WRA CH78

After kissing his wife all over, Shen Ku was so worked up that he couldn’t sleep a wink the entire night.

He spent the night sorting through his personal assets.

What his parents had given him, he gathered up to return to them.

What he had earned himself, he gathered up to transfer to his wife.

The latter made up an infinitesimally tiny portion—almost completely spent, leaving only a recent travel stipend and high-temperature allowance from a couple of days ago.

With Dou Manning asleep, Shen Ku turned off the light and sat in the dark, solemnly resolving to pinch pennies from now on; every cent he earned had to be spent on his wife.

Once his accounts were cleared and he was left with just enough for gas money, Shen Ku finally embraced Dou Manning and drifted off to sleep with complete peace of mind.

The very next day, Shen Ku and Dou Manning relocated to the high-speed railway station construction site.

Room 1620 was rented out to Dou Manning by Xiang Zhen, but in reality, Zhou Sicheng was still footing the bill.

With a capitalist paying the rent, how could Engineer Shen sleep at night?

A thousand sails pass by the shipwreck—Engineer Shen’s modest skiff had to steer far clear of CEO Zhou’s pirate galleon.

Before heading to the site, Shen Ku swung by his family home to pick up a few things.

Shen’s mother gazed at her youngest son, who was about to embark on his solitary voyage. Who could possibly understand? Waking up in the morning to find an extra 4,073,212.89 in her account, down to the exact cents, accompanied by the note: “Mom, keep the company dividends.” She had nearly feared Shen Ku was preparing to leave this mortal coil.

Under his mother’s complicated gaze, Shen Ku hauled away an armful of books from his elder brother’s study.

Since he was too broke to buy new ones, he could only scrounge up some second-hand volumes for his wife. Not like his brother read them anyway; they were just there for pretension.

Humanities and social sciences—Manning loved reading those.

Natural sciences—a bit too abstruse.

Then there were French books. Engineer Shen tossed them straight onto the floor. Not a single person in the family studied French; what a total waste of money.

Brimming with his haul, Shen Ku walked to the car, ready to take off.

Shen’s mother called out, “Doesn’t your partner really like this armchair? You might as well haul that away too.”

Engineer Shen said, “Thanks, Mom. Almost forgot.”

Shen’s mother handed him a copy of Mom’s Rice Cooker Recipes. “Don’t eat too poorly out there.”

Shen Ku went back to pick up his wife, and off they went in grand fashion to build the high-speed rail station.

During the day, Dou Manning sold coffee from a stall in the canteen. Building a high-speed rail station required an army of technicians, so he could sell ten to twenty cups a day.

Occasionally, when higher-ups came down for inspections, there were even bulk orders.

Whenever business was slow, Dou Manning would recline in the armchair with a book. He loved all the books Shen Ku had picked out—hardcovers, no less. If spirits didn’t naturally possess great strength, holding them up for just a short while would have made anyone’s arms ache.

At this railway station site, Engineer Shen held no sway over the canteen, so he set up a private hot plate to whip up late-night snacks for Manning.

Noticing that Dou Manning had a sweet tooth, he taught himself how to bake a sponge cake in a rice cooker. After two failed attempts, the cakes stopped collapsing; the freshly made golden sponge emerged soft and fluffy, and a six-inch cake happened to match Dou Manning’s appetite to perfection.

Shen Ku didn’t care much for sweets. Perhaps out of habit, he never added sugar to Manning’s coffee either, taking it strictly black.

He cooked for Manning using the recipes from his mother’s rice cooker cookbook, while usually settling for boiled chicken breast for himself.

Downgrading his lifestyle was tough; a big, burly guy like Engineer Shen had previously relied on beef for his protein intake.

Shen Ku thought to himself: This should be worker enough. He had observed the fellow workers around the site; they even smoked, whereas he didn’t touch tobacco at all.

