Forbidden Land – CH 072

The next day, Zhang Chao’s parents came to the Seventh Hospital to complete his discharge procedures. Chen Rong had already submitted his medical certificate to the college leadership of the Life Sciences Department.

His class teacher, Teacher Liu, had never told the college that Zhang Chao’s symptoms included believing his girlfriend was alive and talking to thin air. Therefore, the college leadership assumed that the student was under academic pressure and subconsciously influenced by his roommate’s suicide attempt, leading to a momentary lapse in judgment and a near-suicidal thought. After treatment and psychological counseling, and with Chen Rong’s assurance that he had fully recovered, the college was naturally happy to let him return to school.

Otherwise, if the college had known that Zhang Chao’s condition involved seeing dead people and talking to thin air, they probably wouldn’t have dared to let him return so quickly.

Zhang Chao’s parents were overjoyed to see their son completely recovered and seemingly much more sensible than before. They then treated Chen Rong to dinner, during which Zhang Chao repeatedly praised Chen Rong for her care, and so on. Seeing Zhang Chao and Chen Rong’s behavior, which clearly went beyond a patient-doctor relationship, Zhang’s parents understood and secretly rejoiced: marrying a female PhD student and a doctor at a major hospital was a blessing! And a psychologist at that; they no longer needed to worry about their son having mental health issues.

After dinner, Zhang Chao returned to school. Chen Rong had to go to work, saying that since she was still a PhD student living in the university dormitory, she could come and study with him in the evenings or when she wasn’t working. His parents, reassured, drove back to Ningbo.

Back in his dormitory, as usual, his classmates, both male and female, came to visit and offer their condolences. He greeted them one by one and saw them off, keeping himself very busy.

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When the visits finally stopped, he realized that Lin Yi’ang hadn’t visited him yet, probably still afraid he would retaliate for what had happened before.

Just as he was thinking this, Lin Yi’ang, with a shameless grin, lingered at his door.

Zhang Chao waved and laughed, “Come in, don’t be so polite!”

Lin Yi’ang chuckled, “I wouldn’t dare.”

Zhang Chao chuckled maliciously, “Don’t be so polite. How much did that little coffin cost? Oh, and those 55-yuan old Beijing cloth shoes, I’ll reimburse you.”

Lin Yi’ang said, “No need; your parents already gave me the money.”

“Damn it, you have the nerve to say that!” Zhang Chao rushed out, grabbed Lin Yi’ang by the neck, and dragged him into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Although Lin Yi’ang was much bigger and stronger than him, he didn’t dare to resist and kept begging for mercy. “Forget it, forget it; please spare me. I’m doing this for your own good.”

Zhang Chao put him down and said, “I was just kidding. Brother, I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”

Lin Yi’ang slapped his thigh. “Okay, you say the word, and I’ll stick with you!”

Zhang Chao said, “I haven’t been back to school for over a week. Has anything fun happened? Tell me about it.”

“Fun things,” Lin Yi’ang thought for a moment. “Nothing really fun, but you’ve only been away from school for three days, and someone jumped off a building again.”

“What! Someone jumped off a building again!” Zhang Chao couldn’t help but exclaim in shock.

Lin Yi’ang laughed. “Brother, don’t worry, this has nothing to do with the School of Medicine. It happened right above us.”

Zhang Chao asked doubtfully, “Right above us?”

Lin Yi’ang laughed heartily. “Yeah, a guy from the Urban Planning Department who lives on the fifth floor above our Building 2 bungee jumped.”

Zhang Chao asked, “Where did he jump? Where is he? How is he?”

Lin Yi’ang said, “What else could he be? He’s dead, of course. He jumped from upstairs.”

“Huh?” Zhang Chao had never imagined someone would jump directly from their dormitory. He said, “What happened? Tell me.”

Lin Yi’ang said, “I don’t know the specific details, but the school deleted it from their website a long time ago. It was around 9 PM, and I was playing games when I heard a loud bang; something crashed down. A minute later, everyone upstairs and downstairs was screaming, and that’s when I ran out. It turned out the guy was in his dorm room, climbed onto the window, and jumped, landing on the platform between Buildings 1 and 2. Only people living on the second floor and above could see it; those of us below didn’t know what happened. Later, I heard that the guy had lunch with a girl, and his girlfriend saw them. She came up and argued with him, and he bravely slapped her across the face. That was outrageous! In the cafeteria, in front of so many people, he slapped her. His girlfriend insisted on breaking up with him. It escalated to the evening, and he demanded she change her mind, or he’d jump out the window. His girlfriend didn’t believe him at first, and the rest of his dorm overheard him on the phone, thinking that he was just joking, but he actually climbed up and jumped.”

Zhang Chao asked, “What happened to his girlfriend?”

Lin Yi’ang said, “You want to show some chivalry, huh? Trying to woo a widow? His girlfriend, knowing about it, went to his dorm, and oh my god, she was crying her eyes out! The whole building could hear her. She even threatened to jump too. But with so many people around, they wouldn’t let her. I heard she went home to rest for a few days.”

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Zhang Chao clicked his tongue, indicating he couldn’t understand it at all. “So this trivial thing, and she’s going to ‘commit suicide’?”

Lin Yi’ang laughed heartily. “Wasn’t there another one last year? I think he lived in Bifeng or Ziyun. He basically failed all his final exams, and in his frustration, he jumped from his dorm. Too bad, he lived on the second floor; nobody could understand why he’d jump. He broke his leg and had to recover for months.”

Zhang Chao shook his head. “These days, college student performance art is really baffling.”

Lin Yi’ang laughed loudly. “Isn’t that right? Someone was under so much academic pressure that they actually ran into the lake in the middle of the night to ‘commit suicide.’ They were rescued and sent straight to the Seventh Hospital. Isn’t that hilarious?”

Zhang Chao angrily retorted, “You’re asking for it!”

Lin Yi’ang said, “Alright, alright, I won’t say anymore. Brother, live a happy life and marry Chen Rong.”

At this, Zhang Chao’s face seemed to flush slightly. This didn’t escape Lin Yi’ang’s notice, and he laughed. “I told you from the start, you and Chen Rong are a perfect match. Don’t even think about Bai Qiu—” He quickly shut his mouth; Bai Qiu was still a “sensitive word,” at least for now.

Mentioning Bai Qiu filled Zhang Chao with melancholy, anger, and, even more so, confusion and bewilderment.

So many strange things—could they really end so easily?

Bai Qiu, Li Weihao, could there be another one?

Should he live like a normal person, studying and living, or should he continue searching for the answers?

It was like a challenging math problem presented in Martian language—completely unsolvable.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.