she’s taking the exam. What do you think?”

Zhang Fan thought about it and felt that it was a great idea. He had only been considering returning around May 1st to take advantage of China’s International Labor Day vacation ¹ , without considering whether or not he would be with his sister when she took the exam.

“Yep, your idea is better than mine. Thank you so much!” Zhang Fan really wanted to hold Shao Hua’s hand again.

Shao Hua could tell that it was almost as if stars were sparkling in Zhang Fan’s eyes. She hurriedly got up, and said, “I’ll be going back to take my shower now. You should shower as well and properly rest. You’ve been busy all day.”

She then immediately opened the hotel room door, but when she did so, Jia Suyue and Wang Yanan both fell in! Jia Suyue glanced at Shao Hua, and said, “Oh! We’re here to play the Double Rise card game with you two!”

It was so obvious that the two women had been eavesdropping instead! Shao Hua turned around and glanced at Zhang Fan, who understood as well that the other two women had been eavesdropping.

Later that night, Jia Suyue and Wang Yanan pincered Shao Hua between them while interrogating her. “What did the two of you do? If you don’t tell us, we’re going to torture you with our life-threatening tickle techniques!”

“You already heard everything, so what am I supposed to say?” Shao Hua wasn’t the type who would give in easily.

“Did you really think that we could hear you clearly through a door? We only heard muffled discussion about something something May 1st,” Wang Yanan told her.

“Haha! Didn’t the two of you claim that you wanted to play Double Rise with us?”

“Ha! She’s just trying to get information out of you,” Jia Suyue said, and began to tickle Shao Hua. The three ladies messed around for a bit until Shao Hua told the other two, “Zhang Fan plans on visiting his home in May since his younger sister is taking the college entrance examination~”

“Did the two of you really not do anything else in his hotel room?”

The three of them started messing around again.

“Alright, alright, let’s stop playing around. Zhang Fan’s been busy for an entire day. Let’s not bother him with our noise,” Shao Hua said.

“Sheesh! You forget your friends when you have a boyfriend! But if he doesn’t leave for May 1st, we can go visit a place like Bluebird City together with him driving for us. It’s getting hotter, so it’s time to buy some summer clothing!” Jia Suyue exclaimed.

“You should take a plane there by yourself. He’s really busy. He might even have to work over the holiday, don’t you agree, Yanan?”

“Actually, probably not. He’s really quite free at the hospital. No surgical departments even treat him as an ordinary resident doctor, unlike me whom everyone orders around. I also want to go visit Bluebird City. I haven’t been there ever since graduation!” So what if Zhang Fan was Wang Yanan’s teaching doctor? She instantly sold him out to her friends! “And did you know? Zhang Fan is such a schemer. He received 3,000 yuan as payment for the three surgeries today, yet he gave 1,500 yuan to Carte City Hospital’s doctors, and then gave me 500 yuan as well, leaving himself with only 1,000 yuan. He’s under the impression that I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s obviously just waiting for bigger fish! Shao Hua, you’d better watch him carefully in the future. He really does make a lot of money.”

“Yeah, that really is a lot! Even if he only got 1,000 yuan in one day, that’s 30,000 yuan in a single month! Hua, I’ll be counting on you to support me in the future!” Jia Suyue stuffed her face into Shao Hua’s chest as she said this.

“Sigh!”

On the next day, everyone returned to Chasu City. Zhang Fan came over to Shao Hua’s home to eat a meal together. He purchased many ingredients from the supermarket, such as meat, eggs, rice, noodles, and so on. Shao Hua was completely unable to stop him.

“Just look at you, are you trying to forcefully insert yourself into my family? Who out there acts like you?” Shao Hua said rather helplessly.

“Haha, I’m still young, and these groceries can be rather heavy. I’ll buy these things later, which means that your parents won’t have to be so tired in the future.” Indeed, Zhang Fan was absolutely planning on inserting himself into Shao Hua’s family!

Shao Hua’s parents were actually quite happy to receive all these food ingredients as a present. To them, this meant that the two youngsters hadn’t wasted their money on useless things, and were instead more practical.

The meal consisted of beef noodles accompanied by some vegetables and tomatoes ¹ . The noodles were light in taste, which Zhang Fan definitely preferred. He ended up eating more noodles than Shao Hua and her parents combined.

“This is how food is supposed to be eaten. Just look at the two of you, you eat as much as a sparrow would. I don’t even feel like cooking for you two anymore,” Shao Hua’s mother commented to her husband and daughter before turning around to Zhang Fan. “If you’re not busy after work, feel free to come have a meal with us anytime. Just make sure to call us beforehand. I can cook anything that you want. It’s bad for you to always eat at the hospital cafeteria.”

“Okay! Understood, Ma’am. I’ll come over whenever I have time. Your food was really delicious!”

Shao Hua’s father frustratedly smoked a cigarette while glancing at Zhang Fan and thinking to himself, ‘This youngster is truly so shameless! He takes any opportunity he’s given!’