I Really Deserved to Die

The situation was far worse than the homeless man had imagined!

When he moved the tent across from the mattress to use as a makeshift bedroom, he found a suicide note inside!

More precisely, it was a suicide note about a cat.

[On July 14 of this year, I found a kitten and named it Gray Kitten. The bones in Gray Kitten's right front paw were broken, and the flesh and skin were gone. It was barely alive when I found it. I used high-proof liquor in place of rubbing alcohol to clean the wound as best I could, then bandaged it with gauze.

The cat was in such poor condition that I feared it would not survive. However, after two days of observation, it showed an increasingly tenacious will to live and even signs of improvement.

Given that I am in the final stages of a terminal illness and will soon die, I am unable to care for this cat. Given that it cannot survive in the wild, I hereby make the following request of the company with which I have signed a contract.

Please transfer Gray Kitten to my girlfriend, Li Douyu, to care for. I am willing to pay the company an additional transfer fee of 1,000 yuan.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, my body should be inside a nearby pipe, marked with a black flag. Please do not disturb anyone else when collecting my remains.

Final words of Zhang Youzhi]

But fate had played a trick on him: the cat already had an owner. That was why Zhang Youzhi had left without taking this presumptuous "suicide note" with him. Yet it dealt a tremendous shock to the homeless man who stumbled across it.

After reading the little slip of paper, the homeless man looked at the two hundred yuan in his hand and, without another word, slapped himself hard across the face.

"I really deserved to die."

With that, he tucked the cat into his coat pocket, wheeled a battered bicycle out of the yard, and climbed on without a word.

Whatever happened, he felt he had to find the young man who had left the suicide note first.

Time left to live.

Six days.

Zhang Youzhi was so cold that his lips had turned purple. In fact, even he could hardly believe that his body was still holding out at this point, refusing to collapse and continuing to function.

Walking, eating, and sleeping were still mostly manageable.

The nine pills he had taken earlier had, after all, given his body an extra layer of insurance. In Zhang Youzhi's words, they had equipped his body with a death-defying blade.

He was down to a sliver of health, but that passive kept triggering like crazy.

An ordinary cancer patient would probably have been clinging to life in the ICU by now. Someone like him, wandering everywhere with bags of belongings, was surely one of a kind.

After yesterday's sunshine, the lousy weather had returned to relentless rain, as though it meant to make up for the entire month Crane City had gone without any.

The temperature had dropped so much that pedestrians were wearing thick clothes again.

After the mix-up at the recycling plant, Zhang Youzhi did not deliberately seek out anywhere too remote this time. Instead, he wandered around the outskirts of the city.

He did not dare ask anyone for help. His whole body was swollen now, and his face had turned dark. He had reached the point where anyone who saw him would call an ambulance. Even begging for a meal was out of the question.

He could play a zombie without any makeup.

"Don't drag anyone else into this. Die cleanly." Zhang Youzhi crouched beside a trash bin, shivering, and still remembered to remind himself with those words.

He wanted to find some discarded clothes to wear, but the rain would not stop. Even if there were any clothes, they would already be soaked through.

Fortunately, he still had the quilt He Min had brought him, as well as Li Douyu's little blanket.

If he could not find clothes, finding a cat of his own would be nice too. If he could not have Gray Kitten, he could find a little white kitten, an orange kitten, or a calico kitten.

Unfortunately, the stray cats that usually wandered all over the streets would not even spare Zhang Youzhi a glance.

Helpless, Zhang Youzhi returned to the entrance of a shop awaiting a new tenant. He draped the blanket over himself and sheltered beneath the awning, watching the sparse traffic and pedestrians.

I'm so miserable. If I'd known, I wouldn't have gone wandering. I could've waited to die in the hospital without suffering like this.

But when he thought of the pain Li Douyu and his parents would feel watching him slowly die, Zhang Youzhi tucked his neck in, grateful for his choice again.

Better to keep wandering. I might be pitiful before I die, but at least I'll have one glorious moment at my funeral.