Dou Manning was exceptionally well looked after at the site. Amid the dusty, grimy crowd, his lips were naturally rosy, his teeth pearly white, and his scholarly grace unmistakable—even Shen Ku’s rough-and-ready pampering was hundreds of times better than what Manning had managed on his own.

Excluding the technical engineers, Dou Manning wasn’t the least literate on site. Occasionally, he even helped the workers sort out text-based issues on their smartphones.

This gave him a great sense of accomplishment.

Everyone soon learned that the coffee stall owner was remarkably patient, and people were welcome to ask questions even if they weren’t buying anything.

That evening, inside the corrugated tin shack, a small folding dining table was set up in the middle. Shen Ku held a large steamed white bun. “Manning, if you were in Xiang Zhen’s shoes, would you throw up too?”

Hearing this, Dou Manning narrowed his eyes and scrutinized Shen Ku.

The intense stare made Shen Ku’s heart skip a beat.

Dou Manning tried his hardest to picture Shen Ku as a vile, unpardonable capitalist, just like Zhenzhen’s husband. But he couldn’t picture it at all. Zhenzhen’s husband wore suits every day and exuded an aristocratic air; Shen Ku didn’t wear suits.

A coffee spirit simply couldn’t envision his husband being wealthy—his husband was meant to be poor by nature, so no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t feel sick.

Saying this outright might bruise Engineer Shen’s pride, so Dou Manning told a lie: “I would, Hubby.”

Shen Ku took a bite of his steamed bun. “…Thank goodness I’m not.”

He ate plain buns and toiled on construction sites; what did Zhou Sicheng have on him?

Dou Manning: “Hubby, you are a glorious worker.”

A chime rang out from the phone. Dou Manning picked it up, his delicate brows furrowing into a worried crease. “Oh no… Zhenzhen’s husband has gone on a hunger strike.”

“Cough, cough, cough…” Shen Ku choked violently on his dry bun, gulping down a full cup of water before catching his breath.

Dou Manning patted Shen Ku’s back, thinking with deep concern that Zhou Sicheng shouldn’t be doing this—it would only scare Zhenzhen away.

If Shen Ku ever went on a hunger strike just to be with him, Dou Manning would choose to leave him too.

Humans were far too fragile; they could choke even while eating a plain bun.

The following day, Zhou Sicheng’s wife ran away, and in the dead of night, Zhou came demanding answers from Dou Manning.

Zhou Sicheng dropped an explosive bombshell: Xiang Zhen and Dou Manning were registered as brothers on the exact same household register!

Zhou Sicheng failed to extract any useful leads from Dou Manning, beyond Manning’s repeated assurances that Xiang Zhen was completely safe on his own out there.

Shen Ku understood Zhou Sicheng’s frantic desperation, and he urged Dou Manning not to hold back if he had clues. Yet he didn’t dare press too hard. He wanted to ask how Dou Manning and Xiang Zhen could possibly be biological brothers, yet he couldn’t bring himself to dig too deep.

Because Engineer Shen had a biological brother of his own whom he hadn’t come clean about.

Shen Ku suddenly realized that between himself and Manning, there seemed to be secrets that neither could untangle.

In the end, he could only rely on his body to feel Dou Manning’s complete acceptance of him.

The tin shack had terrible soundproofing, so Shen Ku had lined the doors and windows with acoustic insulation foam.

Even so, it was still poor.

Whenever they were intimate at night, Dou Manning bit his lip tightly, not daring to let out a sound.

The bed wasn’t spacious either, ruling out reckless, unrestrained motions. Shen Ku took his time, grinding slowly, sinking in and pulling back deliberately, muffling the slick sweat and muffled groans beneath the quilt.

On the rare occasion Manning couldn’t hold it back, Shen Ku would seal his lips with his own, or turn on the washing machine to let it rattle and hum.

The washing machine didn’t spin in vain either; every day brought damp clothes and bedsheets to be laundered.

Drying clothes out in the open was awkward at a construction site, and Dou Manning was thin-skinned. Shen Ku had bought an all-in-one washer-dryer-sanitizer unit. Every night, both appliances worked in tandem, generating enough mechanical white noise to drown out their sounds.

