Rebirth: My Dear Little Wife Is So Scheming

Chapter 174 - 174 174 Embarrassment

?Chapter 174: Chapter 174: Embarrassment Chapter 174: Chapter 174: Embarrassment Because she was tired, Bai Xiao had slept soundly and when she woke up, her older brother was already gone. Glancing at the watch, Bai Xiao wondered where the watch had come from.

She hadn’t mentioned it yet, but last night, while packing her bags, Bai Xiao discovered an extra white handkerchief-wrapped bundle in her backpack. She had initially thought it was the work of her older sister but upon opening it, she immediately realized it was An Zhiyuan’s doing.

It must have been the day before yesterday when they were boarding the vehicle, An Zhiyuan, while helping her with her backpack, had secretly slipped it to the bottom. She hadn’t noticed at all; it was a deliberate act by An Zhiyuan.

In the bundle was a ladies’ plum blossom brand watch—currently the most popular ladies’ watch—along with a stack of money, food coupons, and a letter.

Bai Xiao counted the money; it was five hundred yuan, quite a substantial sum. An Zhiyuan was really something, not even fearing that she might lose it.

The letter’s tone was firm, stating that the money was for Bai Xiao’s daily living expenses and instructing her not to be frugal, to take good care of herself, and so on—in other words, that he considered himself her fiancé.

She had thought that An Zhiyuan had given up the idea of giving her money, especially since what she said at the time had not been pleasant. But it turned out An Zhiyuan was a man with his own convictions, determined and uncompromising, so she ended up with a watch.

And now she needed something like it for going to and from work and keeping track of time. So she put it on last night, reasoning that she could always buy a watch to repay An Zhiyuan later. How heartless that sounded.

So Bai Xiao had a watch.

Fortunately, Bai Xiao had also prepared a handkerchief-wrapped bundle for her older brother Bai Song, containing two hundred yuan and food coupons. Her brother needed to start saving money, after all, for how else would he marry and bring home a wife in the future?

Moreover, although they were provided meals at their location, it was still necessary to use meal tickets to get food. Bai Xiao did not want Bai Song to save his own meal money out of financial necessity. Although he was already twenty-five, he was still at an age when he had a hearty appetite. Plus, with the rigors of training, how could he have the strength to participate in various tasks without a good meal?

Yesterday, Xiaoli told her that work started at eight in the morning and ended at five-thirty in the afternoon. There was no night shift here, so they had quite a leisurely schedule.

Bai Xiao got up, washed, got ready, and grabbed her backpack, taking her acupuncture kit with her. Although the hospital would issue an acupuncture kit, she had not yet received hers, and her weapon was her own acupuncture kit, packed in a large white porcelain tea jar, emblazoned with red characters stating the name People’s Liberation Army Hospital of a certain military region, complete with the August First emblem—a typical must-have item.

Leaving home ten minutes before eight, her dormitory was very close to the Traditional Chinese Medicine department; at most, a five-minute walk.

Bai Xiao entered on the dot, and surprisingly, no one was in the department yet.

No, that’s not right; there were two people cleaning. One was Xiaoli from yesterday, and the other was a young man she hadn’t seen before; he must also be an intern, judging by his appearance. Upon seeing Bai Xiao, Xiaoli hurriedly greeted her. Bai Xiao was different from them; she was not an intern but a legitimately appointed doctor at the hospital.

That made a fundamental difference.

“Doctor Bai, you’ve arrived!”

“Xiaoli, where are the others?” Bai Xiao was puzzled. Wasn’t it said that work started at eight?

“Oh, today Doctor Zhao and Doctor Fang are off on rotation. Doctor Han Jian and Doctor Liu Wei haven’t arrived yet, but they will soon, within ten or eight minutes at the most. You know, there aren’t many patients in our Traditional Chinese Medicine department usually, so coming early doesn’t make much difference,” Xiaoli briskly explained the situation, probably because he felt Bai Xiao was also new, even though she wasn’t quite like them. Maybe it was a natural sense of empathy, a feeling of being in the same boat.

Bai Xiao nodded; the Traditional Chinese Medicine department she had joined really was relaxed.

