Tag: BL (page 4 of 12)

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Not only did Zhang Sushang return, he brought with him two thin pieces of iron to help them break the ice around the door. Thinner ice could be broken off directly, while thicker areas could still be weakened by chipping off pieces. 

Alexei held the iron piece in his hands happily. “I’ve never thought of such a good idea before,” he said.

Zhang Sushang: You only need a few minutes to get your frozen door open, you don’t need to bother using your brain at all, unlike me, who’s torn between waking you up or finding another way out myself when I want to go outside.

Their landlady, Aunt Anya, also had to knock ice loose from her door every morning to buy groceries. It was evident that warrior nations often solved problems with their own personal strength.

According to Alexei himself, he wasn’t an alcoholic, only enjoying a cup or two once in a while, but last summer he accidentally drank a bit much and used too much force while trying to open the door, causing the key to break off while inside the keyhole.

Later the landlady knocked it off with a hammer and installed a new lock. Before the new lock was installed, he lived in an apartment with a front door unable to close, yet didn’t feel there were any security issues at all.

Not everyone had the guts to rob the home of a thickly built man almost two metres tall. Alexei was fearless.

Zhang Sushang: …

As they walked, he sneaked glances at Alexei’s face. This 20 year old Slavic young man actually had a very handsome face, with a bone structure so fine that even a plastic surgeon wouldn’t dare to do anything with it, and his smiles had a child’s cheer. He had the type of face that would gain a million fans with a single photo if he lived in the modern era.

Unfortunately, the current environment wasn’t conducive for people to pay attention to their image, and Alexei himself was also quite careless about it – shaving twice a month was about the extent of his care. With the addition of his body shape, he managed to present himself as an intimidating, strong man with a childlike babyface.

God was in a good mood these days, the snow on the ground hadn’t continued to accumulate and it only took them twenty minutes to walk from the Universitetskaya Embankment to Leningrad State University.

The sky was still overcast. It may have been his illusion, but he felt as if the wind brushing past his ears carried the ocean tides. St. Petersburg was a coastal city; when the weather turned warmer, they may be able to see seagulls. It was a bit embarrassing to say, but he craved meat, to the point that he often saw chickens, ducks, geese, and other birds in his dreams.

The main gate of Leningrad State University was wide open to allow streams of students carrying books and luggage inside.

Zhang Sushang had once watched the Soviet director Dziga Vertov’s 1920s silent film Man with a Movie Camera, which let him see this era through black and white pictures. But now, as he looked at the newly poured concrete, the students’ expectant expressions, and the vitality in the air, everything felt far more vivid than through a screen.

Workers were already shovelling snow on the street, revealing tram tracks underneath. Some people had set up open horse carriages to transport people on the cleared roads. The pedestrians consisted of both men and women, but all wore thick clothes.

Looking at Leningrad State University’s gate, Zhang Sushang thought, If I didn’t come here, I’d be at Tsinghua University’s opening ceremony right now.

“Chyushka? Chyushka!”

He jumped at his flatmate’s call, and turned to see a pair of worried blue eyes.

Alexei scratched at his blond hair, looked around, then leaned in. “I have faith that one day, your country will also have a school as good as Leningrad University, and everything will get better. Isn’t this why you came here despite how hard it was?”

Zhang Sushang looked at him blankly, he actually… never had the thought of comparing the current Soviet Union with his own country, because as someone from the future, he knew very well that his motherland would one day stand proudly atop the world again. Even if there were countless hardships during this period, that time would come.

But Alexei didn’t know that, he just respected Zhang Sushang, his flatmate who left his poor and weak homeland, respected Zhang Sushang’s motherland, and respected his will to travel thousands of miles to learn.

His kindness and respect for others may be the reason why his blue eyes were so clear and pure; Zhang Sushang suddenly understood why he liked Alexei’s eyes so much.

“Thank you, Alexei,” he laughed, patting Alexei’s outstretched hand.

Seeing that his despondent air had dissipated, Alexei let out a sigh of relief and grinned. “You can call me Lyosha, don’t I already call you Chyushka?”

They had lived under the same roof for over a month, their temperaments were compatible, and they were good friends, so they should have already moved on to calling each other by nicknames.

For Russians, whether you called friends by diminutives or not implied completely different intimacy levels!

Going with the flow, Zhang Sushang and Alexei threw their arms around each other’s shoulders as they walked into the campus; from behind they looked like two bears¹Specifically, referencing a Chinese cartoon featuring two bears and a logger; see Wikipedia. trespassing in Leningrad State University.

Although, Zhang Sushang was visibly smaller than his companion — with his technical skills as a former professional athlete and significant weight loss regimen, he had gone from 180 kg to 168 kg and now looked much smaller.

But frankly, although there was still quite a bit of fat on his waist, many 1.8m tall boys in the 21st century weighed this much.

Any orientation process was more or less the same in any era. Those who lived in dormitories would arrive a few days in advance to put away their luggage, go through the admission procedures, then everyone gathered in their classrooms on the first day of school, the professor said a few words, and people got to know each other.

Except for stepping foot into the classroom, Alexei had already accompanied Zhang Sushang to do everything else, including a tour of the campus.

Compared with the university towns of later generations which could easily hold tens of thousands of people, today’s Leningrad State University wasn’t particularly large despite being the top university of the Soviet Union. They only needed a couple days to know it well.

Thus he declined Alexei’s offer to take him to his classroom, and found his way there himself.

Despite his height, Zhang Sushang still shamelessly sat next to a window in the front rows of the room. His father had told him before that it didn’t matter for other subjects, but when studying medicine, he had to sit somewhere close to the professor, so that he could see any dissections clearly.

Sitting behind him was a young man with black hair and blue eyes, who had his attention on a book. Sunlight filtering through his eyelashes cast long shadows on his cheeks.

Zhang Sushang turned around and waved at him. “Good morning, my name is Zhang Sushang, you are?”

“Susan?” The young man looked up and examined Zhang Sushang from head to toe.

Leningrad State University began accepting female students in the 19th century, and in addition, they had the world’s first female dean of the Faculty of Science²The IRL university doesn’t have a Faculty of Science (it’s split into faculties of biology, chemistry etc. instead) and I can’t find anything about female deans, first or otherwise as well as multiple female professors. They could be said to be a pioneer in improving access to higher education for women in the Soviet Union. This foreign student looked fair and tender, had youthful facial features, and wore a thick coat due to the weather, so it was hard to tell their gender — could they be a girl who accidentally walked into the wrong classroom?

Zhang Sushang quickly corrected him. “It’s Sushang, not Susan, you can also call me Chyushka. What’s your name?”

This person smiled as he spoke and seemed exceedingly friendly. The one sitting in the back row was silent for a few seconds but still introduced himself. “Danil Valeryevich Terniuk.”

Despite being in Russia for so long, the only person whose full name he remembered was Alexei — Alexei Andreevich Shubin.

By the way, before the 19th century, many lower-class people in Russian did not have surnames. When everyone gradually began to have surnames, they simply used the familiar objects around them.³This is how we get surnames like Smith (as in blacksmith) or Thatcher in English

For example, ‘Shubin’ was derived from the Russian word for fur coat — one of Alexei’s ancestors must have been very good at making fur coats.

Obviously, it wasn’t the most polite thing to call people by their first names when they just met, it being much more reasonable to call each other by their surnames, however Danil didn’t argue with this foreigner in favour of lowering his head to keep reading.

Zhang Sushang wasn’t the only foreigner. After a while, a thin young man wearing a felt hat with a strong Northeastern style ran in.

He looked around, as if he was searching for someone, before his gaze fell on Zhang Sushang and his face went from befuddlement to confusion to distress, then he rushed over.

“Qiupu, thank all the gods that you’re here, I knew you wouldn’t desert us!”

His voice wasn’t very loud due to being in a public space. Qiupu was this body’s courtesy name.

After thinking a bit, Zhang Sushang called out the young man’s name. “Jinghu.”

