Chapter 676 — A Bad Start

"Oh, so that's how it is. Well, off you go and see your friend, then. I have work to do." Guan Xin plainly had no wish to exchange another word with Kang Jingming.

"Yes, I'm on my way. Oh, by the way, take these flowers, will you? They're a nuisance to cart around." Kang Jingming held the bouquet out before Guan Xin.

"Red roses? For a sick visit?" Guan Xin was no fool; how could she believe such nonsense?

"Er... ha, well, it's a female patient..." Kang Jingming faltered for an instant, but he was quick-witted and hurried to cover his slip.

"Red roses for a female patient? She's your girlfriend, isn't she?" Guan Xin said with a smile.

"Huh?" Kang Jingming had not expected that a girl who looked so gentle would prove so adept at spotting the holes in everything he said -- it had been the same back at the bookshop, and it was the same now! It seemed this one would not be easily won over; there was a certain difficulty to her.

"Girlfriend? Not at all. She's my buddy's girlfriend -- I'm only delivering the flowers on his behalf!" Kang Jingming struck on an idea. "Ha, the truth is this: my buddy had a quarrel with his girl, and she was so furious she stormed out of the house. She spent a whole night freezing outside and came down with a cold, and now she's in hospital. My buddy wanted to come and apologize, but he couldn't swallow his pride, so he asked me to do it for him! But wouldn't you know it -- I phoned just now and the young couple have already made it up. So my trip was for nothing!"

Having finished, Kang Jingming privately thought this excuse of his was rather inspired. He really was a genius!

"Oh, well, since the flowers are no use to you now, let me put them in a vase here at the hospital." Guan Xin knew that if she refused them outright, Kang Jingming would never let the matter drop, so she took the roses -- only to set them down in a vase in the hospital corridor the moment they were in her hands.

Seeing things had come to this, Kang Jingming had no recourse but to say, with a show of reluctance, "Ha, quite right. They look lovely there! Well then, Guan Xin, I'll be off. Keep in touch when you have time!"

"Goodbye." Guan Xin nodded and turned back into her office, thinking she really should never have stepped out for that trip to the washroom, and run into that tiresome pest Kang Jingming, who had droned on and on and made a hopeless muddle of everything.

Kang Jingming sighed. He supposed he ought to change his strategy for courting her; Guan Xin seemed quite unlike other girls! From his past experience, girls who had never had a boyfriend were all innocent and easy to win over, yet with Guan Xin he had run into a wall.

After Kang Jingming had gone, Li Xiaomei, a nurse who was close to Guan Xin, glanced at the roses in the corridor and could not help curling her lip. "Must be rich, all right -- ninety-nine roses, that's three hundred yuan at least, and just tossed aside like that!"

"It's his money, so what does it have to do with us?" Guan Xin smiled. "What, do you like them? Shall I introduce you?"

"Forget it. I may dream of snagging a rich man, but he's clearly not my type. One look and you can tell he's a playboy -- he probably toys with women and then throws them over. How could I give myself to a man like that?" Li Xiaomei was plainly contemptuous of Kang Jingming.

Li Xiaomei knew her own limits. She might be rather pretty, but there was no small gap between her and Guan Xin. She knew too that she would never catch the eye of a rich young gentleman like that -- better to find a wealthy man who could support her for the rest of her life than to be used and cast aside for nothing.

Guan Xin neither approved nor disapproved of Li Xiaomei's dream, for everyone had their own way of living. Li Xiaomei's family circumstances were poor, so it was only natural that she wanted to find a meal ticket for the rest of her life. And if Guan Xin wanted to find someone who truly loved her, that too was her own freedom.

"So, if even you can see he's no good, how could I possibly accept his flowers?" Guan Xin shook her head. "All right, let's get back to work. The head nurse will be here any minute, and we'll be in for a scolding!"

"You're a young lady of a great house -- who'd dare scold you? Do you still want to go on working here?" Li Xiaomei and Guan Xin had been classmates, so she knew something of Guan Xin's family background: that Guan Xin's father was a major shareholder in the hospital, and her grandfather the famous physician Guan Xuewen.

"Ha, no one else knows who I am, and even if they did, it wouldn't do to ask for special treatment." With that, Guan Xin set to work. "If you don't want your bonus, by all means keep daydreaming."

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" Li Xiaomei hurried to fall in with Guan Xin's work. "Until I land myself a rich man, I still care very much about that bonus!"

Kang Jingming walked out of the hospital in a foul mood and got into a Porsche Cayenne, where his two lackeys, Zhu Xiaozhang and Wang Shubin, were both waiting.

"Young Master Ming, how did it go? Did you give her the flowers?" Zhu Xiaozhang asked.

"Xiaozhang, isn't that a question with an obvious answer? Can't you see the young master's come back empty-handed? They must have been given to her!" Wang Shubin said.

"Damn it, don't even mention it -- a bad start again, curse the luck!" Kang Jingming waved his hand irritably and dropped into the passenger seat.

"What's wrong, Young Master Ming? Your flowers..." Zhu Xiaozhang blinked in surprise when he heard Kang Jingming start cursing.

"The flowers were delivered, all right -- to the hospital!" Kang Jingming said, thoroughly annoyed. "This girl won't take the bait. She's a real piece of work, I tell you. Looks all soft and gentle, but she's sharp as they come. Damn it, she sent me packing and stuck the flowers straight into a vase in the hospital corridor!"

"What?" Zhu Xiaozhang and Wang Shubin exchanged glances. They had assumed that once Kang Jingming made his move, the girl would be his for the taking; who would have thought he would strike out twice in a row?

"Next time, it seems I'll have to find another way to get close to her. These chance encounters are too clumsy -- they won't fool her!" Kang Jingming waved a hand. "Let's think it over and see if we can find a better approach. Everyone, pool your ideas and give me a suggestion!"

"Well... when we chased girls before, didn't we always just throw money at them?" Zhu Xiaozhang racked his brains but could not come up with any good plan. He was usually arrogant in his dealings and free with his cash, so plenty of gold-diggers had hooked up with him.

"Idiot, Guan Xin is obviously not a gold-digger. Her family has money too -- she's not short of cash at all. Those old tricks won't work!" Kang Jingming shot Zhu Xiaozhang an annoyed glare. "Can't you say something constructive?"