29: To fatten up the "younger brother"

Lin Xiaocao's body stiffened, and she was so scared she even stopped breathing.

Wang Fugui suddenly flipped over and sat up, his movement so fast it stirred up a gust of wind.

His face turned red; although no one could see in this pitch-black room, he still felt a frantic heat all over, and he haphazardly grabbed the pants next to him to pull them onto his legs.

"That... I'm bursting, I'm going to take a piss!"

He threw out the words in a muffled voice, slipped into his cloth shoes, and scrambled out of the Utility room.

Lin Xiaocao curled into a ball on the large floor mat, feeling the lingering masculine scent in the bedding, her heart nearly crashing through her ribs.

She knew what that was, but she never expected that this man, who looked as simple and foolish as an ox, would have such great vigor in that regard.

The cold wind snuck in through the crack in the door, dispersing the heat in the room and clearing Lin Xiaocao's head a bit.

No, I have to stay away from this brute; if I keep sleeping like this, something is bound to happen sooner or later.

Wang Fugui was in the washroom, splashing himself under the cold tap.

As he wiped his face, he cursed himself for being useless; that's my brother, the sickly one I rescued with my own hands, what kind of wicked thoughts am I having!

By the time he wandered back to the room, the sky was just starting to lighten.

He looked at the figure on the cot, so thin they were nothing but skin and bones, and a wave of softness suddenly welled up in his heart.

This Silly, he's too thin.

It's because he's too thin that he has no resistance, getting fevers at the drop of a hat and burrowing into my arms like a frozen popsicle.

I have to nourish him and fatten him up until he's as sturdy as that big fat pig at the edge of the village; then he won't be clinging to me all day.

Wang Fugui made up his mind; after finishing his shift, he didn't go to the cafeteria for that twenty-cent portion of rotten cabbage but headed straight for the second-hand market outside the factory.

He haggled at the stall for a long time before finally enduring the heartache and pulling out fifty yuan to buy a second-hand electric rice cooker with peeling paint and an electric wok blackened by smoke.

Carrying the two pots in his hands, Wang Fugui calculated in his heart that this was five days' wages; his three thousand eight hundred yuan was another step further away.

But at the thought of Lin Xiaocao's pale little face, he gritted his teeth and went to the vegetable market to cut two pounds of fatty pork belly and buy a bundle of ribs.

Carrying the meat back to the dormitory building, the hallway, which was originally filled with the smell of sweat and mold, actually felt a bit more alive when hit by the scent of raw meat.

Wang Fugui slammed the pot onto the small table in the Utility room, startling Lin Xiaocao, who was reading, and making her shiver.

"What did you buy these for?"

Lin Xiaocao looked at the two broken pots, her brow furrowed into a knot; this room was only a few square meters in total, so if they started cooking, how could anyone stay here?

"To nourish your body!"

Wang Fugui was concise, squatting on the floor and starting to tinker with his new cooking utensils.

He nimbly chopped the ribs into small pieces, washed them in a small chipped bowl, and threw them directly into the electric wok.

"Sizzle~"

The fat splattered at the bottom of the pot, and the pungent ginger slices and scallion segments tumbled in the hot oil; a rich aroma of meat instantly snuck out through the cracks in the door and windows as if it had grown legs.

Wang Fugui didn't care about the heat control, wielding the large spatula with a powerful wind.

Before long, the soy-red braised pork was bubbling in the pot, the thick sauce coating the translucent fatty meat; the fragrance was simply heavenly.

Almost every door in the third-floor dormitory opened at the same time.

"Who is it? Releasing poison here in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, this scent, is it braised pork? Fugui, is it you, kid?"

Several coworkers followed the scent to the Utility room door, their eyes nearly falling into the pot.

A greasy-faced man squeezed in, chuckling.

"Fugui, I happen to have a couple of sips of shaojiu here, how about sparing me a few pieces of meat?"

Wang Fugui stood at the door like an iron tower, the large spatula in his hand still dripping with oil.

"Go away, there's none for you; this is to nourish my brother's body, he's just recovered from being sick, let the rest of you die of envy!"

With a wave of his large hand, he slammed the door shut and bolted it for good measure.

The coworkers outside, having been rebuffed, grumbled in the hallway.

"This Wang Fugui is really possessed, he's closer to that sickly little brother of his than to his own father."

"Tell me about it, two grown men closing the door to eat alone, tsk tsk."

