TRIGGER WARNING

Please note that the following case involves talk about committing suicide, in particular, college students in a culture where getting a degree is everything.

If you are not comfortable with this topic, please skip this case and move onto another, since the cases are not linked.

If you struggle with real life issues or if you know someone who does, please talk to someone and get professional help if you need to.

The sickening sound of the school bell ringing after class always awakened me rudely from my slumber. I turned over and saw that the sun was still high in the sky. We were probably only done with the first period of school.

I was right. It didn’t take long for my dorm mates to come streaming back into the dorm, blatantly disrespecting anyone still sleeping by noisily discussing all the lessons they had learned earlier while grabbing their textbooks and notes for their next class.

Before leaving, the resident assistant of my dormitory was alert enough to spot me still lying on my bed. He glanced at me and asked a dumb question, “You’re going to keep sleeping?”

My eyes remained shut as I replied, “Yeah,” then turned the other way to face the wall instead.

He said to my back, “Get up.”

My eyes were bleary as I asked, “Why?”

The RA started reprimanding me like he was the production manager of the most efficient production line in the world. “I am the head of your dormitory, a member of our Study Council, as well as the Vice-President of the Student Council. I believe I have the responsibility to take you in hand, Muyun. Everyone else has left for class but you’re sleeping away in your room. Did you apply to the university just to sleep?”

He had clearly only noticed that I was sleeping in and skipping class in the daytime but hadn’t noticed how I had spent the entire night gaming at the internet café. His question would have included other points otherwise.

I gave him a simple reply, “No.”

He continued to harp on the small details. “Turn around when you talk to me.”

I didn’t just turn around, but I also glared at him. “What?”

The fact that I was willing to open my eyes and talk to him face to face surprised him and he took it as a sign that I was willing to turn over a new leaf. So, he said in a righteous sounding voice, “Did you know that Mr. Chen called on you in class just now?”

“Oh,” was the only response I could come up with. My lack of response wasn’t a sign of my arrogance, but a result of attending too few classes. I couldn’t remember which lecturer Mr. Chen was.

The RA became angry and frustrated with me. Since he thought of himself as a production manager, he went full steam ahead and started lecturing me like he was Mr. Chen himself, “Mr. Chen has given you an ultimatum. He said that if you skip one more lecture, the examination board of the school will not allow you to take the final exam.”

This was more of a threat than a warning. As a lecturer, barring a student from taking the exam was a last resort. The RA imitated the lecturer so well when he said these words and did such an accurate portrayal of the lecturer’s expression and gestures that I instantly recalled who this Mr. Chen was.

Most other students would have immediately jumped out of bed, gotten dressed and go running to class with their textbooks. But not me. I had already failed the requirements of my major by failing 34 classes in my four years in university. Failing another one wasn’t going to make any difference.

I scoffed and went back to sleep.

Like the saying goes, those with a heavy enough debt no longer feel it, while a dead pig can’t tell how hot the water in the pot is. I was actually able to sleep without worry despite being faced with such a threat in my life. Those supposedly bold and courageous warriors and heroes who faced great dangers in life without fear or apprehension weren’t that great after all.

But while I was able to go back to sleep without any problems, Daning, the boy who had been pretending to sleep on my upper bunk, couldn’t. He anxiously stuck his head out and asked, “Did Mr. Chen mention me in class just now?”

The RA got a shock. He didn’t expect to find that he had missed one more student in the dormitory. He was annoyed from failing to instill fear in me earlier, so he switched targets to Daning instead by putting on his most commandeering look. “You…?”

The minute Daning heard the way the RA dragged out the word “you”, he knew the RA was going to give him a dressing down. Daning quickly sat up straight and prepared himself mentally for the verbal barrage that was to follow.

But that first ‘you’ was followed by absolute silence. The RA didn’t say anything at all. Of course, this wasn’t because the RA decided to let Daning off, but because Mr. Chen really hadn’t mentioned Daning at all. His method of teaching the students about consequences of ill-discipline by targeting the worst performing student was aimed directly at me. The lecturer didn’t care about whether Daning skipped class or not.

Even though the RA didn’t say anything, he sniggered twice in his attempt to reach a level in which silence was worth more than words.

Daning didn’t get the scolding he expected, but he was already feeling anxious inside. The RA’s ominous laughter made him even more uneasy. He asked fearfully, “Did he say something so awful that you feel uncomfortable saying it out? It’s okay, you can say it, you don’t have to worry.”

The RA was touched by Daning’s sincerity and decided to accede to his request. He declared with the arrogance of an emperor’s messenger, “If you continue to mix with this guy here, things will not end well for you!” After saying that, he even threw me a glance.

He hadn’t said anything particularly offensive, but it was clear that he was trying to provoke me. Daning didn’t think so far and was only concerned for his own well-being, so he asked, “Did Mr. Chen really say that?”

The RA didn’t say yes or now and gave a vague answer instead, “What do you think?” Then, he laughed loudly and sauntered off, leaving Daning looking terribly depressed as he slumped back down on his bed.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and sat up. “Look, the one who’s going to get barred from the exam is me, not you. I’m not afraid, so what are you afraid of?”

