Hauled into the station

"Thank you for the buns, Duoduo. I'm full now."

With a bun still stuffed in his mouth, Zhang Youzhi crouched on the ground and spoke indistinctly to the little girl in front of him.

Standing up, she was almost the same height as him crouching.

"Really?" Duoduo blinked her big eyes, clearly still unconvinced.

"Really." Zhang Youzhi patted his stomach to reassure her.

"I'm not hungry anymore, just a little thirsty."

"Oh, okay." Duoduo thought it over with her still-developing little brain, then nodded solemnly.

"I can't just freeload a meal," Zhang Youzhi sighed.

Once he saw that the little girl had run off, he walked into the bun shop on his own.

"Hello! Buns or wontons? We've also got congee and vegetable flatbread sandwiches. Eating here or taking away?" Hearing a customer come in, the woman inside called out without even looking up.

"Um... ma'am, your daughter gave me twelve buns. I'm here to pay for them."

The curtain over the greasy kitchen doorway was pulled aside, and the woman looked at her bamboo steamers in bewilderment.

Two of them were already empty!

"Oh, that child." The woman didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then she looked Zhang Youzhi over.

"Hey, what's happened to your face? How many days has it been since you washed your clothes? Why are you so filthy?"

"Too busy," Zhang Youzhi said without batting an eye.

"All right, I'll make you a bowl of soup, on the house. The buns are eight yuan, but just give me five to cover the cost. Talk about forcing a sale on you." The woman cracked a joke, rubbed her hands together, and went back inside.

Zhang Youzhi pulled out a stool and sat down in the shop.

The shop was small. The bowl was big.

It was seaweed and egg drop soup. The price posted on the wall was four yuan a bowl.

Zhang Youzhi drank it with deep satisfaction. This was the first meal that had truly filled him up since he started living on the streets.

But just then, the little girl called Duoduo came back.

She was carrying a large jug of bottled water.

Seeing Zhang Youzhi inside the shop and her mother pretending to be angry, Duoduo pointed at him in shock.

"Y-you said you were full! Why are you still eating?"

Then she took another two steps forward and lifted the water up to Zhang Youzhi.

"Duoduo, where did you get that water?" the woman asked irritably.

Duoduo shrank back. "I stole it from Grandpa's noodle shop."

Well, this whole family had a supply chain going. They just happened to have a little mole in their midst.

"It's fine, it's fine. Don't scold her. I'll pay for everything. The money's on the table." Zhang Youzhi placed a red banknote on the table, pinning it under his bowl. He picked up the jug of water and was about to leave when he turned back to the little girl.

"Duoduo, thank you so much. I'm really full now."

"Hehehe." Hearing someone praise her, the little girl stood there grinning foolishly, showing her baby teeth.

"Oh, you little rascal." After Zhang Youzhi had gone, the woman cleared away the bowl, then froze at the sight of the hundred-yuan note.

It had been so long since she'd seen paper money that it took her a while to realize the denomination was wrong. She hurried outside, only to find that her customer had long since disappeared.

Life countdown.

Five days.

That night, Zhang Youzhi stayed in an open-air furniture market. Under a large canopy, he wrapped himself in a quilt and barely made it through the night.

Since he'd stupidly cut up his own ID card, he still had no way of checking into a hotel.

Zhang Youzhi called Number Two from a phone booth to ask why his body was still functioning normally.

Number Two's answer was that it was a side effect of the painkillers. They had severed some of his pain nerves and released stimulating hormones.

Because he'd been taking them so frequently, their effects had changed slightly. While squeezing out his body's remaining potential, they also kept the spread of his disease from impairing his body.

The trade-off was that he was expected to suffer even more during the twenty-four hours before his death.

Zhang Youzhi was very satisfied with this explanation. At least it meant he wouldn't lose his mobility before he died.

Wandering around while waiting to die was pretty good, but something unexpected happened that day.

A robbery.

A tall, skinny man with a knife was chasing a short, fat man.

If it had just been a robbery, that would have been fine. Zhang Youzhi only needed to hide.

He had neither a phone nor the strength to do anything. All he could do was watch; he couldn't even call the police.

At three in the morning, in the silent furniture factory, the two men chased each other around. Clutching his little quilt, Zhang Youzhi sat up and stared at the scene in bewilderment.

That drew both men's attention.

The skinny man with the knife threatened him. "Stay out of this."

The short, fat man looked at him as though he'd spotted a lifeline, bouncing over like a ball to hide behind Zhang Youzhi.

Zhang Youzhi was even more bewildered.

The skinny man said, "Get the fuck out of the way! Let's leave innocent people out of this. I just want your bag."

Hearing that, the fat man's eyes darted around, and he grabbed Zhang Youzhi as a hostage.

The fat man said, "Put down the knife, or I'll kill him."

In his weakened state, Zhang Youzhi steeled himself, gave up entirely, and closed his eyes. If he died, he died. A couple of days wouldn't make a difference.

Great. Things had gotten complicated.

But the skinny man was clearly panicking. He was genuinely afraid this innocent bystander would get hurt, so this "robber" made a decision that would have shamed his ancestors.

Holding his knife, the skinny man shouted, "I'm fucking calling the police!"

That jolted Zhang Youzhi awake. He was even more agitated than the fat man holding him hostage. "Don't call the police!"

All three of them were handcuffed to a radiator.

Old Yang was a veteran detective in the area, and he was clearly in a foul mood. Understandably so-he'd been forced out of bed at three in the morning to haul in three suspects from a bizarre "robbery."

Anyone would have been in a bad mood.

During the questioning, Zhang Youzhi quickly figured things out.

This wasn't a robbery in the usual sense at all. The skinny man wanted to retrieve the briefcase the short, fat man was carrying. According to their statements, both men worked for the same company, but belonged to factions backing different shareholders.

The briefcase apparently contained trade secrets. Whoever secured it would allow the shareholder backing him to seize sole control of the company.

And so this little robbery and counter-robbery drama had played out.

Oh, you're both so high and mighty. Aren't you impressive.

Zhang Youzhi wanted to curse his head off.

After all his efforts to stay out of the way, he still hadn't escaped. In the end, the authorities had caught him.

And it was all because of these two idiots.

Detention generally started at seven days. In other words, barring any surprises, Zhang Youzhi was going to meet an unfortunate end in the police station.

Zhang Youzhi earnestly pleaded with the officer. "Officer, I'm terminally ill. I've only got a few days left. Please let me go."

Yang Donglin was clearly an old hand. With a cigarette between his lips, he didn't believe a word of it. What terminally ill patient had that much energy, or could put away two big bowls of food?

The main problem was that Zhang Youzhi had nothing to prove his identity, and he wasn't a local. He'd lost his phone in the Crane River, cut his ID card into pieces, and burned his cancer report.

All Zhang Youzhi had left now was his word.

Unable to prove his identity, he was forced to remain at the police station.

The next day.

Another officer told him not to worry. After seven days, he could contact his family and have them come pick him up.

The problem was that Zhang Youzhi would be fucking dead in four days. His body would probably already be cold.

Were they supposed to collect his ashes after seven days?

The food at the police station was very good. Zhang Youzhi ate it in bitter indignation.