Wang Fugui ignored them; he filled a large bowl with a thick layer of braised pork, topped it with a layer of ribs, and handed it to Lin Xiaocao.

"Eat, eat it all for me, not a single slice left!"

Lin Xiaocao looked at the bowl of glistening red meat, and her stomach actually felt a bit unsettled.

She had grown up eating delicacies and was tired of them; what she couldn't stand most was this kind of heavy oil and salt home-style meat, which looked greasy to her.

But when she met Wang Fugui's eyes, which were filled with "stubbornness," the words of refusal reached her lips but were swallowed back down.

She could smell the scent of sweat on Wang Fugui from years of labor, along with that unique musky scent; mixed with the aroma of meat, it actually gave her a bit of an appetite.

She picked up her chopsticks and took small bites of a piece of fatty meat.

It melted in her mouth, the sweet and salty sauce exploding on the tip of her tongue; this savage and crude deliciousness was something she had never experienced in her past eighteen years.

"Eat more, you won't get sick if you put on some weight."

Wang Fugui squatted nearby, staring at her like he was looking at a little cabbage he had grown himself, even picking out the lean meat from his own bowl and giving it to her.

This meal left Lin Xiaocao's stomach bulging.

She watched Wang Fugui busying himself with scrubbing the pot and wiping the table, and the part of her heart that had been frozen seemed to crack open a gap.

To express her gratitude and to help with digestion, Lin Xiaocao unexpectedly snatched the basin when Wang Fugui was about to wash the clothes.

"I... I'll wash them for you."

Wang Fugui was stunned for a moment and then grinned foolishly: "Alright then, you wash the clothes, and I'll go back to the workshop to see if there's any extra work to do."

He took off his sweat-stained undershirt, threw it into the basin, and ran off.

Lin Xiaocao picked up the undershirt with her fingertips in disgust, but her face felt a bit hot.

She washed it very carefully, even scrubbing the folds of the collar three times.

When she reached the bottom of the basin and saw those crumpled pairs of underwear, her hand retracted as if she had been electrocuted.

"Rogue..."

Blushing, she kicked the underwear aside and only washed the outer clothes and pants.

While hanging the clothes, Aunt Zhao was walking past the door, swaying her plump waist, squinting at Lin Xiaocao and muttering under her breath.

"Oh, washing so diligently, even washing a man's pants."

Aunt Zhao sniffed, still able to smell the lingering scent of braised pork in the room, and gave a sour snort.

"Two grown men, sticking together all day, eating well and wearing well, they're not even ashamed."

"I've never seen someone spend so much even on a wife; this Wang Fugui must have been kicked in the head by a donkey to support such a little white face."

Lin Xiaocao ignored her, simply smoothing out the clothes on her own.

Seeing she hadn't gained the upper hand, Aunt Zhao turned and went back to the neighboring dormitory; before half a day had passed, the rumors about Wang Fugui in the factory had taken on a different flavor.

Originally, everyone thought Wang Fugui was an honest and simple man, but now they were all discussing in private whether this "brute" had some special preference.

After all, whose brother could be this good to them? Sleeping together at night, feeding him braised pork during the day, and even having his clothes washed clean.

In the quality inspection office, Chen Yun listened to several female workers gossiping, her pen stabbing heavily into the report.

"He... he likes men?"

Chen Yun's heart skipped a beat, followed by a strange sense of relief.

If Wang Fugui really didn't like women, then those fox spirits who hung around him all day wouldn't have a chance.

As long as it wasn't another woman, even if it was a man, she felt she could accept it.

Anyway, that scent on this brute, no one else in this factory had it but him.

On a late autumn night, the north wind suddenly became fierce.

The heating system in the old dormitory building of the Red Star Machinery Factory was like a broken bellows with asthma; the pipes were hissing with cold air and just wouldn't warm up.

In the middle of the night, Wang Fugui dizzily felt a shivering ice cube burrow into his arms.

Lin Xiaocao was shivering so hard her teeth chattered, shrinking into Wang Fugui's arms like a helpless kitten.

"Brother Fugui... cold..."

Wang Fugui instinctively pulled her in, his burning thirty-eight-degree body temperature acting like a natural barrier.

But when he grabbed Lin Xiaocao's delicate little hands, his heart suddenly sank.

Under the dim light of the flashlight, Lin Xiaocao's fingers, which were originally like white porcelain, were now swollen like carrots.

Bright red, purple, and even with several bleeding cracks.

"My mother, how did you get chilblains!"