Love at First Sight? Mr. Harrison Has Been Scheming All Along-Chapter 121: "Answer the Phone for Me.

"We..." Rory Linden started, "we’ve only recently gotten together, and we’re both pretty busy with work."

Before what happened that night.

Rory Linden had thought she was finally in a normal relationship, a rare thing for her.

But now, it seemed that wasn’t the case at all.

She was even a little grateful it had happened before she left for the rural medical aid trip. If it had been just a few days earlier, she wouldn’t have known how to face Sean Harrison.

Evan Hollis was good at reading people. Noticing her reluctance to talk, he quickly said,

"Oh, I see. That makes sense. Everyone’s relationship dynamic is different."

They sat for a little while longer before heading back to their dorms to rest.

The moment she walked into her dorm room, Rory Linden’s phone chimed.

It was a message from Sean Harrison.

Sean: [Did everything go smoothly today?]

Rory Linden’s gaze fell to the message, and the scene from that night flashed through her mind once more.

The red liquid, like blood, covering the floor.

Two bodyguards dragging a limp Nadia Willow into an oversized bag.

And the man, just sitting in his chair, watching it all unfold with unnerving calm.

As if he couldn’t care less whether someone lived or died.

Before Rory Linden could reply, another message arrived.

Sean: [Get some rest.]

Rory finally replied: [Good night.]

Even though she’d left him that note when she departed.

But their relationship had undeniably, if subtly, changed.

-

「The next day.」

It was the first day of the medical aid mission in this village.

By the time Rory Linden and her team finished breakfast and got to the makeshift clinic, a line of elderly villagers had already formed.

The village wasn’t very populous.

But knowing this was a government initiative that offered free medical care, the villagers were all eager to come.

After all, medical facilities in the village were poor. Whenever people felt unwell, they usually just endured the discomfort if they could.

The morning flew by.

As the lunch break neared...

"I can’t treat this!"

A female doctor suddenly raised her voice.

Rory Linden looked over.

The patient she was seeing was a middle-aged, slightly heavyset woman with curly hair.

The woman was immediately incensed by the doctor’s reaction. "What’s with that attitude?! Aren’t you all here to treat people? Is what I have not a sickness?!"

The doctor’s eyes welled with tears. "I’m not even married! I can’t treat this kind of disease!"

Rory Linden hurried over. "What’s going on?"

She soon learned that the woman had syphilis.

Rory Linden stepped in, examining the patient and writing a prescription.

On these medical aid trips, they didn’t just see basic illnesses. These kinds of diseases were actually quite common in rural areas.

Usually, it was men who came to see male doctors for such conditions.

It was rare for a woman to seek treatment.

During their lunch break, the team leader came over specifically to discuss the morning’s incident.

After the leader left, the young doctor grumbled, "I’m new to this job, and I’m not even married. If I accidentally get infected, who am I supposed to turn to?"

Rory Linden’s brow furrowed as she listened. "Even with HIV, the risk of transmission is very low as long as there’s no direct exposure. Just take the proper precautions and perform a standard examination."

"I’m a pediatrician; I don’t treat these kinds of illnesses anyway." The doctor looked at Rory Linden. "Why don’t you just handle cases like this from now on?"

Another doctor nearby stepped in to defuse the tension.

Rory Linden didn’t want to argue. "Fine," she said. "From now on, if anyone’s not comfortable treating these cases, I will."

She was a cardiothoracic surgeon, which meant she had even less exposure to such diseases.

But in medical school, you had to study every specialty, and during residency rotations, she’d spent time in many different departments.

While she wasn’t an expert, she could diagnose most common conditions.

According to the schedule, they were to stay in the first village for three days.

The time passed quickly.

At six in the evening on the third day, the last villager departed.

Once again, it was Rory Linden and Evan Hollis left to pack up the tables, chairs, and portable examination beds.

This time, a young nurse joined in to help.

Rory Linden had noticed since the day before that the young nurse seemed to have a crush on Evan Hollis.

She deliberately went outside by herself to collect the directional signs, giving the two of them some space alone.

As Rory was packing things up, she spotted a young girl a few yards away, peeking out from behind a tree as if watching her.

When Rory looked over, the girl quickly ducked back behind the tree.

When she returned to her task, the girl peeked out again.

After this happened a few more times, Rory finally set down the signs she was holding and walked over.

Seeing her approach, the little girl immediately lowered her head and stared at the ground, not daring to look up.

"Hey, little one,"

Rory Linden said gently.

The little girl finally looked up.

The girl was around five feet tall, a little shorter than Rory.

She bent down slightly to ask, "Are you feeling sick somewhere, sweetie?"

The little girl looked at her, hesitated for a moment, then shook her head emphatically.

"Then... did you need something from me?"

Rory studied the young girl.

The girl was extremely thin, with sallow skin, dry hair, and slightly sunken eyes—the classic signs of malnutrition.

The little girl stared at her for a long moment before finally turning and running away.

Rory was initially inclined to let it go.

But during dinner, she saw the same little girl again, standing just outside the doorway.

She stood up and walked over.

The night was quiet.

Before she even reached the girl, she heard the loud rumbling of her stomach.

Seeing her approach, the little girl turned as if to run again.

This time, Rory couldn’t just let it go. She went to find the village chief.

In a village this small, it only took a brief description for the chief to know exactly who she was talking about.

"Oh, you must mean Maisie." The village chief sighed at the mention of her name. "That poor child. She used to be such a bright kid, but she went deaf a few years back. Soon after, her speech became slurred, and now she can’t speak at all."

’She must want my help with her hearing, but she can’t ask,’ Rory guessed.

Knowing they were leaving by bus for the next village early the next morning, Rory decided to visit Maisie’s home that evening.

"I’ll go see her at home tonight," Rory said. "Could you tell me a little about her family situation?"

The chief explained, "It’s just Maisie and her mother. Maisie was still in school before her hearing went, but she had to drop out. Now, her mother is the only one earning a bit of money working at a local factory."

Rory had a general idea of the situation now.

She stopped eating her own dinner. Instead, she packed an extra serving of food into a takeout container and grabbed four steamed buns.

Then she went back to her dorm room, gathered a large number of the sanitary pads she’d brought with her, and got ready to head to Maisie’s home.

She had just reached the door when she ran into Evan Hollis.

"Rory, where are you going?"

Evan Hollis hurried over to her.

Rory quickly explained Maisie’s situation.

"I’ll go with you. This is a rural area, after all, and there are a lot of bachelors around. If a young woman like you is out walking alone this late, and something happens... if you were taken, we’d never find you."

As he spoke, Evan Hollis took the heavy plastic bag from Rory’s hand.

Rory thought he had a point.

At that point, she still believed Maisie’s only ailment was her deafness.

It was only after the two of them arrived at Maisie’s home and learned the full story that they discovered both Maisie and her mother had a sexually transmitted disease.

That was the real reason the young girl had been too ashamed to ask for help. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Rory wanted to take Maisie into a bedroom for an examination.

Just as they went inside, there were two knocks on the bedroom door.

Evan Hollis’s voice came from the other side. "Rory, your phone’s ringing! I think it’s... your boyfriend."

Rory was in the middle of her examination. "Can you get that for me?" she called out. "Tell him I’m busy and I’ll call him back in a bit."