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Then Jiang Jinghu took Zhang Sushang to meet the other two. Li Yuan, who studied chemistry, was a rather short person with skin on the darker side, while Wu Yeming, who studied engineering, was a gentle and fair-skinned young man.
Despite being called young men, in truth none of them were older than twenty. They all left to study in a foreign country at particularly young ages.
When a person was away from home, their compatriots became their closest relatives. Everyone was very friendly towards Zhang Sushang, and they repeatedly emphasised for him to go to them if he encountered something difficult to solve, because they would do whatever they could to help; if he couldn’t get along with his flatmate, he could live at their dorm.
They seemed very worried about Zhang Sushang’s life — after all, who told him to show up looking like he lost half his body weight?
After working hard to lose weight for a month, Zhang Sushang not only lost a lot of fat but the flesh still on his body became denser. In the eyes of uninformed people, he must have suffered a lot to lose so much weight.
It was true that he hadn’t been eating well, but it wasn’t to the point that he wasn’t living well. Zhang Sushang could truthfully say that flatmates like Alexei who helped him repair socks and sew quilts were not only unique, but a treasure.
Moreover, last night he tried putting his left foot on his right shoulder and his right foot on his left shoulder, frightening Alexei out of his wits. If anyone was going to escape the house, it certainly wasn’t going to be Zhang Sushang.
They also invited him to eat pirozhki together.
Pirozhki, a traditional local delicacy with various auspicious meanings such as ‘sun’, ‘festive’, and ‘healthy’, were one of the most famous foods in Russia. Zhang Sushang knew it as a delicious pie with many possible fillings.
Jiang Jinghu was the one sent to buy the pirozhki. He bought four, one for each person. Biting into it, Zhang Sushang discovered it to be stuffed with mushrooms and meat, and had a little bit of onion taste. As delicious juices flowed into his throat, Zhang Sushang was so moved that he wanted to cry.
This was the first bite of meat he had since coming to this time and space, barring lard residue. People really only knew how to cherish things after they were lost. When Zhang Sushang was still a professional athlete, he only wanted to vomit when his elders stuffed him with beef, chicken, and fish, but now he would only ask for more.
Meat, eggs, and milk were the wealth of mankind; they provided protein and other nutrients that were good for strengthening the body. God knows that Zhang Sushang only dared to do aerobic exercises these days, not even touching anything anaerobic for fear that his nutrition couldn’t keep up, which would deplete his body’s foundation.
Before separating, Wu Yeming also stuffed the last salted duck egg he brought from his hometown into Zhang Sushang’s hands.
Zhang Sushang was really embarrassed and wanted to give it back, but Wu Yeming had already left, afraid that Zhang Sushang would reject his kindness. In the end, Zhang Sushang could only remember this in his heart, and decided to give them some of the sauerkraut once it was done pickling.
These days, nothing was more practical than giving food.
Alexei had something to do, so Zhang Sushang went home alone. A copy of the flat’s key had already been prepared for him. Zhang Sushang, thinking that the weather wasn’t too bad today, wanted to do some general cleaning.
For example, the floor hadn’t been swept for several days — anyways, the flat wasn’t very big, only 65m2. He could easily use a wet rag to wipe down every corner of the flat and the floor in just two hours. The cobwebs on the windows and ceiling would be left to Alexei.
The firewood and charcoal also needed to be replenished, since some would be consumed every time they used the fireplace to cook. Zhang Sushang very much missed the iron stove that he saw in his granduncle’s home when he was a child, which only needed a few pieces of honeycomb briquettes to burn for a whole day and was convenient for both cooking and boiling water.
Unfortunately honeycomb briquettes wouldn’t be invented until 1949 by a Texas worker,1charcoal briquettes were actually invented and patented much earlier by Ellsworth B. A. Zwoyer in 1897 23 years in the future and seven years after the birth of his neighbour Grandpa Lu. Yet as a time traveller, Zhang Sushang could not ‘invent’ briquettes.
This couldn’t be blamed on him. Children of his generation grew up accustomed to using natural gas and electricity, it was fortunate for him to even have seen briquettes with his own eyes.
The most important thing was that if they burned briquettes, they didn’t need to clear out the coal ash as frequently — Zhang Sushang currently had to regularly clean the fireplace of ash, otherwise the air in the flat would go bad.
After lighting up the fireplace, he heated up some water, then removed the quilt covers and pillowcases, putting them together with socks and underwear in a basin before scrubbing them.
Would you believe that this body was allergic to dust mites, just like Zhang Sushang before time travel?