This Jiang Jinghu attended the same high school as the original goods, though not the same class. They weren’t very close, but did exchange letters and share a meal before leaving the country because among the four who came to study in Russia, they shared a hometown.

Jiang Jinghu, at sixteen years old, was the youngest of the four exchange students and couldn’t speak Russian fluently. However he had the passion, the support of his family, and the fact that his family ran the best pharmacy in the city; he was the most enthusiastic of the exchange students and was the first to be prepared to go.

In contrast, the original goods was the son of a landlord, for whom his family had even arranged a child bride. When he expressed an interest in travelling to Russia, he was beaten twenty times with a board and disowned; if it weren’t for his already-married sister who stuffed him with a little money on the eve of his departure, he wouldn’t even have been able to reach St. Petersburg.

Side note: as far as the beating was concerned, if the original body’s layers of fat wasn’t enough or his defence slightly weaker, Zhang Sushang suspected that he wouldn’t have been able to last until he transmigrated over.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Jiang Jinghu sat next to Zhang Sushang while looking at him in distress. “Gods, why are you so thin? It was already so hard for Wu Yeming, Li Yuan, and I to come here together, but you were by yourself, it must’ve been even worse. How’ve you been?”

Zhang Sushang warmed at his concerned expression. “The university doesn’t have enough dormitories, so they arranged for me to homestay with one of our seniors. He’s really good, he looks after me a lot and we’re already friends. You don’t have to worry so much, I’m doing pretty well.”

“But you’re so thin now!” Jiang Jinghu refused to believe it, he only needed to see how his old classmate’s belly was only a third of its previous size to know that he was trying to be strong. Although he himself wasn’t so well off, he decided to buy a few more meal tickets for Zhang Sushang tomorrow.

He also had to sneak it to him secretly, he thought.

They chatted for a while and Zhang Sushang learned that Jiang Jinghu, Wu Yeming, and Li Yuan who had come before him had all moved into the dormitories. Jiang Jinghu also studied medicine, same as him, while Wu Yeming studied engineering and Li Yuan studied chemistry; and even Jiang Jinghu, who had the wealthiest background among them, found a job sweeping the dormitories to save a little money.

As long as these people finished their studies and returned to their home country, they would be talents worth their weight in gold.

As Zhang Sushang chatted, he gradually felt a little guilty, feeling that his ideological awareness wasn’t nearly as good as these students who really risked everything to go to a foreign country.

His biggest goal was only to live to 90 years old – which, although it sounded grand, had nothing on fighting for the country. Zhang Sushang had also thought that if he wanted to help people in the future, the prerequisite was that he had the ability to do so.

Alexei’s encouragement should be directed towards these people instead.

Right then, an old man with curly grey hair and a neat beard walked in, wearing a green coat and a serious expression. He opened a book and uttered a string of rapid Russian words.

Jiang Jinghu, still unused to the language’s tongue trills, frowned as he listened then tugged on Zhang Sushang’s sleeve. “Qiupu, do you know what he’s saying?”

“Professor Yevgeny is the dean of the Facility of Medicine and will be our principal supervisor for the next few years, besides the rector,” Zhang Sushang translated.

Jiang Jinghu nodded rapidly. “I see I see. Hey, your Russian is really good!”

“I’m good at languages,” he replied shyly.

Before he time travelled, when he trained in Russia, it only took him one year to get his reading and writing skills high enough that he was able to write his own short stories in Russian. He didn’t need subtitles when watching Japanese anime either.

Hearing this, Jiang Jinghu was clearly jealous. “That’s amazing, none of us are that good at Russian yet so everything is hard to do. Before we came, Li Yuan said that he wanted to translate all the chemistry books here into Chinese and take them home — recently, he’s staying up all night studying children’s textbooks.”

It wasn’t that industries within China weren’t developed, but that they still weren’t as advanced as in other countries. They wanted to bring more knowledge home.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Jiang Jinghu said, clenching his fist, “we can always learn more as long as we work hard.”

Zhang Sushang’s heart moved at his words, but just as he was about to reply, he felt a tap on his back. “Can you guys stop? The professor is about to look over here,” Danil whispered from behind them.

He didn’t speak very quickly so Jiang Jinghu could also understand him. The two of them shut their mouths and obediently looked towards the podium, where, as expected, they met Professor Yevgeny’s cold green eyes.

Zhang Sushang shuddered. No matter what era, teachers all had intimidating glares.

“Now I will start calling names. When you hear yours, stand up and let everyone get to know you,” Yevgeny said slowly.

Yet by the time the class was finished, Zhang Sushang could only match names to faces for Danil and Jiang Jinghu. On a related note, Western countries had a high rate of duplicate names, which was especially obvious this time for some reason. In their class alone there were three Sergeis and four Ivans, so when calling them they had to be distinguished by their patronymics.

Not to mention Zhang Sushang, even the other students had issues remembering their names.

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• 1
  Specifically, referencing a Chinese cartoon featuring two bears and a logger; see Wikipedia.
• 2
  The IRL university doesn’t have a Faculty of Science (it’s split into faculties of biology, chemistry etc. instead) and I can’t find anything about female deans, first or otherwise
• 3
  This is how we get surnames like Smith (as in blacksmith) or Thatcher in English

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As soon as Zhang Sushang and Alexei sent the manuscript off, they went home to eat, drink, and sleep. Zhang Sushang, still unused to the low temperatures here, seriously considered improving his living conditions now that he had a little money on hand.

So he wanted to buy a thicker quilt on the way home, only to be stopped by Alexei.

“Buying a quilt isn’t cost-effective, just get fabric and some cotton, and I’ll make you one. Don’t worry, I can do it very quickly.”

As soon as Zhang Sushang heard about the price difference between buying and making a quilt, he accepted Alexei’s kindness, thinking that it didn’t matter if Alexei was slow to make it, at worst he would just endure it for a few more days. Young people had good enough thermoregulation to survive it.

With this in mind, Zhang Sushang added a few more pieces of wood to the fire. When the melted snow-water bubbled, he poured half into a basin and mixed it with cold water, then stuck his feet inside.

“Whew…” he hummed happily as he narrowed his eyes in enjoyment.

He had been used to showering daily while in the 21st century. Especially in his third year of high school, when he was studying hard at his desk every day which put a lot of pressure on his neck and shoulders, he would rub the area with hot water before bed. Once his muscles relaxed, he would lie on the bed and apply soothing balm to his temples, allowing him to sleep soundly.

It was no longer possible to enjoy such a thing, so Zhang Sushang’s greatest pleasure now was to soak his feet. Fortunately, his flatmate was a good person who didn’t mind him wasting firewood.

Of course Alexei didn’t mind — the happiness of seeing a basin of warm water waiting for him every morning already made him very satisfied. He no longer needed to worry about his teeth going sore from the cold when he was washing up, and he had hot meals to eat both morning and night; his heart was full of gratitude towards his flatmate, so what if they used a little more firewood or charcoal?

When Zhang Sushang was halfway through his soak, he saw Alexei approaching with his only coat in hand.

“Chyushka, nights are cold, you can cover yourself with this until the quilt is ready.” Seeing Zhang Sushang turn to him in surprise, Alexei tilted his head in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

Zhang Sushang stammered out, “N-No, it’s nothing, I’m just grateful. Do you want to, uh, soak your feet with me? The water’s still hot.”

“Okay.”

Alexei, following his example, placed his coat on the table, moved a stool next to Zhang Sushang, then placed his much larger feet next to Zhang Sushang’s, immediately taking up two-thirds of the basin.

Zhang Sushang sniffed and sighed internally.

Asians, especially East Asians, had the least body odour. This was caused not only by differences in diet, but also because when their ancestors migrated from the tropics to more temperate regions, their genes mutated to cope with the colder temperatures. Ever since then, their bodies evolved to be better at preserving heat and their sweat glands diminished, thus reducing body odour.

For Caucasians, even if they washed every day they would still have smells wafting off them — this was probably the reason for the popularity of perfumes in the West. Alexei was relatively more hygienic. Although his frequency of showering and washing clothes wasn’t any higher than average, he would towel himself off with cold water every morning, and he was the least smelly person Zhang Sushang had ever met in Russia.

