WRA CH71

“Work starts at six tomorrow morning, wraps up at ten-thirty, and resumes at three in the afternoon.”

The foreman briefed Dou Manning, telling him to report fifteen minutes early to collect his safety helmet and high-visibility vest.

Dou Manning: “Understood.”

Just as the foreman left, a dust-caked SUV braked to a halt.

Dou Manning looked over at the sound. A rugged, handsome man stepped out from the driver’s seat, swung the door shut, popped the trunk, and hauled out a reclining lounge chair.

It was Shen Ku.

Shen Ku’s outfit today was unusually neat, and he wasn’t wearing a hard hat, making him seem momentarily unfamiliar.

Shen Ku had directly carried off his mother’s lounge chair from home, and passing by his brother’s company, had pirated a coffee counter bar on top of that.

“Picked them up from a recycling yard, zero formaldehyde.” Shen Ku set the two pieces of furniture down, scratching the back of his head. “Do you need them? Looked pretty new to me.”

Dou Manning watched over the shop for long hours every day, perched entirely on a shabby little stool. With a reclining chair, he could rest without neglecting the counter.

The bar counter was crucial too; it could hold finished coffee while letting Dou Manning write and sketch. Customers could even dine in if they wished.

Dou Manning’s eyes lit up. He never managed to unearth such pristine furniture during his trash bin patrols. “Did you head downtown today?”

Shen Ku: “Yeah.”

Dou Manning nodded. Spot on—the bins in wealthy neighborhoods always yielded treasure.

These two pieces bore faint signs of use. Who knew which rich family discarded them while they were still practically brand new?

Dou Manning cleared the cramped space inside the corrugated iron cabin to accommodate the two hefty additions.

With genuine sincerity, he said, “Thank you.”

How should he repay Shen Ku?

He was trying out work on the construction site tomorrow. If the foreman thought he did a solid job, perhaps he could cover two shifts a week for Shen Ku down the line.

A construction site had no rest days; with Dou Manning taking shifts, it would.

Gifts were best delivered with an element of surprise.

Just moments ago, when Shen Ku hauled the lounge chair down from the truck, Dou Manning had been genuinely thrilled. He decided to wait until tomorrow to tell him.

Shen Ku pressed his lips together. “Want to lie down and try it out?”

His mother had raved about how comfortable it was, insisting on dragging it to the terrace to lounge every day after dinner.

Dou Manning’s build was nothing like his mother’s, so he couldn’t guarantee how it would feel.

“Sure.” Dou Manning stepped over to the chair, tugged lightly at his pant cuffs, and bent down to sit. The chair supported him steadily.

Shen Ku squatted down, reaching out to twist a latch.

The lounge chair converted into a rocker. Shen Ku rested his hand on the armrest, gently rocking it.

Startled, Dou Manning reached out to steady himself, his fingers brushing against Shen Ku’s. The other man recoiled as if burned.

“It’s very comfortable.” Dou Manning closed his eyes. “Thank you.”

A gentle breeze drifted past, sending his long, curly hair spilling over the side of the chair, brushing lightly across the back of Shen Ku’s hand.

Behind them, a corner of the white curtain swayed, offering a discreet glimpse into the inner quarters where the striking beauty actually lived.

Shen Ku kept his gaze firmly in check, refusing to look where he shouldn’t.

He swiftly caught the last inch of hair tips, giving them a gentle squeeze. Hair had no nerve endings, leaving the gesture entirely undetected. He released them just as quickly and stood up. “Well, take your rest then. I’m heading back to the site.”

Gifting Dou Manning two unwanted pieces of furniture was hardly an excuse to push his boundaries.

After a quiet moment, Dou Manning opened his eyes and tugged the hair Shen Ku had just squeezed toward himself.

Lowering his gaze, he lifted the strands to his nose and sniffed. Did the coffee beans here spoil?

In theory, storing the coffee beans he produced over the past twenty years in his hair was just like leaving them hanging on the tree—they wouldn’t rot or degrade.

Still, what if?

Dou Manning sniffed thoroughly; there was only a faint, wild berry fragrance.

Relief washed over him.

He had worried Shen Ku pinched his hair because he caught a whiff of sour rot.

The next day, Dou Manning was awake by five o’clock. He boiled a baby pumpkin and an egg for himself; a full belly guaranteed the strength to work.

He tied up his long hair, winding it into a neat bun at the back of his head.

Reaching under the bed, Dou Manning pulled out his best set of clothes and put them on.

Auntie Guihua had always said that working in the city meant dressing decently, lest snobs look down their noses at you.

Following the foreman’s instructions, he checked in first to clock his attendance.

After receiving his uniform and helmet, he stood among the workers as the foreman barked out the routine morning debrief.