But Daning was thinking about the future and was afraid that we were both doomed at this rate. “Didn’t you hear what Mr. Chen said? If we go on like this, things aren’t going to end well for us! What does that even mean? What’s going to happen? Does he mean that we won’t be able to graduate?”

After failing 34 classes over the last four years and becoming the first person in the university’s history to fail so badly, I was already mentally prepared that I’d never get my degree. You might be wondering why the school didn’t ask me to just quit and let me stick around even though I clearly didn’t care for studying.

The reason was simple. This weird university I was enrolled in had plenty of other students just like myself. Expelling students frequently would only result in a bad rep for the school. If the school just left us alone, they could at least collect really high fees from students who wanted to retake their exams. But I never bothered going for those remedial classes.

Daning hadn’t failed as many classes as I had, but having a wonderful record of failing more than 20 classes didn’t make him that much better off than me. The only thing that puzzled me was why he was still dreaming of graduating like everyone else.

I felt that those who neither recognized their own lack of ability nor the real situation they were in lived seriously tragic lives. How could one skip classes all the time to sleep, fail classes, be absent for tests and exams and still dream of graduating on time? Had Daning ever considered the feelings of those students who had spent the last four years studying so hard? Did he have any regard for the country’s firm stance on education at all?

I didn’t dare to continue thinking down this line of thought. The one thing I ought to be doing was to stop Daning from building castles in the air. He had to snap out of these unrealistic dreams.

But before I could say anything, Daning broke the silence first, “Muyun, I think I have to stop being so unrealistic and stop hoping to graduate on time. That’s never going to happen.”

The more he spoke, the more agitated he became. He raised his voice and said, “Instead of sitting here and fooling ourselves, we should do something more practical, don’t you think?”

His loud words sounded like he was trying to snap me out of my daydreaming, but he was actually telling himself these things. I was so relieved that Daning had finally gained enlightenment, so I immediately hopped out of bed, got changed and prepared myself for another battle at the internet café.

Daning wasn’t going to get left behind. He had gotten ready faster than I had, but he was still stuck on his bed and refused to come down. I thought he was looking for his Wi-Fi card*.

I didn’t want to rush him, so I just told him, “Dude, no rush.”

As he overturned his blanket, he started to reflect on himself, “I’ve just been having fun during the past four years of my university life and failed so many classes, but I’m still dreaming of graduating on time? Is that realistic? That’s not realistic at all! I will only become even more frustrated if I keep thinking about it, so it’s better if I don’t think about it anymore.”

I clapped my hands and shouted, “Preach!”

Daning was even more pleased with himself after I had praised him and concluded, “I think one shouldn’t always dwell on the mistakes of the past. Wasn’t there a line in that book, Letting Go, that said that there’s no such thing as a next lifetime, so we’ve got to seize our present opportunities for the sake of our future?”

Since Daning had started quoting from a book, I decided to be equally pretentious as I quoted from the poet, Li Bai, “Since we’ve got wine today, let’s get drunk today. Don’t end up raising your empty wine goblet at the moon. I suppose that’s what that poem means. What’s the most important thing to us right now? It’s the happy times that we’re enjoying right now!” I frowned. “Hey, you still haven’t found it yet? Seriously dude, Wi-Fi cards are super important. How could you misplace yours?”

“Huh? I’m not looking for my Wi-Fi card.”

“You’re not looking for your Wi-Fi card? Then what are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for my student ID!”

That made me even more puzzled. “What do you need that crap for?”

Daning scratched his head in embarrassment and said, “I’ve failed so many classes that I don’t remember which ones I failed and which ones I passed. But I can check my results online if I login with my student ID number.”

“Ah, I see. Well, if you had failed every single class like me, you wouldn’t have this problem. Wait a minute…why do you want to check your results? Are you thinking of studying to retake the exams you failed? Didn’t you say that dreaming of graduating on time wasn’t realistic and that you wanted to live in the present and stop dwelling on the past? How did your attitude change so quickly?”

Daning looked at me and said gravely, “I wasn’t wrong to say that. I used to imagine being able to graduate on time, but that’s not realistic. If I want to actually graduate, thinking about it isn’t enough. I’ve got to take the chance while I still can. I’ve got to stop gaming and start studying. Then only will I have a chance!”

I sighed sadly at how Daning was still stubbornly holding on and posed him a question, “You’ve fallen behind on four years of study. How are you going to make up for it in such a short time?”

Daning was clearly ready to go all out and give it everything he had. “It’s true that it’s impossible to catch up on four years in just two or three months, but I’ve got to at least try. If I try, there could be some hope for me. If I don’t try, then I won’t even see a glimmer of hope.”

After saying that, he glanced at me, then said very solemnly, “Muyun, think about it. If neither of us manages to graduate in the end, what are we going to do?”

*Wi-Fi cards: some older gaming cafes controlled the customer’s gaming time this way. If the card ran out of money, you either had to top it up to gain access to the internet or get out of the café.