Once thoroughly ripe, Dou Manning’s body exuded a peculiar, intoxicating scent. Shen Ku couldn’t fathom where it came from and could only chalk it up to the body wash.

The enforced silence only made it more thrilling. When pushed to his absolute limit of endurance, the sheer allure of this breathtaking beauty turned utterly bewitching. Every single time, Shen Ku would stare spellbound for minutes on end, waiting until his wife’s trembling subsided before gently withdrawing.

Dou Manning breathed in soft gasps, watching Shen Ku dump the soiled work overalls from the floor into a washbasin to scrub by hand.

Because Shen Ku worked on site, his clothes collected half a pound of caked-on cement; he would never wash their clothes together.

Space was too tight to squeeze in a second washing machine, though.

So he would casually scrub his own clothes by hand and hang them outside to dry.

His wife’s intimate wear, on the other hand, was never dried outside on the dusty site; it always went through the dryer.

Dou Manning propped himself up, long hair tumbling over his shoulders, and murmured softly, “Shen Ku, leave it there. I’ll wash it tomorrow.”

Shen Ku: “It’s full of hardened cement. How could your hands possibly scrub that out?”

Dou Manning: “I can.”

His physical strength was vastly greater than Shen Ku’s. Besides, he didn’t mind washing their clothes together at all—what was a little mud and water? A coffee plant didn’t turn its nose up at soil. But Shen Ku was fiercely protective about it.

Shen Ku squatted down to run the water. “Just lie down and rest.”

Dou Manning draped a robe over his shoulders and walked up behind him. As Shen Ku exerted himself, the muscles across his broad back flexed and rippled, captivating to look at.

Who knew where Zhenzhen had run off to? Zhenzhen must miss his husband terribly.

Dou Manning sighed softly. “I wonder when Zhenzhen will come back.”

Shen Ku: “Don’t worry. Zhou Sicheng will find him.”

Dou Manning: “I’m not worried.”

What did a spirit have to worry about? He had lived alone in the deep mountains for five whole years.

Shen Ku glanced back at Dou Manning, noting that his wife truly didn’t seem anxious in the slightest.

He recalled Zhou Sicheng visiting their mother-in-law, where she had claimed that she sent Dou Manning and Xiang Zhen away at a young age to study martial arts under some reclusive master, which was why they had never attended school.

Zhou Sicheng had asked him to verify whether their mother-in-law had been lying.

Only if Dou Manning also possessed peerless martial arts prowess would Li Guihua’s story hold water.

Shen Ku had no idea how to test this. His wife was delicate and seemingly helpless, unable even to wash dishes—how could he possibly harbor secret martial arts skills?

He stood up, licked his dry lips, picked up the kettle, and poured water into a mug.

As he lifted it, he feigned a slip of the hand, sending another glass tumbler flying off the counter.

The trajectory of the falling glass was a full meter away from Dou Manning.

In the blink of an eye, Dou Manning reached out, snatched the glass out of thin air, and set it back on the table with an unruffled expression.

Shen Ku: “…”

He hadn’t even caught the motion of Dou Manning’s hand; it was as if he had teleported.

He hurriedly took a gulp of water to calm his rattled nerves.

Then he shot off a message to his brother-in-law: Yes, Dou Manning knows martial arts too. You don’t need to worry too much about Xiang Zhen.

[Zhou Sicheng: How skilled is he? Could he take down a Siberian tiger barehanded?]

Dou Manning had mentioned that Xiang Zhen might head to the Greater Khingan Mountains, which were home to wild Siberian tigers.

[Shen Ku: How the hell would I know?]

[Zhou Sicheng: Create the conditions.]

Zhou Sicheng had completely lost his mind. Shen Ku would have to be insane to throw his wife into a zoo enclosure.

[Zhou Sicheng: You can count as half a tiger. Let him hit you.]