Otherwise he wouldn’t be willing to soak their feet together.

Anyone who did it knew that soaking feet was a pleasure, else foot massage parlours wouldn’t be able to open everywhere in later generations. And although the main focus of these businesses was foot massage, some also did shoulder massage, back massage, head massage, ear picking, and more. When Zhang Sushang added more hot water to the basin, a happy flush appeared on Alexei’s cheeks.

Looking down, he pointed at Zhang Sushang’s feet in surprise. “Chyushka, look, your second and third toes are longer than your big toe.”

“Yeah,” Zhang Sushang said as he glanced down as well.

He had Roman feet both before and after his time travel. According to his dad, this meant that he was naturally suited for ballet.

He looked at Alexei’s feet. “Yours has only the second toes longer than your big toe.” Typical Greek feet.

“Yes, my parents’ feet don’t look like this,” he said, nodding seriously. As he spoke, he smiled again. “You’re the first person I’ve met who’s willing to talk about this with me. My parents can’t be bothered, they find it boring.”

“What’s so boring about this? It’s normal to think about your own body,” Zhang Sushang said as he poured a cup of warm water and handed it over. The two simultaneously raised their steaming cups and took a sip, warming themselves in the midst of winter.

No, it was currently March. Even if the trees lining the streets were still bare and without a sliver of green, it could be said to be spring already.

Zhang Sushang, once he wiped his feet dry, put on the cotton socks and shoes that had been warmed by the stove, moved to a taller stool, and lifted his heels, beginning to do seated calf raises. The main reason was that he felt that this body wasn’t only fat, it had strong gastrocnemius muscles yet weak soleus muscles, which made his calves look particularly thick.

It was unacceptable.

While he exercised his legs, he flipped open his textbook and silently memorised it. As a medical student, memorisation and examinations were something that would accompany him for the rest of his life.

Alexei, upon coming back from pouring out the foot-washing water, blinked at Zhang Sushang’s behaviour. “You’re trying to lose weight again?”

“Yeah, for my calves,” Zhang Sushang replied.

After seeing Zhang Sushang do a scorpion walk in his room, that is, being on the ground on all fours and lifting his right leg upwards like a scorpion’s tail before moving forward using his two arms and left leg, Alexei had become very calm.

My flatmate always has countless weird weight loss tricks, he thought.

In the end he still got used to the life of having strange things happen in his home.

Near Nevsky Prospect,¹The main street of St. Petersburg, named for the monastery which stands at its eastern end the editorial office of the St. Petersburg Morning Post was about to close for the day when Igor brought in a bag from the mailroom. It contained many envelopes, all of which were manuscripts received by the Morning Post.

As everyone knew, editors read manuscripts like prospectors searching for gold in the mountains — sometimes they may not be able to find even a piece of coal after digging for months on end, and other times they were only in the mountains for a few days before waking up to a gold vein next to them. It all depended on luck.

Igor was one of the ones who hadn’t found even a bit of coal since the beginning of the year, which made him very envious as he watched the other editors bring back manuscripts from their authors. The busiest person there was the chief editor, who had three authors, each responsible for a Weekly Story on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Just chasing them for updates every week made him lose a bunch of hair.

Weekly Story was the flagship column of St Petersburg Morning Post; from Monday to Sunday, one interesting story from different authors would be published each day, usually in the form of long serials.

O Lord, your humble disciple Igor begs you, please shine Your light upon me, let me encounter a good story as well.

Just then, Chief Editor Iosif entered the room with a dark face. He took off his hat and tossed it on the table, making everyone in the office jump.

“What happened?” Deputy Chief Editor Grigory asked.

Iosif thumped the table. “That damn Pyotr, he promised to give me the first instalment of a new series today, but yesterday he got into a drunken brawl and he got both his hands broken, with not a word written! We’ve got nothing for Thursday!”

Silence fell in the office as several editors had the sudden urge to go beat up Pyotr.

After a while, a young junior editor asked, “What should we do now?”

Although they ran a daily newspaper, the content had to be prepared several days in advance. Anything to be published in the following Thursday’s newspaper, for example, had to be ready and submitted to the print office by Monday.

“We can only use a short story to temporarily fill in the gap,” Grigory answered seriously.

However, the manuscripts from their existing authors already had set destinations, with every page’s layout already decided. If they selected one of those, wouldn’t it be just tearing down the east wall to prop up the west wall, and make another hole to fix?

Igor abruptly knocked on the table, and amid everyone’s astonishment, he shot to his feet and waved the white paper in his hand.

“Chief Editor, I have a good one here! Please come take a look at this A Donkey on the Railway, I’m sure that it’s better than anything we’ve received since January!”

Igor was usually one of the quieter ones in the office who buried himself in work. This was the first time he spoke so loudly, which attracted everyone’s attention and they all crowded around him to see what this strangely-named story was about.

The manuscript wasn’t very thick, only a few pages. If when people were reading the first page they jostled and bickered for space, then by the time they reached the second page, the third page, the office was completely silent except for protests when someone flipped a page too early.

As soon as they finished reading, everyone burst into discussions.

“I didn’t expect the murderer to be the victim’s father, their emotional entanglement is so complicated.”

“Although it wasn’t a long novel, I feel like I just watched a drama spanning three generations.”

The process of solving the crime in this detective novel wasn’t overly complicated, yet it was filled with dog blood and gave the audience a feeling of satisfaction and catharsis. The protagonists also had appealing personalities, causing everyone to laugh, and after they laughed enough they could scold the victim together with the two protagonists.

But after the scolding, they had a thought-provoking exchange.

“By now, we know that the victim wasn’t a good man and the perpetrator also had his difficulties; when the law has no way to adequately punish criminals and seek justice for the innocent, such that the innocent must take up arms, I feel extremely sad because they will pay for it for the rest of their lives.”

Yet his partner Vasily replied, “But a crime is a crime, it will always be wrong.”

Chief Editor Iosif picked up these few sheets of paper and was quiet for a while. Deputy Chief Editor Grigory looked at him hopefully. “The quality of this detective novel is very high. If we use this as Thursday’s Weekly Story, I think it won’t do any worse than our usual.”

“You’re right,” Iosif nodded slowly.

Igor’s eyes lit up. “Then I’ll go mail the author his royalties now?” he asked cheerfully. “He lives on Vasilyevsky Island, maybe he’s a professor or student at Leningrad University. If we send it now he’ll receive it very soon.”

Iosif pondered for a moment then shook his head. “No, since he’s also in the city, we may as well meet him directly.” This chief editor was very decisive. “The ending of A Donkey on the Railway clearly indicates a continuation — I think this is only the introduction to a longer series. If possible, I’d like to read any subsequent manuscripts as well.”

If this author ‘Chyushka’ had stable writing skills and his future stories were of the same quality as A Donkey on the Railway, they could definitely arrange a long-term partnership!

Iosif was fed up with Pyotr’s alcoholism. He was eager to find someone who was at the same level as that guy yet wouldn’t delay or procrastinate work to take over Pyotr’s column, and Chyushka gave him hope.

He reached out and Igor obligingly handed over the envelope, which had the author’s address on it: Apartment 4, Floor 1, 338 Universitetskaya Embankment, St. Petersburg.

At this time, the Universitetskaya Embankment did not have the prosperity and beauty of later generations but was only a place where many students rented residences, and many small shops were also located there due to its close proximity to Leningrad State University.

Leningrad State University was one of the top education institutes in the Soviet Union, anyone who could study or teach there were all learned people. “I remember that Leningrad University’s term starts tomorrow?” Chief Editor Iosif frowned.

That’s right, the next day was the first day of study for Leningrad State University. In order to get Zhang Sushang there on time, Alexei did not attack the front door after waking up for once, and instead ran to knock on Zhang Sushang’s door.

“Chyushka, Chyushka! Get up!”

The window opened with a creak and Zhang Sushang climbed in, wearing a coat. “Stop shouting, I’m up!”

