Chapter 73 — Free Chef

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Not long after, Uncle Qing's Bentley pulled up at the villa's gate. He saw Wei Zhao standing there and froze for a moment.

"Mr. Lin, what are you doing out here?" Uncle Qing got out of the car and looked at Wei Zhao with some puzzlement.

"Just getting some fresh air, and having a look at who lives around here," Wei Zhao said.

Uncle Qing nodded. "Mengyao and the others haven't come out yet? Shall I go call them?"

As he spoke, Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu came out of the villa carrying their backpacks, chatting and laughing. When they saw Uncle Qing, they greeted him and got into the car.

Wei Zhao sat naturally in the passenger seat. Uncle Qing started the car and drove slowly in the direction of the school.

Once the two girls were in the car, they kept whispering to each other in the back. The Bentley was roomy, and Wei Zhao was not about to deliberately eavesdrop on two young ladies' private talk, so he paid them no mind.

After a while, Shen Yushu nudged Gu Mengyao. "If you like it, why don't you say so?"

"Like what? I was just having a couple of bites in passing. If you don't want to say it, then forget it." Gu Mengyao gave a little huff and ignored Shen Yushu.

Shen Yushu had no choice. She wrinkled her nose and said, "All right, all right. I'll say it, then."

Those two lines came out louder and clearer, so Wei Zhao, in the passenger seat up front, heard them—though he still had no idea what they were talking about.

"Uncle Qing, when you come by tonight, could you buy some fresh ingredients?" Shen Yushu said to Uncle Qing, who was driving.

"Oh? Ingredients?" Uncle Qing was slightly taken aback. "Fresh vegetables and meat, you mean?"

"Yes! Eggs, seasonings, all that sort of thing—just get a full set, whatever's needed," Shen Yushu said with a nod.

"All right." Uncle Qing was a little puzzled. He had prepared fresh vegetables and meat for them before, but much of it had ended up spoiling, so afterward he had kept only small quantities on hand, just in case. He had not expected Shen Yushu to suddenly ask for a large stock.

Judging by the exchange between Shen Yushu and Gu Mengyao earlier, this was probably Gu Mengyao's idea as well. So Uncle Qing asked no further questions and agreed without hesitation.

"Yay! Yaoyao, we'll have good food from now on!" Shen Yushu excitedly held out her hand for a high-five with Gu Mengyao.

Gu Mengyao shot her a glare. "Eat, eat, all you think about is eating. By the time you've eaten yourself into a fat pig, we'll see whether anyone will marry you."

Up in the passenger seat, Wei Zhao's face was a mask of dark lines. If he still did not understand what this little girl Shen Yushu was up to, he would be a fool. Buying all those ingredients—was she taking him for a free chef?

Damn it all, was he not the wronged party here? One little trick with a runny nose, and someone had him by the short hairs. If word of this ever got out and reached his old teammates, would they not laugh their teeth out?

And yet this really was hard to explain away—the more he explained, the worse it would get. Wei Zhao could only endure it. He would just treat it as carrying out a mission. For the sake of a reward that could feed him for the rest of his life, Wei Zhao decided this was nothing at all.

Compared with the North African jungle, where even a single spider could take a man's life, life now was so good. He could go to school, he could chase girls… uh, well, chasing girls seemed a bit unreliable.

Wei Zhao looked in the rearview mirror. Shen Yushu was in the back making faces at him, so he simply closed his eyes and pretended not to see.

Shen Yushu squinted and contorted her face for ages, hunting for a few especially difficult expressions to annoy Wei Zhao—only to find that Brother Big Arrowhead had actually shut his eyes. Shen Yushu was instantly furious beyond measure, and in her agitation her face cramped up, and this time it would not go back to normal.

"Xiaoshu, what are you doing? What happened to your face?" Gu Mengyao had noticed too that something was off with Shen Yushu.

"N-nothing... my tooth hurts," Shen Yushu said, holding her breath. She absolutely could not tell Gu Mengyao about this, or she would laugh herself sick.

"So it's a toothache. I saw you squinting over there—I thought your eyes had gone bad," Wei Zhao cut in flatly, settling the score for her treating him like a free cook earlier.

Ha! Shen Yushu was not angry but amused. So the fellow had not merely been sitting there with his eyes shut—he had seen her grimace after all. That meant her face-making had not been for nothing.

At this thought, Shen Yushu cheered up again.

"Xiaoshu, if your tooth hurts, why are you smiling?" Gu Mengyao was baffled; seeing Shen Yushu bare her teeth and twist her mouth one moment after another only puzzled her more.

"It's nothing, nothing," Shen Yushu said, waving her hand.

By then the car had stopped in a small alley near the school, so Gu Mengyao asked no more. The two of them got out one after the other, while Wei Zhao stayed in the car—by their reckoning, he had to keep out of sight to avoid gossip.

"Mr. Lin, shall I take you to the hospital to have your dressing changed?" Uncle Qing said, starting the car.

"Change the dressing?" Only then did Wei Zhao remember that his leg wound had not yet healed. The pain was nothing to him; if no one had brought it up, he would not even have thought of it. "All right."

Wei Zhao reflected that he would have to stop by a pharmacy later and mix up some healing medicine first—ordinary drugs were far too slow at closing wounds. While he was at it, he would prepare the medicine for Yang Huaijun as well.

The car reached Songjiang City First People's Hospital, and Uncle Qing parked in the lot while Wei Zhao went in alone to have his dressing changed.

When he reached the surgical treatment room, Wei Zhao did not see Guan Xin, the pretty nurse MM from yesterday; on duty today was a middle-aged woman. Wei Zhao's heart immediately eased—good thing she was not here, or it would have been awkward again.

"Hello, I'm here to have my dressing changed." Wei Zhao handed the treatment slip to the middle-aged nurse.

"Oh, sit over there." The nurse glanced at the slip he handed her, then quickly prepared the fresh dressing and said to Wei Zhao, "Take off your pants."

"Uh... aren't you going to close the door?" Wei Zhao saw that the treatment room door was still open and asked, a little embarrassed.

"What's a grown young man afraid of? Hurry up," the middle-aged nurse said stoutly. "This is a hospital—who's dying to look at your backside?"

"Uh... all right..." Wei Zhao was speechless. Thinking of the shy Guan Xin MM from yesterday, he supposed this middle-aged nurse had once been a bashful young girl too—but the years had turned her into a tough old auntie. He wondered whether, some years down the line, Guan Xin would end up the same way... The thought gave him a chill, and a touch of regret as well.

To be honest, his first impression of Guan Xin had been quite good.

Still, he had to admit the nurse's ** technique was far more practiced than Guan Xin's. In no time at all she had changed his dressing, then tossed the used cotton into the trash and said, "There we go, young man, you're healing nicely. Come back once more tomorrow and you'll be fine."

"Uh... all right... thank you..." Wei Zhao thanked her and quickly walked out of the surgical treatment room, thinking to himself that it was a good thing no one had passed by.