Beautiful Fools Were Born to be Spoiled by Their Husbands - Chapter 5

During the day, Zhou Gangxun worked at a construction site hauling bricks, and at night, he went to the market to unload crates.

At 11:30 PM, after finished moving the cargo, Gangxun stood against a wall with his daily wages in hand. He held a cigarette butt between two fingers, his hand trembling slightly as he brought it to his lips. His physical senses were entirely dominated by fatigue and aching pain.

Unloading crates was paid by the piece. If you moved more than thirty items, it was 1 yuan per crate, and for heavy cargo taller than half a person, it was 2.5 yuan. To make more money, he had to keep moving without stopping.

White smoke drifted from his mouth. He didn’t stub the cigarette out until it was less than a centimeter long.

He walked toward a fruit shop across from the market entrance.

There were funeral wreaths and white flowers displayed on both sides of the shop. On the ground sat an iron basin filled with burning spirit money and leftover ashes, it looked like someone in the family had passed away.

The moment Gangxun entered, the owner, Uncle Wu, greeted him. He pulled a plastic bag from a small black pouch at his waist and opened it up. “The fruit just arrived and it’s all fresh. What would you like? Want to try some mangoes? This batch of small mangoes is very sweet.”

“Do you have cherries?” Gangxun’s eyes scanned the room, passing over the bananas, apples, mangoes, and oranges. They were all common varieties, with maybe two or three options for each. “Or maybe Bing cherries?”

“Bing cherries?” Uncle Wu paused and chuckled. He’d heard of them, of course.

They were imported, likely costing dozens of yuan per pound. That was the kind of stuff rich people ate, ordered directly from abroad. A small vendor like him didn’t have access to those channels.

“Bing cherries are expensive, and few people buy them in a small place like this, so I don’t stock them. Otherwise, they’d just sit there and rot. Cherry season is almost over, so I haven’t stocked any the last few days. If you want some, I can specifically order a few pounds for you next time I get a shipment.”

“Okay,” Gangxun replied. His dark eyes settled on a sign that said Peaches. “I’ll take a pound of peaches.”

“I have three kinds: 1.8 yuan a pound, 3 yuan a pound, and these for 12 yuan a pound.” Mentioning the 12-yuan peaches made Uncle Wu’s heart ache. They were a new variety, supposedly pure honey-sweet. He hadn’t stocked many, thinking that since there was construction and development nearby, some wealthy boss might come by to buy them.

But nobody had even asked about them since morning, while the other peaches had been restocked several times already.

Uncle Wu looked at Gangxun, who was covered in dust and sweat. He clearly looked like he had just finished a hard shift. The young man was handsome, but looking at him, he didn’t seem like the type who could afford peaches at 12 yuan a pound. People doing heavy labor usually couldn’t bring themselves to spend money on such expensive fruit.

With that kind of money, you could buy a decent pack of cigarettes that would last half a month. The cigarette Gangxun had been smoking earlier smelled cheap, harsh and spicy, the kind that cost three or four yuan a pack.

With that in mind, Uncle Wu added a word of caution, “You should take care of your body while you’re young, or you’ll suffer when you’re old.”

He knew many laborers who worked recklessly, relying on their youth. By the time they hit forty, their bodies were failing them, with chronic back, leg, or shoulder pain—it was all just borrowing from their future life.

As he spoke, Uncle Wu reached for the moderately priced, average-looking peaches in the middle. “These peaches are quite good, sweet and sour. A lot of people buy them. I’ll pick out a few sweet red ones and some pink ones for you. Eat the red ones right away, and the pink ones can sit for a few days…”

“Not those,” Gangxun interrupted him. He pointed to the large ones next to them. “I want the big ones. 12 a pound.”

Those peaches were massive, each one the size of one and a half or two regular ones, blushing a soft pinkish-white.

Uncle Wu was delighted to finally have a buyer for the expensive peaches. He immediately changed direction. “These peaches are the best, pure sweetness and very juicy.”

Bringing them home for his wife? He’s certainly generous.

Three peaches came to fifteen yuan.

As Gangxun paid, he caught a glimpse of a back room with an open door. Inside was a memorial photo of an elderly woman. It appeared to be the owner’s mother.

He retracted his gaze and walked away with the bag. He reached inside and grabbed one, squeezing it in his palm. He was trying to suppress the destructive urge to reach out and strike something—an urge that had flared up earlier when he saw Ruan Zhijuan’s “filthy” state, lounging with his chest and stomach exposed.

