Li Douyu and Zhang Youzhi were catching fish in the river. Clear, cool water lapped around her little feet as she rolled up her trouser legs and sleeves, watching the crystal-clear stream intently.
"That won't work. Watch me."
Wearing a straw hat and holding a bamboo rod, Zhang Youzhi sat on a rock. A thin line tied to the rod disappeared into the water.
"The fish here are too clever. You can't catch them with a rod." The girl scoffed, then reached into the water again to turn over a stone.
If she couldn't catch any fish, a couple of crabs would do nicely.
They each busied themselves in their own way until someone appeared in the distance.
It was Li Douyu's grandmother.
"Granny!" Li Douyu shouted, dropping the stone and running over barefoot.
"Oh, catching fish?" Grandma slowly reached out to steady her.
"Hehe, I wanted to catch some fish to make fish soup for Youzhi." Li Douyu smiled bashfully, then pulled a miserable face. "I haven't caught a single one. Not even a crab."
Zhang Youzhi simply sat quietly on his rock. He glanced their way, then returned his attention to his toy fishing rod.
"It's all right if you can't catch any. Come home for lunch. We've got plenty of watermelon." Grandma patted Li Douyu, then called to the young man upstream.
"Come home and eat."
"All right, Grandma! Yuyu and I will be right back," Zhang Youzhi called from afar.
After calling them home for lunch, Grandma turned and left with her hands behind her back. Once she was far enough away, Li Douyu stealthily waded across the little stream, crept up behind Zhang Youzhi, and pounced with a wild cry.
They both tumbled into the water, fishing rod and all.
Once he was sure he had cushioned Li Douyu's fall, the exhausted Zhang Youzhi simply lay still on the riverbed with his eyes open.
They called it a river, but it was really a stream barely two meters wide and a little over ten centimeters deep. His mouth and nose just cleared the surface, while the rest of him lay submerged. Clear ripples danced over his eyes as he kept them open underwater, gazing at the glittering world beyond.
"Hey, why didn't you catch me?"
Li Douyu clambered up, dripping wet. She looked at Zhang Youzhi soaking in the water, considered for a moment, then leaned down to kiss him.
The stream was fed by snowmelt from the mountains, and its icy water had soaked them both through. Fortunately, the midday sun was strong enough that they weren't too cold.
The only witnesses nearby were probably a few clueless sheep on the hillside.
Their shirts billowed into pouches on the surface. In that shallow layer of water, Zhang Youzhi mounted several feeble counterattacks.
Soon, he stopped struggling.
Satisfied, Li Douyu simply lay on top of him, resting her head against his chin and feeling the steady thump of his heartbeat.
They huddled in the stream like ingredients in a pot of soup.
"Hey, my pampered young master, what's wrong? I even brought you out to catch fish, and you're still unhappy?"
Zhang Youzhi hid his face in the water and blew a few bubbles.
Li Douyu forcibly turned his face back up.
"Trying to drown yourself? Let me help you."
With that, she kissed him a few more times. It had always been a foolproof trick in the past. Two rounds were usually enough to make her boyfriend as obedient as could be.
Finally catching his breath, Zhang Youzhi struggled to sit up and gathered the soaking-wet Li Douyu into his arms.
"I might have to head back tomorrow."
"Back? Where? Yimeng? Didn't we just come back from there?"
Li Douyu pressed herself against him, as though trying to share as much of her warmth as possible.
Feeling the warm body in his arms, Zhang Youzhi kissed her forehead. "Not Yimeng. I'm going on my own."
"Take me with you," Li Douyu said without hesitation.
"No. Just me."
"Why?"
"Well, an old classmate of mine has cancer. He probably doesn't have much time left. There are some things he wants to tell me, and he doesn't want me bringing anyone along. Be good and stay home."
After hearing that, Li Douyu immediately stopped arguing.
"Cancer? What kind? Can it still be treated? Which classmate is this?"
"Terminal brain cancer. You don't know him. He was a high school classmate," Zhang Youzhi said.
Li Douyu's brow furrowed more and more. She clearly wanted to ask something else, but seeing how downcast Zhang Youzhi was, and remembering how listless her boyfriend had been since they returned to her home, she couldn't help feeling a pang of heartache.
"All right, all right. Go, then. I'll be good and wait at home for you." Li Douyu pulled Zhang Youzhi out of the stream, and they lay down together on the soft grass by the water.
The blazing sun quickly dried the water on their bodies.
After a while, Li Douyu spoke again, her voice cautious.
"Are you leaving tomorrow?"
"Yes. While he's still lucid."
"When will you be back?"
"Well... I don't know. I really can't say."
"What does he want to tell you?"
"We made a promise a long time ago. Whichever one of us was dying would call the other over, alone."
"How come I've never heard of this friend? It isn't Zhou Mo, is it?"
"He's alive and well. Don't curse him," Zhang Youzhi said, caught between laughter and tears.
"A man or a woman?" Li Douyu asked suspiciously.
At that, Zhang Youzhi pushed himself upright on the grass, retrieved his phone from the bank, and opened a chat with a blank profile picture.
There was a record of a video call lasting over three hours.
A photo of a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer.
And a very long voice message.
The voice belonged to a young man and sounded just as one might expect from someone with terminal cancer: weak and rambling, with an undercurrent of self-mockery and despair. Li Douyu was ninety percent convinced.
"I didn't even know you had a friend like this. Ah." Li Douyu sighed.