“Keep those helmets on straight! Buckle the straps right under your chins! If anyone leaves them loose, I’ll take a strip off you!” The foreman’s roar was fierce. Shen Ku practically lived on the site, cracking down relentlessly on safety protocols and making him genuinely miss the previous bastard of a supervisor.

Dou Manning strapped his helmet on as told. His was yellow, Shen Ku’s was white, and the foreman’s was red.

What was the difference? Most people seemed to wear yellow.

Word had spread among the crew that a coffee shop had opened outside, run by an exceptionally handsome shopkeeper. Since he was a guy, none of them bothered to gawk, though sipping on the coffee bought with the Chief Engineer’s own money at lunch always earned the Chief a round of praise—milk and sugar included, no less.

What’s more, the canteen food had improved noticeably. The head cook used to settle for just cooking things through; lately, his culinary skills had seen a miraculous leap. Cooking times were dialed in, the egg drop soup actually contained egg, the sweet-and-sour pork had plenty of meat, and there were even pork ribs from time to time.

Damn it, the previous Chief Engineer really had embezzled a fortune! He deserved the firing squad!

Engineer Shen was every bit as upright as the rumors claimed.

“Drowsy as hell. Would be nice to have a cup of coffee in the morning too.”

“Dream on! We’re the ones building the office towers, not the ones sitting in them!”

“It’s all building the nation, ain’t it?”

The corners of Dou Manning’s lips curved upward. Exactly. Coffee was just a modest drink to fuel building the nation—why draw lines over who could drink it?

“You, you, and you—you’re on a team with Dou Manning today.” The foreman assigned Dou Manning to the ground crew.

The three laborers glanced over at the newcomer. Well, look at that. A fair-faced youngster, tall enough, but with slender arms and hands completely free of calluses. Could he handle this work?

“You a college kid? What’s a college kid doing breaking his back here? You won’t last through this hardship, son.” An older worker shook his head.

Dou Manning: “Master, I’ve never been to school.”

“…”

Well, that made working on a site understandable. Every job out there demanded diplomas nowadays; a construction site only asked for raw muscle.

Did he have any, though?

“All we’re doing today is hauling cement.” Master Zhang planted his feet apart, bent his knees, and ducked his head as another worker loaded two sacks of cement across his spine.

Chinese workers possessed the toughest spines in the world.

Dou Manning watched, reaching back to touch his slender neck. That wouldn’t do for him.

It would crush the coffee beans, and if cement dust worked its way in, washing it out would waste gallons of water.

“Master, can I carry one sack in each hand?”

“Hahaha, carry them however you can lift them!” The workers assigned with Dou Manning were all around forty-five. Looking at him was like looking at a lazy kid back home sleeping in; none of them believed he would last the whole day.

Dou Manning stepped forward, pulled on heavy canvas gloves, gripped a corner of a cement sack with his left hand, and hoisted it up. Turning slightly, his right hand snatched up a second sack with equal ease.

The three veteran workers froze in utter shock.

The coffee sprite’s first day of manual labor had officially begun.

Armed with boundless strength, he urged the older men on his crew to slack off while he hauled bags like a machine.

Once the sun climbed, sweat poured from everyone. Cement dust clung to the perspiration, turning him every bit as filthy as Shen Ku’s vehicle.

“Let me take on a bit more,” Dou Manning offered repeatedly. If he didn’t have to keep his walking pace down to a normal human speed, he could move twice as fast.

At six o’clock, Engineer Shen got up for his shift as well.

The project didn’t just have a Chief Engineer; there were technicians and documentation clerks too. Their temporary on-site office quarters were separated from the workers’ barracks, keeping their daily routines from clashing.

A technician who had been wiped out days earlier by an espresso gifted by Engineer Shen—forced to pull an all-nighter as a result—deeply suspected Engineer Shen was not human.

Chugging that concentrated brew every single day, yet he still slept like a log!

Shen Ku’s mini-fridge was packed with frozen cups of coffee. He pulled one out, cracked open a bottle of mineral water, and poured some in to dilute the iced coffee concentrate.

One cup in the morning fueled him for the entire day.

He skipped buying coffee in the morning simply to spare the shopkeeper from waking up early.

The assistant engineer eyed his boss downing coffee on schedule like traditional Chinese medicine and drew in a sharp breath.

A full-blown, undeniable crush.

He had snuck a peek at the coffee shopkeeper earlier; the man’s beauty was ruinous. It was entirely expected that the Chief Engineer would get bent.

Could the shopkeeper have picked this location solely to reel in their boss? The Shen family was loaded!

The thought sent a chill down his spine—a custom-tailored pig-butchering romance scam!

The scheming beauty peddled concentrated coffee to Engineer Shen every day, sending his heart racing so he’d mistake it for butterflies!