With a coat borrowed from Alexei, Zhang Sushang, feeling like he had a warmth buff, went outside to do his exercises today.

It was just that the door was stuck tight and he couldn’t open it by himself, so he could only leave by the window.

Translator:
What do you think of our MC’s first novel? Ilya is more inclined to a nuanced view, I feel, while Vasily is more of a ‘cool motive, still murder’ kind of person.

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• 1
  The main street of St. Petersburg, named for the monastery which stands at its eastern end

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After making the vegetable pancakes, all kitchen duties were handed over to Zhang Sushang which he was very happy about, mainly because neither of them wanted to eat any more boiled potatoes.

After cleaning up an entire floor of the library, Alexei sat at a remote table and opened his lunchbox. Inside were several slices of lieba which sandwiched sour shredded potato and boiled radish slices.

As the saying went, poor people were vegetarians. Zhang Sushang had heard the elders in his family say that they couldn’t afford meat when they were young and even an occasional piece of tofu was a luxury, their daily meals usually consisting of fruit and vegetables. Now that he had to live like this himself, he finally understood just how bad it was; in contrast, Alexei liked it quite a lot.

He had never eaten such flavourful food before, it was mouthwatering.

As Alexei happily took a bite, his senior Mikhail approached with a few bottles. “Here, the things you wanted. All our floor’s empty glass bottles are here.”

Food was very precious these days and luxuries like alcohol were even rarer. If it weren’t for having some extra savings, Mikhail wouldn’t even be able to afford these few bottles.

“I’ve finished calculating the data you gave me,” Alexei said in thanks.

Mikhail took his notebook and immediately threw himself into research, and after a while, he patted his junior’s shoulder in admiration. “You really should come over to our side. Although fundamental research¹A type of scientific research aimed at improving theories for better understanding & prediction of phenomena; contrasts with applied research. is important, it’s too hard to get results and there’s barely any funding.”

“I know about your project,” Alexei said as he bit into a piece of lieba, “I predict that it will only see results in twenty years at the least. Since that’s the case, I might as well do fundamental research.”

Anyways, his goal was to stay in the university and become a lecturer; if that didn’t work out then he would be a high school teacher. As for the research group Mikhail was part of, although its principal theory was developed back in 1914, Alexei truly wasn’t interested.

Mikhail sighed. “Fine, I’ll look forward to the day that you change your mind.”

As he said this, he stuffed a piece of pork from his own lunchbox into Alexei’s then forked a piece of his junior’s lieba and some potato strips into his mouth. Half a beat later, his eyes widened.

“Lord above, this is so good! Where did you buy it?”

Alexei lowered his head and lazily flipped through a textbook that was meant for someone who had been in university for much longer than him. “My flatmate made it.”

Being able to have a flatmate with good cooking skills was the best thing that happened to Alexei since the year began. Moreover, this flatmate wouldn’t get into drunken fights, could get up early in the morning to bash the door open together with him, and didn’t have much body odour, so the house was unlikely to stink in summer. Alexei was very satisfied.

His last flatmate was a troublemaker who had finally been forced to drop out after getting into a fight at the end of the previous semester. Before Zhang Sushang had come, Alexei had been ready to deal with another troublesome one, but Zhang Sushang turned out to bring a pile of benefits with him!

He finally had the peace to concentrate on his studies. And as the school term approached, Chyushka had begun reading through his textbooks; he didn’t know if his flatmate had something like dyslexia, he should help him when he went back.

Zhang Sushang’s Russian was very good — not only did he not have dyslexia, he was gearing up to make a fortune.

What the St. Petersburg Morning Post wanted was something to attract an audience. After looking through the requirements, Zhang Sushang concluded that they wanted a story that would retain readers and leave them hungry for more; further analysis revealed that the plot should be interesting and the endings should have sequel hooks or cliffhangers.

Didn’t mystery novels perfectly fulfil all these?

From the mid-19th century when Edgar Allen Poe pioneered the detective novels’ plotline to the 20th century when the three household name authors Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and John Dickson Carr flourished, the appeal of detective novels has never faltered even well into the 21st century. 

Zhang Sushang was currently living in the 1920s, which was a time of many possibilities. He didn’t ask to be wildly successful, but he had his own ideas.

Alexei placed Zhang Sushang’s snow-soaked shoes next to the stove to dry. When he turned, he saw his flatmate spread out pen and paper, then bite at his pen, as if thinking about something.

Since he was submitting this story to a Soviet newspaper, the protagonist should naturally be someone from the local area. After rummaging through his mind, Zhang Sushang made up his mind and set the protagonist’s name as Ilya.

After burying his mother’s body, in order to fulfil her last wish and to find his father who had been missing for many years, Ilya left the Ural Mountains on a donkey called Boris. He rode for a day and a night before arriving at Yekaterinburg’s train station, and his destination was St. Petersburg.

The train was extremely crowded. Ilya followed his ticket number to his seat and said to the man sitting there, “Sir, this is my seat.”

The man raised his head, revealing a face as exquisite as a rose; he rose to his feet, revealing a body as broad and strong as two Ilyas. “No, this is my seat,” he replied arrogantly.

The above was the first meeting between the protagonist, Ilya, and his partner, Vasily. The two started talking because of a seat — Ilya wanted to seize the seat by force, but was too afraid of Vasily’s strong muscles.

Zhang Sushang made sure to write in detail here, mainly by describing how Vasily’s chest muscles bulged, how thick his arms were, and how intimidating his figure was.

After a ‘friendly’ conversation to establish Ilya as a coward and Vasily as a beautiful yet strong person, Vasily discovered that he had read the numbers on his ticket wrong and apologised to Ilya. Their argument had also attracted a whole bunch of spectators.

Then a donkey’s bray and a woman’s scream rang out simultaneously.

The case had arrived.

After writing up to here, Zhang Sushang felt that his buttocks were a little sore from sitting too long, so he got up and did a few stretches. This body’s flexibility wasn’t bad, especially its waist. He thought that if he kept stretching for a few more months, he could try to do the splits.

But a backbend was a possibility right now.

Zhang Sushang breathed out, slowly leaned back, and once he reached a suitable angle, placed both hands on the floor. There wasn’t any discomfort at all except for a sense of stretching in his waist and abdomen muscles.

One had to keep in mind that this body didn’t practise dance since childhood as his original body did — this flexibility was all natural. And it was at the peak of flexibility for males, at that. Zhang Sushang, still in his contorted posture, thought that if this guy was born a hundred years in the future and his granduncle saw this talent, he would definitely be dragged away to learn how to do a Biellmann spin.²One of the most iconic figure skating moves, which few men have achieved, in which the skater’s body forms a teardrop shape; see Wikipedia.

With that in mind, he began ‘walking’ forward on all fours. Although the movement looked strange, it was an effective way to train his posterior chain muscles.

All the muscles on the back of the body — the erector spinae and latissimus dorsi along his spine, and the gluteus muscles, hamstrings, and calf muscles of his legs — were part of the posterior chain, and exercising these could provide better protection for his spine and improve control over movements of his neck, as well as preventing bad posture such as sagging shoulders or a hunched back.

Zhang Sushang, having started as a figure skater, had received specialised posture training since he was four years old. His granduncle was a master at helping athletes gain muscles so his skill at bringing out posterior chain muscles was also unparalleled.

He became tired after exercising for a while. But just as he was getting up, he heard a crash. A pile of firewood lay on the floor while Alexei stared at him with obvious shock, as if he could rush out the door in the next second.

As soon as he stepped through the door he saw someone crawling on the floor in a strange posture. Slavs were humans too, they also felt fear.

Zhang Sushang: “Alexei, I can explain!”

“I-Is this another of your ways to lose weight?” Alexei asked, trembling.

It was.

Zhang Sushang rolled to his feet and helped the big bear who was scared silly to pick up the firewood, then they lit the stove again. Zhang Sushang squatted and said, “When I was making the pancakes a few of them had some lard flakes inside. They must be very tasty after frying, why don’t you have all of them?”

