Depressed Chapter 8

Emily Dickinson

〔In my mind, a funeral is taking place
Mourners stream in, one after another
Endlessly walking, trampling
Until the atmosphere of the ceremony thickens〕

“Sigh, Shen Lian, did you hear?” The chubby boy at the desk in front leaned in, speaking with an air of mystery.

Shen Lian was packing his schoolbag. At the words, he looked up at him, playing along as he asked, “Hear what?”

“There’s been a death at our school…” The chubby boy lowered his voice, leaning even closer.

Shen Lian responded with a flat “Oh.”

If no one died, there would be no ghosts.

“They found the body in the little grove behind the hill… It was awful, covered in footprints… You couldn’t even make out the face…”

The chubby boy’s eyebrows danced as he spoke, painting the scene with vivid gestures, as if he had witnessed it himself.

How to put it—he was the very picture of a gossiping onlooker, like the long-tongued aunts in the village, chewing over, “Old Zhao from the east end picked two persimmons from the Qian family today, and yesterday the widow Sun from the west end brought home a strange man,” that sort of thing.

It was also like the Chinese crowds who would flock together to watch a beheading or a firing squad, jostling for a better view.

Shen Lian slung his bag over his shoulder, pulled out his chair, and said earnestly to the chubby boy, “I think you should sincerely pray for the dead to rest in peace.”

The chubby boy was stunned for a moment, just watching as Shen Lian walked out of the classroom.

The young man’s posture was upright, his waist slender, his legs long; his silhouette against the light looked like a poster for a romance drama’s leading man.

The chubby boy stared blankly at the impossibly cool Shen Lian, then looked down at his own pudgy hands and stuffed a chocolate into his mouth.

“What the hell…”

Shen Lian gazed at his own slightly youthful face in the mirror.

He was back in high school.

Everything before this had seemed perfectly normal: society was stable, people were prosperous, and the campus was filled with the energy of youth.

Everything was so civilized, so orderly.

Until the murder discovered today.

The police sealed off the back hill, the school kept the matter quiet, and the students who found the body were rewarded with guaranteed admission to university. Everyone was satisfied.

Shen Lian wanted to show a mocking smile, but what he pulled out was still gentle, warm as a spring breeze.

He frowned with a trace of self-disgust, forcing his face into a stern expression.

Yet the reflection in the mirror still smiled back, as if it were another version of himself from a parallel world.

That other self smiled as he mixed a glass of Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid, then swallowed a few cephalosporin tablets with it, and washed it all down with several bottles of liquor; that other self smiled as he slipped a few sleeping pills into his drink and tilted his head back to swallow it; that other self smiled as he chewed a handful of bitter apricot kernels, only to be sickened to the point of retching; that other self smiled as he cut his wrists and jumped from the hospital window.

That smile was not only gentle, but as radiant as a jade mountain in sunlight. (Note)

Yet he felt himself to be as petty and hypocritical as a clown capering on a stage.

He took a deep breath and said to the reflection, “You just want to provoke me, don’t you? Well, I took my meds today, so I won’t let you get to me.”

Then he went to the storage room, took out the toolbox, removed the mirror from the wall, and without a second glance, threw it out the third-floor window.

“I won’t let you get to me,” he said.

But he was provoked all the same.

And the mirror he threw nearly hit someone.

That person was standing on the path below his building, with a scatter of broken glass at his feet.

—This person looked very familiar.

Although he wasn’t wearing a white coat and looked a bit younger, even from three stories up, Shen Lian could sense the air of a cultured scoundrel about him.

One looked down, the other looked up; big eyes stared into small ones.

The atmosphere was decidedly strange.

“Hey, Doctor,” Shen Lian called, “I’m sorry.”

Zheng Qing was still caught between innocence and anger at this sudden disaster.

Without thinking, he shot back, “Do you think you’re Pan Jinlian? If Pan Jinlian threw things like you, Ximen Qing would have died ages ago.”

Shen Lian paused, then replied, “Doctor, you read Jin Ping Mei?”

Zheng Qing was also taken aback, craning his neck to answer, “…It’s from Water Margin.”

Resigned to his bad luck, he rubbed his sore neck and headed for the hospital.

A shard of glass had cut his forehead.