Li Douyu

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Li Douyu (李兜鱼)
Alias(es)	Little Mermaid; Yuyu; jokingly called the literary club’s “mascot” by Zhang Youzhi 5 8
Species/Race	Human 35 47
Gender	Female 5
Hometown	Maziping Village, in the Longnan mountains 5 6
Affiliation	White Jade Capital Company; formerly a university literary club member 5 50
Occupation/Role	Elementary-school language teacher; later contracted to White Jade Capital with spectator status 34 49 50
Emotional Disaster Classification	First known individual S-rank emotional disaster carrier 31 35
Status	Alive; recovered from a bullet wound to the heart after receiving part of the Golden Pill 46 47 50
First Appearance	Mentioned in Chapter 4; appears directly in Chapter 5 4 5

Background / History

Li Douyu comes from a rural family in Maziping Village. Her father raises sheep and harvests Sichuan peppercorns, while her grandmother formerly worked as a barefoot doctor and practiced traditional Chinese medicine. Their isolated hillside home remains a familiar destination for Douyu and Zhang Youzhi 6 7.

She met Zhang during university literary-club recruitment, when he was a year above her. He joked that he selected her because the club needed a mascot and “a fish” suited the role. By their journey to Longnan, she had kept his first gift—a Luo Xiaohei eye mask—for five years. They also experienced a period of long-distance dating after graduation 5 12.

Douyu became an elementary-school teacher and states that she has been teaching for two years. She and Zhang planned to marry, but he concealed his terminal liver cancer and returned her to her family before leaving to die alone 4 7 34.

Appearance

• Build and face: Short, with a delicate face and fair skin; Zhang describes her as very pretty 5 36.
• Early clothing: Wears a pale green shirt when Zhang collects her from school 5.
• Search disguise: Uses a sun hat, sunglasses, a mask, and a long-sleeved shirt while posting notices in Kaiyuan Mall 34.
• Boy disguise: Later cuts her hair into a jagged crop, wears gender-neutral clothing, and smears dirt on her face to resemble a middle-school boy 40.

Personality

Douyu is exuberant, teasing, and openly affectionate with Zhang. On returning to Longnan, she loudly announces herself as the mountains’ “queen,” then bargains a taxi fare down from twenty yuan to ten. Her thrift also leads her to reject expensive plane tickets, while her playful streak makes a cheap hotel appealing because it feels like a secret affair 5.

Her apparent dependence on Zhang conceals considerable independence. She initially insists that she is afraid of strangers and has no need to learn travel transfers because she has him. After his disappearance, however, she travels alone to Songjiang, investigates hospitals, recruits student contacts, and repeatedly outmaneuvers the company’s specialists. Number Two eventually criticizes Zhang’s description of her as innocent and naïve 5 33 38 42.

Her courage does not eliminate fear. Surveillance and a persistent stalker leave her increasingly distrustful, and she breaks down crying after struggling to wield her chainsaw. When cornered, that fear becomes lethal determination; when she believes Zhang is gone, even her composure in a dangerous hideout collapses 36 37 44.

Douyu’s loyalty remains her strongest priority. She cares for Zhang when he struggles to eat, searches for him despite uncertainty, and accepts his abnormal return without hesitation. She signs the company’s employment agreement because she believes they owe it his life and should earn money to repay it 7 33 48 50.

Abilities & Skills

S-Rank Emotional Disaster Potential

White Jade Capital identifies Douyu as the first known person capable of originating an individual S-rank emotional disaster 31 35.

• The company’s prediction system detected the prospective disaster roughly a year before identifying her as its source 31.
• Zhang’s death is central to the company’s concern; its interventions aim to prevent her emotional destabilization 38 43.
• Number Two believes that Douyu and Zhang stabilize one another when together, likening them to a binary-star system 46.
• This classification measures an emotional-disaster threat, not a documented cultivation realm or combat rank 35.

Investigation and Counter-Surveillance

Douyu detects inconsistencies in the impersonator controlling Zhang’s accounts and investigates without revealing that she knows 33 34.

• Tests the impostor with a private code shared only with Zhang 34.
• Maintains normal-looking conversations to avoid alerting whoever controls his accounts 33.
• Checks major hospitals and finds no record supporting Zhang’s story about a terminally ill friend 33.
• Establishes contacts at Songjiang University and pays students for assistance 33.
• Recognizes recurring faces and becomes suspicious of staged “chance encounters” 34 36.
• Records traffickers’ conversations, sends police her analysis, and shares her live location while following them 43.

Fighting and Improvised Defense

Number Two describes Douyu as a skilled fighter; the Hypnotist likewise discovers that her file failed to mention her martial-arts ability 42 44.

• Kills a stalker with a fruit knife when he attacks her 37.
• Strikes the Hypnotist with a backward elbow and pursues him with a stun baton 44.
• Holds a razor blade against an armed driver’s neck while attempting to take his gun 46.
• Shoots at the driver to protect Nanmen Yingyun 46.
• Her abilities have limits: the driver disarms her, and the ensuing confrontation leaves her critically wounded 46.

Deception and Social Strategy

Douyu can present herself as harmless or frightened while acting decisively. Number Two explicitly recognizes her as an exceptionally convincing liar 42.

• After killing the stalker, she places his fingerprints on the knife, tears her coat, disarranges her hair, and cries before officers arrive 37.
• Uses formal complaints and evidence of surveillance against the five company experts; Number Two suspects she is trying to force their organization to reveal Zhang’s fate 38.
• Explains her conversations with the invisible Zhang as exchanges with an “other personality.” Hospital staff note that her medical records do not support that claim 47.

