You're my mascot

"Bro, she's pretty, isn't she?" Zhang Youzhi struck up a conversation.

Following the young man's gaze, he spotted a lively figure in green standing out among the children, suddenly catching his eye.

"Yeah, she is. Really good-looking. You've got good taste too, bro." The young man nodded approvingly.

"If she's pretty, go ask for her WeChat. What good is squatting here?" Zhang Youzhi teased with a laugh.

"I don't dare. I'm just here to pick up a kid." The young man scratched his head sheepishly.

"College student, huh?" Zhang Youzhi glanced at him.

"Heh, vocational college, vocational college. Not a proper university student."

Zhang Youzhi considered for a moment, then said, "You have to go after a good girl. I'll show you how. Watch closely."

Before the young man could react, Zhang Youzhi pushed himself up laboriously with both hands. Once he had barely managed to stand, he made a show of striding straight toward the girl among the students.

The girl wasn't tall, and her pale green shirt stood out sharply amid the red-and-white school uniforms. Though he couldn't see her clearly, one glance was enough to catch her irrepressible liveliness. Naturally, she was very pretty too.

Zhang Youzhi walked over.

He had meant to say:

"Little Mermaid, come with me. I'll treat you to milk tea at the marriage registration office."

But when the words reached his lips, they became:

"Little Mermaid, miss me?"

Li Douyu rolled her eyes at Zhang Youzhi, smiled apologetically at the teacher beside her, then took his large hand and led him out of the crowd.

"What's the rush? That eager to go home and meet my dad?" Though Li Douyu was complaining, the light reproach in her voice still delighted Zhang Youzhi.

"We've got a train to catch. I've got all our supplies ready." Zhang Youzhi pointed at his bag, then brought Li Douyu over to the young man. First, he caught her off guard with a loud kiss on the cheek, then addressed the bewildered young man.

"Pretty, isn't she?"

"Pretty," the young man replied blankly.

"Next time you see a pretty girl, go after her. Don't be so timid, got it?"

"Got it," the young man said in despair.

Li Douyu pinched Zhang Youzhi's waist and gave it a vicious twist, only to find that her boyfriend didn't react at all.

Once they had walked some distance away, Li Douyu gave his elbow another gentle pinch, and Zhang Youzhi made a show of crying out in pain.

"Did you really have to rub it in? Someone looking at me isn't going to hurt me."

"Oh, just let me be jealous a little. I promise I won't be jealous again." Zhang Youzhi wheedled like a child.

"What is there to be jealous of? I'm the fish in your pocket, not anyone else's." Li Douyu sighed.

"Where's the suitcase? How are we getting to the high-speed rail station?" Li Douyu asked next.

"Give me a kiss and I'll tell you."

"Don't make me slap you in broad daylight."

The journey went smoothly, without any incidents. Yimeng was about fourteen hundred kilometers from Longnan as the crow flew, or roughly sixteen hundred with all the twists and detours.

Even by high-speed train, it took six or seven hours.

Including the time spent transferring between stations, leaving at two in the afternoon meant reaching Longnan around two or three the next morning. Luckily, they had taken this route eighteen times, if not twenty, and knew it well.

Flying would have been more convenient, but Li Douyu hated spending over a thousand yuan on a ticket and had turned down Zhang Youzhi's suggestion.

Zhang Youzhi had said, "We've never flown together before. Let's take a plane together."

Li Douyu had said, "We'll have plenty of chances later."

So Zhang Youzhi had dropped it.

Usually, Zhang Youzhi was the one hustling around with Li Douyu, buying tickets and finding seats. This time, for once, he had her lead him through the station changes and transfers.

Zhang Youzhi said he wanted to give Li Douyu some practice.

Li Douyu refused. She absolutely, utterly refused.

"I'm not learning. Having you is enough. Wherever you go, I go. Aren't you afraid I'll run all over the place once I learn how to transfer? Watch out, I might marry some rich guy and dump you. Bleh, bleh, bleh!" Li Douyu pulled a face at Zhang Youzhi.

"If I weren't here, would you dare go wandering around on your own?" Zhang Youzhi asked threateningly.

