Pei Qi: “Huh?”

The man’s eyes were deep, his tone still even: “This is responsibility. I can’t deny my responsibility just because alcohol was involved.”

The young man listened, his voice a little weak: “It’s okay… I don’t think it’s Doctor Guan’s responsibility.”

Another silence.

Guan Yue: “Teacher Pei, is there anything about me you’re not satisfied with?”

The young man quickly denied it: “No… no, I just think the main responsibility is mine, Doctor Guan doesn’t need to sacrifice so much…”

The man spoke, his upright eyebrows carrying a detached expression: “But you said it was your first time.”

The young man’s hand slipped, the ceramic cup clinking against the wooden table with a dull sound.

He wanted to escape again…

He felt himself shrinking inch by inch in front of this appendectomy doctor.

Yet, there was nowhere to hide.

He could only lower his head and bite his lip tightly.

Guan Yue: “I happen to be planning to get married this year, so I haven’t sacrificed anything.”

Pei Qi still felt something was wrong: “But… we’re not familiar, how… how can we get married?”

“Isn’t the purpose of a blind date to get married? We just simplified the process.” The man’s eyebrows rose slightly, a tiny curve appearing, “Besides, compared to other blind date partners, we’ve already had a deep understanding.”

Pei Qi: “…”

Actually… he wasn’t wrong.

“Teacher Pei can consider it again and give me your answer tomorrow?”

Pei Qi, lost in the clouds, nodded and agreed inexplicably.

Before parting with Guan Yue, they added each other on WeChat, and the man even sent him a personal resume.

Graduated from a prestigious medical university, thirty years old, 189cm tall, stable job, car and house.

The conditions were indeed good.

And he even managed to resist rounding his height up to 190.

The young man lay in bed, slowly closing his eyes.

The appendectomy doctor’s serious face suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Then, it gradually overlapped with the lustful face in his memory…

It was a little hot.

The young man turned over, lifting a corner of the blanket.

Actually… marrying the appendectomy doctor.

It seemed like there was no problem.

Yes.

Since things had come to this, he might as well go to sleep.

The next day.

Pei Qi arrived at work as usual. He hadn’t slept well last night, and was a little groggy this morning. His condition wasn’t good, so his progress was slow, and he only finished a quarter of a page of brushwork in the morning.

At lunchtime, Su Mo noticed the young man’s unusual state: “Why do you seem out of it today?”

The young man chewed the rice in his mouth without much spirit. Maybe he chewed for too long, and a little sweetness spread in his mouth.

“Thinking about something.”

Su Mo gulped down a large mouthful of food, mumbling: “What’s wrong? Tell your senior brother.”

Pei Qi didn’t know how to say it.

How should he explain that his blind date had slept with him, and intended to get married, but they had only met twice?

No matter how you heard it, it sounded like a joke.

“Um…” Pei Qi decided to use a metaphor, “It’s like… suppose we put the paper on the tray before brushing the paste, but it’s still repaired in the end, senior brother, do you think it’s feasible?”

Su Mo swallowed the stir-fried pork: “How can that be repaired?”

Pei Qi: “It’s just a hypothesis… a hypothesis where the process is a bit messed up, but the result is the same.”

Su Mo: “Then it’s okay, anyway, if the result is the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit messy.”

The young man tapped his chopsticks on the table thoughtfully.

Su Mo solemnly emphasized: “But you absolutely cannot put the paper on the tray before brushing the paste.”

The young man nodded: “I know…”

His mind kept replaying his senior brother’s answer.

The result is the same, it doesn’t matter if it’s a bit messy.

As if he had made a certain decision.

In the afternoon, at the halfway point of the restoration project.

After confirming that his mood was calm and rational, the young man took out his phone, opened the chat window with the appendectomy doctor, and carefully typed on the keyboard.

He waited a few minutes, but there was no reply.

The doctor was probably very busy, and probably hadn’t checked his phone.

The young man didn’t mind too much, put his phone back in his pocket, and returned to his workstation to work.

It was already three o’clock in the afternoon. Guan Yue had just come down from the operating table. The lymph node dissection today was complicated, and it took almost an hour longer than expected.

The man was at the washbasin outside the operating room, washing his hands with water, which smelled of rubber.

After washing twice with hand soap and drying them, a few pale blue veins were slightly raised on his cold, fair hand.

Before the surgery, he hadn’t received a message from the young man.

It had been almost three hours.

The man left the restricted area and took out his phone from his pocket.

The time showed 3:12 PM.

