Ren Xiaosu felt a little puzzled. He was merely telling the truth, yet somehow, he still received the patient's gratitude.
Both Yan Liuyuan and he had the mindset that people would only be grateful if they were given something for free.
Ren Xiaosu had attended one of Mr. Zhang Jinglin's class where he described how great human civility used to be. This made him wonder why the graciousness that took several thousand years to build up had collapsed so quickly.
Today, this couple made Ren Xiaosu gain a vague understanding. However, he could not quite put a finger on what it was.
On the same day, Ren Xiaosu had Xiaoyu take down the sign that was hung outside the clinic to sew on the additional word "wounds" before the word "clinic."
He'd lied, cheated, and stolen many times, but he only did them selectively.
Today, Ren Xiaosu made a decision. From now on, he would only treat illnesses that he could treat. If he couldn't, then so be it.
In the end, none of the patients that came today suffered from any sort of wounds. Instead, all of them had aches and ailments that he did not know how to treat. To his surprise, when he told these patients that he honestly couldn't do anything for them, he still managed to raise the number of gratitude tokens to ten at the end of the day, without even having to use any of the black medicine!
Ren Xiaosu sat in the clinic in a state of confusion. What the fuck was going on?
He didn't know everyone had accumulated grievances with the previous doctor, Yu Tong, over a long period of time. Through Ren Xiaosu's actions, those who had gone to seek treatment from him started publicizing him. "I think Ruthless Ren Xiaosu is a much better person than that previous bastard of a doctor, Yu Tong! If he doesn't know how to treat your illness, he will never try to make money off you by prescribing medicine on a whim!"
When some busybodies heard about this, they thought, 'Wow, there's even something like that?' Then they went to the clinic to check it out.
While they had their fun, Ren Xiaosu was feeling hard done by. The number of patients that consulted him exceeded the number of gratitude tokens he earned by at least ten times!
Some of them complained of headaches while others thought that their faces had suddenly swelled up. The fact that someone even came to him to get their fortune told left Ren Xiaosu speechless.
But once Ren Xiaosu made up his mind on something, he would make sure to do it. He advised the townspeople and sent them away like how he had explained things to the couple.
Afterwards, the townspeople realized that Ren Xiaosu really did not charge at a whim for his medical services.
Their initial impression of Ren Xiaosu was that he was a very ruthless person. This was because the young Ren Xiaosu had to take care of Yan Liuyuan and wanted to gain a foothold in this town. As such, he had to compete bravely and ruthlessly against others to have even a slim chance of survival.
Later, everyone's impression of him changed to… drug dealer.
But right now, everyone was beginning to think that if they ever received a wound, they would immediately go to the clinic to get treated by Ren Xiaosu.
Such word of mouth had come from nowhere and puzzled Ren Xiaosu greatly.
At noon, Xiaoyu went to town with her basket to buy some groceries. During this recent period, they could afford the better things in life as their savings reached 3,400 yuan. As such, they could also get better raw ingredients from the town's market.
Xiaoyu would even buy some fine salt and pigskin occasionally. The texture of fine salt in the mouth was quite different from that of coarse salt, while lard from the pigskin was extracted to be used for frying.
There were pig farms located outside of this town. Domesticated pigs had also evolved after The Cataclysm, but as long as they were neutered while they were young, they would grow up to be very docile animals.
Without a doubt, humans were the most adaptable species and were good at utilizing the environment around them. No other species came close.
Usually, the good meat from these pigs was shipped into the stronghold for consumption. Only a tiny quantity of the remainder would remain in town for sale.
In the past, Yan Liuyuan dreamed of getting into the stronghold as one of his biggest wishes was to eat meat.
Xiaoyu returned to the clinic with a basketful of vegetables. The moment she came in, she beamed and said, "My, oh, my, Xiaosu, do you know that the townspeople are praising you to the high heavens?"
Ren Xiaosu was a little surprised. "Really?"
"Yeah." Xiaoyu smiled and started cutting up the vegetables. "Our Xiaosu has become a doctor now, so your future wife will surely be the best possible candidate in town. When you get married and have children, I'll help you take care of them."
Ren Xiaosu grew uncomfortable. "I've never thought about that before."
Xiaoyu got upset. "How old do you think you are? It's time you started thinking about it. Oh, I also bought some peanuts today. I wonder where the townspeople dug them up from. I'll cook some for both of you in a bit."
At this moment, Yan Liuyuan came back from school. Nowadays, he could also eat lunch when he returned home at noon just like the other students. He used to bring two potatoes with him to school every morning and eat them for lunch.
After coming through the door, he spotted some peanuts in the basket and immediately picked one up. But before he could shell it, Xiaoyu slapped it out of his hand. "Don't you eat that. There's still dirt on it."
Yan Liuyuan angrily banged on the table. "Why is a person as beautiful as you stopping me from having peanuts!"
Sister Xiaoyu broke into a smile again and said, "Alright, alright, you can eat them."
While shelling the peanuts, Yan Liuyuan told Ren Xiaosu, "Bro, a lot of people gathered outside the school today. During our classes, Mr. Zhang wouldn't allow any of them in. But as soon as classes finished, all of them rushed in. I don't even know what happened. Do you want to go and have a look?"
"Ah?" Ren Xiaosu was stunned for a moment. Then an ominous feeling rose inside him.
A familiar figure angrily made his way in. It was the schoolteacher, Mr. Zhang Jinglin.
Ren Xiaosu's eyes lit up. "Mr. Zhang, you're here? Would you like to join us for lunch?"
"Lunch? My ass!" Zhang Jinglin said angrily, "If you can't treat the illness, then don't do it! Why did you have to direct everyone to go and look for me!"
Ren Xiaosu had said to the couple, "If you don't believe me, you can check with Mr. Zhang or borrow some books from him on how to prevent a miscarriage."
As Ren Xiaosu felt that this method was pretty useful, he gave the same advice to every patient who consulted him during the morning.
Zhang Jinglin said resentfully, "If they were just normal illnesses, I could have let it slide. But you even referred someone with athlete's foot to me! You don't know just how bad it smelled when that guy took off his shoes! Fortunately, I was able to escape in time!"
Ren Xiaosu was embarrassed. He smiled apologetically. "That's only because I think you're knowledgeable and learnèd."
Zhang Jinglin was on the verge of a breakdown. "I'm just a teacher. If you can't treat the illness, do you think I can treat it? If you push any more patients onto me in the future, I will make sure to give Yan Liuyuan endless homework to do!"
Yan Liuyuan was still shelling peanuts and was confused. 'Why are you dragging me into your conflict!'
Ren Xiaosu grabbed some peanuts and stuffed them into Zhang Jinglin's hands. "Don't worry, I won't do that anymore. I really won't, I promise!"
Zhang Jinglin thought for a while before returning to the school while shelling and munching on the peanuts.