After Zhang Youzhi gave her a mocking tongue-lashing, He Min fought to keep her tears from falling.
"Bro, what am I supposed to do? I really don't know what to do anymore. I've been with him for over ten years, ever since high school. How could he do this to me?"
Zhang Youzhi didn't want to get sucked into this bitter woman's endless story, so he simply shoved his lit cigarette into her hand.
"Quit whining. Take a drag."
He Min stared blankly at the cigarette between her fingers, then raised it to her lips and took a drag as if possessed.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
"There you go. Have a drink. Cheers." Zhang Youzhi gestured with his 500-milliliter bottle of Niulanshan. Naturally, the woman had a bottle cradled in her arms too.
After an imaginary clink of their bottles, he ignored her and gulped down a big mouthful.
The woman before him copied him, pouring liquor into her mouth. She drank quite a lot.
Zhang Youzhi felt surprisingly good ever since he had coughed up blood. Apart from having no strength, his lower back no longer hurt and his head had stopped buzzing. A little booze felt downright wonderful.
But to be on the safe side, Zhang Youzhi still took out a syringe of pain-relieving morphine and stuck it into a vein in his arm as He Min watched in disbelief.
"Bro, y-you're doing drugs...!" The drunken He Min instinctively reached for her phone to call the police, only to remember she had already thrown it into the river.
"You're the one doing drugs! This stuff's a painkiller." Zhang Youzhi launched into another round of swearing.
"Oh. Oh." He Min stared vacantly at Zhang Youzhi.
"Huh, you can really drink." Zhang Youzhi noticed that well over half her Niulanshan was gone. Instead of drinking another toast, he patted her shoulder.
"Feeling any better?"
"I feel much better. Thank you, bro." Half-drunk, He Min finally reverted to standard Mandarin and began chatting coherently with Zhang Youzhi.
Zhang Youzhi started trying to scare her.
"People look awful after they drown. Their bodies swell up. You're so skinny, you'd puff up to twice your size. Think getting fat is the end of it? Nope. When they fish you out, you'll be stark naked. Your clothes? The water will have washed them away! And don't you women all want pale skin? You'll be plenty pale after drowning. Bug eggs in your mouth, in your ears, all over your body..."
He Min trembled as she hugged her bottle.
Zhang Youzhi continued.
"Think looking ugly is all there is to it? It hurts too! You think you'll jump into the river as gracefully as an Olympic diver? Wrong. You'll smack straight into the water. It's more than ten meters down from here. The impact will practically wash your face off. Ever heard of gravitational acceleration? In one second, it'll make you go faster than a plane, then smash your internal organs to pieces..."
Zhang Youzhi began making things up. This woman didn't look like she had much education.
She was ridiculously easy to fool.
He Min shook her head in fear.
Seeing that it worked, Zhang Youzhi doubled down.
"First, you'll feel all your organs shatter, then your brain will turn to mush. You're not from around here, so you wouldn't know, but I am. There are piranhas in the Crane River. Heard of them? They'll tear you apart and eat you. So many people drown in this river every year... The water's low right now too, so you'll get stranded along the bank, and a whole flock of wild ducks will come peck at your flesh."
By now, Zhang Youzhi was talking complete nonsense.
He Min was so frightened that tears spilled from her eyes.
"Still want to kill yourself?"
"No. It hurts, and I'll be ugly." Frightened, He Min was pitifully obedient, shaking her head like a rattle drum.
"Exactly. Who kills themselves on their birthday?" Zhang Youzhi smiled in satisfaction, tore open another package, and handed her an egg-yolk cake.
"Happy birthday."
Then he flicked his lighter and added,
"Come on, lovesick idiot. Blow out your candle."
He Min covered her mouth, about to burst into tears of gratitude again, but finally held them back under Zhang Youzhi's impatient gaze.
He Min carefully blew out the flame, took the egg-yolk cake, and ate it in tiny bites. Tears dripped onto the cake. This time, Zhang Youzhi didn't snap at her. He simply waited quietly for her to finish.
