If you don't want treatment, get out! This doctor has a terrible temper.

Seeing the bewildered expressions on the faces of the two academic prodigies, Wang Minyu felt a secret sense of satisfaction.

The field of Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasizes "engagement with the world." Western medicine practitioners spend their days holed up in labs counting petri dishes.

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners need to be grounded in reality. If they've never smelled the sewers, how would they know what damp-heat accumulation in the lower body means?

"What? Feeling wronged?" Wang Minyu toyed with the enamel mug in his hand, his tone cool. "I don't keep idle people here. You can't even distinguish between scrap, yet you expect to understand yin and yang and the five elements?"

"We're not wronged!" Li Siyuan reacted quickly, grabbing Zhao Na who was still trying to argue. "We're willing!"

Although he was still feeling uneasy, he had a gut feeling that Dr. Wang's strange behavior must have a deeper meaning.

After all, even a wicked trick like "slapping the face with pork" can cure facial paralysis, so selling junk might be some kind of profound clinical practice?

"Very good." Wang Minyu gestured with his chin toward the pile of junk in the corner. "The tools are over there, turn left at the end of the street near the recycling station. If you're not done by dark, don't come back."

After saying that, he picked up his teacup, turned around, and went into the house, leaving the two of them with an extremely dashing back view and that despairing "garbage mountain".

Zhao Na looked at her newly done French rhinestone manicure, then at the cardboard boxes covered in dust and dirt, and her face scrunched up like a bun.

"Senior, is he playing us for a fool?" she whispered. "This isn't an internship, it's free manual labor! We're graduate students, people will laugh their heads off if word gets out."

"What are you laughing at? This is spiritual practice." Li Siyuan adjusted his glasses, his gaze gradually hardening. "Didn't our teacher always say, 'A doctor's heart is like a parent's?' We've never done manual labor growing up, so we have no idea about the suffering of ordinary people. Dr. Wang is doing this with good intentions, letting us experience the hardships of ordinary people and temper our character!"

Zhao Na's lips twitched. Her senior's imagination was so vivid; it was a shame he wasn't writing novels.

But seeing that Li Siyuan had already rolled up his sleeves and started stomping on the cans, she could only sigh and resignedly squat down.

As it turns out, there are also skill requirements for manual labor.

Two weaklings who never even changed their water bottles were exhausted and had backaches after only half an hour of work.

The dust made me cough, and the sweat turned my delicate makeup into a palette of colors.

"Be gentle! Those are glass bottles!" Li Siyuan instructed Zhao Na. "Make sure you sort them properly, otherwise the old man who collects recyclables won't buy them."

After finally managing to load up a creaking, dilapidated tricycle, the two men shuffled towards the recycling station like haulers pulling a rope.

Passersby couldn't help but turn their heads.

"Oh my, isn't that Old Li's nephew who got into graduate school?"

"Is that his girlfriend next to him? She's quite handsome, what's she doing?"

"Have you become stupid from studying too much, or is the job market really that bad right now?"

Zhao Na buried her head very low, wishing she could disappear into a crack in the ground.

Li Siyuan, on the other hand, stood tall and proud, with a sacred expression that seemed to say, "I am attaining enlightenment," as if he were not pushing away garbage, but a panacea to save all living beings.

Upon arriving at the recycling station, a pungent, rancid smell wafted towards us.

An elderly man, shirtless, was scrolling through short videos with his legs crossed. Hearing the noise, he glanced at the source with drooping eyelids and said, "Cardboard?"

"Yes, they're all good quality cardboard." Li Siyuan said with a forced smile.

"Six cents." The old man exhaled a smoke ring.

"Six cents?" Li Siyuan was stunned. He took out his phone and glanced at the search page. "Sir, didn't the internet say the average price today is eight cents?"

"Go sell it online for that price." The old man rolled his eyes. "This is my price. Take it or leave it. If you don't want to sell, take it or leave it."

"You..." Zhao Na was furious and was about to go up and argue when Li Siyuan stopped her.

When a scholar encounters a soldier, reason is useless. In this kind of street-smart world, rules prevail, not logic.