Zhang Sushang didn’t even dare to air quilts outside due to how much dust would accumulate, and beating it afterwards was useless, if he did that he would spend the whole night sneezing in addition to developing pink eye and a blocked nose. His only option was to wash these things frequently and slowly dry them in front of the fire.
The quilt that Alexei had promised him was already finished, consisting of cotton wool contained within a military green fabric. Before going to bed, he would soak his feet and drink a few sips of hot water, and the feeling of snuggling under the covers and throwing his coat on top was a rare enjoyment.
To thank Alexei for his help, Zhang Sushang also washed Alexei’s blankets as well. After washing, he twisted it until it was half dry then put it by the fireplace to dry completely.
He brushed a pot with lard and, putting it on the fireplace, placed lieba and shredded potatoes inside to cook, then peeled the salted duck egg. Its oily golden yolk exuded an alluring aroma which Zhang Sushang couldn’t resist; he gave it a lick and revealed a happy face.
He hadn’t eaten salted duck eggs for so long.
After eating, he spread out pen and paper on a small table, planning to write the second instalment of the Cowardly Detective series.
His understanding of 1920s Russia was only based on his own recent personal experience, so it was unavoidable for the story to have elements from the surrounding environment and people.
In the ending of A Donkey on the Railway, the strong yet beautiful Vasily knocked on the protagonist Ilya’s door, asking him to investigate a case. Zhang Sushang continued it from here.
According to the style of this novel, for comedic effect, the door was actually opened by the donkey Boris, and the plot unfolded only after it brayed in Vasily’s face first.
Vasily was an intellectual young man with an excellent background, and a native of St. Petersburg. He had attended university in Yekaterinburg and had a degree in classical literature.
He looked for Ilya because a murder occurred near the apartment he rented — a 40 year old midwife had been killed. His cousin Mila lived near the crime scene and, apparently because she had seen the figure of the perpetrator, was pushed out from the second storey and knocked unconscious. The local police couldn’t find any clues pointing to the murderer, so Vasily thought of Ilya.
Although this guy was a coward, his case handling skills were top-notch.
The two then went to the scene of the crime together and investigated the deceased’s relationship network. They learned that this midwife had worked in the hospital for more than a decade, was quite petty, and few people liked her. She had been married once which had ended with no children, but by the furnishings in her home, she was very rich. Too rich for a midwife.
After checking all the people who had complaints about this midwife, a female high school teacher was almost arrested as the murderer — this woman once gave birth to a baby girl, yet not even half an hour later, before the baby reached her father’s arms, she turned into a stillborn. The teacher’s eldest son always insisted that the midwife killed her, but their family couldn’t provide any evidence.
However, according to further investigation, the teacher and her family were ultimately found not guilty. At this time, Vasily heard that his cousin Mila was awake and so went to the hospital with Ilya.
Zhang Sushang named this story Twins Who Share No Blood, playing with the concept of bait-and-switch murder.
As everyone knew, when police investigated homicide cases, they would first look into the deceased’s relationships to see if anyone held grudges against them, which generally led to the suspects. The important point was that this trick really was effective, and most criminals were caught through this method.
But what if the targets were switched?
Zhang Sushang first came into contact with this concept in the 1951 Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train;2the literal trope namer, as this is also known as a “Strangers on a Train”-plot murder. later, the popular Japanese drama Your Turn to Kill also revolved around this concept.
In Twins Who Share No Blood, there were two deceased persons — one was the middle-aged midwife, and the other was Mila’s stepfather. The murderers were Mila and a female prostitute named Nika.
Mila had been raped by her stepfather when she was younger, and Nika was her neighbour and friend at the time. Nika’s family was poor and her father was a cripple and a gambler, the two knew each other’s pain well and they hugged and commiserated together. Later, Mila moved away and Nika became a prostitute.
Some years later, Nika found out that she wasn’t actually the gambler’s biological daughter. He had been a human trafficker in his earlier years who had offended a ‘big shot’ and had one of his legs broken, while Nika was one of his leftover goods whom he hadn’t been able to sell.
Following this trail of clues revealed that Nika was the child of that female high school teacher, and the person who stole her from the delivery room was the middle-aged midwife.
By then, Mila had become a university student on completely different paths from the prostitute named Nika and no one had any inkling that they had ever met. Yet after contracting a sexually transmitted disease Nika was determined to take revenge before her death, so she found Mila and made an agreement to kill the one each person hated the most.
In this story, neither murderer was easy to deal with. Mila was fragile but had acting skills on par with a movie queen, while Nika was ruthless. They first knocked the physically strong Vasily unconscious with drugs, then wielded fruit knives against Ilya and almost sent him to heaven. If Mila hadn’t regretted it at the critical moment and pulled Ilya away, or Boris the donkey hadn’t bravely rescued its master, then this series would have ended right there.
