Chapter 20: Wolf pack
Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
When the patient heard Ren Xiaosu lamenting how he did not run faster, he couldn’t feel more aggrieved. “I was already running with everything I had. You were too crazy fast for me!”
Ren Xiaosu grimaced and said, “The others have already paid and left. Tell me, how are we going to settle this? We are a clinic, not some charity organization!”
“Then why don’t you tell me how I should settle it?” The man was about to cry. Seeing how he was no match for Ren Xiaosu and was unable to afford the treatment, he might just end up dying here today.
“Look here.” Ren Xiaosu said nicely, “Why don’t you try to recall whether you have any money hidden somewhere at home?”
“No. Who would dare to hide their money at home these days? Even your own wife is not trustworthy.” The man was nearly driven to despair.
Ren Xiaosu started getting a little impatient. “You’re a grown man, so don’t act like you’re being bullied. Just tell me how much money you have on you.”
“It’s almost the end of the month, so there’s only around five days until I get paid. We can’t save much money doing what we do....”
“I’m asking how much money you have on you!” Ren Xiaosu yelled.
“432 yuan,” the man sobbed.
He definitely could not allow him to write a promissory note. In the current day, if he let someone sign a promissory note today, who knew if that person might just end up dead the next day.
Ren Xiaosu was wondering whether this man had any other valuables on him.
All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu thought of something. He said as his eyes lit up, “How about this? I don’t think it’s easy for you either, so why don’t I waive the remaining fee for you? You can just give me whatever money you have in your pocket. You can keep the 32 yuan for your meals.... Scratch that, you can keep 2 yuan for your next meal.”
When the man heard that, he teared up with emotion. “Thank you, thank you so much!”
“Gratitude received from Dong Mingshuai, +1!”
Ren Xiaosu was ecstatic. He had finally found a way to gain the gratitude of his patients!
First, he had to set a reasonable price. If the clinic charged 600 yuan, he would charge 600 yuan too. In this way, no one would feel that he was ripping them off. Secondly, he would have to put on an act. Even if it meant earning less money, he would earn their gratitude!
Making money wasn’t the priority; gaining gratitude was. Only by gaining gratitude could he earn money! Within a short period of one day, Ren Xiaosu had already made 1630 yuan. This was even faster than if he had gone to hunt for sparrows! Moreover, there wasn’t any danger involved.
For now, Ren Xiaosu’s number of gratitude tokens was back to four. It might look like there wasn’t an increase, but it was more important he had found a method to gain more of them through trial and error!
At this moment, Ren Xiaosu was happily thinking about buying a set of fall clothing for Yan Liuyuan. He turned around and glanced at Xiaoyu. And he could buy a cotton-padded jacket for Xiaoyu to wear through the winter as well!
Now that Xiaoyu had become their clinic’s nurse, Ren Xiaosu couldn’t let her work for nothing, right?
But there was no hurry. He could wait and see roughly how much they made in a month before deciding how much to pay Xiaoyu.
...
When news of the boiler explosion at the factory spread, many of the town’s women got very worried. They were all afraid that something happened to their husbands.
In the afternoon, Ren Xiaosu sat in his shack as he waited for the factory workers to return so that he could intercept and carry them to the clinic for treatment. But in the end, he didn’t see anyone else coming back.
The person who found it most unbearable would have to be that swindler at the town’s clinic. After he heard about the boiler explosion, he excitedly waited for the patients to come. However, no one came to him to seek treatment even as night fell!
As such, the young doctor went out and asked around. He’d clearly heard that three injured people ran back in the afternoon, but why didn’t any of them come to him to get bandaged?
However, after asking around, he felt blueballed when he found out that his business had been stolen away by someone!
He wondered who would be so brave as to stole away his business. After asking around again, he found out that it was Ren Xiaosu!
The young doctor deliberated over this before he finally clenched his teeth in anger. So what if it was Ren Xiaosu? Could he steal someone else’s occupation just because he was Ren Xiaosu?
