Marrying My Bestie's Ferocious Brother - He Calls Me His Baby!-Chapter 52: Trading Military Medals for Sour Plums?
Gu Yanshen walked in with large strides, holding a bulging brown paper bag.
Without saying a word, he walked to the bedside and handed the paper bag to Lin Wan Yi.
A strong yet fresh sour aroma wafted out from the bag’s opening, instantly dispersing the stuffy air in the room.
"Sour plums?" Gu Lan’s eyes lit up immediately.
Lin Wan Yi accepted it and pinched a plump green sour plum from inside, putting it into her mouth.
The extreme sourness exploded on her taste buds, like a clear spring quickly extinguishing the churning fire in her stomach.
The nauseating feeling seemed to be pressed down by an invisible big hand.
She let out a long breath, and a rare hint of color finally returned to her face, which was as pale as paper.
"It works! It really works! Brother, where did you get this?" Gu Lan asked in surprise, her eyes filled with admiration as she looked at her brother.
Gu Yanshen glanced at Lin Wan Yi, the perpetually tense jawline softened ever so slightly, but he did not answer.
"Who cares where he got it from! As long as it works!" Gu Lan immediately became smug and turned to rummage through her large suitcase, pulling out an oiled paper package.
"Wanwan, just eating sour stuff isn’t enough, it’s not nutritious! This thing is to whet your appetite!"
She carefully opened the paper package, offering it to Lin Wan Yi as if it were a rare treasure.
"Look, special supply meat floss! My mom specifically got this for you, it’s delicious, try it!"
A strong aroma of meat mixed with a hint of high-grade cooking oil wafted over.
The sensation in Lin Wan Yi’s stomach had just calmed down, only to be reactivated by this aroma, starting to churn violently again.
She intended to give Gu Lan some face and stretched out her hand to politely pinch a small tuft, but as soon as the smell neared her nose, she couldn’t take it anymore.
"Ugh—"
Lin Wan Yi turned her head and retched violently into the wastebin by the bed.
This time was more intense than any before, as if she was going to vomit her insides out.
"Wanwan!"
Gu Lan was so frightened she almost dropped the meat floss on the floor, hurriedly rushing over to pat her back.
"What’s going on? Why are you still throwing up? Is it not to your taste?"
Her hands flailed in confusion, her beautiful face filled with guilt and panic.
"Then... this won’t do. I have ham! Imported! That should work!"
"Don’t bring it over!" Lin Wan Yi waved her hand weakly, unable to even speak.
Gu Yanshen stepped forward, expressionless, took the oiled paper package from Gu Lan’s hand, and tossed it onto the table away from the sickbed without even looking.
He then took out a can of beautifully packaged malted milk from another suitcase, scanned the list of ingredients, and also set it back down without expression.
"Brother, what are you doing! These are all good things!" Gu Lan became anxious; these were all things her mom went to great lengths to get.
Gu Yanshen ignored her, only looking at his wife on the bed, who appeared so weak she looked like she might curl up, and spoke in a low voice.
"She can only eat the blandest things now."
After speaking, he turned and walked out.
"Where are you going?" Gu Lan asked, following from behind.
"The kitchen." The man’s voice came from the doorway, carrying an indisputable decisiveness.
"What are you going to do in the kitchen?"
"Make porridge."
Gu Lan was utterly dumbfounded, then let out an incredulous scream.
"You? Make porridge? Brother, do you have a fever? You can’t even boil water!"
She rushed to the doorway, shouting at Gu Yanshen’s retreating figure.
"You’ll set the kitchen on fire!"
In response, Gu Yanshen simply closed the hospital room door without hesitation.
In the small communal kitchen of the hospital, Gu Yanshen felt for the first time what it meant to be at a loss.
He looked at the military stove, older than himself, and frowned.
Where’s the rice?
He looked around and finally found a bag of rice in a cabinet.
He imitated the way he remembered his mother doing it, pouring some rice into the pot, then turning on the faucet.
Too much water.
He poured out some water, then felt there wasn’t enough rice. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦
After toiling back and forth for quite a while, he finally managed to light the fire.
The fire in the stove suddenly leaped up high with a "whoosh," making him step back in fright.
Gu Lan, feeling uneasy, sneaked to the kitchen door and peeked inside through the crack.
She saw her older brother, who was usually commanding and fearsome on the training ground, now flustering around a stove.