There were “fifteen messages from WeChat” in the message notification.

He unlocked his phone and clicked on the green app.

Among the many red dots, the first one he saw was the third chat window.

The avatar was a cartoon image of a capybara wearing an orange.

seven: [Doctor Guan, I’ve decided.]

seven: [Let’s get married.]

The young man was hunched over at his workstation, rushing to finish the work. The lower right corner of this piece of bamboo paper was badly damaged, and he had to glue it piece by piece.

So he didn’t pay attention to his phone vibrating twice in his pocket.

The pieces of paper were too small, Pei Qi used tweezers to pick them up, repeating this action again and again, his fingertips trembling slightly in the latter half.

He hadn’t slept well last night, and he was a little sleepy in the afternoon. After drinking half a cup of Americano, his hands started to shake.

He had to go to bed early tonight!

It was almost five o’clock.

Lao Jiang walked towards the young man, his gaze falling on the partially repaired page: “It’s quite good. This part is badly damaged, don’t rush, take your time.”

The young man finally straightened his neck a little, blinked hard, his vision was still a little blurry: “Okay.”

“Go home early,” Lao Jiang said, hands behind his back, “Your master’s wife is making braised pork tonight, and she wants you to come over and try it.”

Pei Qi: “Okay, I’ll just frame this first, Master, wait for me.”

After finishing his work, Pei Qi turned off the lights in the office and looked at the indoor temperature and humidity display.

Indoor temperature 21 degrees, relative humidity 55%.

After checking, the young man left the office and walked downstairs.

Lao Jiang was hiding downstairs smoking. Seeing the young man coming down, he quickly threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it, then walked over casually: “You drive.”

Pei Qi: “Master, you’re smoking again.”

The old man with gray hair coughed twice and pretended: “I’m not…”

The young man mercilessly exposed him: “It smells of smoke, you must have been hiding behind the security room just now.”

Lao Jiang: “…Don’t tell your master’s wife.”

Pei Qi: “I will.”

Lao Jiang: “Am I still your master?”

Pei Qi: “Yes.”

Lao Jiang: “…”

The two of them chatted as they walked to the car.

His phone vibrated twice more in his jacket pocket.

The young man took it out to check the messages.

The phone automatically recognized his face and displayed the message list.

G: [Okay.]

G: [8 AM tomorrow, Civil Affairs Bureau.]

This was the reply the man sent at 3 PM, and now he sent another one.

To be precise, it was a punctuation mark.

G: [?]

The young man paused, holding the car door handle, and quickly replied.

seven: [Tomorrow?]

Actually, it was fine, he just needed to take a day off.

Almost an instant reply.

G: [Yes, I’m on duty the day after tomorrow, and I’ll be busy for the next few days.]

G: [I want to get it done early.]

G: [Do you have any problems?]

Pei Qi felt like he was in a business negotiation.

seven: [I can do it.]

After sending the message, he put down his phone, started the car, and said to Lao Jiang in the passenger seat: “I want to take a day off tomorrow morning, Master.”

Lao Jiang casually asked: “What’s the matter?”

The young man hesitated for a while: “To… see a doctor, my neck has been hurting lately…”

Seeing a doctor should also be considered a doctor’s appointment, right?

Rounding it up, he wasn’t lying.

The key was that if he said he was going to get a marriage license, it would be too…

He was afraid that his master would think he was just making an excuse to skip work…

“Oh, go ahead,” Lao Jiang nodded, “You’re so young, your neck is already bad, you should pay more attention…”

Pei Qi didn’t know anything about the marriage registration procedures, so after eating braised pork and going home, he went online to look for guides.

Nowadays, there are guides for everything.

The young man checked the checklist, preparing all the documents: ID card, household registration book…

After confirming that everything was correct, the young man got into bed, a warm lamp on in the room.

He was used to sleeping with a small lamp on.

When he was a child, he was timid and often home alone, so he developed this habit.

Thinking of this, the young man suddenly realized a problem.

He hadn’t told his parents that he was getting married tomorrow, nor had he told his third aunt…

He had been living with his third aunt since he was a child. His parents had been doing business in the south and rarely came back. Their relationship was quite distant. The last time they contacted him, his mother asked him to tutor his younger brother, who was eight years younger than him.

But at that time, he was busy restoring a severely moldy ancient book and didn’t have time.

As a result, his mother got angry and hadn’t contacted him for a long time.

The young man’s finger scrolled down, finding the chat window with his mother, hesitating.