“No need, we’ll split them equally,” Alexei said blankly.

He really is a good flatmate.

Zhang Sushang carefully brushed the pan with a thin layer of oil then placed the pancake dough on the sides to let them slowly cook. This kind of vegetable pancake actually had a very thick texture, so it was good that the fillings inside were tasty.

His chopping skills were very good, and although oil was regarded as an unhealthy food in the future, it made food delicious.

Two young men crouched next to the stove as they ate every pancake crumb they could get their hands on, then drank hot water afterwards to wash it all down. Zhang Sushang casually handed what he had just written to Alexei.

“Help me take a look,” he said, then walked off to write the rest.

Alexei took the papers and was confused at first, then after reading a bit he became interested. “Is it a novel?”

Zhang Sushang didn’t even look up as he replied, “Yeah, a detective novel.”

“Ilya is the detective? He doesn’t seem very brave,” Alexei said.

“There are way too many brave detectives, isn’t it interesting to have a coward for a change? It’s fine as long as he doesn’t drop the ball at critical moments.”

Didn’t he also arrange a brawny bodyguard for him in the form of Vasily? Nothing much could go wrong.

“Then what’s going to happen next?” Alexei asked curiously.

“Wait a bit.”

Zhang Sushang panted through another two hundred jumping jacks and fifty burpees before sitting down again.

This story that Zhang Sushang named A Donkey on the Railway was a typical short story written in concise words, and was the culmination of the lessons learnt from Arthur Conan Doyle’s dozen rejected manuscripts before his iconic A Study in Scarlet; the rejections weren’t because his story wasn’t exciting, but because the word count was too high for serialisation, yet too low for a one-time publication…

Zhang Sushang definitely wanted his story to be continuously published, but if it wasn’t picked up, earning a small sum for the one article wasn’t bad either. Thus he should keep the length under control, and the plot shouldn’t be too complicated.

The entire case could be summed up as a murder out of love. The victim had an extramarital affair. Detective Ilya looked at the corpse and the crime scene with trembling eyes, and at first he suspected the wife — after all, in later generations police would always investigate the victim’s close relations first when there was a crime. If a husband was harmed they would look at the wife, and if a wife was harmed they would look at the husband. However, in the end this was not the case.

The perpetrator was the victim’s father — because the victim’s father had also been cuckolded earlier in life, he had always suspected that the victim wasn’t his own child, and he deeply resented the victim’s cheating behaviour.

Just looking at the case developments, it was quite good for this era but could only be considered above average for future generations; however, this short story was just an introduction to Detective Ilya and his brilliant punchlines. It was enough for it to set up Ilya and Vasily’s characters.

At the very least, Alexei couldn’t stop laughing at Ilya and Vasily’s bickering as they investigated the case. Zhang Sushang concluded that he didn’t know how good this story was, but at least people could relax while reading it.

At the end, when the murderer’s identity was revealed, the murderer angrily rushed at Detective Ilya but was stopped with a single punch from Vasily. After the train reached the station, the two of them and a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers dragged the murderer to a police station, then they exchanged contact information.

Ilya led his donkey to the residence he had arranged in advance. Unexpectedly, three days later, Vasily knocked on his door and asked for his help in investigating another case.

Done, the sequel hook is set.

Zhang Sushang stretched, wrote out a copy of the story, then went out with Alexei to buy bread for dinner and mailed the letter on the way.

While affixing the stamps, Zhang Sushang muttered, “I don’t know if this story can be published.”

“Of course it can, this is the most interesting thing I’ve read all year!” Alexei said firmly, looking at him. “Chyushka, you’re a genius.”

The praise was very embarrassing for Zhang Sushang to hear. He shook his head. “No no no, I haven’t done my best yet.”

Translator:
Extra update tomorrow to celebrate Lunar New Year!

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• 1
  A type of scientific research aimed at improving theories for better understanding & prediction of phenomena; contrasts with applied research.
• 2
  One of the most iconic figure skating moves, which few men have achieved, in which the skater’s body forms a teardrop shape; see Wikipedia.

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Potatoes and salt particles and nothing else — not even chopped green onions or star anise — tumbled within an old iron pot, making up a soup so thin that it may make people cry.

People had once researched the history of food in Russia. Roasted quail, roasted vegetables, and pickled cabbage became popular around 1916, but these were only available to rich people. For ordinary folk, it was already pretty good if they could eat potatoes. The economy was on the rise, but for poor students like them, things like lemon-broiled trout were still beyond their reach.

Alexei’s eyes showed obvious hunger as he dragged a spoon through his soup. Although he had already eaten potatoes for a month, it was hard to disdain any food when he had only been able to be 80% full at best during that time.

He carefully fished out the cooked potatoes and placed them on a separate plate.

They had eaten potatoes for a month straight. Alexei was currently preparing their breakfast, and anything left over would be their lunch.

After Zhang Sushang finished two hundred jumping jacks and fifty burpees, he was panting for air and covered in sweat. This body’s fitness was too poor, if his granduncle saw it, he would definitely force him to run ten kilometres every day to build up strength. Jogging wasn’t very intense and was good for practising endurance, it was one of the best aerobic exercises out there.

It was a pity that St. Petersburg in February was truly too inhospitable for outdoor exercise. With the weather cold enough to freeze a basin of water into ice, it would only be self-torture to jump around out there.

Living to ninety years old was such a difficult task, Zhang Sushang had no desire to let himself get sick.

When he finally regained his breath, Zhang Sushang took advantage of the heat still running through his body to fetch water from the well behind the house and clean the doors, windows, tables, and floor with a rag. Since one of his adoptive fathers had a career in medicine, his hygiene habits had always been very good. Now that he lived and ate at another’s expense, it didn’t make any sense to not even do a little housework.

When Alexei turned around, he saw the Chinese boy who was two years younger than him on the ground with his butt sticking out, vigorously fighting against the floor. “Chyushka, come eat,” he called.

Zhang Sushang responded and walked to the dining table. Upon seeing a lonely potato on the plate, he rolled up his sleeves.

“Wait, Alexei, I have something good.”

Under Alexei’s confused gaze, he ran to his room and came back with a small jar. “Is this sauerkraut?” he asked, pleasantly surprised.

Zhang Sushang: “That’s right!”

Sauerkraut was an important commodity in Russia during winter. Russian style pickled vegetables were a big hit in the world of fermented foods, among which pickles were an important part of the cuisine.

Yesterday, Zhang Sushang had used his profits from selling scrap to buy a small jar of sauerkraut from the market. It wasn’t that he couldn’t buy more — after all, he also had his salary from cleaning the library — but that if he wanted to store a large amount of sauerkraut at home, it was more cost-effective to do it himself.

During the meal, he proposed the idea of making sauerkraut at home, but Alexei hesitated. “I don’t know how,” he said.

Zhang Sushang: “I know!”

His father was very good at cooking, his grandparents even had a history in kitchens; although he wasn’t good enough to be a chef, he had at least learned a few skills. Paocai, kimchi, or sauerkraut, none of them were a problem!

Alexei’s joy was obvious. He cheered, jumped up, and cleared away the dishes, for once as lively as any other twenty year old young man.

“Chyushka, you should’ve told me you know how to pickle vegetables earlier! I’m fed up with only having potatoes to eat!” he said, happily patting Zhang Sushang’s shoulder as they left the house.

Zhang Sushang was once again almost knocked to the ground. “Then why didn’t you do it before?”

Alexei: “I didn’t know how!”

The two went out together. Zhang Sushang was still covered in a thin layer of sweat and couldn’t help but sneeze when the wind blew around them. Alexei gave him a look, then unwound his own scarf and wrapped it around his neck a few times.

“Chyushka, you don’t have enough warm clothes, you even only have two pairs of socks.”

He rubbed his nose with a grimace. “Don’t remind me, I’ve washed those socks so many times they’re going hard.”

