......

This time Wei Zhao had come mainly to buy a phone, so he headed straight for the phone sales counter. He had noticed that both Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu were using Nokia E7s and found them rather appealing himself, so he simply picked out a Nokia E7, paid several thousand yuan toward his phone charges, and the handset came bundled in.

Just as Wei Zhao was about to pay, Uncle Qing beat him to it with his card and smiled at Wei Zhao: "These are all everyday necessities - they should be on us."

Hearing Uncle Qing say that, Wei Zhao didn't argue any further. After all, several thousand yuan was a significant sum to him, but to Uncle Qing and Gu Pengzhan it wasn't worth mentioning at all.

Don't take Uncle Qing for just a driver. A driver, yes - but one who held shares in the Gu Group. The stake was small, yet it spoke volumes about how much Uncle Qing stood in Gu Pengzhan's eyes.

Once the phone was bought, the traffic on the street grew heavier - it was exactly rush hour now. Uncle Qing gave a wry smile: "Looks like we'll be held up quite a while. But Mr. Lin, how on earth did you come to know Director Wang at the school so well?"

"When I went to register yesterday, I exchanged a few words with him and we hit it off. He left me his phone number and told me to contact him if I ever needed anything." Wei Zhao replied with a smile.

"I see." Though Uncle Qing didn't quite believe it, since Wei Zhao wasn't offering more, he didn't press the matter.

At last they arrived at the First People's Hospital, though it was already half past eight in the morning - it had taken roughly an hour on the road.

They found Doctor Sun Weimin from the previous day. Sun Weimin was delighted to see Wei Zhao arrive, gazing at him with a beaming smile: "The little hero is here! You're recovering remarkably fast - you can already walk. If it were anyone else, they'd probably still be hobbling around on crutches!"

"Doctor Sun, please don't call me 'little hero' - it sounds awfully awkward. Besides, I'm no hero." Wei Zhao squirmed under Sun Weimin's stare, feeling more than a little embarrassed. Something about that smile didn't sit right with him.

"A hero you are - absolutely a hero!" Sun Weimin waved his hand dismissively, adopting the air of an elder, and grinned: "But you young fellows are just a bit too much of a ladies' man. What happened with that female officer yesterday has already become the talk of the hospital - even the police flower herself is smitten with our little hero!"

"Huh?" Wei Zhao broke out in a cold sweat. No way? They said gossip traveled fast on campus - was it that fast in hospitals too?

"Ha ha, alright, I'll stop teasing you!" Sun Weimin laughed as he scribbled out some medical instructions, then handed them to Wei Zhao: "Take this and go to the surgical treatment room."

"Okay." Wei Zhao hastily snatched up the instructions and bolted from Sun Weimin's consultation room as if his life depended on it, his back slick with cold sweat. If that girl Qiu Lingshan caught wind of this, things would blow up. Last night he had managed to talk circles around her until she had nothing left to say - but if she figured it out later, wouldn't she come gunning for him? Just thinking about it gave Wei Zhao a splitting headache.

The surgical treatment room was right next door to the surgical consultation office. Wei Zhao knocked on the door, and a remarkably gentle voice came from inside: "Come in."

Hehe, a nurse's voice really is a pleasure to hear! Wei Zhao swaggered the door open and strode in: "Hello, I'm here to have my dressing changed."

"Ah!" The nurse inside the treatment room looked up with a flicker of pleasant surprise, eyes widening at Wei Zhao as he came through the door: "You... you're all right?"

"What do you mean all right? I haven't even had my dressing changed yet!" Wei Zhao was utterly baffled. The nurse was pretty enough - round face, big eyes - but could she be crazy?

"You... you don't recognize me?" Guan Xin pouted sorrowfully, gazing at Wei Zhao with pitiful eyes.

Yesterday had been Guan Xin's very first month's salary. She was overjoyed - she was finally independent, and no longer had to endure her family elders calling her a shallow, money-obsessed girl!

In truth, Guan Xin never lacked for money. On the contrary, her family was very well-off. But Guan Xin didn't want it that way - she wanted to earn her own money through her own effort! After graduating from nursing school, Guan Xin had stayed on at the First People's Hospital of Songshan City as a nurse.

In fact, in this fiercely competitive job market, nursing was no easy profession either. Many pretty young women had only bowed their heads to unwritten rules and compromises before landing the jobs they desired.

But Guan Xin's family background spoke for itself - compromise with the hospital shareholder's daughter? That was basically courting death. Who would dare? So by the hospital director's own appointment, Guan Xin was assigned to the surgical treatment room.

The director had also taken into account that Director Sun Weimin of the surgical department was a man of upright character, which was why he let Guan Xin stay there. Otherwise, if word ever got out about a doctor harassing the hospital shareholder's daughter, he might as well hand in his resignation on the spot.

After work, Guan Xin happily ran to the bank, ready to withdraw her salary and savor the joy of earning her own money.

Because of the peculiar nature of a nurse's schedule, by the time she got off work almost every bank had closed. Guan Xin had no choice but to walk a long way to the only twenty-four-hour bank nearby—and as ill luck would have it, she walked straight into a bank robbery.

When the robbers burst into the bank and fired their guns into the air, ordering everyone to stay still, Guan Xin was stunned, her mind a complete blank. She did whatever the people around her did, crouching down with the flow of the crowd.

At first she thought that if she could just ride it out, the robbers would take the money and leave. Who could have guessed that the police would surround the bank, leaving the robbers no choice but to seize a hostage as a bargaining chip.

When the robber walked toward her side, Guan Xin was terrified that he would pick her. To her surprise, he chose a girl not far from her, who looked about her own age.

What Guan Xin found utterly unbelievable was that at that very moment, the young man in front of her abruptly stood up and volunteered to be the robbers' hostage.

After all, at a time like this most people couldn't hide fast enough—who would volunteer to be a hostage? Guan Xin deeply admired the courage of the young man in front of her.

But the thug raised his gun and fired at him without mercy, and Guan Xin's heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

What puzzled Guan Xin, though, was that the young man tilted his body to one side and then straightened up again. Under the circumstances, what could such a movement possibly mean?

Guan Xin had no time to think it over—the gunshot had already rung out, and the young man was hit. Yet he did not make a sound, silently enduring the bullet that struck his leg.

In that moment, Guan Xin felt a powerful urge to stand up and tell the young man that she was a nurse and could bandage his wound for him. But her legs would not obey her, and it was not until the young man and the girl were taken away together as hostages that she finally came back to her senses...