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It was a great pleasure to eat mutton in cold weather because it was warming. Whether it was used as a hot pot ingredient, simmered with chilis and other spices, or directly stewed, it was always delicious.

If you were afraid of it having a gamey taste, it didn’t matter — just poke a few holes in the radish and cook them together in cold water to remove it. Mutton and white radishes were a perfect match.

After Zhang Sushang had the money in hand, he immediately went out the door to buy mutton as well as some refined flour, and by now the soup was boiling away in the pot. He kneaded dough beside it, planning to wait until they almost finished eating the mutton and radishes before cutting the dough into noodles and cooking it.

He wasn’t afraid of not being able to finish. There were two men in their prime in this household, one 1.90m tall and 180kg and the other being 1.80m tall and 168kg, both with excellent appetites.

“Chyushka, why did you suddenly buy meat?” Alexei subconsciously swallowed when he looked at the soup pot.

Zhang Sushang waved a hand. “Because I’ve been paid my royalties, you can read A Donkey on the Railway in the Saint Petersburg Morning Post next Thursday — oh, I forgot that you’re my first reader. Anyway, we have to eat something good to celebrate.

“By the way, Lyosha, do you eat coriander?” he asked, lifting a handful of the herb.

Alexei’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “I do!”

The big bear was a good boy who wasn’t picky about food, not to mention that he hadn’t eaten many green plants during the previous winter. How could he dislike coriander?

Zhang Sushang put the chopped coriander into the mutton soup, then filled up a bowl with more mutton and radishes than soup and placed it into Alexei’s hands.

“Come on, eat it while it’s hot, food gets cold quickly in this weather.”

Holding the hot soup, Alexei’s wind-bitten fingers quickly warmed up, and as he took a sip, he felt the heat sliding down his oesophagus into his stomach. The crackling sounds of burning wood coming from the fireplace reminded him of home.

He slowly sat on his little bench and drank his soup quietly. He was obviously a big man, but right then he looked like a cute little bear cub.

Russia did have table manners, which in this case was that the soup plate and bowl should not leave the table and when there were only dregs, you should tilt the bowl and scoop out the remaining soup with a spoon; when drinking soup, there shouldn’t be any slurping sounds; if the soup was too hot, you shouldn’t blow on it, instead, you had to stir it with your spoon.

However, there was only a single dining table in their home, which had already been dominated by pots, pans, and dough, and was now Zhang Sushang’s cooking counter. Those things didn’t matter much to two poor students when they were behind closed doors.

Zhang Sushang’s family also had their own rules, specifically that you had to hold the bowl up to eat and you weren’t allowed to smack your lips. This was opposite to Russia’s custom of leaving bowls and plates on the table, so this could be said to be experiencing an exotic tradition for Alexei.

Stirring the pot with a spoon, Zhang Sushang pulled out two boiled eggs still in their shells. From his previous experience, eggs cooked in bone soup or broth were much more flavourful than those cooked in plain water.

Everyone who lived in the early 20th century, unless they came from a particularly affluent background, was greedy for meat. The same was true of Zhang Sushang. He wanted to lose weight through exercise, build appropriate muscles, and strengthen his physique in general — this all required meat.

As for Alexei, he was a man reaching 1.90m tall, yet could only subsist on potatoes all day long and most of the time could only eat until he was 70% full. He was also someone who lacked meat in his system.

When these two people let themselves go when eating, talking about rice bowls was an insult to their ability, calling them rice barrels was more apropos.

Not even fifteen minutes later, all the meat and radishes in the pot had disappeared, so Zhang Sushang put in the cut noodles. Although Russia’s economy was currently on the rise and people could expect their kitchens to become more abundant as the local five-year plan was implemented, many people could still only bear to eat white flour during holidays.

When the noodles finished cooking, Zhang Sushang and Alexei each held a large bowl and slurped them up, their faces showing the satisfaction of having carbohydrates entering the stomach.

There were so many people in later generations who said they wanted to give up carbs, but if they were presented with a bowl of fragrant rice or noodles after going hungry for a month, would they be able to resist?

