Me After Meeting You

This was Elly’s seventh day at the hospital. Her symptoms hadn’t improved at all, she still slept in the morning and was only active at night. Amber had just arrived when the nurse responsible for her started complaining. “She caused trouble overnight again! She almost managed to get into the mortuary and was constantly muttering about the king of hell, little ghosts, cutting off tongues and other things like that. In fact, she scared the new nurse so much that she started crying.”

Amber closed the folder of medical records that she held in her hands and patted her shoulder. “Thank you for all your hard work.”

She went to Elly’s ward. The girl was only fourteen and her figure was naturally thin and small. She was currently sleeping quietly, her posture perfect or more precisely, stiff and rigid. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her stomach, her legs spread straight and angled slightly apart, her eyes shut tightly and her face covered with a white cloth that she had torn off of her pillow cover.

Amber had personally dressed her grandmother’s corpse, so she clearly knew what Elly’s posture represented. She observed her silently for quite a while before turning to the nurse again. “Have you been able to contact her family members?”

Elly had previously lived with just her old grandmother. When the grandmother had died, only her father was left. But since he was a fisherman, he spent more than half his life at sea.

The incident with the Elly family had taken place not long after he left.

“Yes. We’ve just gotten information that Elly’s father has returned from his trip and that he will be here within a week.”

Amber released a breath that she had been holding in. There would finally be somebody who could help her understand a bit about Elly’s past.

***

Having made headway into Elly’s case, Amber found new troubles awaiting her. She was supposed to be providing outpatient service this month. However, since Tuesday, none of her patients had shown up for their appointments.

This kind of situation was very rare, because Presbiterian’s psychiatry department was renowned nationwide. Given the high stress endemic to modern life, it was almost impossible for a doctor to have no patients during their outpatient service hours. Beyond that, it was definitely impossible that people would schedule their appointments and not show up.

The nurse on duty with her was very shocked by these circumstances. On the other hand, Amber felt an uncomfortable premonition creep over her.

She turned on her computer and looked at her list of appointments again, but found nothing unusual. The patients had all registered with their real names, so she could see that her patients came from all over the country.

Could it be that people had scalped her appointment slots? No, that was impossible-Amber wasn’t her professor Nancy-she wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Amber was thus left to ruminate in her own thoughts. At 10:30 AM, a somewhat familiar person finally showed up at her office.

It was one of the people she had played mah jjong with that night-Ian’s friend-Billy.

“Hi Doctor, it’s good to see you again.” He stood at the door and waved at her as a whole group of lackeys showed up behind him. After throwing his leather coat to them, he sat down imposingly in front of her.

“Are you here for a diagnosis?” Amber asked.

“No.” Billy cracked a smile as he replied, “I’m here to convey Boss Ian’s message.”

“Ian Axton?”

“Yes. Boss Ian wants me to tell you that he empathizes with your workload and is worried that you’ll be too tired. Thus, he had someone preemptively book all of your appointment slots for today, tomorrow and the day after. Haha … Dr. Amber, are you surprised? Aren’t you thrilled?”

Amber momentarily speechless.

At this point, perhaps only Ruby’s catchphrase could truly express her feelings, “I’ve had it with this asshole!”

Her premonitions from a few days ago had finally manifested into reality. Had she known earlier that giving her winnings to Ian would have spawned such ‘inspired’ actions, she … she would have taken all the money and left and she definitely would not have let the club attendant send such a message.

As expected, not thinking carefully was her ultimate downfall.

There was a sudden commotion by the clinic door. It was the nurse who was on duty along with Amber. When she had seen the doorway filled with people, she had assumed that the patients had finally come. So, she had quickly returned, but right after entering, she had heard Billy’s eye boggling announcement and almost tripped over her own feet.

She knew that Ian’s beauty would definitely lead besotted men to chase after her. However, even she didn’t expect that these men would be so intrepid as to book all her appointment slots like this … was this for real? This gossip was so juicy that she had to share it right away!

But after Amber noticed her, the nurse tried to dampen her excited expression. She hiccupped once before resetting her mentality into something more earnest. “Dr. Amber, are the patients here?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Two voices spoke out at once, giving contradictory responses. Billy peered at Amber as he smiled and then gave the nurse a flirtatious glance. “Dr. Amber’s partner is worried about her workload and has booked all her appointment slots for the next couple of days. Congratulations on your luck enjoy your few days off.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Upon hearing this, Amber’s forehead veins started throbbing angrily. The nurse, meanwhile, stared at Billy with an open mouth. “Dr. Amber’s partner? But, but Dr. Amber’s a doctor ….” She looked over at Amber. “Is this really compliant with hospital policy?”

Amber remained silent for a brief moment and then looked at the nurse who had clearly been shocked dizzy by the caliber of this gossip. She calmly said, “Why don’t you go out first?”

But before the nurse could fully exit the room, she loudly asked, “Where’s Mr. Ian? Playing such an obnoxious prank really makes things difficult for me. So, can you let him know that i’d like to have a word with him.”

But her statement was useless. After just a single hour, the whole department had heard that she had found a very rich boyfriend who had booked up all her appointment slots. And by the afternoon, even Nancy had found out and had called her for this very reason. “What’s going on? Who’s causing this kind of trouble? Amber, this is a hospital, not some place where you can fool around.”

Evidently, she didn’t know that the perpetrator of this event was the very man she had introduced to her, Ian Axton. Amber massaged her forehead as she replied, “Professor, the man responsible for this is Ian.”

“What?”