Did the boss not realize that brew was pure concentrate?! Of course he did—otherwise, why would he dilute it with a whole bucket of water before hauling it to the canteen?!

To make matters worse, that little temptress outside pretended to prep for the Constructor Exam just to beg the boss for tutoring.

The assistant only held a Second-Class certificate and was still grinding for his First-Class. Just thinking about the guy getting one-on-one tutoring from a real pro made him green with envy.

The assistant engineer sighed. The boss was plunging headfirst—simultaneously blind and wide awake.

Past all saving.

Telling him to cut back on the coffee sounded practically malicious.

After finishing breakfast, Shen Ku checked his watch: six-thirty, five hours until noon.

Buying coffee from Dou Manning every day at noon was the brightest part of Shen Ku’s day. Before a single drop even touched his lips, the exhaustion and clamor of the site were swept clean.

That feeling of being the sole patron every single day… made it feel as though that lone coffee shop holding out by the perimeter had opened exclusively for him. Dou Manning waited for him alone, offering his first smile of the day only upon seeing him.

A public transaction turned into a secret rendezvous.

How could anyone else understand?

Wangxi No. 1 encompassed over a dozen buildings. With workers scattered across various zones and hidden under hard hats, picking anyone out was nearly impossible.

Dou Manning worked on the ground in the south zone, while Shen Ku inspected the capping-off in the north zone.

To prevent leaks, the roof concrete had to be poured in a single continuous pour without pause.

Shen Ku remained stationed in that sector until three in the afternoon. Stepping down, he unlocked his phone to find a barrage of messy group chat notifications.

Tackling a project meant joining a mountain of group chats.

Just as he moved to clear the red unread badges, he noticed several technicians chatting idly in the client-developer group.

[Spotted a total powerhouse down in the south zone! Carries five sacks of cement at once!]

[Powerhouse? Stronger than our Engineer Shen?]

[Can’t compare them like that. The Chief’s arm is thicker than the kid’s thigh. For his slender frame, he’s definitely a powerhouse pound-for-pound! Word is it’s his first day on site, worked the whole morning without a break!]

A technician posted a few blurry photos.

Shen Ku looked closer and nearly jumped out of his skin—isn’t that Dou Manning?!

Though coated head to toe in dust with his hair bundled up, he could never mistake him!

Wasn’t he running a coffee shop while prepping for his exams? Why was he on the construction site?!

Was this the kind of backbreaking labor he should be doing?!

Shen Ku completely filtered out everyone else’s “powerhouse” praise, seeing only the delicate, wind-blown artsy youth.

[Shen Ku: Where is this worker operating right now?]

Dou Manning had worked all morning. He didn’t stop at hauling cement; whenever other tasks needed an extra pair of hands, he jumped right in.

As he worked, he wondered if he might cross paths with Shen Ku. Was the man up on the high floors pouring concrete over rebar? If so, they wouldn’t meet—as a newcomer, Dou Manning was restricted to ground level.

When lunch was called, the so-called canteen consisted merely of service windows without tables. Following the three senior workers, he got his food and found a patch of shade to squat down and eat.

Dou Manning rarely felt hungry normally, barely remembering to eat once every two days.

Right now, the moment food was in his hands, he couldn’t wait to dig in. It was delicious.

Shoveling rice into his mouth, he worried eating too fast would look unseemly. Turning his head, he found his coworkers devouring their food like starving wolves.

Normal people were all like this.

Dou Manning ate with peace of mind.

After the meal, Dou Manning followed the crew to an open pilotis floor of an unfinished building. Without brick walls yet, there were only bare columns and beams, with scattered formwork boards lying across the ground.

The workers stretched out on the wooden planks, scrolling on their phones and getting ready for a nap.

Dou Manning: “You sleep here? Aren’t there dorms?”

Master Zhang replied, “Those dorms are six to a room, nowhere near as cool as this breeze.”

“Clothes this filthy can’t touch a mattress anyway; just stretch out here. As long as you aren’t stuck on the roof pouring slurry and getting sprayed head to toe, don’t waste the sweat taking a shower!”

“Oh.”

Dou Manning found a plank to sit on, pulling his knees to his chest in contemplation.

Was Shen Ku up on the roof pouring concrete? The slurry workers he had seen eating in shifts were caked in gray sludge, exhausted and filthy.

Master Zhang finally realized Dou Manning was just spacing out by himself. “Didn’t bring a phone?”

Dou Manning: “Broke it. It’s getting repaired.”

The repair shop was quite a hike, and Dou Manning didn’t urgently need a phone anyway, so he hadn’t bothered to pick it up.

Master Zhang’s own life was far from easy, but he couldn’t help pitying the young Dou Manning for scraping a living so early. Still just a kid. Feeling awkward scrolling through short videos alone, he struck up a chat about whatever popped onto his screen.

