The Fatal Blow

Wang Xiaoliang actually wanted to turn to the next page, but he remembered the warning on the previous one.

He stopped.

He felt he had gained some insight, but was that enough?

As he hesitated, something broke the silence.

A muffled sob came from the next bed.

It was Li Jun, the oldest of their roommates.

He was curled up on the bed, his shoulders shaking violently.

"I'm so scared..."

Li Jun's sobs were thick and nasal, painfully jarring in the deathly silent room.

"Whenever I close my eyes, I see Zhou Tao... I see him falling... and I hear Zhao Weiqiang laughing..."

He spoke in broken fragments, his whole body trembling.

"It's so terrifying..."

Wang Xiaoliang tucked the book under his pillow, sat up, and patted Li Jun's back. His body was rigid, his muscles taut.

"It's okay now. It's all over."

Even Wang Xiaoliang didn't believe his own words of comfort.

Was it over?

There was no getting past this.

"It's not over!" Li Jun suddenly sat up, glaring at Wang Xiaoliang with bloodshot eyes. "How could it be? One dead, one insane! I've been fucking losing my mind for ages!"

Those words made Wang Xiaoliang's heart clench.

Li Jun seemed to have found an outlet. Tears and snot covered his face, but he didn't care.

"I won't graduate... I won't get my diploma, never mind my degree. What am I supposed to tell my parents?"

He pulled at his hair, his voice filled with despair.

"I'm useless! Completely fucking useless!"

"Every day, I open my eyes and either scroll through short videos or play games, just eating and waiting to die! Every month, I just wait for my parents to send me money! I'm a fucking leech!"

"I've only got a few months of this left... and I might not even get my fucking diploma... What can I do? What can I do out there?"

"What am I supposed to do, being this useless?"

Every anguished shout from Li Jun felt to Wang Xiaoliang like an accusation aimed at him.

Wang Xiaoliang wanted to offer some comfort, but he couldn't find the right words.

After thinking for a long time, he finally squeezed out a sentence.

"Don't think so much. Worst comes to worst... we can find work, deliver food, wait tables. We should at least be able to support ourselves, right?"

"Support ourselves? I studied my ass off for over ten years and got into college, just to end up fighting people who only finished middle school for jobs? Delivering food? Doing manual labor? Even if I could accept that, could my parents?"

"Why did I bother in the first place? I should've just stayed in our backwater city! Being some office clerk or running a little business would've been better than this!"

Wang Xiaoliang couldn't argue.

Exactly. Why bother?

He had asked himself that question countless times.

Li Jun's sobs gradually stopped, leaving his face blank.

Neither spoke as they sat facing each other, enveloped by an immense shadow called despair.

A long while passed.

"Xiaoliang." Li Jun suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know... why Old Third couldn't see a way out?"

Wang Xiaoliang's heart tightened again.

"Wasn't it because... he broke up with his girlfriend?" Wang Xiaoliang had always thought Old Third couldn't escape the pain of that breakup.

Everyone in their room knew about it. Old Third had a very pretty girlfriend from his hometown. They had been together since high school and had always been close.

Some time ago, the girl had asked to break up.

After that, Old Third hadn't eaten or drunk anything for two days, just lying in bed until he looked like a different person. Only after the others dragged him to the cafeteria and forced two bowls of congee into him had he slowly recovered.

But hadn't some time passed since then?

"Yes, and no." Li Jun shook his head and reached for the cigarette pack on the bedside table. His hands shook so badly that it took several attempts to light one.

He took a deep drag, and the smoke he exhaled blurred his haggard face.

"The breakup was the first cut."

"Getting expelled was the fatal blow."

"You weren't here yesterday. The counselor came to the room to talk to him. The expulsion notice was issued yesterday afternoon."

Expelled?

Why?

For a college student on the verge of graduating, that word was crueler than any torture.

It meant four years of youth wasted.

It meant all his hard work had come to nothing.

It meant carrying a stain he could never wash away, too ashamed to face his parents.

So that was what had driven Old Third to such a final decision.

Their friend, who had once loved to laugh and joke, the resourceful guy who could keep the electricity in their room from ever being cut off, had chosen the most horrific way to end his present after being utterly stripped of his future.

Bang, bang, bang!

Urgent, forceful knocking shattered the room's deathly silence.

Wang Xiaoliang and Li Jun exchanged a glance, each seeing fear in the other's eyes.

Li Jun instinctively stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

Wang Xiaoliang went over and opened the door.

Three people stood outside.

At the front was a stern-faced staff member from campus security. Beside him stood a smiling teacher from the Academic Affairs Office, wearing glasses. At the back was their counselor, a young teacher who had graduated only a few years earlier. Perhaps because of Old Third's suicide, his face looked unusually pale.

"Wang Xiaoliang, Li Jun," the security officer said without preamble. "Come with us."

The teacher from the Academic Affairs Office adjusted his glasses and added in a businesslike tone, "There are a few things we need to discuss with you."

Wang Xiaoliang and Li Jun silently put on their shoes and followed them.

The hotel's corridor was long and carpeted, their footsteps making no sound. The oppressive atmosphere made it hard to breathe.

In a small conference room, the teachers motioned for them to sit.

"We called you here mainly for three things." The teacher from the Academic Affairs Office cleared his throat and began reading.

