Incurable Chapter 10 Part 1

She didn’t call him Doctor Liu. She called him straight out, “Liu Qianxiu.”

Xiao Yun flicked a glance at Mu Wan and felt a jolt of recognition. Beautiful women tended to stick in people’s minds. It took her only a second to remember exactly who this was.

The woman who’d slipped in the bathroom, stabbed her chest, then ran off that very night to drink. The woman Liu Qianxiu had personally brought back to the hospital. Drunk, clinging to him as she belonged there, all fox-spirit sweetness and trouble. Even now, the nurses still whispered about the spectacle from time to time.

Everyone said she was chasing Liu Qianxiu.

She’d been discharged without any “results,” and now she’d turned up at the hospital again. Of course.

Xiao Yun didn’t like women who came on too strong. A woman who could get drunk and hang off a man in public, refusing to let go, felt too casual.

Her smile tightened. She withdrew her gaze from Mu Wan.

Mu Wan stood one step below him on the stairs. She wasn’t short, 168 cm, but next to Liu Qianxiu, who was close to 190, the difference was obvious. Especially with her on the lower step, she had to tilt her head back to look at him.

“You get off when?” Mu Wan asked, sparing Xiao Yun only a glance before focusing on Liu Qianxiu.

Her chin lifted. Sharp, delicate. Her neck was pale and lovely. Holding the angle was tiring, and Liu Qianxiu said, “Right now.”

Mu Wan’s smile deepened. Light as a feather, she said, “I’ll wait.”

Xiao Yun’s expression shifted in a subtle, complicated way at that single line. Mu Wan’s peripheral vision caught it perfectly.

Mu Wan’s smile bloomed again, this time restrained, almost elegant. Xiao Yun spoke with practiced grace. “If you already have plans, then forget it.”

Liu Qianxiu gave a small nod. “Sorry.” His tone was polite, distant, and cool.

Even if Xiao Yun hadn’t offered him a way out, he would have refused. She cut her losses neatly.

She smiled, then looked at Mu Wan. Mu Wan nodded out of courtesy. Xiao Yun returned the gesture, then turned and headed into the emergency hall.

Mu Wan watched her go.

That tiny exchange, a nod for a nod, carried something sharp. Not open hostility. Something worse. A kind of quiet contempt.

Mu Wan could feel it.

Xiao Yun clearly wanted Liu Qianxiu. If she saw Mu Wan as competition, she should have been wary and defensive. Instead, she’d looked down on her with blind confidence, like she believed she didn’t need to try.

If you wanted something and never reached out to take it, if you just stayed poised and waited, even if you had the advantage of proximity, the moon would never fall into your hands.

Mu Wan let out a soft laugh.

Liu Qianxiu changed clothes, and Mu Wan followed him to the car. She buckled in and glanced back at the emergency building. Xiao Yun had come out again, her eyes fixed on their direction.

The seatbelt clicked.

Mu Wan turned to Liu Qianxiu. “What did that doctor want?”

He didn’t look at the entrance. He scanned out through the gate, swiped his card, and drove away, answering only, “Work. She thanked me. It’s nothing serious.”

From what Xiao Yun had said, she’d likely been trying to ask him to dinner. Liu Qianxiu had probably already been about to refuse. She’d given herself a graceful exit in front of Mu Wan.

Mu Wan processed it, then another thought slid in.

If Xiao Yun knew how to thank Liu Qianxiu with a meal, then what about her?

He’d helped her so many times. Aside from the bouquet, she hadn’t given him anything real in return.

Mu Wan rested her arm against the window, cheek near the glass. It was cool. Ahead, Jinze Tower rose into view. She remembered a vegetarian restaurant there, one she’d gone to with Lin Wei back when Lin Wei was on one of her dieting kicks. It had been genuinely good.

She hadn’t even opened her mouth when the car rolled over a speed bump, rocked once, and stopped. Beside her, Liu Qianxiu unfastened his seatbelt and asked, “What do you want to eat?”

Mu Wan snapped back and lifted her gaze.

The Mart sign glowed above them. They were parked in front of a supermarket.

She laughed, disbelief bright in her eyes. “I get to order?”

“I don’t know many dishes,” Liu Qianxiu said, as if he were stating a medical fact.

Whether he knew many or not, the sentence made her inexplicably happy. Because it meant they were eating together again tonight. It meant he’d already decided, without fanfare, without discussion.

Somewhere along the way, they’d grown more familiar. The kind of familiarity that made Mu Wan happiest felt effortless and natural, as if it had always been there.

She smiled, but she didn’t order.

Instead, she remembered what she’d been thinking and said, “Let me treat you tonight. You keep feeding me, I should feed you too. There’s a vegetarian place in Jinze Tower that’s really good.”

Basic courtesy. Give and take. Mu Wan couldn’t keep collecting his kindness as if it were owed to him.

Liu Qianxiu looked at her once and said, “I don’t eat out.”

His answer was exactly what she’d expected.

He lived like someone who took self-discipline seriously, someone who cared about what entered his body and what stayed in his mind. His cooking was clean, light, almost medicinal in its simplicity. Restaurants could boast all they wanted, but outside food always came with additives and shortcuts. It wasn’t as safe as cooking for yourself.

If she wanted to thank him properly, she needed to meet him where he was.

Mu Wan didn’t insist. She lifted her eyes to the supermarket sign, then turned to him, gaze clear and bright.

“Then… I’ll cook for you?”

Liu Qianxiu met her eyes. His lashes lowered slightly.

“Okay.”

He agreed.

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