This was very uncomfortable, as there wasn’t even her own consultation office, she didn’t have a place to change clothes, let alone a locker to store her belongings, she hoped that Dean Zhang’s office could be cleared out soon, otherwise it would be quite embarrassing.

Seeing Bai Xiao’s expression, Xiaoli knew that she felt uncomfortable, “Dr. Bai, otherwise you can put your things in my locker and change in our interns’ changing room.” She was kind-hearted, after all, Bai Xiao was new, and it was right to help her out. Bai Xiao reminded her of her own first days, when she was also a pitiful figure that nobody paid attention to or guided.

“Then thank you! My consulting room should be ready soon, I’ll be troubling you for these few days,” Bai Xiao appreciated Xiaoli’s enthusiasm, after all, why would she help her if not?

“Don’t be so polite, come on, I’ll take you to change clothes.” Xiaoli took Bai Xiao to change clothes, what they called a changing room was just a locker at the nurse station, where they had to squeeze in with the nurses; there was no separate changing room for themselves.

Two nurses were changing clothes, and when they saw Xiaoli bring Bai Xiao in to change, they asked out of curiosity.

“Xiaoli, is this a new intern? She seems too young.” They were veterans and obviously weren’t afraid to speak their minds.

Especially Bai Xiao’s age was a major drawback; no one seemed to take her seriously as a legitimate doctor.

“This is not an intern, this is the new Acupuncture Dr. Bai Xiao. Her consulting room isn’t ready yet, so she’s temporarily changing here!” Xiaoli patiently explained, and gave Bai Xiao an extra glance because she knew many doctors didn’t like being called interns, as there’s a difference between a real doctor and an intern.

Seeing that Bai Xiao wasn’t angered by the comment, she was relieved! It seemed this girl was easy to get along with; after all, some doctors have a big temper, and there are certainly those who would scold others over such a misunderstanding, which would have been awkward.

The nurses felt embarrassed, turned pale, and quickly apologized, “Sorry, Dr. Bai, we didn’t know, sorry, sorry!” They felt annoyed inside, wondering what kind of doctor would come to their nurse station to change clothes; it seemed like a pretty bad mix-up.

No wonder they were mistaken, which doctor would ever get so close with the nurses to this extent?

Who could be blamed for this?

It was an unexpected disaster; if the new doctor had scolded them roundly, they would have considered themselves unlucky indeed.

Bai Xiao smiled, “It’s okay, don’t blame yourselves for the misunderstanding, it’s my problem. Besides, this isn’t a big deal, I probably know less than an intern right now; I understand nothing, not even as much as Xiaoli. I hope you’ll help me in the future; I just arrived! There’s so much I don’t know and need your advice on. Please take good care of me!”

This attitude immediately made the two nurses happy; Dr. Bai was a nice person, not one of those old-fashioned ones, nor a doctor who always looked down at them with a grim face. She seemed very approachable, and they immediately gathered around, saying, “Dr. Bai, you really look young. How old are you? Which Medical College did you graduate from?”

At that, the gates of gossip swung open.

Xiaoli had heard the day before that Bai Xiao seemed not to have attended Medical College; it was best not to linger on this topic, as it could easily offend someone. Seeing Bai Xiao’s friendly disposition, who knew what her temperament was like – if on the surface she smiled jovially but inside was sharp as a knife, things could turn out badly.

She quickly smoothed things over, “Dr. Bai is here for her first day today; I’ll first show her around the department. We can talk about this later, there’s plenty of time since we are in the same department.” She hurriedly pulled Bai Xiao away.

“Dr. Bai, they didn’t mean anything by it; they are good people, just a bit gossipy, please don’t mind!”

Bai Xiao laughed, “I’m not some fearsome monster; you don’t have to be so scared of me. I’m well aware of my own circumstances and don’t care so much about what others say. If I were worried about people’s opinions, I wouldn’t have come here. Not having attended Medical College isn’t something to be ashamed of; if need be, I can always attend later on; it’s not unheard of for doctors to start out as health workers. Don’t worry! I really don’t mind!”

Xiaoli instantly broke into a smile, seeing that Bai Xiao was indeed easy to get along with.