151 Disappointment
Ye Ling explained, "I could leave tomorrow morning, and then I'd have a day off."
Min Nan slightly furrowed his brow and said, "I see, but staying up late isn't good for your health."
Ye Ling casually smiled and replied, "I'm still young, so staying up late occasionally is fine. Besides, there won't be anyone coming over at night. Yun Jie told me that if I get too tired, I can sneak in a short nap."
Min Nan calculated the time in his mind and asked, "So, you'll be working the night shift again in two days?"
Ye Ling nodded, and at the same time, she wondered why Min Nan was asking this. Could it be that he would come to see her in two days?
After Min Nan finished his water, he stood up and said, "Alright, then I'll head back."
Ye Ling was about to accompany Min Nan to the door when she suddenly remembered something. She called out to Min Nan and pointed in another direction, saying, "There's a back door here."
Min Nan turned to look at the back door, his gaze taking on a hint of meaning.
Ye Ling suddenly realized that directing Min Nan to leave through the back door might give the wrong impression that they were having an affair. She bit her lip, her fingers curling awkwardly. She managed to say in a calm and serious tone, "What I meant is..."
But before Ye Ling could finish, Min Nan interrupted, "Don't worry, I understand."
Ye Ling's mind was filled with question marks. "Understand what? We're not having an affair. I was just worried about gossip." Ye Ling thought.
She opened her mouth to explain but decided against it. More explanations would only make things more awkward. It was better to see Min Nan off.
She opened the back door, and Min Nan turned to look at her before walking into the night with a flashlight.
Ye Ling returned to her seat behind the counter, and opened a medical book, but found that the knowledge within the book suddenly eluded her. Her mind kept replaying Min Nan standing under the tree by the door, his subtle expression, and the teasing question, "Are you chasing me away?"
Ye Ling was frustrated, running her fingers through her hair. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself.
After some time reading, Ye Ling rubbed her dry eyes, stretched her stiff limbs, and noticed that the sky outside had started to brighten.
Once the day fully dawned, Yun Jie also woke up. They exchanged a brief greeting, and Ye Ling prepared to leave.
As she left the pharmacy, a chill ran down her spine. Summer had ended, and the weather was getting colder.
Ye Ling returned to the dormitory building, where she saw a group of young female scholars preparing to leave. Their expressions turned peculiar when they saw her, but Ye Ling, exhausted from staying up all night, paid little attention to them. She hurried into her dorm room, closed the door, and prepared to catch up on sleep.
However, Li Han looked at Ye Ling's closed door and muttered, "Isn't she being too bold? Staying out all night, and the dorm manager didn't say anything?"
Another person chimed in, "She has influential backing, so how could the dorm manager dare to say anything?"
"Could she have spent the night with that man?"
"If you ask me, she might have more than one man. Given her exhausted appearance, she probably had a rough night. My goodness, how can there be people like her? I feel disgusted being in the same dormitory building as her."
Xin Yan, who had been listening to their disdainful discussions, frowned slightly but felt a sense of aversion toward Ye Ling. It wasn't jealousy, she simply couldn't comprehend it. Xin Yan wondered why the man who had appeared at the dormitory entrance that day would be interested in someone like Ye Ling.
She sighed and said, "Alright, if you keep chatting, you'll be late."
After going through two shifts, Ye Ling had become accustomed to staying up late. However, during her second night shift, Min Nan didn't show up. Ye Ling felt a mixture of relief and an odd sense of disappointment as if her earlier speculation had been unfounded.
Perhaps that day, Min Nan had merely coincidentally passed by the pharmacy. She felt that she had misunderstood his intentions.
On that particular day, while Ye Ling and Ji Mei were on their day shift, a man in his thirties arrived to collect medicine. Strangely, the man only needed one type of medicine, a highly potent ginseng.
When Ji Mei heard the man's request, she didn't think much of it and went to fetch the medicine. However, Ye Ling sensed that something was amiss.