[Shen Ku: Thanks for thinking so highly of me.]

Half a month later, Zhou Sicheng returned from the Greater Khingan Mountains, blowing up the trending searches in a desperate hunt for his wife.

To no avail.

Shen Ku felt something was off. How could a search across a country of over a billion people turn up nothing like a needle in the ocean?

Yet Dou Manning’s face remained as calm as still water, devoid of the slightest worry for his brother.

Shen Ku was aware that Zhou Sicheng had stationed that bodyguard named Ye Yun to tail Dou Manning, paranoid that Dou Manning might meet Xiang Zhen in secret.

As long as the bodyguard didn’t harass Manning, Shen Ku turned a blind eye. After all, he was just a humble laborer now; sponging off a capitalist’s private bodyguard to protect Manning was a pretty good deal.

Zhou Sicheng decided on a complete makeover: driving long-haul freight trucks while hunting for his wife.

Right before heading out on the road, he showed up at Dou Manning’s doorstep once again to ask for his wife’s whereabouts.

Never losing his patience, Dou Manning replied calmly each time, “Zhenzhen isn’t running away. He is solving the problem.”

Shen Ku stared transfixed at his wife, feeling that at this very moment, Manning resembled a psychological expert—profound in thought and thoroughly captivating.

Dou Manning said, “President Zhou, Zhenzhen handed the initiative to you earlier, and you exhausted every trick you had over an entire month. It was your methods that failed. Now it’s Zhenzhen’s turn to take the initiative. Surely you can afford to wait a month, can’t you?”

Shen Ku echoed, “Exactly.”

His wife had repeatedly assured Zhou Sicheng that Xiang Zhen would return on his own accord. Whether Zhou Sicheng believed it or not, Shen Ku believed it wholeheartedly.

Shen Ku felt Zhou Sicheng’s future was actually quite bright. Xiang Zhen had only fled because he couldn’t bear to watch Zhou Sicheng starve himself; once he found a cure for his nausea, he would naturally return, and the problem would be solved.

Zhou Sicheng simply lacked his level of trust in his spouse.

Zhou Sicheng snapped, “I can’t wait! Neither of you cares about him at all!”

Nobody seemed to grasp his burning torment; he was convinced Xiang Zhen had to be suffering out in the wild.

“How can you guarantee he’s fine?”

Dou Manning worried that if Zhou Sicheng drove while distracted, he might get into a highway accident, and Zhenzhen would be the one heartbroken in the end.

After a moment’s thought, he offered a heavyweight pledge: “I swear, if anything happens to Zhenzhen, I’ll break up with Shen Ku.”

Shen Ku: “…”

In an instant, Shen Ku felt his entire future plunge into darkness! What does this have to do with me?! Why the hell do I have to sink or swim with Zhou Sicheng?!

Having secured the guarantee, Zhou Sicheng turned and left, even though he felt staking Xiang Zhen’s safety on the depth of Dou Manning’s feelings for Shen Ku was wildly unreliable.

Shen Ku panicked: “Wife, it hasn’t even been three minutes! The vow isn’t legally binding yet, take it back right now!”

Dou Manning’s gaze shifted faintly, thoroughly satisfied: “Zhou Sicheng kept complaining that nobody cared about Zhenzhen. Now you care.”

Next time, Zhou Sicheng probably wouldn’t demand guarantees anymore. Even with all the books he had read, Dou Manning was running out of words.

Shen Ku broke down: “Why on earth should I have to care about someone else’s wife?!”

Especially the wife of someone as mercurial as Zhou Sicheng—caring too much might even get him branded a romantic rival.

Dou Manning rubbed his chin. “Well, someone had to care.”

Neither he nor Aunt Guihua could fake the frantic, burning anxiety that Zhou Sicheng demanded to see.

Shen Ku would just have to take one for the team.

The coffee spirit considered himself quite clever, exceptionally gifted at discovering practical uses for a husband.

“Hubby… I’ll make it up to you tonight.”