Someone not so particular about things might wear a pair of socks for three or four days, then turn them inside out and wear them for another three or four days, but Zhang Sushang couldn’t bring himself to do this. He was a figure skater. Once he stuck his feet into a pair of skates, he might practise for the whole day. If he didn’t change socks every day, his feet would stink to high heaven like fermented fish or stinky tofu. His habit of often changing socks persisted even now, with him unable to go longer than two days with the same pair of socks no matter how much he tried to endure it.

Men who loved sports couldn’t not care about cleanliness, otherwise just their body odour would be enough to smother people a dozen metres away.

In Alexei’s opinion, this housemate of his had many things he was fussy about. As for himself, he had three pairs of socks which he washed every three days. He glanced at Chyushka’s cotton socks which were hung indoors, one of which had a hole.

The snow had melted a little, causing it to be rather slippery to walk on. Zhang Sushang’s cotton-soled shoes were unable to withstand it — as he walked, they became soaked through and he slipped as he walked, but he didn’t complain. The snow on the road eventually became stained brown and they knew that they were approaching somewhere with many people.

Civil war in the early years of the Soviet Union had caused hyperinflation to the point that banknotes of 100,000 rubles came into existence. The situation had since stabilised, and numbers on banknotes began to shrink as the nation entered a period of growth.

Zhang Sushang used six rubles to buy two bags of white radishes. He originally wanted to haggle more, but the old man running the stall looked stronger than a bear and the price was already so low that he might have picked up his hoe and hit him over the head if he did. Even if he had a 1.9m tall housemate next to him, he didn’t dare to push it.

Little did he know that the gaze coming from Alexei had already changed to admiration — he had never bought such cheap radishes before!

They moved on and bought salt. The materials they had on hand were limited and it wasn’t the season for cucumbers, it was enough to some make pickled radishes. Their rented house had only a metre-tall water tank but there was a well behind the house, so they didn’t have a pressing need for storing water.

Finally, Zhang Sushang bought some flour and a piece of white lard. The latter was the most expensive purchase they made that day, and Zhang Sushang cherished it so much that he handed it to his housemate.

“Protect it well, this is our protein for the next month.”

Alexei held the radishes with one hand and put the lard into his coat with the other. “I will guard it with my life,” he replied seriously.

Watching Zhang Sushang gasp for his life as he hauled a bulging sack through the snow, Alexei silently moved to walk in front of him. Having someone to block the wind made things better for Zhang Sushang. When he looked up and saw Alexei’s broad figure, his nose grew hot.

Dad, I miss you.

When the two returned home, they fetched more water because the first step of pickling vegetables was to wash them. Alexei, shivering, ushered Zhang Sushang inside to light the fire while he drew the water himself. When they were done, they sat on hard benches and scrubbed the radishes clean.

In this crappy time period, if someone wanted to improve their diet without spending an obscene amount of money, they had to do things themselves. If Zhang Sushang wanted to relive the days when he could have countless delicacies delivered to his door with the touch of a button, he might have to live for over a hundred years.

Psh, who would wait for that long just for pickled radishes? He’ll make it himself!

When it came to making brine, Alexei didn’t know what to do, so he pulled him away and said, “Let me do the rest of it, you go out and help me buy a newspaper, I forgot to earlier.”

They had never subscribed to newspapers before — if they wanted to read something, they would look through the library’s old newspapers or books, which were more than enough for two young men.

Alexei grunted as money was stuffed into his hand. As he went out the door, he heard Chyushka yell from behind him, “You can buy a few more booklets while you’re at it.”

What’s Chyushka reading tabloids for? There were so many medical books in the library, not to mention other textbooks, yet those still weren’t enough for him to study?

Although confused, Alexei bought them as requested. Looking at the torn socks, he tried to ignore them but eventually couldn’t take it and, glancing at his housemate who was rubbing salt over the radishes, he quietly went to his room and took out a box of sewing tools.

Zhang Sushang sealed the vegetables into jars then washed his hands with freezing cold well water. This body belonged to the son of a wealthy man living in the countryside who had lived a delicate life for the past eighteen years and never did an iota of manual labour; he grimaced in pain at the cracks that had formed between his fingers.

“It’d be great if there was Pechoin or Yu Mei Jing¹Both are skincare brands here,” he muttered to himself, then went to make noodles. He’d had more than enough of potatoes, if he didn’t eat something different today his life would no longer have meaning.

They didn’t buy fine flour at the market this time, and Zhang Sushang also couldn’t bear to buy it. Instead they brought back a bag of coarse flour which would usually be used to make bread, the type of hard bread like lieba.²Similar to Russian rye bread and in fact is made specifically to resemble it but using wheat grains instead of rye grains; originates from Northeast China, which has been significantly influenced by Russians

Zhang Sushang really couldn’t get used to it. When the dough was kneaded and resting, he sat and considered the cabbages and radishes they had left over which he could use to make vegetable pancakes.

Picking up the stack of newspapers which Alexei had left on the table, he began reading.

It was fortunate that when he was in Russia learning jumps with Coach Vasily, the man not only taught him figure skating skills but also forced him to learn the Russian language. Zhang Sushang was naturally gifted in languages and his reading and writing skills were much better than the original goods’, so reading Russian newspapers was a piece of cake.

In the corner of a newspaper which had relatively low sales and was only sold in St. Petersburg and its surrounding towns, Zhang Sushang saw what he was looking for.

No matter what era it was, newspapers would always have a section for articles by the public. In a time before online novels, these articles were the best way for literati to make their debut and sell their words and ideas.

This particular newspaper, called the St. Petersburg Morning Post, was currently soliciting stories from ordinary people. There weren’t any specific requirements, only that these stories should be interesting and eye-catching.

Once the article was published, there would be a reward of 20 rubles.

Zhang Sushang: It’s this one!

By now, the dough had rested enough. “Alexei,” he said, looking up at his housemate, “I want to ask you something. I’ve made some noodles and want to fry some vegetable pancakes later, but the pancakes need oil. Can I use your pot to render some lard…”

Before he could finish, the scene before him stunned him into silence.

“You can, what’s the matter?” Alexei replied. Upon following Zhang Sushang’s gaze down and seeing the socks in his hands, he grinned. “Surprised? My dad’s a tailor, I started helping my mum mend her dresses when I was five years old.”

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• 1
  Both are skincare brands
• 2
  Similar to Russian rye bread and in fact is made specifically to resemble it but using wheat grains instead of rye grains; originates from Northeast China, which has been significantly influenced by Russians

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The door had been sealed from the outside by ice and snow. Alexei banged on the door for a few minutes before deciding that the ice had probably been knocked loose enough to try pulling the door open.

Zhang Sushang, seeing his face go red from exertion, silently walked over and helped pull, which finally got the door open.

“Thanks, it would’ve taken at least ten minutes if I had to do it myself,” Alexei said gratefully.

As soon as the door opened, cold air smacked Zhang Sushang in the face and made him shiver. Outside was a field of white, with everything covered in either ice or snow. Even someone from the Northeast like Zhang Sushang thought that the temperature in Russia’s higher latitudes was outrageously low.

Their house had no heater — the only source of warmth was the stove — and to save coal and firewood, they didn’t let it burn throughout the night. If he hadn’t stayed awake all night, with just the cotton jacket he had, he might have woken from cold in the middle of the night.

Seeing his pitiful appearance with teeth chattering from the cold, Alexei handed him an old scarf. “It seems you didn’t get to know this land well before coming, the Soviet Union is cold during February.”

Naturally, Zhang Sushang couldn’t say that he was very familiar with Russia, although the one he knew was the Russia of many years later.

“Chyushka, do you want breakfast?” Alexei asked.

Of course he wanted to eat.

It was a given that two poor university students living in the early 20th century couldn’t afford flour, eggs, or meat. Their meal was brown bread soaked in the reheated potato soup from last night.

As Zhang Sushang ate, he reminisced on the chicken soup that would never enter his stomach — he wasn’t being excessive, his father truly was that good at making soup. Sometimes he would directly use coconut water as the soup base, bamboo, and meat from a freshly slaughtered chicken to make a delicious coconut chicken soup. The soup was both filling and refreshing, drinking it would warm both heart and stomach.

