Of course, she told neither her grandfather nor her father. She simply made the decision quietly, on her own.

At this moment Kang Zhaoming was rather regretting that he had never bothered to study a little medicine. If he had, he would have found something to talk about with Guan Xin! This was a rare opportunity — he came from a family of medicine and pharmacy himself, which made it a perfect excuse to strike up a conversation with her. But no: apart from chasing women, Kang Zhaoming knew how to do nothing at all!

Seeing Guan Xin pull a book from the shelf and begin leafing through it, Kang Zhaoming grew frantic. How on earth was he to approach her? Wait a moment... A sudden inspiration flashed through his mind. No — hold on. Guan Xin was only a nurse. What would she know about medicine?

And a nurse's work was surely all things that came with practice, wasn't it? Giving injections, applying bandages, that sort of thing — none of which required going to a bookstore to buy books. So what was Guan Xin doing here...? Kang Zhaoming looked again at the medicine and pharmacy section, where there were quite a few girls as well. Just then one of them walked right past him, and he clearly saw the words printed on the book in her hands: "Traditional Chinese Medicine Beauty Care"!

Kang Zhaoming saw the light all at once. So that was it — traditional Chinese medicine beauty care. Then Guan Xin had probably come here to buy that same sort of book. What girl does not love to be beautiful? And a sweet, pretty girl like Guan Xin, especially, would want even more to become prettier still!

At this thought, Kang Zhaoming's confidence returned. He might not understand medicine, but Guan Xin probably did not either. So long as he spoke with enough authority and enough plausibility, she would never be able to tell whether what he said was true or false!

Besides, plenty of books these days were pure fraud; what they printed was not necessarily correct, and some of it even contradicted itself.

Kang Zhaoming gritted his teeth, strode over, and said with a smile, "Beautiful miss, may I ask if you are looking at books on beauty care?"

Guan Xin's book was open, so Kang Zhaoming could not see the cover and had no idea at all what she was reading. All the same, he asked his question with the greatest self-assurance.

"Oh..." Guan Xin lifted her head and glanced at Kang Zhaoming. Seeing that she did not know him, she paid him no attention and lowered her head again to the book in her hands.

"Heh, most of what is written in these books is a pack of lies! I happen to have nothing to do today, so let me tell you about how to use Chinese medicine to make yourself beautiful!" Kang Zhaoming said confidently. "Let me introduce myself: my name is Kang Zhaoming, and I am the grandson of Divine Doctor Kang!"

"Divine Doctor Kang?" Guan Xin was briefly startled. She had heard of Divine Doctor Kang — the wound medicine his family produced was quite famous. When she bandaged the injured, she was often asked whether the hospital stocked Divine Doctor Kang's wound medicine. But Guan Xin felt no particular admiration for the man; she had only heard of him, that was all.

"That is right — our Kang family is a dynasty of Chinese medicine! Ordinarily I would never casually pass judgment on books about Chinese medicine beauty care, but today, seeing you, I truly could not hold myself back; I simply must say a few words!" Kang Zhaoming, supposing that Guan Xin had been overawed by the name of Divine Doctor Kang, went on smugly: "If you beautify yourself by the methods written in these fraudulent books, you will most certainly ruin your looks! I cannot bear to watch someone as beautiful as you be destroyed, and so I must speak up!"

"Oh..." Guan Xin frowned, thoroughly impatient with Kang Zhaoming's endless chatter. "There is no need. I do not want any beauty treatments."

"How can you say that? You are so beautiful — but if you do not know how to care for yourself, beauty is fleeting too!" Kang Zhaoming said. "Think about it: you are beautiful now because youth conquers all. A few more years, and when you have grown old and your looks have faded, what then?"

Guan Xin glared at Kang Zhaoming. What sort of way was that to talk? Grown old and my looks faded? Was the man insane? But Guan Xin was well-bred, and not the sort to lose her temper easily. Though she was displeased with Kang Zhaoming, she said nothing more, only lowered her head and went on reading, thinking that if she ignored him he would simply walk away.

But who would have thought that Kang Zhaoming would not leave, and would instead rattle on and on: "Our Divine Doctor Kang's family has done a great deal of research into Chinese medicine beauty care. The ingredients written about in books like these are all common herbs — in fact, they are useless. If you want to stay young forever, you must take powerful medicines! Things like... lingzhi, snow lotus, deer antler, tiger penis..."

Kang Zhaoming had no idea which medicines were actually good. But since Guan Xin did not understand either, he simply reeled off all the precious medicinal ingredients he had heard mentioned in passing.

When Guan Xin heard the words "tiger penis," her face flushed in spite of herself, and she grew rather annoyed. Was this man ill? How could he say anything and everything?

But Kang Zhaoming had no self-awareness whatsoever. Seeing Guan Xin blush, he assumed she had been won over by the breadth of his learning, and grew even more pleased with himself. "My family still has half a tiger penis at home," he continued. "After I ate half of one last time, I found it most efficacious. If you need some, I can bring it to you..."

Kang Zhaoming had not the slightest notion that there was anything improper about a tiger penis. He was simply desperate to please Guan Xin, and so, of all these precious medicines, he named whatever his family happened to have on hand. They had snow lotus too, but that was used to make the beauty-and-skin-nourishing wound medicine; he was not so foolish as to dare give that away.

Guan Xin truly could not endure the man before her any longer. She closed her book and was about to leave, but as she raised her head she caught sight of Wei Zhao standing not far away, and her heart leapt with joy. She waved to him: "Wei Zhao! What a coincidence — you come to bookstores too?"

Kang Zhaoming was in the middle of smugly showing off his family's stores when he saw that Guan Xin had actually walked off — and worse, that she had gone straight to Wei Zhao. It made him grind his teeth with fury. The entire Kang family regarded Wei Zhao as their mortal enemy; ever since Kang XX had gotten tangled up with that creature, the Kang family had been run ragged, leaping this way and that.

An otherwise perfectly good Life-Extending Detox Pill — yet he had deliberately refused to explain it clearly, and the Kang family had not only lost a precious pill but had gone and eaten dog shit as one. There was no humiliation more thorough.

Naturally, Kang Zhaoming never laid any of the blame for these blunders at his own family's door! It never occurred to him that if his family had not disbelieved that the miracle cure Kang XX had sent was genuine, and if Kang Zhaoming had not crushed that pill to a pulp underfoot, would any of what followed ever have happened?

Yet Kang Zhaoming laid all the blame on Kang XX and Wei Zhao, accusing them of failing to explain things clearly beforehand.

And afterward, the Life-Extending Detox Pill his family had spent over four hundred million to buy had ended up eaten by a dog — and he blamed that on Kang XX and Wei Zhao as well! If the two of them had not brought the Life-Extending Detox Pill in the first place, would his family have gone looking for some shepherd dog? Would they have gone studying dog shit? (To be continued.)