You're not welcome here

Life countdown.

8 days.

The rain had started yesterday afternoon and only stopped the next morning. Zhang Youzhi had slept heavily until then, too.

He could no longer get up inside the tent at all.

Zhang Youzhi wanted something hot to eat. He had never craved a hot meal so badly. He touched his forehead. It was burning.

Apparently, even now, his immune system was still trying to save its host.

Unfortunately, Zhang Youzhi had given up far too completely.

The little gray kitten beside him had long since woken up and was tearing at a sausage wrapper with its teeth. Clearly, it was starving, too.

Seeing Zhang Youzhi wake up, the gray kitten carried the sausage over to him, kneading the blanket with its unbandaged paw and calling for him to get up.

Hurry up and feed your kitty son!

With great effort, Zhang Youzhi sat up. First, he tore open some bread for himself, then bit open the sausage wrapper. Finally, he poured some bottled water into a chipped bowl. Watching the gray kitten dart over and lap it up, he drank some cold water straight from the bottle himself.

Unsure whether he could still stand, Zhang Youzhi unzipped the tent and saw a shimmering world outside.

"How much rain did we get? My God," Zhang Youzhi muttered.

A shaft of sunlight fell across him, but the weather had yet to warm up. Zhang Youzhi put on his clothes and crawled out of the tent. Fortunately, the ground nearby was higher, so the area around the tent had not flooded.

But there was water everywhere else.

Bracing himself against a tire, Zhang Youzhi stood up little by little.

He was weak and desperate to find some hot food.

The blue-gray gravel covering the recycling yard had turned into clusters of tiny, sparkling lakes. Each was only about a meter across, displaying breathtaking colors in the sunlight.

The white clouds in the sky were reflected in the lakes, along with the young man's figure.

Zhang Youzhi picked his way across patches of gravel without puddles. The lakes had left him a narrow, winding path leading toward the battered rain shelter in the distance.

Following the edges of the lakes, Zhang Youzhi walked over and happened to spot an unfamiliar instant noodle packet.

Some soup seasoning remained inside, but after a night of rain, all he could see were the droplets of oil floating on top.

"Where did these noodles come from?" Zhang Youzhi wondered.

He soon went around behind the tire wall. He had never been here before, and now he suddenly discovered this cozy little world:

An enormous sprung mattress lay on the ground, with a sheet of waterproof plastic underneath. Below that were neatly arranged bricks, stacked about ankle-high. Several layers of wooden boards rested on the bricks, with the mattress on top.

This was a bed!

A single-bed-sized sleeping mat lay on the mattress, though it had rolled down by now. Three quilts were neatly folded on the bed, covered with another sheet of plastic weighted down with smooth pebbles. Beside the head of the bed, along the tires, books were packed into every gap-there were all kinds. Zhang Youzhi spotted secondary school study guides and hairstyling magazines from salons.

Inkless gel pens were tucked into the gaps between the tires. Zhang Youzhi soon understood why they had run dry.

The white wall on the inside was densely covered in tiny writing, enough to make anyone's scalp prickle.

"Someone lives here?" Zhang Youzhi murmured to himself.

He moved closer to examine the words on the wall. The handwriting was beautiful, though clearly not the product of formal training; the writer must have developed it on his own. Most of the text consisted of copied lines of poetry, with a few baffling passages, like marrow extracted from essays and imprinted on the wall without any logical order.

Zhang Youzhi wanted to lie down on this bed.

He wanted so badly to claim this place for himself.

Zhang Youzhi finally understood why no one had taken the tent despite it being intact. This place already had an owner! That person had somewhere better.

The only intact sheet-metal shelter covered this entire area. It might be a little cold in winter, but apart from that, Zhang Youzhi could not think of a single drawback.

There was even an electrical outlet, though he had no idea where its cable came from.

Turning around, Zhang Youzhi finally noticed a plastic basin inside a tire, filled with neatly arranged toiletries. Among them, he spotted several completely squeezed-out toothpaste tubes.

He had not brushed his teeth in five days.

Like everything else, the basin was covered with plastic sheeting, weighted down with several obviously handpicked pebbles.

The plastic kept out dust; the pebbles kept it from blowing away.

"This person really knows how to make a life for himself," Zhang Youzhi said admiringly.

But he soon stopped marveling at all that. His attention had been caught by an electric kettle and several packets of instant noodles beside it.