"We lost touch after high school, but he's real, and so is our promise. I never told you about him, so it's only natural you didn't know." Zhang Youzhi smiled.
"Big guy, don't be too sad. Everyone has their own fate. You have to take care of yourself." Li Douyu hugged Zhang Youzhi, holding him tightly.
"Boss Yuyu is right. Everyone has their own fate. He was just too unlucky."
"I can't bear having you away for too long. Come straight back after you've seen him."
"All right."
They waited until the sun had dried them before going home. Even Li Douyu wasn't thick-skinned enough to return with her shirt and trousers soaked through. She still knew how to be shy in front of her family.
Her father came home at noon with a basket of Sichuan peppercorns on his back. He hurried through a few mouthfuls of food, then went to his room to sleep.
Li Douyu had intended to take Zhang Youzhi along to help her father, but he refused on the spot.
"You two have only just got back. Get some proper rest. There aren't many peppercorns left. I'll finish picking them myself in a couple of days."
Li Douyu could only give up.
Including today, she and Zhang Youzhi had been back in Longnan for just three days. She hadn't expected him to have to leave again so soon.
Reluctant to part with him, Li Douyu began packing Zhang Youzhi's suitcase.
"I don't need a suitcase. A backpack will do."
And so Zhang Youzhi's backpack was stuffed full of food and clothes.
"Come back soon." Li Douyu's eyes brimmed with tears.
"I'm not leaving until tomorrow. There's no rush."
"I'll take you to Longnan Station tomorrow."
"You get carsick. I can go by myself."
"I'm taking you."
"All right."
That evening, Li Douyu's father borrowed a van from a relative, though he couldn't drive himself.
Zhang Youzhi offered to drive the van.
Her father refused and called over his younger cousin, who could drive. He would come along himself, too.
At the first glimmer of dawn, Li Douyu's grandmother had already prepared a day's worth of food for the four of them. Then she stood in the hazy morning light and waved them goodbye.
The driver was Li Tiegang, a younger paternal cousin of Li Douyu's father.
The two middle-aged men sat in the driver's and front passenger's seats, discussing this year's peppercorn prices, then the apple harvest, whose leased fields had yielded well, whose village subsidies had been pocketed by someone else, and who in the village had gotten into another fight.
They talked all morning as the van bumped along the road.
Zhang Youzhi and Li Douyu dozed in the back seat, leaning against each other. With those two fully grown adults up front, they looked even more like a pair of children.
So what if they were twenty-five? In front of real adults, they might as well have been fifteen.
Once they reached the city, Li Tiegang went to fill up the van.
Without taking no for an answer, Li Douyu's father shouldered Zhang Youzhi's large backpack and followed the two of them up toward Longnan's high-speed rail station.
At the station entrance, Li Douyu was still rattling off reminders to Zhang Youzhi: keep his ID safe, don't put his phone on silent, let her know when he arrived. Everything she nagged him about was something Zhang Youzhi used to remind her of.
Now Li Douyu was drilling it all back into his head.
"Hey, where's my dad?" Li Douyu suddenly realized.
"Looking at the view." Zhang Youzhi pointed to a short figure in the distance. Her father stood on the station's elevated platform, looking down over much of the city.
"Quick, while he's not looking. Let's have a goodbye kiss." Giggling, Li Douyu moved closer.
Zhang Youzhi abruptly pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely.
"Mmph! Mmph!" Li Douyu's eyes widened as she struggled hard.
A goodbye kiss was supposed to be a quick peck. Why make it so intense?
There were so many people around. She didn't want to embarrass herself like this.
But it was no use. Zhang Youzhi was surprisingly strong this time. He simply kissed her insistently, almost lifting her clear off the ground.
After who knew how long, Zhang Youzhi finally set the flushed Li Douyu back down. Seeing the people staring around them, she almost buried her head in his chest again out of sheer embarrassment.
"Li Douyu, I have to go."
"No. Don't go." Li Douyu's voice was quieter than a mosquito.
"Then let's hug a little longer."
Holding Li Douyu, Zhang Youzhi gave the man before him a faint smile.
Her father only looked silently at his daughter. His lips moved slightly; he clearly wanted to say something.
Still holding Li Douyu, Zhang Youzhi slowly shook his head at him.
The two men looked at each other in silence.
A moment later.
"Stop being shy. Your dad's here," Zhang Youzhi whispered, teasing her with a scare.
"Ah!"
Li Douyu turned in a panic, only to find her father standing there. She had no idea how long he had been watching.
"Ahhh! Zhang! You! Zhi! Why didn't you tell me sooner? You're dead!" Mortified and furious, Li Douyu looked between the two men, then stamped her foot, left Zhang Youzhi, and ran into her father's arms.
This time, nothing could make her lift her head.
"Dad, take good care of Yuyu. I'm off."
"Mm." Her father nodded at him.
Hearing Zhang Youzhi call him Dad, Li Douyu was utterly stunned. She pointed at Zhang Youzhi, then at her own father, and stammered out a question.
"W-what did you just call my dad?"
"Dad." Zhang Youzhi grinned at Li Douyu.
Before Li Douyu could recover, Zhang Youzhi suddenly shouted to her.
"Li Douyu, I love you!"
His voice was so loud that everyone nearby jumped. As people turned to look, the shy girl could only bury herself completely in her father's arms.
This was mortifying.
Zhang Youzhi took one last lingering look at her, then turned and walked into the station. In an instant, he melted into the crowd and disappeared without a trace.
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