"No. I'm scared of strangers. I wouldn't dare go anywhere." Li Douyu tilted her head away from the train window toward Zhang Youzhi, then nestled her whole body into his arms.

A middle-aged woman beside them smiled fondly.

"All right, then we won't learn. I'll take you through the transfers, so you won't go running around in the future." Zhang Youzhi stroked her hair as he spoke softly.

During the journey, Zhang Youzhi slept through most of the day, waking only when his alarms went off. At first, Li Douyu was still lively, but by evening she too had mostly fallen asleep.

In the small hours, however, Zhang Youzhi grew increasingly alert. The medicine had worn off long ago, and pain had woken him. His liver hurt so badly that he couldn't straighten up, cold sweat poured off him, and every breath tortured his lungs. Compared with those two living devils, even the tumor that had spread to his brain seemed less excruciating.

He quietly took a dose of morphine from his inner pocket and jabbed it casually into his calf. Then Zhang Youzhi broke the syringe apart and stuffed it into the rubbish.

The syringes were all made of organic plastic, with no metal, and hadn't been detected during security screening.

Morphine took about fifteen minutes to kick in. Until then, Zhang Youzhi had to tough it out.

Li Douyu leaned against his shoulder, her head on a pillow and a plush toy in her arms, sleeping soundly. Zhang Youzhi fought to keep his body from trembling and turned his head to gaze quietly at the girl before him.

Her little face was delicate, but a black eye mask covered most of it. The Luo Xiaohei mask had already faded somewhat.

It was the very first gift Zhang Youzhi had given her back in their university club days. Li Douyu had worn it for five years.

She wouldn't let him replace it and didn't mind how old it was.

Zhang Youzhi wanted to see her eyes and take off the mask, but in the end, he didn't touch it.

How had the two of them met?

Zhang Youzhi was a year above her. When the club was recruiting new members, she had caught his eye at first sight.

"Why did you pick me?"

"The literary club needs a mascot. A fish is perfect."

As his thoughts wandered, the morphine took effect, and Zhang Youzhi's tense body suddenly relaxed. By now, he had developed a dependence on morphine. Unless there were special circumstances, he even preferred it to the mere six painkiller pills he had left.

He had been keeping his morphine use in check, but he didn't know how much longer he could manage it.

Waves of nausea washed over Zhang Youzhi. Once the morphine cut off the pain, that unreal sensation enveloped him again.

He fell asleep.

In the end, Li Douyu woke him.

Zhang Youzhi opened his eyes groggily to find Li Douyu lifting her head proudly, her eye mask perched on top like a hat. Her expression seemed to say, See? I'm useful after all.

"If it weren't for me, we'd have overslept, you big dummy." As soon as she finished, Li Douyu stuffed the neck pillow and cushion into her backpack, shoved her phone into her pocket, and pulled Zhang Youzhi into the aisle.

Zhang Youzhi was feeling a little better.

After they hurried off the train, passed through security, and left Longnan Station, Li Douyu stood on the raised platform and spread her arms toward the pitch-black mountains and thick fog.

"Ah, mountains! Your queen is back!"

"A girl should be a little more ladylike," Zhang Youzhi told Li Douyu beside him in the three-a.m. darkness.

"Oh, sure." Li Douyu flipped the pitch-black mountains the middle finger again.

"Ah, mountains! Your queen brought her man back!"

"We're back!"

"Your queen is back again!"

Li Douyu shouted three times in a row.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Zhang Youzhi wrapped his arms around her.

"All right, all right, boss. Let's hurry down to the countryside for your inspection."

"You got it. Now that we're here, I'll lead the way. You may have visited a few times, but you'd never figure out all these winding mountain roads."

Zhang Youzhi said nothing. He draped his jacket over Li Douyu again, leaving himself in just a short-sleeved shirt.

June nights in Longnan were still cold, especially in the small hours.

"Very considerate." Li Douyu praised the oversized jacket around her, then tugged Zhang Youzhi downhill with a spring in her step.

Longnan Station was built halfway up a mountain and overlooked half the city. Just walking downhill took quite a while.