Resistance to Hypnosis

The Hypnotist’s immobilizing command fails to affect Douyu during their confrontation on the water tower 44.

• She remains mobile after his initial command and a second, discreet attempt 44.
• The passages establish resistance to those attempts, not universal immunity to every form of hypnosis 44.

Perception of Zhang Youzhi

After their rescue, Douyu becomes the sole person able to see Zhang in his partially restored state 48.

• Can see and physically embrace him while others perceive empty space 48.
• Cameras capture Zhang when she operates them, but other people’s photographs and recordings do not 48.
• Demonstrates his existence to the five experts by taking a group photograph 48.
• This exclusivity ends when Corpse Floaty Yogurt makes Zhang visible to others 50.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Luo Xiaohei eye mask — Zhang’s first gift to her; worn for five years despite fading, and never willingly replaced 5.
• Chainsaw — Bought to defend her rented room, following Zhang’s earlier recommendation. She keeps wood nearby as cover for claiming to be a root-carving enthusiast; its twenty-pound weight makes it difficult to wield or carry 33 36 40 42.
• Fruit knife — Used against the stalker and later submitted for forensic examination 37 39.
• Police baton / stun baton — A policewoman gives her a baton, which she chooses over the cumbersome chainsaw; she later uses a crackling stun baton against the Hypnotist 40 44.
• Razor blade — Used to threaten the getaway-car driver before he disarms her 46.
• Golden Pill portion — Given to her by Zhang after her critical shooting injury; brings her back from the brink of death 46 48.
• Company phone and 10,000 points — Received after signing her White Jade Capital contract 50.

Relationships

• Zhang Youzhi — Boyfriend and intended husband. His disappearance drives her search, and she remains devoted to him after his death and partial restoration 5 7 33 48.
• Her father — Provides her with a home and family support. He agrees to conceal Zhang’s terminal illness, though he doubts that his stubborn daughter will remain unaware 7.
• Her grandmother — An affectionate family elder and former medical practitioner who notices signs of Zhang’s illness 6 7 8.
• Zhou Mo — Zhang’s childhood friend. His dismissal of her concerns makes her suspect that he knows more than he admits 4 33.
• Li Fei — Police officer who becomes strongly protective of her, helps publicize Zhang’s disappearance, and leads an unauthorized squad into the trafficking compound 39 44 49.
• Nanmen Yingyun — Initially a distrusted surveillance-team member. Douyu later saves her during the gunfight, and the two reconcile warmly 37 46 48.
• Si Weizhe, Bai Song, Wen Xuanjing, and Gu Yu — Members of the company team trying to gain her trust. She has them arrested alongside Nanmen, then apologizes and declares all five her friends after learning the circumstances 38 48.
• The Hypnotist — Hired by Zhang and initially mistaken for an attacker. He protects Douyu at the hideout and is shot during the escape; later reports confirm that he survives 44 46 49.
• Number Two — Oversees the company’s interventions around her, recognizes how badly its staff underestimated her, and eventually assigns her spectator status 38 42 50.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Return to Longnan

• Travels home with Zhang, unaware that he intends to leave her safely with her family before dying alone 5 6.
• Notices his difficulty eating but accepts his explanation that he has an upset stomach 7.
• Helps him leave after he claims that a high-school friend has terminal brain cancer. At the station, he publicly declares his love and calls her father “Dad” 8.

Search for the Missing Zhang

• Rejects Kailin’s flashy approach and shows no interest in the company’s replacement-romance efforts 9.
• Becomes the intended target of a hypnosis plan designed to blur her memories of Zhang; the company also impersonates him online 10 12.
• Detects the deception, travels secretly to Songjiang, and rents a fortified room opposite the police station 33.
• Posts coded notices reading “Big Winter Melon, Big Winter Melon, are you there?” Her search expands to more than a thousand notices 34 36.

Stalker Attack and the Experts’ Arrest

• Calls police when a stalker corners her, then kills him during the confrontation and alters the scene before officers arrive 37.
• Denies friendship with the company team and files complaints after police discover a tracker in her shoe and extensive surveillance material 38 39.
• Is cleared on self-defense grounds. Police escort her home, arrange practical protection, and print more than ten thousand copies of her coded notice 39.
• Her actions prompt company leadership to pursue Zhang’s resurrection as a way to stabilize her 38.

Trafficking Investigation and Shooting

• Leaves police protection in a boy disguise and follows traffickers because she fears Zhang may have been abducted 40 43.
• Locates an unfinished residential development holding hundreds of children and livestreams evidence to police 44.
• Escapes the water tower with the Hypnotist’s help, but is subsequently abducted into a Mercedes-Benz, where she comforts a crying infant 44 45.
• Fights the driver and protects Nanmen, suffering a bullet wound to the heart. Zhang reaches her and gives her the remaining Golden Pill 46 47.

Recovery and Company Employment

• Recovers with extraordinary speed and conceals Zhang’s invisible presence from hospital staff through her “other personality” explanation 47.
• Reconciles with the five experts and proves Zhang’s presence with a photograph 48.
• Considers leaving teaching after hearing about the company’s benefits and seeing its beauty products 49.
• Signs a spectator-status contract alongside Zhang, who is assigned dangerous missions 50.

Notable Quotes

“What is there to be jealous of? I’m the fish in your pocket, not anyone else’s.” 5

“Ah, mountains! Your queen brought her man back!” 5

“Okay. Wherever you go, I’ll go.” 48

“You already owe their company your life. If I don’t hurry up and work to earn some money, how are we going to repay them?” 50