Sometimes he thought the fire was too big, sometimes too small, and the rice soup in the pot was bubbling over, splattering everywhere.
His handsome brows were tightly knitted, with a bit of soot on his face, looking both disheveled and amusing.
"Oh my god..." Gu Lan covered her mouth, stifling her laughter as she ran back to the ward.
She leaned over Lin Wan Yi’s bed, vividly describing, "Wanwan, that’s not a kitchen, it’s a battlefield! My brother is having an all-out battle with a pot!"
Lin Wan Yi was amused by her words, bringing a bit more color to her pale face.
...
At the same time, a storm was quietly brewing in the entire military compound.
The source was the young nurse Zhang Hong.
"You wouldn’t believe it! The living Yama... no, Mr. Gu, he didn’t even bat an eye, and directly traded two packs of ’Great Front Gate’ cigarettes for a bag of sour plums for his wife!" She grabbed her colleague, her face flushed with excitement.
"Really?!" Another nurse gasped, "Those are Great Front Gate cigarettes! A month’s allowance couldn’t even buy them!"
"I saw it with my own eyes! That stingy Old Wang in the canteen, the creases on his face were all smiling!"
The second node of the storm was at the small canteen in the hospital.
The person in charge, Old Wang, was surrounded by a group of kitchen helpers and family members doing odd jobs, as he held up the two new packs of ’Great Front Gate’ like two victorious banners.
"See that! Mr. Gu personally gave them!"
"Just because his wife wanted to eat something sour, Mr. Gu has such resolve!"
A kitchen helper came over to ask, "Old Wang, did Mr. Gu just trade cigarettes?"
Old Wang smacked his lips, feeling that just mentioning cigarettes wasn’t dramatic enough, he cleared his throat and lowered his voice, pretending to be mysterious:
"Cigarettes? That’s just a gesture!"
"Mr. Gu was so anxious his eyes were red, saying as long as he could get his wife something to eat, he wouldn’t even need this month’s allowance, it’d all go to me!"
These words caused an uproar in the canteen.
Sister in law Qian was washing clothes with a few familiar military wives by the water well, and upon hearing this rumor, she pursed her lips.
"Hmph, isn’t it just being pregnant? Who hasn’t gone through it? She’s acting so precious!"
"Exactly, the old bourgeois daughter stirring up trouble, making Mr. Gu run around like a top."
"I think she’s just pretending, trying to gain sympathy!"
The sour remarks couldn’t stop this "loving husband" news from fermenting in even more exaggerated forms.
When the news reached the ears of Wang Xiu’e, the wife of a commander, it had already morphed into a jaw-dropping ultimate version.
"Sister Wang! Something big has happened!" A military wife ran breathlessly into her house, struggling to catch her breath.
"I heard... I heard Mr. Gu could find sour things nowhere, and was so desperate he wanted to trade his recent second-class merit award for them!"
"What?!" Wang Xiu’e stopped her hands that were picking vegetables.
She stood up abruptly, her expression changed from shock to immense emotion and admiration.
"That Yanshen! That silly boy! Truly something!"
Without another word, she rushed to the phone, dialing the number to the headquarters with trembling hands.
"Get me the commander!"
The call was quickly connected, and she poured out everything she had heard.
There was a moment of silence on the other end, followed by the commander’s angry roar: "Nonsense! Absolute nonsense! His merit is earned with his life for the country, how can it be traded for sour plums!"
Wang Xiu’e’s heart tightened, fearing the commander would punish Gu Yanshen.
But the next second, the commander’s voice carried intense pride and a hint of being touched.
"You tell that brat! If he truly has no other way, just mention my name as commander! Use my old face to trade! Don’t touch his military merit!"
Wang Xiu’e’s eyes turned red instantly.
After hanging up the phone, the fire inside her was fully ignited.
"Let’s go! Everyone, follow me to the hospital! Let’s see our treasure! She’s been through so much hardship, yet still finds it hard to get a bite to eat! We’re going to back her up!"
Wang Xiu’e led a large group of similarly moved military wives, carrying all sorts of items, and headed straight to the hospital ward.
At this moment, inside the ward, Lin Wan Yi and Gu Lan were beginning to smell an increasingly strong burnt odor.
"Oh no, my brother really set the kitchen on fire." Gu Lan pinched her nose, looking utterly hopeless.