Compared with the drooping people around them, the exuberant Li Douyu truly was a little sun at three in the morning. Even Zhang Youzhi caught her mood and kept grinning foolishly.

When they reached the roadside, Li Douyu confidently tapped on a taxi's window.

"How much to take us locals to the bus station?"

"Twenty for you two kids."

"Your ancestors! You're trying to rip off a local? Will you do ten?"

"Deal!"

Zhang Youzhi watched Li Douyu haggle away. The way she kept invoking the driver's ancestors was rather amusing, and he suddenly felt that he had made the right decision.

Letting Li Douyu live a good life in this little mountain city wasn't a bad idea.

The layers upon layers of mountains formed a barrier that kept Li Douyu from leaving, but they could also keep her safe.

Let it be this way.

Leave Li Douyu with her father, finish the last six pills, then take my morphine and go. The farther, the better.

After I die, I hope that relationship expert can help her move past her grief quickly.

The earliest bus to the countryside left at seven in the morning. Zhang Youzhi suggested spending a night at a hotel near the bus station, buying a few things in town, getting some proper rest, and leaving early the next day.

Seeing how wilted her big Shandong scallion had become after arriving in Longnan, Li Douyu assumed he wasn't adjusting well to the new surroundings. She tenderly patted his cheek and agreed to his request.

The hotel was a good hotel. Eighty yuan a room.

Before they checked in, Zhang Youzhi pointed at the brightly lit Hanting Hotel next door and declared grandly, "We'll stay there."

Li Douyu pointed at the little hotel with its constantly flashing red LED sign and said, "We'll stay here. It feels like we're having an affair. Come on, this time it's your turn to play the other man."

And so Zhang Youzhi, the other man, and Li Douyu checked into the shabby single room under the front-desk woman's startled gaze. At least it was fairly clean.

As soon as they entered, Li Douyu expertly locked the door, dropped the suitcase and backpack on the floor, and pounced on Zhang Youzhi, pushing him onto the bed.

"I'm the host here. Tonight, I'm on top!" Li Douyu told Zhang Youzhi fiercely.

"Really?" Zhang Youzhi asked, feigning surprise.

"Really." Li Douyu aimed for his lips and bit down.

After they had nibbled at each other for a while, Zhang Youzhi's large hands began to wander. Li Douyu thought he was joking around, but after she slapped the backs of his hands several times and he showed no sign of stopping, she began to panic.

"Holy shit, you're serious?!" Li Douyu crossed her arms over her chest, sitting astride Zhang Youzhi's waist as she spoke warily.

"Ms. Li, let's go to the Hanting Hotel. My treat. I want to sleep with you tonight," Zhang Youzhi said earnestly.

"Pah! Don't push your luck. A little touching at night is enough. We agreed we'd wait until we registered our marriage."

"Ah... But that's still so long."

"We've already waited five or six years. Another month or two won't hurt." Li Douyu lowered her head for another round of nibbling, then lay in his arms, still wanting more.

"Right. Another month or two won't hurt. I can't rush into having my way with you." Zhang Youzhi chuckled, patted her back, pulled the covers over both of them, and turned off the light.

Neither of them spoke in the darkness.

Li Douyu's little head rested snugly against Zhang Youzhi's chest, feeling the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat.

"Do you really want to?" Li Douyu bit her lip and rubbed herself against him again.

"An eighty-yuan bed is too shabby. It'll cramp my style." The young man hugged Li Douyu tightly beneath the covers.

"All right, then. We'll wait for a bigger bed." The girl hugged Zhang Youzhi tightly too.

A long while passed.

Only then did the girl's soft, timid voice reach him.

"If you can't wait, I'll let you touch me."

After saying that, Li Douyu made shy little noises for ages, but Zhang Youzhi gave no response.

She looked up and found that he had already fallen asleep.

Li Douyu let out a long breath, burrowed farther into his arms, and soon fell asleep herself.

The night outside the window was chilly, but the person in his arms was warm. Zhang Youzhi's heart warmed with her, so much that he couldn't sleep at all. He simply opened his eyes and kept watching Li Douyu curled up in his embrace.

She really is like a little fish.

Zhang Youzhi thought.