Holy shit, instant noodles!

There was a plastic bucket nearby, too. In all likelihood, it held clean drinking water.

Zhang Youzhi swallowed audibly.

Finding strength from somewhere, he hurried back to the tent and took out his remaining thousand yuan. After a moment's thought, he picked up the cat, too.

Zhang Youzhi returned to the sheet-metal shelter and gently set the cat on the ground.

Despite its limp, the gray kitten nimbly scrambled over the tires, jumped onto the enormous mattress, and curled up inside one of the tires.

There was a cushion inside that tire. Clearly, it was a cat bed.

Well, even the cat has an owner.

Turns out I never owned a single thing.

Zhang Youzhi let out a couple of self-mocking chuckles, took out two hundred-yuan notes, and tucked one corner beneath the quilts. Then he poured some drinking water into the kettle and switched it on without asking.

Two hundred yuan for two packets of instant noodles. The owner would not be losing out.

"Please don't blame me. I'm just eating two packets of your noodles," Zhang Youzhi prayed, pressing his palms together.

"So good. This tastes amazing. No wonder even death-row prisoners get a last meal."

Just as Zhang Youzhi was holding his noodles and wolfing them down, the owner returned.

The homeless man had clearly noticed the activity here, too.

"Hey, you! What are you doing?" The homeless man ran over from the gate, splashing through the little lakes along the way.

"Sir." Zhang Youzhi lifted his face from the bowl and gave the homeless man a shameless smile.

"I was starving, so I ate two packets of your noodles. I'll pay for them."

The homeless man clearly did not believe him.

He did not think this skinny, scruffy young man had come just for a meal.

Obviously another homeless guy, here to steal my spot!

"Take your noodles and leave. This is my place," the homeless man said without hesitation.

"I..." Zhang Youzhi wanted to say something.

"You're not welcome here." Looking at the somewhat disheveled "kitchen area," the homeless man grew angry. Bits of instant noodles were scattered everywhere, and his tone hardened.

While preparing the noodles, Zhang Youzhi had run out of strength and fallen over, but the man in front of him did not know that.

Zhang Youzhi weakly pointed toward the tent.

"I'll only stay one more day. I'll leave tomorrow." The weather would warm up tomorrow, and then he could set out again. Though the sun was out today, the temperature was not rising at all, and the whole world was covered in water.

"That tent is mine, too. I told you to leave. Get the hell out." The homeless man's voice grew colder, and he even looked ready to get physical.

He had just noticed that the pebbles he used to weigh down the plastic were scattered all over the ground. Those were his cherished stones, and the sight fueled his anger.

In fact, Zhang Youzhi had knocked those stones away when he fell and had not yet had time to put them back.

"Oh. All right. I'll go. I'm leaving now."

The smile Zhang Youzhi had forced onto his face disappeared. He simply rose numbly, holding his noodles, and splashed through the already murky rainwater toward the tent.

He had to get his bag and quilt.

The homeless man now noticed the two hundred yuan beneath the pillow, and his tone softened a little.

"You can stay another day, but you have to leave the day after."

"No need. I'll leave once I get my things." Zhang Youzhi crawled into the tent, put his bread, biscuits, and drinking water back into his backpack, then took off his army coat and left it inside.

No wonder there was an army coat in good condition here. It must belong to him, too.

So that's why. No wonder there were so many useful things here.

Zhang Youzhi tied up his quilt and slung it onto his back, with his backpack against his chest. Then he slowly walked out, his head lowered.

Once he was gone, the homeless man let out a long sigh of relief.

He truly did not want a stranger coming to take his place. Even a temporary stay was out of the question.

"Meow?"

"Oh, kitty!" Hearing the familiar meow, the homeless man looked around in delight, only to discover that it had come from the tent.

Inside the tent, the homeless man found the bandaged little gray kitten.

The cat was clearly a resilient little thing. It was far livelier than it had been a few days ago, before Zhang Youzhi arrived.

Clearly, Zhang Youzhi's risky attempt to disinfect its wound with alcohol and bandage it had worked.

"Kitty, you're better? Did that guy just now treat you?" Still clutching the two hundred yuan, the homeless man was suddenly filled with regret. He hurried out after him.

The young man was already nowhere to be seen.

Outside the recycling yard, a fresh, cool breeze swept in after the rain, leaving only the rustle of leaves.