Although he had cut out most of the luxury services, the funeral's basic package could not be removed.

He would have everything he was supposed to have.

Thinking of it that way, Zhang Youzhi actually began looking forward to what would happen after his death.

"Here, mister. Have a bun."

Zhang Youzhi froze, then came back to his senses and looked at the little girl in front of him.

A small, pale hand held out a fragrant, soft, piping-hot steamed bun. Zhang Youzhi could practically see the wisps of white steam rising from it.

He swallowed.

"Th-thank you, little one." Zhang Youzhi took the bun and stuffed it into his mouth in one bite.

So fucking good.

The little girl was young, at an age when kindness was beginning to blossom. Seeing the man before her eat her bun without any hesitation, she ran off happily again.

"Kids really are the best. They don't turn their noses up at me." After swallowing the bun, Zhang Youzhi looked at his darkened hands.

He felt that something was wrong with his body. It was getting stiff. Only dead people turned this dark, but he was not dead yet. If this kept up, would he turn into a zombie?

"Here, mister. A bun."

Zhang Youzhi froze.

The little girl had run back without him noticing. She produced another warm bun and pressed it into his hand, her eyes wide.

"Huh?" Zhang Youzhi hesitantly accepted the bun.

"Thank you, little one. What's your name?"

Then, without making a fuss, he took the bun and stuffed it into his mouth again.

Delicious. So good. But these buns disappear way too quickly.

The little girl did not answer him. Once he had finished it, she ran off again, giggling.

"Kids these days really are kindhearted," Zhang Youzhi sighed contentedly.

Just as he was about to resume wallowing in sentiment, sadness, and self-pity, the little girl came running back for the third time.

"Here. A bun."

Short and sweet.

The little girl proudly puffed out her chest, as though she had accomplished something extraordinary.

"Wait, little one, where are you getting all these buns?" Zhang Youzhi asked in confusion, then accepted it anyway, utterly unable to resist.

Delicious. So delicious!

"Heehee, I'm not telling." With her hair in a little bun, the girl scampered off again. This time, Zhang Youzhi followed her with his eyes until she disappeared into an alley.

A moment later.

Holding a bun in both hands, the little girl first hid it behind her back, then scampered over again.

"Here's a bun for you!" With grand flair, the girl swung her arm, and another steaming white bun magically appeared in her hand.

"Wow! Amazing," Zhang Youzhi praised her with exaggerated admiration.

Then he took it and polished it off in two bites.

"Delicious."

The little girl turned to leave, but Zhang Youzhi called her back.

"Little one, give this to your grown-up."

Zhang Youzhi held out a ten-yuan note.

Perhaps because mobile payments had become so commonplace, the little girl clearly did not recognize the paper money. She hesitated without taking it, then turned and ran into the alley again.

After scoring four free buns, Zhang Youzhi's back no longer hurt, and he had some energy again. He stood up and quietly followed her.

Sure enough.

As soon as he entered the alley, he saw a steamed bun shop.

The little girl climbed onto a stool, stealthily reached up, and deftly grabbed a soft bun from a steamer basket before quickly pulling her hand back.

But this time, her bun-stealing operation did not go as smoothly as the previous attempts.

Her mother stopped her. The woman was clearly the owner of the bun shop.

"Oh! Duoduo, how many buns have you eaten?"

"Hungry." The little girl immediately turned to her mother with a pitiful look.

"All right, take it. But no picky eating. Don't just eat the skin and leave the filling. Make sure you eat the filling too." Her mother wore a clean white apron and was still rolling out dough for the buns.

"Heehee." The little girl climbed down from the stool and ran outside again.

Zhang Youzhi watched in amazement.

The adult and child ran into each other in the alley.

"Here. Buns. Eat them." Duoduo held two buns and offered them to Zhang Youzhi as though presenting treasures.

Zhang Youzhi pondered for a moment.

Then he honestly accepted the fourth hot bun.

"So delicious."