But his best dish was his pork belly and chicken soup, which he would stew until it was thick and opaque, then its surface was sprinkled with white pepper. When they finished eating the pork belly and chicken meat, he would add noodles and sweet potatoes to the broth and cook until the noodles were soft. It tasted amazing when paired with the chicken soup!

The more he thought about it, the hungrier he became, and Zhang Sushang had a big appetite to begin with. He finished a bowl and wanted to eat more, but found that the pot was already empty.

The leftovers weren’t enough for two big men. Zhang Sushang didn’t know Alexei’s background, but he knew that he was also a work-study student.

After breakfast was over, they went out together and walked for almost an hour through the snow before finally arriving at their destination — St. Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island, where Leningrad State University was located.

Fortunately, this body’s original owner left him with not only a fatty liver but also high-quality fat in other places, allowing Zhang Sushang to survive the low temperatures of St. Petersburg’s early morning.

This place didn’t have many warm days in a year.

Leningrad State University was the oldest of Russia’s universities, and would later be known as Saint Petersburg State University. Nine of its graduates received the Nobel Prize.¹All true; see Wikipedia.

Grigori Perelman, who would crack the Poincaré conjecture²A mathematical theorem that remained unproven for 100 years until Perelman; see Wikipedia. and win the Fields Medal,³A prize for mathematicians under 40 years old, regarded as one of the highest honours a mathematician can receive, also known as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics; see Wikipedia. also graduated from here, although this man would be born about forty years from now in the 1960s.

For being able to be accepted into this school, Zhang Sushang acknowledged the original goods’ abilities, but he was also someone with one foot in the country’s top university; he didn’t worry that he wouldn’t be able to adapt to a new university.

Wasn’t it just changing his location of study? He was even in a Department of Medicine again.

Leningrad State University wasn’t the institute within Russia that accepted the most Chinese international students. It had only accepted four this year, and of the four, one applied for a scholarship and two others had found work with the assistance of fellow Chinese students at other universities. In this era, it was very common to work as you studied.

Alexei’s job was to clean the library, which was much warmer than outside in the wind. In addition, as long as he kept the place tidy and the books organised, he could freely borrow books. This was a good job.

He brought Zhang Sushang to a table and respectfully called out, “Aleksandr Sergeyevich, this is one of the international students joining the Department of Medicine this year.”

Russian names were made up of three parts: first name, patronymic, and surname. Patronymics could be understood like this: if someone is called Sergey, his son’s patronymic would be Sergeyevich, while his daughter’s patronymic would be Sergeyevna.

When addressing an elder with whom you were already familiar, you used their first name and patronymic together. In contrast, when an elder was addressing a junior, they would use the first name alone.

Professor Aleksandr glanced at Zhang Sushang. “Oh, I know.”

Zhang Sushang walked closer. “Hello Professor, I am Zhang Sushang, you can call me Chyushka.”

The professor looked at the young man for a while and found that he seemed quite strong. With his best student Alexei standing next to him, the two of them looked like two big bears.

He had quite a good impression of the students who came from China. These children were all hard-working people who never slacked off in their studies or work, were very polite to their teachers, and some of them could even drag a big box of translated notes from their year’s study back to their country to disseminate the knowledge. Like firewood, they could burn themselves for their country at any time, without regrets.

Zhang Sushang was the last among this year’s Chinese students to arrive. His companions had also said before that this student’s family wouldn’t allow him to study overseas, so he might not be able to come. Now he had come, but many of the jobs which allowed students to apply were already overwhelmed with applications.

But the professor couldn’t bear to see this child do laundry and hard labour outside. With the help of Alexei’s recommendation, Zhang Sushang managed to get a position that paid 25 rubles a month.

The Soviet Union’s currency consisted of rubles and kopecks, the former being paper notes and the latter being coins. One hundred kopecks made up a single ruble.

In the book My Universities by Soviet author Gorky, the protagonist Alyosha worked as a porter at the docks when he was young and earned only twenty or thirty kopecks a day. Although that was currency at the end of the 19th century which differed from currency in the 1920s, the purchasing power of rubles and kopecks were still guaranteed by the state today.

However, Zhang Sushang still felt very sad. He had never done any housework for all his eighteen years of life, but now he needed to clean up an entire library’s worth of trash.

Thank goodness Alexei took over wiping the highest windows, otherwise if he fell while weighing more than 180 kg he would be even more miserable.

This Russian guy was at least ten centimetres taller than him, who was already 1.8m tall…

Although the term hadn’t started yet, Zhang Sushang quickly got to work. He had secretly calculated it and felt that with his current salary from working at the library, if he wanted to buy stationery and assorted supplies for his studies, he would only be able to eat until he was half full after the university term began.

No, dieting was unhealthy, it would affect his plan to see his dad after living until ninety; yet if he wanted to lose weight by exercising, a high-quality diet was of utmost importance! Should he supplement calcium? Protein?

If he did high-intensity exercise while missing out on meat, eggs, or milk, maybe only his ghost would see the modern era!

Since he was unwilling to cut back, he had no choice but to increase revenue. When Alexei returned to the utility room with his bucket, ready to invite his new roommate to have lunch and then explore the campus together, he saw Zhang Sushang squatting and sorting garbage.

Zhang Sushang pulled out the dozen vodka bottles he had picked up that morning. Hearing the door opening behind him, he turned with a conspiratorial smile. “Alexei, do you know if there’s a place to hand in rubbish?”

His thinking was that if he sold a few more bottles, he may be able to buy an extra piece of bread. Anyway, he was the one who picked up the rubbish with his labour, there was no shame in it.

Alexei, looking at Zhang Sushang, suddenly felt an ache in his heart.

The kind-hearted bear slapped Zhang Sushang’s shoulder hard, causing him to almost fall to the floor despite his size.

“To celebrate you coming to the Soviet Union, I will add an extra potato to the soup tonight!” Alexei said firmly.

Zhang Sushang: …

I really thank you!

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• 1
  All true; see Wikipedia.
• 2
  A mathematical theorem that remained unproven for 100 years until Perelman; see Wikipedia.
• 3
  A prize for mathematicians under 40 years old, regarded as one of the highest honours a mathematician can receive, also known as the Nobel Prize of Mathematics; see Wikipedia.

Table of Contents | Next >

Zhang Sushang, full of sorrow, sneezed and huddled into a shivering ball against the freezing winds of St. Petersburg.

He was a boy of eighteen who had just finished sitting his college entrance exam and received an admission notice for the top university not two days ago. He had wanted to get his driver’s licence before the term started, but unexpectedly, his talent for driving was so poor that during his lessons, the entire car rattled to the point that both he and the driving tutor accompanying him threw themselves out of the car to vomit.

By the time he stood up again, he was on an antique train bound for St. Petersburg.

Originally, he had planned to go home after his lessons to drink his father’s chicken soup and run a few laps with Grayson, his family’s pet poodle, but now both his soup and his dog were one hundred years away in the future.

When he dug through the suitcase next to him, he found a letter written in traditional characters about breaking off relations with him. Based on the content, he inferred that when this body was in the process of preparing to study medicine at Leningrad State University in St. Petersburg, he rejected the child bride his grandmother arranged at the expense of breaking off contact with his family.

The good news was that Zhang Sushang had also applied to study medicine in his own time because he dreamed of being a neurosurgeon. The bad news was that this time period had no such thing as neurosurgery.

Fortunately, according to the letter included with the admission notice, someone would be there to pick him up once he got off the train.

It was currently 1926. Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes, was still alive; Elizabeth II and the world’s first television would both be born in this year.

If he had a choice, Zhang Sushang actually hoped that the country he would study abroad in was England — if he was lucky, he might be able to get an autograph from Holmes’ father.

The young man, covered with a well-worn cotton jacket and cotton-soled shoes, hugged a dilapidated suitcase as he squatted in the train station and cried from the cold.

It wasn’t that he wanted to cry, but that February in Russia was too cold. Even he, a Northeasterner,¹Northeast China refers to the provinces Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang; it’s the coldest region in China with an average daily maximum temperature of only 11C (51F), and is known to drop as low as -37C (-35F). couldn’t stand it.