"Where do you live?" Zhang Youzhi gathered all the trash from the ground and dumped it into the river.
"My rented place... is in Lotus Hill Community."
"Never heard of it. Lead the way in a bit. I'll take you home. Or you can get a cab yourself."
"Huh?"
"Huh, my ass. I still have to come back here to sleep."
"Are you a river god?"
"I sleep under the damn bridge."
"Why do you sleep here? And why were you giving yourself an injection?"
"None of your damn business."
Zhang Youzhi cursed at her again.
He Min stopped talking and obediently got up from the ground, wiping her mouth with her clothes and rubbing off her lipstick.
Zhang Youzhi had finished packing up too. While the morphine was still working, he swayed to his feet.
"Come on. I'll take you home."
A cab, his ass. Neither of them had a phone. The thousand-odd yuan in cash on Zhang Youzhi was everything he had left.
He Min's high heels had gone to feed the fish, and she wasn't wearing socks. She forced herself to walk barefoot along the asphalt, clearly trying to endure the pain.
Before long, both her soles were pitch-black, as if she hadn't washed her feet in eighteen years.
Fortunately, there were no little stones on the road.
They emerged from the pitch-dark bridge and headed into the city. Zhang Youzhi spread his arms to embrace the glaring streetlights and exclaimed,
"Ah, light!"
Then, with a click, the lights farther away went out.
More than half the city went dark, but the streetlight beside them stubbornly stayed on, just like Zhang Youzhi, who wanted a few more days to live.
"They turn the lights off after two to save power," He Min quietly explained to this "local."
In the lamplight, He Min finally noticed the dried, blackened blood all over Zhang Youzhi. It clearly wasn't fish blood, but she didn't ask any questions.
Looking down at her tattered black miniskirt, her messy hair, and her tear-streaked makeup that left her looking scarcely better than a beggar, He Min merely wiped her face and moved a little closer to Zhang Youzhi.
Dejected, Zhang Youzhi gestured for them to keep walking.
Crane City was a tiny, backwater city. Places like this never had much nightlife. The main road was quiet, with few passing cars, and most of the roadside shops had turned off their lights.
There were plenty of weeping willows along the road, their shapes taking on an eerie cast beneath the remaining lights.
The blood on Zhang Youzhi's body had dried into pitch-black patches. If a patrolling police officer came along, he would definitely be caught.
The woman beside him wasn't much better off. Her once-permed hair now resembled a bird's nest, the buttons of her office blouse were crooked, and her miniskirt was covered in scuffs and dust. Her ankles were scraped, and she dragged her feet along beside Zhang Youzhi in a pair of oversized size-43 shoes.
They were both cold, but their conversation never stopped.
"Your boyfriend ran off with your best friend. What are you planning to do next?"
"Quit my job, go home, and find my mom," He Min said.
A mama's girl, too.
"Oh, quitting your job. Sounds good. How much do you make a month?" Zhang Youzhi asked casually.
"A little over twenty thousand. With my year-end bonus, it comes to several hundred thousand a year."
"..."
"What a fucking joke. Even a lovesick idiot can earn that much." Zhang Youzhi mocked himself.
"Bro, I have a master's degree from Nanjing University."
A master's from a Project 985 university. That explained it. He hadn't expected this lovesick idiot to be a good student. Too bad all that studying had messed up her head.
"And you still want to quit? Paid off your mortgage? Bought a car?"
"I'm an only child. My family set aside two apartments for me, and a really ugly black car."
Zhang Youzhi took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
Change the subject!
"Your boyfriend must be blind to cheat on you. With everything you've got going for you, you could have any man you wanted. You're not ugly, just a little old."
"Bro, you're calling me old again."
"Listen to me. Don't quit, and don't think about killing yourself either. With what you've got, you don't need a man. You can live perfectly well on your own."
"Okay." He Min's voice was very quiet as she stayed close behind Zhang Youzhi.
The road suddenly fell silent, leaving only the rustle of wind through the weeping willows.
This woman had killed the conversation.
Before you continue