At the end, Nika fell from a tall building and died. When Ilya and Vasily assisted Mila to the first floor, they saw that she held a copper medallion with the image of a crocodile in her hand.
Charismatic villains were a staple in the history of fiction, their existence guaranteed a wonderful story and plot — for example, Hannibal was more popular than his protagonist counterpart. How could Zhang Sushang forget to give his novel a powerful villain?
Oh, he wanted not only one powerful villain, but many, so that the cowardly Ilya could live a life more fulfilling and interesting than anyone else.
Speaking of which, did anyone remember that The Cowardly Detective Ilya began with Ilya leaving his hometown for St. Petersburg because he wanted to find his father?
Zhang Sushang had finished the outline and was halfway through the story when he heard a knock on the door.
Was it Alexei, back from getting his prescribed book list from the professor?
“I’m coming!” Zhang Sushang shouted.
Unexpectedly, he opened the door to an old man with a white beard and a middle-aged man with a dangerously receding hairline.
“Excuse me, is this Mister Chyushka’s home? We’re editors from the Saint Petersburg Morning Post.”
Zhang Sushang blinked, then turned sideways to allow them to enter as he casually asked, “I am Chyushka, can A Donkey on the Railway be published?”
“You’re Chyushka?” Chief Editor Iosif and Igor were both in disbelief.
They were very sure that the tall and beautiful young man standing in front of them was not Russian. Even if he spoke Russian well and without an accent, could he write such a wonderful short story in Russian?
It was just like how in the 21st century, few Chinese people believed that foreigners could write a good novel using Chinese characters. Most people couldn’t write well in their mother tongue, let alone in a foreign language.
Zhang Sushang smiled and pointed at the table. “You’re in luck, I’m currently writing the second part of Detective Ilya’s story. If you don’t believe me, you just need to wait a while.”
The two editors looked at each other and sat as he had offered. Zhang Sushang poured them some hot water, turned over the quilt covers and pillowcases roasting by the fireplace, then sat back at the small table and unhurriedly continued writing.
Compared to A Donkey on the Railway, Twins Who Share No Blood was longer so he planned to submit it in three parts.
The scratching of pen on paper was a familiar sound to all literate people from this era. As Zhang Sushang wrote, his eyes were lowered and his expression was calm, and he would occasionally stop to think for a while, seeming very focussed.
When the first part was finished, he took out another piece of paper and started copying it, during which he corrected typos, moved punctuation marks, and rearranged some words.
After copying, he handed the manuscript to the two editors. Iosif couldn’t wait to take it, and he moved next to Igor so they could read it together.
As Igor read it, he marvelled in his heart that this foreign young lad really was the author of these stories!
And it was clear that the use of words in this story was more proficient than in the previous one, while the writing style also improved significantly, likely because the author himself became better at writing in Russian.
After finishing the manuscript, Chief Editor Iosif was silent for a while before looking up at Zhang Sushang with respect.
“Mister Chyushka, I must apologise for only introducing myself now. I am Iosif Ivanovich Prosky, the chief editor for Saint Petersburg Morning Post. Your story is very good. If possible, we hope to see your stories often.”
Iosif, being 59 years old, had already read many stories, so when he read about this bait-and-switch murder case, the old editor knew that Zhang Sushang was an author that he couldn’t allow to escape.
He had to reach a long-term cooperative agreement with this person in order to keep the story of Detective Ilya with their newspaper!
Zhang Sushang wasn’t surprised by this, he chatted with them for a while before coming to a satisfactory remuneration. From then on he would contribute an article to the St. Petersburg Morning Post once a week, for which he would be paid 50 rubles. That was twice his monthly salary for cleaning the Leningrad State University’s library!
The three of them decided on a date to sign the contract, then Iosif and Igor gave the manuscript fee of 35 rubles for A Donkey on the Railway (they felt that the quality was good so they voluntarily raised their offered price) and left politely.
As soon as they left, Zhang Sushang did a backflip on the spot.
He was rich!
When Alexei finally came home after dealing with his tasks at the university, he saw his flatmate crawling around the flat in a backbend like a crab, and when he caught sight of him, Zhang Sushang smoothly rose to his feet and happily greeted him.
“You’re back, Lyosha? Tonight we’re eating mutton radish soup and piroshki stuffed with mushrooms and meat.”
Only then did Alexei smell the rich aroma of meat, and saw white soup bubbling away in a pot on the fireplace.
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- 1charcoal briquettes were actually invented and patented much earlier by Ellsworth B. A. Zwoyer in 1897
- 2the literal trope namer, as this is also known as a “Strangers on a Train”-plot murder.
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