Meeting a Little Brother

The next journey was steady. It took shorter than two hours to arrive at Fuzhou City.

Su Zhen called for a taxi and went to retrieve Lele in the boarding facility first before going back to his apartment.

Lele looked healthy as usual, and there was abnormality after staying at the boarding facility for several days either. This made Su Zhen feel relieved greatly. After all, this cat was his only closest relative.

When he got back to his apartment, Su Zhen released Lele out of the pet container. Lele didn't go anywhere, he lingered around Su Zhen's feet and rubbed against his legs as if to express that he missed Su Zhen very much.

Su Zhen couldn't help but bend down to rub Lele softly. Lele rolled on the ground, exposed its belly, and licked Su Zhen's finger. This should be the "I love you" language of cats.

After playing with Lele, Su Zhen unboxed his suitcase and put all the dirty clothes in the washing machine for a good wash.

He walked around the house and inspected the floor, the windows, the bedroom, under the bed, the bathroom, even Lele's place, and everything to make sure that nothing was unusual before he nodded in satisfaction. This community lived up to its name, it had good security indeed.

When it was noon, Su Zhe cooked a few simple dishes and prepared to go to the gym not far from here.

Su Zhen actually used to do exercise regularly before, it was just that he only did jogging and rarely went to the gym.

In a blink of an eye, Su Zhen already parked his big motorcycle in the parking lot of a gym called True Fit and got off.

Although it was the weekend now, there were not so many people now, considering that it was only past noon, and most people were resting at home to accumulate energy.

Like every other gym, the True Fit Gym required customers to buy a membership card. The membership card ranged from 200 yuan for the minimum to 10,000 yuan for the maximum.

Su Zhen bought a regular 300-yuan membership card that allowed him to train for a month with all equipment available to him.

It had been a while since the last time he exercised. Since he needed to ride the stationary bicycle, Su Zhen walked to the cardio machines area directly and mounted a stationary bike.

He took the first 10 minutes to get his body moving. Then, he started working hard enough to get his heart rate up and break out in a slight sweat before moving on.

After riding for thirty minutes, Su Zhen looked at the progress on his phone and saw that he had gone almost 10 kilometers. This was his first time, so it was reasonable that it was this slow.

He already sweated a lot and he felt a slight tingling sensation in his legs.

After another thirty minutes passed, Su Zhen sweated profusely. His entire upper body was soaked in sweat.

At some point, he let go of the handlebar of the bike and picked up the water bottle that was hung on the bike to drink slowly. He didn't dare to drink too fast for fear of accidentally choking on water.

Unknowingly, more and more people gradually came to the gym to work out. Most people were guys, but there were also quite a lot of ladies too.

Two hours later, Su Zhen slowed down his speed and gradually stopped his movements.

He breathed in and out quickly but with a rhythm. It took him more than five minutes to stabilize his breath, but his body was completely wet with sweat. He felt uncomfortable all over, but he couldn't do anything, after all, he had only ridden for 49.7 kilometers. He determined to ride for five hours today, so in the next two hours, he would strive to go faster and reach at least around 80 or possibly 90 kilometers.

Normal people wouldn't be able to endure a three-hour session at all, not to mention five hours. Fortunately, Su Zhen used to do exercises regularly, so he should be able to endure that much.

After a 30-minute break, Su Zhen started again.

Two hours later, Su Zhen stopped and looked at the progress. It was 84.7 kilometers.

…

By the time Su Zhen got back home, it was around eight o'clock in the evening, and he felt almost empty all over. But he couldn't take a shower so quickly, he needed to dry himself first before touching the water, lest he would catch a cold.

Lele came around and meowed at him constantly. Su Zhen understood that this fellow was hungry now, so he brought out cat food and fed Lele quickly.

While resting, Su Zhen took out his phone to scroll through WeChat casually.

An hour later, Su Zhen came out of the bathroom, ordered a bunch of healthy takeaways, took his clothes out of the washing machine, and hung them on the spacious balcony.

It didn't take long for his takeaways to arrive. Su Zhu felt hungrier than usual, he gulped down the food in a quick but elegant manner.

Maybe because the exercise today took too much energy from him, Su Zhen felt sleepy earlier than usual.

By the time the hour's hand hit 10 o'clock, the room had already fallen into darkness, and Su Zhen was already dead asleep. No matter how Lele kneaded him on his face or body or meowed at him, he still didn't wake up.

…

When Su Zhen woke up in the morning, he felt slightly painful in his legs. The long ride yesterday really put tension on his leg muscles.

After having a simple breakfast and feeding Lele, Su Zhen went to a pharmacy nearby to buy ointments for his leg pain.

As Su Zhen walked back to his apartment, a person bumped into him. The other party turned over to apologize, but he was surprised when he saw Su Zhen's face.

"Brother Zhen?"

"Wu Jin?"

"It's really brother Zhen. I really miss you these days. I heard from the manager that you resigned, what really happened?"

"Nothing, I just feel like it's time to take a breather and change the environment. A person can't stay in the same place for his lifetime."

Su Zhen patted the shoulder of the young and slightly fat man before him. This Wu Jin guy worked as a waiter at the bar he used to work at. Wu Zhen found this guy interesting because the latter obviously worked more than three jobs a day, but he was still fat.

This was, of course, partly a joke. In fact, Su Zhen admired this guy for his hardworking and filial personality, he indeed did a lot of jobs every day, but he did so to support his mother who was ill and hospitalized, not to support his owl bowl alone.

This kind of person was worthy of making friends with the most. This was why Su Zhen took pity on him and even helped him a few times when he bumped into a serious financial crisis and a few other troubles at work.

"I really admire you, brother Zhen. Right, I couldn't contact you these days because my phone broke. If I have free time, I'll invite you to dinner. Now, I have to go to work."

"Wait." Before Wu Jin could leave, Su Zhen stopped out, took out a dozen of hundred-yuan cash from his wallet which added up to over 1,000 yuan, and stuffed them into Wu Jin's pocket. "Take it and get your phone fixed, so that I can chat with you."

Wu Jin touched his pocket and looked at Su Zhen gratefully. He was really tight these days, the hospitalization fee of his mom suddenly went up and it gave him trouble. He suddenly felt emotional and wanted to say something, but Su Zhen said first, "Go, don't be late for work."

Su Zhen then walked away first and made his way to his apartment.

Wu Jin continued to run to his workplace. While running, he made up his mind to repay Su Zhen's favor a thousand folds when he got rich in the future.

His relatives all shied away when he wanted to ask for help from them, but an outsider like Su Zhen actually chose to help him voluntarily, and not just once, it was several times at that. Just for this, one could imagine how grateful Wu Jin was toward Su Zhen.

As for Su Zhen, he didn't intend to let Wu Jin repay his favor in the future at all. He helped him because he felt like it, and he didn't expect anything in return at all. He just hoped that all the good people he knew could live an easy life without troubles.