"First, regarding the expulsion of Zhou Tao, your third roommate. At present, very few people know about this. In the spirit of humanitarian concern and respect for the deceased, the university has decided, after deliberation, to revoke his expulsion. We hope you won't spread word of this any further. It would do no one any good."

An indescribable wave of disgust rose inside Wang Xiaoliang.

Now that he was dead, they were revoking his expulsion?

Were you mocking Old Third, or yourselves?

"Second, the parents of Zhou Tao and Zhao Weiqiang, your fourth roommate, will arrive at the university this afternoon. As their roommates, you should return to your dorm shortly, gather their belongings and luggage, pack everything up, and bring it to the Academic Affairs Office."

"Third," the teacher's gaze swept over them both, "when you meet their parents, a few words of comfort will suffice. Don't say anything you shouldn't. Understood?"

What exactly shouldn't they say?

The part about the expulsion?

How many years had it been since they last expelled a graduating student? Why did they have to expel Old Third?

Seeing how devastated they looked, the counselor seemed unable to bear it and added, "Please take care of yourselves, too. The university will do its best to handle the aftermath."

Handle the aftermath.

How nice that sounded.

Just as the teachers were about to lead them out, Wang Xiaoliang suddenly spoke, his voice quiet but clear.

"Sir, how is Zhao Weiqiang?"

"He's been diagnosed with schizophrenia."

Fear rose in him again. He worried for Zhao Weiqiang and became even more certain that Room 404 was an ill-fated place.

"Then, could we... could we move to another room?"

The teacher from the Academic Affairs Office paused, then smiled.

"Wang, we understand how you feel. But with graduation approaching, dormitory space is extremely limited, and making adjustments would be very difficult. Please try to cope for now. The university will consider it."

The smile was polite, the answer formulaic.

They would consider it.

That meant no.

Wang Xiaoliang's heart sank little by little.

Once they left the conference room, the teachers quickly dispersed, leaving him and Li Jun standing in the office building's corridor.

A huge full-length mirror stood in a corner of the lobby.

Wang Xiaoliang happened to glance over and saw his reflection.

His face was as pale as paper, with heavy, dark circles beneath his eyes. Stubble covered his chin, and his greasy hair lay plastered to his scalp. His loose outer jacket was wrinkled, too.

He looked utterly defeated, filthy, and wretched.

He suddenly remembered the words in the Book of Fate.

"Sweep and clean your courtyard, keeping yourself away from filth; cleanse and compose your appearance, keeping filth from clinging to you."

Filth.

Wasn't the way he looked now the perfect embodiment of filth?

People said luck was a goddess.

If luck truly was a woman, she probably wouldn't want to linger even a second after seeing him like this.

An inexplicable surge of irritation and disgust rose from deep within him.

"Come on. Let's go back to the dorm," Li Jun urged beside him.

After crying, he seemed to feel considerably better.

"Yeah. Let's go."

Walking beside him, Li Jun cursed under his breath. "Fuck, not one of those officials is any good! They revoke the expulsion once he's dead. What the hell were they doing before? And now they want us to pack his things. Aren't they just trying to wash their hands of the blame?"

Something clicked in Wang Xiaoliang's mind.

"Li Jun, the university just wants his parents to think Old Third died for personal reasons, that it had nothing to do with them. Things like the breakup or not being able to find a job."

"Exactly! When his parents arrive, they'll lay out all this 'evidence,' hand over some compensation, and call it settled!" Li Jun was equally indignant.

"That bastard Old Third was so fucking selfish! He just jumped and ended it all! He's free now. Wasn't it just a breakup? Wasn't it just an expulsion? How big a deal could it be? Fuck!"

"And the university just expelled him out of nowhere! Fuck, didn't he just fail a few classes? Was that really necessary? So many people fail classes every year, and I've never seen them get expelled. Who the fuck did Old Third piss off?"

"This world is so fucking unfair! Why? Why do some people have their families arrange jobs before they even graduate? Staying on as teachers, getting into state-owned companies, becoming civil servants? What about us? We're like dogs, unemployed the moment we graduate!"

His complaints shifted from Old Third to the university, then to the entire world.

Finally, he turned his anger on Old Third's girlfriend.

"And Liang Yanni! She's a real piece of shit! How good was Old Third to her? He scrimped and saved to buy her a phone and makeup! And what happened? She came to the big city, saw all its glitz, and dumped him! She thought our Old Third was too poor to give her the life she wanted!"

"A woman like that is a fucking bitch! She's forgotten where she came from!"

Wang Xiaoliang listened silently, without interrupting.

He knew Li Jun needed to vent.

So did he.

But he kept all his resentment and hatred buried deep inside, beneath that eerie Book of Fate.

Before they knew it, they had reached the foot of the dormitory building.

The building he had lived in for almost four years now looked to Wang Xiaoliang like a monstrous beast waiting to devour someone, its pitch-black mouth gaping open.

The blood had been washed off the concrete, leaving a patch lighter than the ground around it.

Li Jun stopped and looked up at that hollow fourth-floor window. His cursing cut off abruptly, and a dry heave rose in his throat.

Wang Xiaoliang looked up as well.

The window stared motionlessly back at them.

Gusts of early spring wind swept over them, making both young men shudder.