Squish. The fruit deformed under the pressure, the skin splitting as sweet peach juice leaked out.

Gangxun looked down at the bruised peach in his hand and let out a soft, raspy chuckle. This ruined peach actually looked a lot like his wife.

And so, every one of the three honey peaches in the bag was squeezed and bruised to varying degrees by Zhou Gangxun.

Inside the rental room.

Ruan Zhijuan was sleeping when he fell back into that nightmare where his limbs were severed and floating in a sink. He even saw his own skin, wrinkled from the water and a pale, grayish-white. It looked like… he had been dead for a long time.

Then he saw Zhou Gangxun. He was smoking, but Zhijuan’s perspective was very low, so Gangxun had to lean down halfway to look at him.

There was a hint of a smile on Gangxun’s face, but his eyes were cold, making him feel terrifying and strange.

Then Gangxun squatted down as if to cradle Zhijuan’s head. With a mocking expression, he patted Zhijuan’s face and mouthed the words, “Bitch. Slut.”

Then, his fingers forced Zhijuan’s mouth open, and he ground the lit cigarette onto his tongue. There was a “sizzle” of burning flesh before the cherry went out.

“Ah, it hurts!” Zhijuan sat up with a start on the bed, immediately sticking out his pink tongue to check if Gangxun had burned it.

Confirming his tongue was fine, Zhijuan immediately began cursing the culprit. “Zhou Gangxun is definitely sick! He’s got a major problem!”

You dream of what you think about during the day. It must be because Gangxun hit him and refused to wash his underwear that he was having these nightmares.

He was going to get revenge on Zhou Gangxun!

Fuming, Zhijuan crawled out of bed and went to the foot of the bed to turn the fan so it faced him entirely. That way, Zhou Gangxun would be hot all night!

In reality, Gangxun didn’t get much of a breeze anyway.

But Zhijuan felt he had successfully exacted his revenge, and his anger subsided. He lay back down contentedly and drifted back to sleep in the cool air of the fan.

After an unknown amount of time, Zhijuan began to hear people arguing in his hazy sleep, a man and a woman.

At first, it sounded like normal conversation, but then it turned into loud shouting. He couldn’t hear what they were fighting about, but they sounded incredibly agitated, as if they wanted to kill each other with knives.

It was mixed with a “thump, thump, thump” sound of meat being chopped coming from somewhere. It was very noisy.

So loud.

Zhijuan couldn’t open his eyes, so he covered his ears with his hands. The people living next door… seemed to be Gangxun’s coworkers. Was the relationship between the coworker and his wife really that bad?

He buried his head under the pillow and drifted back into a groroggy sleep.

When Zhou Gangxun arrived home, it was already after midnight.

He placed the bag of peaches on the kitchen counter. He didn’t turn on the main light, only the light in the bathroom.

The boxed lunch on the table had been picked clean by Ruan Zhijuan, he’d practically licked the box. On top sat the empty milk pouch.

Gangxun stared silently at Zhijuan, who was splayed out on the bed in a “star” shape, drooling in his sleep. Gangxun’s shadow completely enveloped him. He remembered Zhijuan’s disgusted face from earlier. “Didn’t you say it was scraps? Yet you ate it so cleanly? If the cockroach had left a second later, it would’ve ended up in your mouth.”

He pushed the meal box into the kitchen trash can, grabbed a change of clothes, and went to shower.

Ten minutes later, Gangxun came out and drank two full glasses of water. He then took his pillow and mat—which Zhijuan had either thrown or kicked onto the floor and laid them out on the ground before lying down.

The bed in the rental was only 1.2 meters wide, barely enough for one person, so the bed naturally belonged to Zhijuan while he slept on the floor.

But less than half an hour after lying down, Gangxun had to get up twice to go to the bathroom.

His daily activity and energy expenditure were enormous, so he got hungry quickly. But coming home at nearly 1:00 AM, Zhijuan was already asleep, and he had to be up again before 5:00 AM, so there was no point in making a meal.

Usually, he just drank water to stave off the hunger until he fell asleep.

“Zhou Gangxun…” Zhijuan was bleary-eyed as he rolled to the edge of the bed like a big white maggot. He petulantly stepped on Gangxun’s stomach and scolded him, “You keep getting up at night, it’s ruining my rest.”

Zhijuan had actually woken up when Gangxun first came home. He had been forcing himself to doze through several cycles, but Gangxun still wasn’t asleep.

He urged him anxiously, “So you’re not allowed to go to the toilet anymore. Hurry… hurry up and sleep.”

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