The dorm room door swung open, and a stale mix of smoke, sweat, and despair hit them in the face.
The eldest of the roommates walked in, swearing, and kicked an empty liquor bottle out of his way.
"Fuck!"
The bottle rolled into a corner with a hollow clatter, then went still.
Two beds stood empty, their boards bare. People sent by the university had already cleared away some of the bedding and clutter, leaving only a few personal belongings piled haphazardly at the foot of each bed.
The cramped space that had once held four people now felt unsettlingly empty.
Neither Wang Xiaoliang nor Li Jun spoke. They quietly got to work, one sorting Old Third's belongings, the other Old Fourth's.
Clothes, books, toiletries.
Item after item, stack after stack.
These things had once been full of life. Now every trace of it was gone.
Li Jun muttered under his breath as he packed, but his voice was much quieter now, more like an unconscious murmur.
Under Old Third's pillow, Wang Xiaoliang found a little plush charm: a rabbit with its head tilted, a dried stain still clinging to one ear. He remembered how long Old Third had waited in line at a fast-food restaurant to get it, just so he could give it to his girlfriend.
He slipped the rabbit into his pocket, then went on packing with a blank expression.
That afternoon, their student adviser called to say Old Third's parents had arrived and asked them to come to the office.
The atmosphere in the office was suffocating.
A middle-aged couple sat awkwardly on the sofa. Their clothes were clean, but clearly old styles they had worn for years. Deep lines creased the man's face, and his hands were large and rough, with dirt embedded beneath his nails that no amount of washing could remove. The woman's hair was already graying. From the moment they met her, her tears never stopped. She kept repeating something, but they could neither understand it nor make it out clearly.
They were Old Third's parents.
The student adviser and a department official sat beside them, offering bureaucratic platitudes.
"The university is deeply saddened by what happened..."
"We'll do everything we can to handle the arrangements. Please accept our condolences..."
Old Third's father moved his lips a few times before finally asking in a hoarse dialect, "Why... why did he do it?"
Everyone in the room fell silent.
The department official and the student adviser exchanged a glance.
Li Jun opened his mouth as if to say something, but swallowed his words when he caught the official's sidelong warning look.
Wang Xiaoliang simply recounted how they had discovered that Old Third had jumped from the building that morning, telling the truth without embellishment.
He looked at the two bewildered, helpless older people. Their clouded eyes were filled with confusion and immense grief. They could not understand why the son they had worked so hard to put through university had chosen to leave them in such a final, unforgiving way.
Wang Xiaoliang's heart clenched painfully.
He thought of his parents far away back home. If he were the one lying there...
No. I would never take my own life.
His parents would never survive something like this.
Before long, the fourth roommate's father arrived as well.
In stark contrast to Old Third's humble, unassuming parents, this man wore a crisp suit and had meticulously combed hair. Everything about him radiated a cold, condescending distance.
He came alone, and undisguised distaste remained on his face from beginning to end.
He asked very little. Once he had confirmed what had happened before and after the fourth roommate went mad, he requested to see the dorm room.
Inside, he walked straight to the fourth roommate's desk, picked up the expensive Alienware laptop, checked it, and put it in his bag.
"Get rid of the rest yourselves."
With that, he turned and left without another glance at the empty bed, as though this were not the place where his son had lived for four years, but a pile of trash that needed clearing away as soon as possible.
Li Jun stared after him until he disappeared down the hallway, then forced a few words through clenched teeth.
"With a father like that, it'd be a miracle if he didn't go crazy!"
"And to think I envied him for having a rich family and never having to worry about money."
Once it had been confirmed that the university would take full responsibility for Old Third's funeral arrangements,
Old Third's parents left as well, heading to the hotel the university had arranged.
The dorm room fell lifeless again.
Two empty metal bed frames. Two dazed young men.
Trapped?
Wang Xiaoliang sat in his chair, unable to settle.
He wanted to escape this place.
Right now. Immediately.
He switched on his computer and typed in the address for 58.com with practiced ease.
Rental listings appeared one after another: single rooms, shared apartments, one-bedroom apartments...
But when he saw monthly rents routinely running into the thousands, the tiny spark of hope that had just kindled inside him was instantly doused.
He thought of the pitiful amount left in his WeChat balance. That was his living money for the second half of the month.
Move out? With what money?
Despair and frustration surged through him again.
A transplanted tree might die, but a person who moved could thrive.
The saying kept circling in his mind.
If I can't physically move away from this "foul" place, then... wouldn't moving the "foulness" out of here count as moving too?
Bring this filthy, dispirited, death-filled space back to life.
Once the thought took hold, he could no longer suppress it.
Wang Xiaoliang shot to his feet.
"Let's get to work!"
Li Jun jumped and stared at him blankly.
"What work?"
Wang Xiaoliang offered no explanation. He simply grabbed a broom and started sweeping up the trash on the floor: liquor bottles, cigarette butts, snack wrappers...
Li Jun watched his busy figure for a moment, then quietly picked up a mop and joined him.
Neither spoke. There was only the sound of cleaning.
They bagged all the trash, then dragged out the dust and clutter that had accumulated under the beds for years. They knocked down the cobwebs in the corners and wiped the dusty desktops until they could see their reflections.
Finally, they came to the window.
The window Old Third had jumped from.
Wang Xiaoliang climbed onto the windowsill, a wet rag in his hand, and wiped the glass bit by bit.
When he looked down, he saw the slightly lighter patch on the concrete below.
Right here.
A thought rose unbidden.
What would it feel like to jump from here?
Weightlessness, the rush of wind, then... bang!
Everything would be over.
His calf suddenly cramped. His body went limp, and he toppled backward.
"Xiaoliang!"
An arm clamped around his waist from behind.
It was Li Jun.
His face was full of terror.
"Bro, you're not fucking thinking of killing yourself too, are you?"
Wang Xiaoliang gasped for breath, his heart pounding wildly, unable to say a word.
After an afternoon of hard work, the entire dorm room looked brand-new.
Wang Xiaoliang even ran to the supermarket for a bottle of lemon-scented air freshener and sprayed every inch of the room.
The acrid smoke and sour sweat were gone, replaced by a fresh fragrance. The floor was spotless, the desks, chairs, and beds neatly arranged, and the windows shone almost blindingly.
Standing in the space he had transformed with his own hands, Wang Xiaoliang felt that much of the heaviness in his chest had lifted too.
He took off his sweat-soaked clothes, gathered a change of clothes and his toiletries, and went to the washroom opposite their dorm.
It served as both a washroom and a bathing area. A row of bare taps lined it, and the floor was always wet.
He turned on a tap. Cold water poured over his head, making him shudder.
As he scrubbed the grime from his body, he trod on the foul-smelling clothes beneath his feet.
Just then, he raised his head and noticed the washroom's empty doorframe.
There was no door.
The washroom faced their dorm room directly.
The sound of running water that never stopped all year round, and the dampness that never dispersed, flowed endlessly toward their room.
The words from the Book of Fate surfaced clearly in his mind again.
"Do not sleep near filth; do not dwell near damp."
Sleeping somewhere dark and damp would taint a person with foul energy and deplete their yang energy.
Wasn't this doorless washroom the biggest source of dampness and yin energy in their dorm?
No.
This washroom had to have a door.
Before you continue