Zhang Sushang responded to this question by eating very happily.

Since he time travelled, he had never worried about being over-nourished, only being malnourished, which would affect his lifespan. Now that he had money, his first goal was to enrich his diet and fill his lunchbox.

When their stomachs were stuffed full, Zhang Sushang and Alexei met eyes, both feeling a little embarrassed. They usually seemed to be people who didn’t eat much but didn’t expect that their true nature as pigs would be exposed today.

“Thanks for treating me to dinner,” Alexei said shyly.

In an era when food was precious, it was too rude to eat so much food at once.

But Zhang Sushang had no such idea. He also ate quite a lot of Alexei’s food when he first came, which Alexei didn’t object to; if now he disliked others for eating too much, what kind of person would he be?

Having money also meant that Zhang Sushang was willing to burn more coal and firewood. The two of them sat together by the fireplace, wearing thick coats and covering their legs with their quilts as fire illuminated their faces with warm orange light.

“This is great, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable before,” Alexei said lazily.

Zhang Sushang looked at him in confusion. “No way, right? You must’ve been much more comfortable at home than here.”

Alexei shook his head. “My family has eight children. It’s not easy just for my parents to support us all, how can it be good?”

In fact, he was the kind of child who suffered as he grew up — he didn’t have enough food to eat or clothes to wear and began learning a craft from his father as soon as he could walk and talk to contribute to the family’s finances. The lack of contraception in this era caused his mother to continue to have children until she suffered a miscarriage when carrying her ninth child. She and his littlest sister died together.

Although he had been born fifth, neither especially old nor young, Zhang Sushang had heard Alexei mention that he would sew skirts for his mother when he was five years old, which showed that the relationship between them should be good. For someone of Alexei’s emotional intelligence, it was impossible for him to not get along well with his family.

However, after his mother passed away, his father couldn’t raise so many children by himself. In the end, he only kept his eldest son who was twelve years old, and his eldest daughter who was eleven, and gave away his other children. Alexei was sent to an old miner’s family where he learned to repair machines. He was already smart, and when he delivered food and water to his adoptive father, he would also run errands for others in the factory; eventually, he gained the favour of a young engineer who sponsored him to attend elementary school.

“My adoptive father passed from illness after I finished middle school. I had good grades, so he asked me to sell everything in the house after his death, continue my studies, and strive to graduate from university, because only with knowledge can I become a decent man like an engineer, a teacher, or a doctor.”

Speaking of this, his eyes flashed with sadness. “As for my father and eldest brother, I tried to find them, but they had moved to escape debtors. My second sister was married off to an alcoholic when she was thirteen. Apparently, the alcoholic always beat her. She died in childbirth at fourteen. When I heard it, I hurt so much I wanted to die as well.”

Looking into his baby blue eyes, Zhang Sushang asked gently, “And now? Does it still hurt?’

Alexei looked back with a sincere smile. “Now I’m very glad that I survived.”

It could be said that the first half of Alexei’s life was a vivid recollection of the suffering of people at the bottom, but judging from his answer, he felt that the cold winter of his life was over.

Spring’s warmth came, flowers bloomed.

Even if his weird flatmate did start walking on all fours like a gorilla half an hour after dinner. Zhang Sushang said that this was to exercise his physical fitness and body coordination, he was only crawling around because he wanted to lose weight.

If the floor wasn’t too cold Alexei would accompany him, and sometimes he would even crawl with Zhang Sushang if it looked particularly interesting.

And after exercising, his body heated up and began sweating, completely chasing out the cold.

Zhang Sushang went ten laps around the apartment, did 200 mountain climbers, 50 burpees, then repeatedly raised his legs to exercise his gluteal muscles.

For figure skaters, hip and leg muscles were most important to them, as well as core strength. If their legs were weak, they wouldn’t be able to reach the requisite height when jumping; if their cores weren’t strong, they wouldn’t be able to tighten their body axis while in the air, which meant their rotation speed wouldn’t be fast enough — then naturally, it would be impossible to achieve triple or quad jumps.

