Chapter 4 Wang Meng

Li Cu was a little puzzled when Liang Wan gave him a mysterious look, and thought to himself: “I’m not familiar with you. What the fuck are you trying to sell? Shit, if you’re trying to keep me in suspense, you should get my dad to come over here; you’ve got nothing on him.” But looking at Liang Wan, he knew he had to cooperate, so he said, “Who’s that man?”

“Logically speaking, I don’t know. It’s a matter for the Public Security Bureau. But I’m your doctor and have had a lot of contact with them, so I came across some news.” Liang Wan said. “Naturally, someone who can do such things isn’t ordinary.”

“Who the hell is it?” Li Cu was secretly cursing her for keeping him in suspense twice now, and thought to himself “do you think you’re writing tomb-raiding novels?” Then he asked her, “Can you stop with the suspense?”

“Want to know? Buy me dinner.” Liang Wan retorted, looking at him a little teasingly. Li Cu frowned and thought, “What’s the matter with this female doctor? Is there something wrong with her brain? Is it because I’m young and handsome so she wants to flirt with me?”

Li Cu was very aware of what he looked like, and knew that he could deceive young girls, but it was obviously impossible to attract such a mature woman. The other party may just be bored, but that didn’t mean he had to put up with it.

“Well, I’m a student, but I don’t have much money. Aren’t you ashamed, blackmailing me?” He specially emphasized the word “student” and hoped that the other party would take notice. Liang Wan took out a few red banknotes from a drawer: “This is what was in your clothes when you were sent here. It’s not much. You can’t afford to by me Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine so let’s eat stewed meat.”

When Li Cu took the money and found that there were blood stains on it, he was immediately stunned and said, “I borrowed it from my friend. I was planning to hide outside for a few days, but now I don’t need to. I have to give it back to him.”

“Come on. You don’t want to know what’s going on with your back?” Liang Wan looked at her watch, took off her white coat, took out high heels from under her desk, and put them on.

Li Cu discovered that this female doctor wasn’t as old as he had first imagined. At most, she had just graduated from university. She was very petite and had beautiful legs, which made her a little dazzling.

Sure enough, white coats could hide a lot of things. Liang Wan hooked his arm and led him along: “Come on, I’ll help you go through the discharge formalities.”

Liang Wan’s hands were very soft, and Li Cu— who had never touched a woman before— was a bit dazed. He immediately thought, “Is this the legendary affair? Shit, this affair is too awesome!” Did this woman especially like boys whose backs were carved up like a pizza?

“Discharge? Can I even be discharged?” He asked vaguely.

“Are you a man or not? You’re so sensitive. I’m with you, so what are you afraid of?” Liang Wan pulled him out of the office and turned off the light.

Li Cu was really confused. Even a few days later, he still felt dizzy when he remembered that a high school boy was walking down the street arm-in-arm with such a beautiful doctor sister. The satin-like touch of her white hands almost made him faint.

If THAT hadn’t happened later, then the day would have been perfect and it would have been worth a few more cuts. At least, that’s what he had thought right after THAT happened.

There was a very famous stewed meat shop beside the First Affiliated Hospital of Peking University called “Wang Xiaoshi”. It was only after sitting down in the shop that Li Cu found himself still wearing a hospital gown. “The young man was hospitalized and wanted to eat meat, so you snuck out to get some, eh? Is this your older sister? She’s really pretty.” The waiter at the stew shop was amused when he saw it and teased him mercilessly.

“Older sister my ass, I’m his classmate! If you don’t take our order, we’ll go somewhere else!” Liang Wan scolded.

“Well, Sister, don’t be so fierce.” The man stuck out his tongue and immediately ran away.

“Have you always had this kind of temper?” Li Cu was startled and asked Liang Wan.

“What temper?” She asked as he leafed through the menu on the table, “Speak clearly.”

“The kind of temper that can’t be defeated.”

“Well, that’s true, but it’s not the kind of thing you can handle.” Liang Wan quickly flipped through the menu. “It’s not up to you to discuss this topic with me.”

