Enthusiasm of the Villagers

An auntie saw Ruan Tang wiping her face with Zhou Chengsen's handkerchief and misunderstood. Smiling, she asked Zhou Chengsen, "A'Sen, is this your new girlfriend? Not bad! Is she a doctor? That's great! From now on, whenever anyone in our village gets sick, we won't have to go to the hospital anymore."

Ruan Tang froze, her face flushing despite herself. She continued wiping with the handkerchief, pretending she hadn't heard.

To avoid awkwardness, Zhou Chengsen replied jokingly, "She's a doctor, but she's not my girlfriend. She's a friend of Xiao Xia and Yingying. Auntie, don't make jokes like that. Otherwise, people will think this old ox is trying to eat young grass! I'm old enough to be Doctor Ruan's uncle. Besides, she might already have a boyfriend. Saying things like that could cause her to misunderstand."

The village women loved making jokes. Zhou Chengsen had grown up hearing them, and he was no longer a brash young man. At his age, he could face any situation calmly, resolving awkwardness in just a few words.

But while those words had indeed dissolved the awkwardness for everyone else, Ruan Tang wasn't happy to hear them.

She only felt that his self-mocking words about "an old ox eating young grass" and being able to be her uncle were rather grating.

I should never have called him Uncle back then!

"Oh, so she isn't! I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The woman hurriedly apologized to Ruan Tang.

Ruan Tang smiled. "It's all right."

Most people had an instinctive respect for doctors. This auntie had just heard Zhou Chengsen address her as Doctor Ruan, and now that Ruan Tang had responded to her, she took the opportunity to continue talking to her. "Doctor Ruan, which hospital do you work at? The Town Health Clinic?"

"No, a hospital