Master Zhang: “Food was good today. If we ate this well every day, working wouldn’t feel so draining.”

Dou Manning: “Mhm, the braised pork belly was great.”

Master Zhang: “Pork is cheap these days. My wife says it’s only a few bucks a pound. She raised her own pigs last year, swore she’d never touch another one this year… Man, a single cup of coffee or milk tea can buy two pounds of pork. My daughter chugs that stuff like water, won’t touch meat, skinny as a rail.”

Dou Manning bowed his head in guilt. The coffee he sold went for forty a cup.

It seemed… he shouldn’t be peddling coffee here.

Shen Ku never needed it to begin with; his very presence had manufactured that artificial demand.

Shen Ku bought it, to some degree, out of pity, keeping his little stall afloat.

Yet a sprite had no business taking pity from a mortal.

Master Zhang had spent decades breaking his back on job sites, ruining his spine and neck in the process.

Workers earned hard blood-and-sweat money.

He shouldn’t—he couldn’t—take Shen Ku’s money.

Dou Manning rested his chin on his knees, thinking that perhaps it was time to move on.

The world was vast; where should he head next?

Shen Ku was a man of few words, and their exchanges had been sparse. Dou Manning didn’t even know what his name was.

Every time, he simply thought of him as the man in navy cargo pants coming for coffee.

Before moving on, they ought to exchange names.

Shen Ku searched the site for Dou Manning when frantic shouts suddenly rang out.

“Someone fell off the scaffolding!”

“He’s fine, he’s fine, just the first tier! He’s alright, just gashed his leg on rebar—bleeding like crazy! The foreman drove him to the hospital!”

“Heard he’s a college student, family’s dirt poor.”

“Name’s Zhao Qing, right?!”

Zhao Qing?!

The name written on the flyleaf of Construction Engineering was Zhao Qing!

Shen Ku’s head buzzed with a deafening ring. He cursed himself for not finding him sooner; maybe he could have caught him in time.

He grabbed a bystander to demand which hospital, sprinted to his SUV, and tore down the road, his back soaked through with cold sweat in minutes.

The nearest hospital was modest. Stepping into the emergency ward, he immediately spotted the triage area and the foreman seated outside.

Seeing Shen Ku, the foreman’s heart dropped into his stomach. The site’s strictest safety taskmaster had arrived; he was in for a brutal reaming. Swallowing hard, he stammered, “Chief Shen, Zhao Qing is getting stitched up in the OR. It’s nothing serious.”

Shen Ku grabbed him by the collar, furious. “Nothing serious?! You threw him onto scaffolding on his very first day?! Have you lost your damn mind?!”

The foreman was utterly bewildered. Zhao Qing had been on site for a month; assuming Shen Ku misspoke, he babbled, “My mistake, Chief Shen! Won’t happen again!”

“Family of Zhao Qing!” A nurse wheeled out a patient whose left leg had been cleaned and sutured. “He’ll need an anti-inflammatory IV in a moment.”

The foreman bustled over eagerly. “Right here, that’s me! Don’t fret, Zhao Qing, we’ve got full worker’s comp coverage.”

Shen Ku turned his gaze over with an aching heart—

Only to see a young man he had never laid eyes on before.

“Who is he?”

Foreman: “Zhao Qing, of course! A college kid… Zhao Qing, weren’t you prepping for the Constructor Exam? Take this chance to rest up properly. This is our Chief Engineer; he rushed straight here out of concern for you.”

Zhao Qing’s lips were pale, but the personal care from his professional idol warmed his chest. Then, recalling something, he said sheepishly, “It was too hard. Couldn’t pass it, so I tossed the study books.”

Shen Ku: “…”

Tossed them?

Who picked them up then?!

His mind spun in a haze, likely because skipping his noon coffee had left his head foggy.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Shen Ku offered routinely, telling Zhao Qing to hand over his bank details so he could wire him fifty thousand yuan privately. “Focus on your studies.”

The foreman watched Shen Ku, smacking his lips in admiration. That was Chief Shen for you—word had it he spent every penny he earned on the site right back on the site, never taking a cent home.

His misjudgment had cost the person in his heart an extra half-hour of manual labor.

Pulling up the photo on his phone, Shen Ku showed it to the foreman. “Recognize him? Sells coffee outside, came in this morning.”

The foreman took in the Chief’s grim expression. “Yes, yes, Dou Manning! We were short-handed, so I asked if he wanted the shift. I swear I kept him strictly on ground level in the safe zone! Assigned three senior masters to watch him!”

Shen Ku froze, learning his beloved’s name for the first time from the mouth of a stranger.

What had he been doing all this time?

Did he not have a mouth of his own?