From childhood to adulthood, apart from the two years when he retired from the sport to focus on high school examinations, Zhang Sushang’s body fat had never exceeded 13%. His muscle lines were clear and his leg and hip circumferences were impressive, although in the end he still couldn’t stick with the sport…

His puberty caused him to shoot from 1.55m to 1.80m in a single breath, his body’s center of gravity changed significantly, and his weight also rushed from 45kg to 65kg. Who could adapt to a change of 20 kilograms? When he entered the growth stage, Zhang Sushang lost not only all his skills but also his mentality. Even after seeing psychologists, he still suffered from anxiety and insomnia, as well as eating disorders.

In the end, his dad couldn’t stand it anymore and felt that forcing his child to endure it wouldn’t be good for his physical and mental development, so he simply persuaded him to retire in favour of studying.

Besides, their family didn’t expect Zhang Sushang to become a big athlete. Just because he was an Olympic champion in men’s figure skating didn’t mean his son had to do the same.

Then Zhang Sushang was admitted to the top domestic university, got motion sickness and vomited during driving practice due to his poor skills, and directly vomited himself to the beginning of the 20th century.

Fortunately, he had both the ability to adapt to circumstances and the determination to escape poverty. Now that the food and clothing problems had been solved and he had money on hand, he could do some strength training.

Strength training was the only way to grow muscles. Once his muscles increased, his metabolism would also increase, thereby also improving the efficiency of healthy weight loss. He had almost hit a plateau with pure aerobic exercises for weight loss, so it was the perfect time to change the training menu.

The following days for Zhang Sushang and Alexei were very nourishing.

The former’s body originally belonged to the son of a landlord, so his nutrition intake was okay, but Alexei had various problems such as dry skin, dull complexion, and frequent hair loss due to a chronic lack of lipids. He was young and in otherwise good health so his body could still hold on, but anyone’s lifespan would be affected if they were undernourished for a long time.

For the sake of their health, Zhang Sushang dragged Alexei out to the market the next day and brought home two fish, a gallon of milk, vegetables, and dozens of eggs.

If it weren’t for the fact that they didn’t have a yard where they lived, Zhang Sushang would even like to take a few hens home. Then, they could not only have eggs but also slaughter them to make soup and eat meat when they got too old to lay. He had taken a fancy to two hens with bright feathers and clear eyes at the poultry store, lively and cute, he knew at a glance that both the chickens and their eggs must be delicious, but he had nowhere to raise them!

That day their main ingredient was fish, so a delicious fish soup combined with noodles and vegetables was served for lunch. Zhang Sushang liked gnawing on fish heads and eating fish belly meat and fish eyes, but he also liked his flatmate very much so he reluctantly gave up his precious belly meat to Alexei.

Alexei glanced at Zhang Sushang and said nothing. That evening when Zhang Sushang was frying up the other fish, he silently picked out the fish’s eyes and stuffed them into Zhang Sushang’s bowl, saying that he liked eating fish tails and had no interest in other parts.

What he did reminded Zhang Sushang of his father once again. Every time they ate fish at home, his father would always give him his favourite parts.

On the third day, they brought home a beef shank. They shaved off the meat and ate it with sauce, then stewed the bone into soup. It just so happened that Zhang Sushang wanted to eat bone soup with boiled eggs.

* * *

The two of them lived days filled with good food and drinks. Alexei’s face became visibly rosier, his skin condition improved, his light blue eyes became more energetic, and his hair loss symptoms were alleviated.

He had always thought that his lack of hair was because studying physics was too taxing. Even though comparison photos of Planck from when he was young and when he was middle-aged hadn’t yet spread around the world, there were already rumours circulating within the Faculty of Physics of Leningrad State University that ‘researching physics and mathematics both lead to hair loss’.

Author:
The animal-inspired exercises mentioned in the text all exist in reality~

Lyosha only lost hair because he didn’t eat enough meat, the problem will be cured after he starts eating meat. There’s no need to worry that like Planck, he’ll sacrifice appearance for physics, heheheh…

Translator:
Seriously, go google pictures of young Max Planck for a laugh.

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