(Bear-Bear novel, chubby bear, middle-aged) At forty-six, Cong Mingyuan was transferred from Changzhou to Hecheng. On his third day on the job, a main pipeline burst. He jumped into the icy, muddy water to repair it and nearly never came back up. The man who pulled him out of the well was Zhao Tiejun, the maintenance crew chief: a rough, forty-three-year-old widower who had spent six years alone and always smelled of machine oil.
A game of Chinese chess, two cups of liquor, and the workers' bathhouse pool steaming hot. The two men were ninety years old between them. One had just emerged from a thirty-year marriage without a trace of warmth; the other had turned life into a battlefield fought alone. Neither expected to fall for anyone again.
But you can't help who you fall for. It was the hand that clasped his as he descended into the well, the blanket quietly tucked around him in the middle of the night, the bowl of porridge left on the stove with a note, and the words spoken outside the Civil Affairs Bureau: "I'm taking you home."
Later, rumors spread throughout the city, and an investigation team arrived in Hecheng. On the day Cong Mingyuan was suspended, that rough man smashed a cup and stood up at the factory-wide meeting. His voice rang out for all to hear: "I take responsibility!"
Northeastern winters are cold enough to freeze your ears off. But there's always someone who can warm your heart and the rest of your life until they're both burning hot.