“Then can you tell me now about the man who carved this on my back—” Li Cu asked.

Liang Wan looked at her watch: “Don’t worry, not a single dish has been served, and the main players haven’t arrived yet.”

“Main players?” Li Cu had just finished speaking when suddenly, there was another noise at the door, and he heard people talking in the distance: “How many?”

“They’re already here.” There was a deep voice at the door. Liang Wan immediately looked up and waved: “This way!”

Li Cu looked back and saw a thin man dressed in black come in through the door with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Wang Meng.” The man walked to Li Cu’s side, stretched out his hand, and shook Li Cu’s hand. “You must be Li Cu.”

Li Cu gave Liang Wan a puzzled look, only to find that the woman had been staring at Wang Meng with red cheeks.

He was such a fool. Li Cu felt as if he had been punched in the chest and suffered some minor injuries. Fortunately, the emotional knife was swift and he didn’t feel much.

Sure enough, this kind of woman didn’t like little boys like him who could be seduced because they were young and had no sense of danger. But why did she bring him to dinner with her boyfriend? Was she trying to spice things up? But he didn’t know her very well, so he didn’t think it would work.

Wang Meng paid no attention to Liang Wan and merely nodded politely to her as he asked Li Cu, “Is your back ok?”

“It’s alright. Are you—”

“I’m a colleague of the man who attacked you.” Wang Meng put his car keys on the table.

Li Cu was stunned and took a few seconds to react before he immediately shrank back: “Don’t joke.”

“It’s not a joke, the man’s name was Huang Yan, and he was my buddy. I’ve just come from the Public Security Bureau to make a statement.”

“What do you want? There’s no more room on my back for you to carve anything else.” Li Cu wanted to leave immediately, and thought to himself, “Goddamn it, this bitch sold me out, didn’t she?”

Wang Meng waved his hand and apologized: “No, you misunderstand. I just came to apologize and offer some compensation. I hope you won’t dig into this matter. After listening to Liang Wan, you’re likely to have scars on your back. We’ll give you reasonable compensation.” With that, Wang Meng took out a piece of paper, put it on the table, and pushed it to Li Cu.

“What’s this?”

“This is a transfer check.”

Li Cu brought it closer. It was the first time he had seen such a magical thing as a check. It was a pink note with a string of numbers printed on it. He saw that there were many zeros on it, but it was not clear whether it was ten thousand or a hundred thousand.

But even if it was ten thousand, it was still quite a considerable sum for him.

“What do you want?”

“This is your compensation. I’ll take you to the bank later and show you how to enter the account information. But before that, we still have one condition that needs to be met.” Wang Meng’s hand pressed down on the check. “I hope you won’t go back to the hospital tonight. I want to talk with you about what happened that day. I rented a suite in the hotel opposite here. We can go there and talk. You can tell me some of the details, and then you can have a good rest there at night.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Isn’t it just being cut hundreds of times by a knife? I passed out and know nothing.” Li Cu glanced at the check and remembered that he had seen it on television before. It seemed to be really valuable, but he was a little scared because he didn’t think what he knew was of such great value.

Wang Meng glanced at Liang Wan, who said, “I told you, he really doesn’t know anything. Yet you still don’t believe it.”

“I still need to know the details of what happened, because many things that are meaningless to others may be life-threatening in our line of work.” Wang Meng lit a cigarette and asked Li Cu, “How about it? In any case, this hundred thousand is yours.”

Li Cu had counted the check several times and found that it was really a hundred thousand yuan. Wang Meng’s sudden question stirred him up and he nodded and said to himself, “Go! I’ll go! Let’s just go to the room!”

“Hey, aren’t you going to stay with me tonight?” Liang Wan said to Wang Meng a little hurriedly, “You don’t keep your word.”

“It won’t take too long. After all, this little brother is a patient and needs to rest. I have to get this thing done quickly and don’t want to have my boss step in and handle it personally. Then it would be a big deal.” Wang Meng gave way to the waiter who brought the stew, and served up a large portion of it, “Eat up, it’s on me today.”

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