"Fine, six cents it is." Li Siyuan conceded defeat.

After all that trouble, the car full of "trophies" earned him 36.5 yuan.

Clutching the crumpled, fishy-smelling coins, the two stood in the setting sun, their silhouettes forlorn.

"Senior brother," Zhao Na looked at the little money in her hand and almost cried, "I've worked myself to the bone all day, and it's not even enough for me to buy a Starbucks."

"This is reality." Li Siyuan looked at the few banknotes, his expression complex. "Nana, have you realized it?"

"What's there to understand? That money is hard to earn and life is tough?"

"No, it's an information gap." Li Siyuan pushed up his glasses, his tone deep. "We know the cardboard is worth 80 cents, but in this local market, the old man holds the final say. Because we're outsiders, we have no channels, so we can only passively accept his pricing."

Zhao Na blinked; it seemed to make some sense.

"It's the same as seeing a doctor," Li Siyuan continued, "Patients come to us without knowing what's wrong with their bodies or how much medicine they should take. We doctors have an absolute information advantage. If we're as unscrupulous as that old man, prescribing excessive medications and ordering unnecessary tests, the patients have no choice but to accept it."

He turned around, looking in the direction of Renxin Pharmacy, his eyes full of admiration: "Dr. Wang made us sell scrap not for money, but to let us experience this 'powerlessness.' To remind us that when you hold someone's life or death in your hands, never treat the patient as a lamb to the slaughter."

Zhao Na was stunned for a moment, and suddenly felt that the thirty-six yuan and fifty cents in her hand had become heavy.

This isn't about money; it's about the weight of medical ethics!

When the two returned to the pharmacy, Wang Minyu was sitting at the door, legs crossed, eating sunflower seeds.

"You're back?"

Li Siyuan respectfully placed the money on the counter: "Dr. Wang, I have not failed you. It's thirty-six yuan and fifty cents in total."

Wang Minyu glanced at it, then confiscated it: "Keep it for yourself. Buy two bottles of Coke at the supermarket across the street; consider it your wages."

"Teacher..." Li Siyuan's eyes reddened with emotion.

"Don't call me teacher, I don't take on any apprentices." Wang Minyu waved his hand. "We'll continue tomorrow. This time the task is upgraded: sell that pile of plastic bottles in the back, but the price can't be lower than the market price. If you can't manage it, you'll have to pay for it yourself."

"Yes!" The two answered loudly, and charged into the supermarket with high spirits.

Watching those two energetic figures from behind, Wang Minyu cracked open a sunflower seed and spat out the shell.

Boss Liu leaned closer, a strange look on his face: "Xiao Wang, you're being too mean. Making graduates from prestigious universities do your hard labor, and then expecting them to figure it out themselves. What if one day they realize it's just a simple junk-collecting operation, and they tear your shop down?"

"They're not that free," Wang Minyu said, brushing the dust off his hands. "Besides, if they're not kept busy, how will they have time to pester me with questions every day? I need some peace and quiet too."

Boss Liu gave a thumbs up: "Brilliant, absolutely brilliant."

Just then, a police car with its lights flashing pulled up at the door.

Two policemen with stern faces walked down and went straight to Wang Minyu.

"Are you Wang Minyu?"

Wang Minyu's heart skipped a beat, thinking that he hadn't done anything illegal or disorderly recently.

Could it be that Li Ergou has recanted his testimony again?

"I am."

"Someone has reported you for illegally employing child labor. The circumstances are serious. Come with us."

"Child labor?" Wang Minyu's mind went blank for a second. "Officer, I'm innocent! Even the flies here are adults."

Without wasting words, the police pointed to a small, thin figure struggling to search for mineral water bottles next to a trash can not far away.

The man, dressed in a dirty designer tracksuit with messy hair, was confronting a stray dog ​​over a crushed Coke bottle.

Wang Minyu stared intently, and his lips twitched violently.

That was none other than Chen Mo, the grandson of Changxiang's richest man and the heir to a fortune of hundreds of billions.

This unlucky kid, he got to experience life firsthand, and now he's experiencing the police station firsthand!