Chapter 608 — Kang Jingming Makes His Move

Of course, she told neither her grandfather nor her father. She simply made the decision quietly on her own.

At that moment, Kang Jingming rather regretted not having made an effort to study the medical texts. If he had, he could have found some topic to chat with Guan Xin about! Such an opportunity was rare indeed. He himself came from a family of medicine and pharmacy, which made for a perfect excuse to strike up a conversation—yet unfortunately, apart from chasing women, Kang Jingming knew nothing at all.

Seeing Guan Xin pull a book from the shelf and begin flipping through it, Kang Jingming grew frantic with impatience. How was he to approach her? Wait... A sudden inspiration struck him. No, hold on—Guan Xin was only a nurse, and she surely knew nothing about medical matters!

And a nurse's daily work was surely just the sort of thing that came with practice, was it not? Injections, bandaging, and the like—none of that required buying books at a bookstore. So what was Guan Xin doing here...? Kang Jingming looked again toward the medicine section, where there were quite a few young women as well. Just then a girl happened to pass by him, and he clearly made out the words on the book in her hands: "Traditional Chinese Medicine Cosmetology"!

Enlightenment dawned on Kang Jingming. So it was TCM cosmetology! Then Guan Xin had likely come here to buy books of that sort too. What girl did not love beauty? Especially a lovely, pretty girl like Guan Xin—she would be all the more eager to become even prettier!

At this thought, Kang Jingming felt his confidence return. He might not understand medical skill, but Guan Xin likely did not either. So long as he sounded professional and plausible enough, she would probably never know whether what he said was true or false!

What was more, many books nowadays were outright frauds; the things written in them were not necessarily correct, and some were even self-contradictory!

Kang Jingming gritted his teeth, strode over, and said with a smile, "Beautiful miss, might I ask if you are looking at books on cosmetology?"

Guan Xin's book was open, so Kang Jingming could not see the cover; thus he had no idea what she was reading, and he asked with the utmost self-assurance.

"Oh..." Guan Xin glanced up at Kang Jingming, saw that she did not know him, and paid him no further mind, lowering her head again to continue reading the book in her hands.

"Heh heh, much of what is written in these books is pure deception! I happen to be free today, so let me tell you about how Chinese medicine can be used for beauty!" Kang Jingming said confidently. "Allow me to introduce myself—my name is Kang Jingming, and I am the grandson of Divine Doctor Kang!"

"Divine Doctor Kang?" Guan Xin was briefly taken aback. She had heard of Divine Doctor Kang—his wound medicine was quite famous. When Guan Xin bandaged the injured, she was often asked whether the hospital carried Divine Doctor Kang's wound medicine. But Guan Xin felt no particular fondness for Divine Doctor Kang; she had merely heard of him.

"That is right—the Kang family are a house of Chinese medicine! Ordinarily I would never casually pass judgment on books about TCM cosmetology, but today, seeing you, I simply could not restrain myself and had to say a word or two!" Kang Jingming, believing Guan Xin had been overawed by the name of Divine Doctor Kang, went on smugly, "If you beautify yourself according to the methods in these fraudulent books, you will surely ruin your face instead! I cannot bear to watch such beauty as yours be destroyed in an instant, so I must speak up!"

"Oh..." Guan Xin frowned, thoroughly irritated by Kang Jingming's endless chatter. "There is no need. I do not wish to beautify myself."

"How can that be? You are so beautiful—if you do not know how to care for yourself, beauty too is fleeting!" Kang Jingming pressed on. "Think about it: you are so beautiful now because youth is invincible. But in a few more years, when youth has faded and the looks are gone, what will you do then?"

Guan Xin glared at Kang Jingming. What sort of talk was this? What did he mean, youth faded and looks gone? Was the man insane? But Guan Xin was well bred and slow to anger; though displeased with Kang Jingming, she said nothing more, merely lowering her head to keep reading, thinking that if she ignored him, he would go away.

But who would have thought Kang Jingming would not leave, and instead kept chattering on, "The Divine Doctor Kang family has done a great deal of research on TCM cosmetology. The things written in books like these are all ordinary medicinal materials—in truth, they are useless. To preserve one's youth forever, one must take potent medicines! For instance... lingzhi, snow lotus, deer antler, tiger penis..."

Kang Jingming had no idea which medicines were actually good. But since Guan Xin did not understand either, he simply rattled off a few precious medicinal materials he had heard mentioned before.

At the words "tiger penis," Guan Xin could not help blushing, and she grew even more annoyed inwardly. Was this man sick in the head? Why did he say anything that came into it?

But Kang Jingming had no self-awareness whatsoever. Seeing Guan Xin blush, he assumed she had been moved by the depth of his learning, and grew even more pleased with himself. "My family still has half a tiger penis at home. After I ate half of one last time, it did me a world of good. If you need it, I can bring it to you..."

Kang Jingming had not the faintest notion that there was anything improper about a tiger penis. He was simply desperate to curry favor with Guan Xin, and so among these precious medicines, he named whatever his family happened to have! Snow lotus they had as well, but that was used in making the beautifying and skin-nourishing wound medicine—he was not so foolish as to dare give that away.

Guan Xin truly could not endure the man before her any longer. She closed her book, intending to leave, but as she raised her head she caught sight of Wei Zhao standing not far away, and her heart leaped with joy! She waved to him. "Wei Zhao! What a coincidence—you come to the bookstore too?"

Kang Jingming had been proudly showing off his family's stores when he saw Guan Xin actually walk away—and go to Wei Zhao, of all people. He was so furious his teeth itched! The whole Kang family regarded Wei Zhao as a mortal enemy. Ever since Kang ** had gotten mixed up with that wretch, the Kang family had been thrown into utter turmoil!

A perfectly good life-extending, poison-expelling pill, and he had refused to explain it clearly, costing the Kang family not only a precious elixir but a collective meal of dog shit. There was no humiliation greater!

Of course, Kang Jingming never laid any of these mistakes at his own family's door! It never occurred to him that if his family had not doubted that Kang ** had sent them a wondrous elixir, and if Kang Jingming had not trampled the pill to pieces, none of what followed would ever have happened.

But Kang Jingming laid all the blame on Kang ** and Wei Zhao, complaining that they had failed to make things clear beforehand!

And then, the Life-Extending Detox Pill his family had spent over four hundred million on had actually been eaten by a dog, and for that too he blamed Kang ** and Wei Zhao! If the two of them had not brought that Life-Extending Detox Pill in the first place, would his family have gone looking for some shepherd dog? Would they have gone studying dog droppings? (To be continued.)