Where did everyone go for the May Day holiday? I had no holiday at all and continued working like a draft animal.
I pass a dental clinic almost every time I go out, and I had been eyeing it for quite a while. Usually, though, I was rushing past without a moment to spare. On the morning of the last day of April, everything happened to line up: there was an empty parking space outside, I had nothing urgent to do, and my foot happened to hit the brake. I reversed straight into the spot and decided I might as well get a tooth filled.
A young woman at the reception desk stood up and asked whether I had an appointment and what treatment I needed. “A filling. Just a filling,” I told her. She handed me an information form, and after I wrote down my name and phone number and checked the box for a filling, she led me to the treatment room.
The dentist was also a young woman. She asked about two teeth, then took me to another room for an X-ray. I put on the heavy protective apron and bit down on a plastic piece. The whole process took only a few minutes, and the image appeared quickly.
The scan showed horizontal grooves on the inner surfaces of the two back teeth on the left and right. The groove on the left was deeper, while the one on the right was shallower. That matched what I had felt myself. Neither tooth hurt or felt uncomfortable, but I was worried that the grooves might gradually deepen and eventually reach the nerves, making future treatment much more complicated. It seemed better to seal them in advance.
The dentist looked slightly surprised by the X-ray and wondered how the two teeth had ended up looking so unusual. I asked whether they could charge me the group-buying price listed on Meituan rather than the clinic’s regular price of three or four hundred yuan per tooth. They said that was fine. The owner set the price, and I could simply pay the Meituan rate for whichever material they used. They also said that if the filling came out within a year, they would replace it for free.
Before starting, they asked me to sign a document that looked like a dental-treatment agreement. I did not read it very carefully and signed it.
Since the teeth did not hurt, there was no need for anesthetic. The procedure began immediately. Two young women took care of me: the receptionist sat on my left, using a tube that looked rather like a spray gun to remove excess saliva, while also passing instruments to the dentist on my right.
As they worked, the two of them chatted about the ordinary troubles of their respective jobs. I had to keep my mouth open and could not join the conversation, so I was basically treated as part of the furniture. Every so often, the dentist teased me: “Isn’t it nice having two young women looking after you?” Since I could not speak, all I could do was respond with sounds like “ah,” “oh,” and “mm.”
Listening to them talk and occasionally looking from one side to the other, I barely noticed the time passing. The filling took a little over an hour, and before I knew it, the pleasant morning was over.
The Meituan price for the 3M250 material was 288 yuan per tooth, or 576 yuan for two teeth. There was also a 3M350 option, which seemed to cost about 100 yuan more.
Just as I was taking out my phone to scan the payment code, my phone rang.
“Hello, landlord. I’m a police officer from a local police station in Huizhou. Is the surveillance camera downstairs working? Does it store recordings?”
Someone nearby had reported an electric scooter stolen, and the suspected route passed by my building. The officer asked whether I could provide the footage.
I answered honestly: the camera was working, and they could arrange a time to come up and check it.
After hanging up, I remembered what had happened on the ground floor last year. The rolling gate had not been lowered all the way, and in the middle of the night an old man squeezed underneath it and stripped almost all the electrical wiring from my wall. I was already short of money, so the loss made things even worse.
I reported that incident as well and handed the police the video evidence, but nothing came of it afterward. The matter was dismissed with explanations about the suspect’s age and whether he could be held criminally responsible, and we never received a proper follow-up. Naturally, I still had some resentment toward the police station and had not really wanted to help.
Still, I agreed because I hoped the footage might provide useful information for the owner of the stolen scooter. My guess was that the thief was probably a minor. Even if they found the person, I suspected the ending might be much like mine.
After the call, I scanned the code and paid. The receptionist printed me a receipt and said goodbye.
I had already walked some distance before taking a closer look at it.
The receipt said the material used was 3M350.