However, the young doctor felt that something was amiss. How did Ren Xiaosu suddenly know how to treat wounds and save people? When he first heard about the black medicine, he only thought of it as something that Ren Xiaosu had randomly concocted. He had doubts about it at that time, but he had no choice but to believe it now.
He angrily went to look for Ren Xiaosu to demand an explanation. When he arrived at the door of Ren Xiaosu’s shack, Ren Xiaosu was paring a potato with a bone knife. Ren Xiaosu stabbed the potato with the bone knife, piercing right through it.
Ren Xiaosu asked nonchalantly, “You’re looking for me?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just wanted to ask if you’ve eaten yet.” The young doctor laughed dryly.
Ren Xiaosu looked at him and said, “Yu Tong, you aren’t young anymore. You’ve been depending on the old doctor’s reputation long enough. It’s running out. I advise you run home and flip through the old doctor’s medical books so that you don’t flounder in the future.”
“What are you talking about?” Yu Tong said diffidently. “I study the medical books every day.”
“That’s good then.” Ren Xiaosu lowered his head and continued paring the potatoes, ignoring him.
Honestly speaking, Ren Xiaosu and the others did not used to peel their potatoes. They ate the entire thing, skin and all. By peeling them, a substantial amount of the potato would go to waste. But it was different now. Ren Xiaosu had become rich, so he got a swelled head!
All of a sudden, over a dozen people ran into town and shouted, “This is bad! Something terrible has happened!”
Ren Xiaosu frowned. He pulled one of them over and asked, “What’s going on?”
“The scent of blood after the factory boiler explosion has attracted a pack of wolves.” That man said disconcertedly, “I don’t know where the wolves came from, but there are a lot of them!”
“How many is a lot?” Ren Xiaosu asked again.
“I’m afraid there are over a 100 of them, at least!”
This was indeed terrible. It looked like the fate of the workers remaining at the factory was grim.
The wolves hadn’t appeared in over a year. During this time, everyone had almost forgotten about their threat. No one knew where they had gone to during this yearlong disappearance, but now that they were back, their numbers had increased by several times.
However, the wolves did not dare to come and ravage the town because of the tall walls. And on top of these walls, there were firearms and explosives.
This was why the refugees had gathered outside of the walls and built a town around it.
“What are you looking at? Eat your food,” Ren Xiaosu told Yan Liuyuan.
After saying that, he sat down and continued eating his food. Meanwhile, Yan Liuyuan looked outside curiously as he ate his food and said, “Bro, how did you manage to survive back then? You’ve never talked about it before.”
Ren Xiaosu gave him a look but did not answer the question. Xiaoyu, who was beside them, also looked at Ren Xiaosu, although she did not ask him anything.
After Yan Liuyuan finished eating a potato, Ren Xiaosu handed him another one. “You should eat more so that you can grow better. Only then will you have a better chance of survival than others.”
“Bro, are you worried that the wolves will come into town?” Yan Liuyuan looked at Ren Xiaosu, who still had a frown on his face.
“No.” Ren Xiaosu shook his head and said, “They are much smarter than you guys can imagine, so they won’t risk it by coming here. If the boiler at the factory did not explode and cause those injuries and deaths, they wouldn’t even have gone there. They weren’t attracted to the smell of blood in the first place. It was the smell of death that made them go there.”
“Then what are you worrying about, Bro?” Yan Liuyuan wondered.
Ren Xiaosu thought for a long time. “What if the walls collapse one day?”
Xiaoyu was taken aback. “Will these walls collapse?”
“I don’t know.” Ren Xiaosu shook his head again. “But there’s nothing that ever stays the same in this world. Actually, I’ve encountered the wolf pack twice. The first time, I managed to run away after spotting them from afar. But I wasn’t that fortunate the second time around. However, it feels like... they’re getting much stronger than before!”
In fact, Ren Xiaosu was also wondering what would happen if the walls collapsed one day. What would happen to this society?