Chapter 14: 14 - Date
Li Yun left shortly after, and handed the reports to Nurse Lim. He noticed that Mister Tai was approaching him after handing in his release form.
"Doctor Li?" asked Tai.
Li Yun wasn't technically a doctor, but he nodded.
"How did you know I was sick in high school?" asked Mister Tai.
"You have a dark patch and discoloration near your wrist, and there's a slight indentation on your forehead," said Li Yun. "It is usually a sign of illness in your late teens, malaria?"
Mister Tai looked impressed and nodded.
"When you married in your early twenties, did you feel like you had lost a part of yourself?"
Uncle Tai's eyes widened a bit, but then his expression softened and sighed.
"You're young, and probably don't have a family yet, so you don't understand what it is like."
"That's true, but I am a son, so I know what it's like to be part of a family. From the perspective of a son, I can tell that you must care about your wife enough to be stressed out about it."
Li Yun invited him to take a seat at the bench outside, and asked Mister Tai to talk about his situation.
"I'm not your doctor, so feel free to say whatever."
"There's not much to say."
"Were you always a withdrawn person then? And the illness made you even more so?"
"I guess I was shy and a bit socially awkward. You could say I used my illness and scarring as an excuse not to meet new people. And then I used school, college and work as an excuse not to date."
"But you still had family obligations, and went on blind dates?"
"I went on a few forced dates, but it wasn't until my dad fell ill that I realized that maybe I should stop being selfish. I decided to marry a woman on a blind date. She was quiet, like me, so I felt that she wouldn't disturb my life as much. However, marriage life was a lot more involved than I thought after she got pregnant. My wife decided to quit her job and stayed home with the kids. I started to work more at the office, and I found that the atmosphere was similar to what it was like before I married. I do love my family, but I like to be alone. I don't know if that makes me a bad father and husband, but it is just how I am."
Li Yun had seen this behavior quite often. A lot of workaholics were actually people who would rather be at work.
"Although from the outside, my marriage seems fine, but in reality, we rarely talk to each other after our two kids moved out," Mister Tai explained. "I don't know how to connect with my wife, we have little in common."
"The question isn't how to connect with your wife, but whether you have the courage to try. You probably married quickly, and never had to court your wife."
This was a common situation with arranged marriage, and it usually led to infidelity. Mister Tai was different in that he had a very introverted and withdrawn nature, and lacked the ability to connect with other people. Instead of cheating, he ended up being a workaholic.
"You're right, we married three months after we met. We both had an understanding that our marriage was because our family wanted it to happen, so we only discussed practical things. I am not sure how to approach her."
"After thirty years of marriage, you probably don't even know what she likes and doesn't like. Why don't you get to know her better by asking her out on a date?"
Mister Tai's mind started to contemplate.
"Don't think about it too much. Just be as honest about it as possible, and be romantic. Give her flowers or something simple and simply say you want to go out with her."
"Do you think that will work? We are already so old."
"Nothing wrong with dating at any age."
"But, I don't know how she will respond."
"As I said, don't worry about it too much. You are already ahead of the single guys. She isn't going to say no to her husband."
Uncle Tai's eyes lit up and smiled brightly. A single wrinkle on his face seemed to have disappeared.
"Thank you doctor, I'll take your advice," Wang Tai said as he shook Li Yun's hand.
Wang Tai took off, on a renewed mission.
"Dr. Li, how did you know all of that?" asked Nurse Lim, who was watching the situation unfold.
"Face reading," Li Yun replied. "It's a bit like cold reading, but a little bit more accurate."
"Oh wow, like the ones on television?" she asked.
"Slightly different," Li Yun smiled. "Aside from cold reading, television psychics have connections and can gather history on a person. Face reading relies on physical features."
"Can you read my face?"
"All right, Li Yun's fortune telling at your service," Li Yun gave her a gentlemanly bow and then approached the nurse's station counter.
Nurse Lim was in her early thirties. Her yang face, located on the right half of her face, was good, so she liked her job as a nurse. Her yin face, located on the left half, was also good, but there were light signs of worry.
Li Yun looked at her fingers. While most people assume that mien shiang was only face reading, but Li Yun didn't complete the mission until he knew how to read the rest of the body. The face represented a part of a person. The others included Nei, Gu, Dong, and Sheng Shiang. Nei being the physical body, Gu, the bones, Dong, the movement, and Sheng, the sound.
Li Yun inspected Nurse Lim's hand.
She had a ring, but it wasn't completely set, so she married within the past 2-3 years. She seemed happy talking about her husband, but she had a slight line across her forehead marking signs of worries. In a woman's marriage life, the common worries are in-laws, husband and children. There were very few other markings, so she probably had no children. Her fertility sign above her lips was not the best, so she will or have already encountered difficulty getting pregnant. She didn't seem to have any bad habits, so it was likely that her worrying was causing her added stress during intercourse.
"Nurse Lim, I see happiness in your future," Li Yun said in an exaggerated and playful tone.
Nurse Lim smiled and chuckled knowing that Li Yun was playing around with it a bit.
"You have been preparing for some time, so expect a little bundle of joy a year from now."
Nurse Lim was slightly taken aback. She had not said anything to anyone about her trying to conceive for months except to her doctor and close friends. She didn't expect the intern to know about her worries.
"It has been worrying me for some time, are you sure it will happen in a year?'
Li Yun was half joking, but the point of most fortune telling was to encourage the client and to give them a bit of hope. Self-fulfilling prophecy was the best sort of prophecy.
"There's something more important at the moment. You never went on a honeymoon?"
"Ah no, we were both busy working."
"Then you should focus on that as a priority. Take a long vacation with your husband, and just focus on yourself. You are still young, so try to enjoy it while you can. Don't be too hasty to start a family."
Since she wanted a vacation anyway, she decided to follow his advice.
Li Yun gave Nurse Lim a fertility charm.
"Ah, what a lovely charm, but you didn't have to."
"Take it as a thank you for looking after us poor interns."
He had once thought fertility was a joke by the system, but it seemed that his perspective was a bit immature. Fertility meant a lot of different things to different people. Ultimately, fertility was an element of immortality. Ants could live for a year, but they could lay millions of eggs in their lifetime, ensuring the survival of their existence.
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