Who knew how long he squatted there before a man who was wrapped up like a bear stood in front of him. Zhang Sushang looked up and found that the man wore an old fur coat, a felt hat, and tall boots, with the lower half of his face hidden behind his collar leaving only a pair of eyes so profound that Zhang Sushang instantly woke up.

This big brother muttered a string of words through his thick collar. Although his voice was quite hoarse and he coughed from time to time, Zhang Sushang could still understand him.

This man’s name was Alexei, and he was here to pick up Zhang Sushang. He asked Zhang Sushang to follow him as he explained that before the school term started, Zhang Sushang would be living in his house with him. After saying this, he grabbed Zhang Sushang’s suitcase and brought him out of the station.

Following behind him, Zhang Sushang stammered, “How, how can I let you do this? Why don’t I do it myself?”

Alexei didn’t say a word in response, he just kept his head down and walked.

Almost 30 centimetres of snow had accumulated on the ground, maybe only huskies and malamutes would like this kind of environment. Zhang Sushang, in his new chubby body with its awful physical fitness, didn’t take long to gasp in exhaustion. The white breath he exhaled fogged up the round lens of his glasses.

“Whoa!”

Zhang Sushang tripped and fell straight into the snow. At this, Alexei finally turned around, then picked him up with a single hand.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Repeatedly shaking his head, Zhang Sushang got up, wiped the snow from his face, and carefully cleaned his glasses using a corner of his clothes. “I’m fine, we can keep going,” he said.

Alexei nodded, grabbed his arm, and resumed walking. His tall body blocked most of the wind as they moved forward despite the wind and snow. Although cars had already been invented, let alone how expensive they were, a car might not even run in weather like this.

They walked for two hours before coming to an old building.

It was very typical of an early 20th century construction, with every brick and tile telling a story of simplicity. After going up a few snow-covered steps, Alexei took a deep breath, raised his hands, and charged the door with a cry of bear-like exertion. It took several tries for him to get the frozen door open.

This guy’s banging made so much noise that Zhang Sushang almost thought that the house was going to collapse.

The house wasn’t big, but there was a wood-burning stove that had quite a bit of soot in it. Alexei used a stick to rummage in it a few times, which soon revealed a few coals still bright with sparks. He became visibly happier as he piled more firewood inside.

Not mentioning whether his method of using coal and wood together was safe, the room did indeed get warmer.

There were two bedrooms in the house, one of which had evidently been recently tidied. Inside it was a modest wooden bed, a table half a person tall and its chair, and a large bookshelf filled only with a thick Russian dictionary and some newspapers.

Zhang Sushang dragged his luggage inside. When he caught sight of the dictionary, he stopped in his tracks, thinking that Alexei was a rather good person.

Because his dad was a figure skater, his grand-uncle was a figure skating coach, and he also practised figure skating, Zhang Sushang came into contact with quite a few Russians since his childhood and got along with them well. When he was thirteen years old, he came under the instruction of a famous coach named Vasily for a short time, and it was also then that he learned to speak Russian.

But it was a pity that strong athletes were as common as clouds in competitive sports and the required technical difficulty increased year by year. By the time Zhang Sushang reached fifteen years old, quintuple jumps had already come into existence²As of 2023, no one has successfully landed a quint of any jump type while on the ice — this Slate article is a good introduction on why it’s so hard. yet the best jump he had was a 3A. With his height also shooting up, in the end, he simply gave up skating in favour of studying and was successfully admitted into Tsinghua University’s Department of Medicine.

After he put away his things and left the room, he found that Alexei had already taken off his hat to reveal pale blond hair and a handsomely defined face. “Right, what’s your name? Sooshan?” he asked as he put a pot on the stove.

His Chinese wasn’t very accurate, so Zhang Sushang corrected him. “My name is Zhang-Su-Shang, not Sooshan, but you can call me Chyushka.”

This was his nickname in Russian, said to be named after a lion. It could also be translated as Chuka, but the pronunciation was closer to Chyushka.³Russian diminutives/short forms are eluding me, I don’t want to admit how long I’ve spent trying to work out how the author went from ‘Zhang Sushang’ to a Russian nickname that comes out sounding like Chika or Chuka or Tsyusha (秋卡, qiuka). Any Russian speakers out there, please give advice.

As they chatted, Alexei mentioned that there weren’t enough dormitories on the campus and the new building hadn’t been finished yet, so the professors asked some students to host international students as homestays.

Alexei was studying physics at Leningrad State University. He said he was twenty years old, but if one ignored his broad body and only looked at his face, Zhang Sushang would have believed that he was only sixteen years old.

“What are you majoring in?” Alexei asked.

“Medicine, I want to help people,” Zhang Sushang replied.

Alexei smiled and handed him a bowl of potato soup ladled from the pot. “It’s not easy to study in an unfamiliar place. It’s amazing that you can make up your mind to come here, and you’re good at Russian. Your future patients will thank you for your decision today.”

Zhang Sushang was now sure that this was a good person.

The evidence was that from entering the house until now, Alexei didn’t mention anything related to money. Zhang Sushang was very grateful for this because he really didn’t have any money right now.

The price for leaving ‘his’ family was that he almost ran out of money. He used to have some, but if someone wanted to go from China to St. Petersburg in this era, they would have to spend it all no matter how much money they started with.

However, according to the characteristics of this time, many students studying abroad would work part-time to support themselves as they studied.

Late at night, Zhang Sushang sat cross-legged on the wooden bed and sorted through ‘his’ belongings. He had books, pens, and ink, but the only thick piece of clothing he had was what he wore, which he would also have to use as a blanket at night.

As he flipped through these things, Zhang Sushang sighed. “How can I live like this?”

He missed his home, he really, really missed it. Zhang Sushang was an adopted child; he didn’t know his biological parents but held a very deep affection for his adoptive fathers. They had influenced his ice skating, and also his decision to study medicine. His biggest goal for the past eighteen years of his life was to become their pride.

He had tried all manner of methods to get home while on the train: the vomiting method, the dream method, even praying to various gods, but none of them brought him home. In other words, he may have to live out the rest of his life in this time. He missed his family.

However, even the oldest person in his family, Mr. Lu, was born in the 1940s — meaning at least sixteen years in the future, when this body would be 34 years old. His dad was born in the 90s. For the Zhang Sushang of now who was born in 1908, he would have to live to be at least 90 years old.

Ah, Dad, how can I live until 90 years old to meet the you who will be born many years later?

Zhang Sushang thought, let alone his inability to get food on the table, with his 180 cm height and 180 kg weight, he had to have fatty liver disease! He wasn’t healthy enough to reach 90 years old at all.

He was so worried that he couldn’t fall asleep for the whole night, and when he finally felt a bit sleepy near dawn, he heard banging coming from the front door.

Someone who didn’t know better might think that it was a sound effect from a horror movie.

Translator:
Dedicated to my brief foray into the Yuri!!! on ICE fandom.

You might be interested to know that the MC for this novel, Zhang Sushang, is the adopted son of the MC and ML for another of the author’s novels featuring figure skating and rebirth (Figure Skating: I’m More Suited for the Olympics, being translated by Ontimestory as of this publication). I don’t consider this a sequel because characters from that novel are only mentioned and don’t show up until the extras, but it definitely takes place in the same world.

Table of Contents | Next >

• 1
  Northeast China refers to the provinces Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang; it’s the coldest region in China with an average daily maximum temperature of only 11C (51F), and is known to drop as low as -37C (-35F).
• 2
  As of 2023, no one has successfully landed a quint of any jump type while on the ice — this Slate article is a good introduction on why it’s so hard.
• 3
  Russian diminutives/short forms are eluding me, I don’t want to admit how long I’ve spent trying to work out how the author went from ‘Zhang Sushang’ to a Russian nickname that comes out sounding like Chika or Chuka or Tsyusha (秋卡, qiuka). Any Russian speakers out there, please give advice.