Chapter 1

This happened during my junior year, and the whole thing started with the death of a cat. But to fully explain this story, I need to start from the end of the second semester of my sophomore year.

Our major spent the first two years at the Zhuhai campus, and then we moved back to the Guangzhou campus (South Campus) for our junior and senior years. Before the end of the second semester of sophomore year, we all moved our stuff back to the South Campus. When we arrived at our new dorm building, my roommates and I were stunned—the hallways were filled with dead cockroaches, a dense, scattered layer. Some were still scurrying around the stairs, not quite dead from the poison. Exhausted from carrying several boxes of belongings, we ignored them and went straight up. But when we opened the dorm room door, we were even more horrified. The floor was covered with dead, living, and half-dead cockroaches, and the bathroom was even more shocking than a Jewish concentration camp from World War II. The school had clearly decided: "We've done our best; the mess is now yours to clean up."

It took the five of us an entire morning and afternoon to clean up the cockroaches (though plenty of dead ones were still hiding in the dark corners). We hadn't even had lunch and were utterly exhausted. When I wanted to sit down and rest, I realized there was only one chair in the dorm; the other four were missing. Qin Ye had already claimed the chair. Suddenly, with a loud crack, one of the chair's legs snapped, and Qin Ye flipped backward onto the floor. The four of us standing laughed until we had tears in our eyes. Qin Ye, known for his short temper, got up and gave the broken chair a hard kick, shouting, "Damn it! Can anyone even live here?"

Someone suddenly said, "Do you guys smell something foul?" We then realized the dorm did have a strong stench. Lao Jiang sniffed around for a bit, opened one of the wardrobes, and found three severely rotten rice dumplings inside. We cursed the seniors who had just used this dorm, invoking their ancestors, but it didn't quell our discontent with the dorm. Thinking of the clean and newly built dorms on the Zhuhai campus, and then looking at this place with cockroaches all over, peeling walls, and a terrible smell, the sense of disappointment grew even stronger.

At that time, I considered commuting from home since I lived in Guangzhou, but spending about an hour each way to school every day would definitely be exhausting. Later, while we were out eating, Qin Ye, possibly influenced by the rental ads we saw along the way, suggested that we rent a place outside instead. Everyone agreed, but since they all had flights or trains to catch home, this plan wasn't finalized until halfway through the summer break.

As I was traveling abroad during the break, I left the house-hunting task to the other four. Let me introduce the five of us in the dorm: there's me (Xiao Fan), Qin Ye, Lao Jiang, Fei Rong, and Yi Ge. Qin Ye is my closest friend from college; he loves a drink, is famous for his quick temper and short fuse, and gets even more intense when drunk. Lao Jiang's real name isn't Jiang, but when he wore his military uniform during training, everyone thought he looked a lot like Chiang Kai-shek, so we often joked that Lao Jiang had returned to follow Sun Yat-sen. Fei Rong is a timid and cautious person, often brags, and then denies it afterward. He's like a "Kong Yiji" character in a fat scholar's body. Yi Ge is a bold and righteous guy. As for me, I've since forgotten what kind of person I was back then...

A week before the start of our junior year, Qin Ye called to tell me they had rented an apartment outside the North Gate of the school. He said it was cheap—60 square meters with three bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom, all for just 250 yuan a month. I had never heard of a 60-square-meter apartment in Guangzhou for 250 yuan a month before. Knowing Qin Ye's penchant for extreme frugality, often sacrificing quality to save money, I really wondered if that apartment could be worse than the dorm. But then I thought, since Lao Jiang had checked it out and he's reliable, it couldn't be too bad if he said it was okay. So that day, I returned to handle the dorm withdrawal procedures with everyone and moved our stuff into that apartment.

That was my first time entering that apartment. It was located just outside the North Gate of the school, in a place that resembled an urban village. The building had been around for a while but seemed to have been recently renovated inside. The house had six floors, and we rented the unit on the fifth floor. The landlord lived on the first floor, and I happened to see him that day, leaning against the doorway smoking a cigarette. At first glance, he was the typical local middle-aged man—wearing loose shorts, a t-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops (actually just one, as he was stepping on the other one with his foot). He was slightly overweight, with a receding hairline and eyes squinted into narrow slits, which I later realized were naturally small, giving him a somewhat shifty appearance. As we got closer, Lao Jiang said to me, "This is the landlord; you haven't met him yet, have you?" I nodded at him, and he glanced at me before pursing his lips. I thought he was displeased, but then he turned his head and spat on the ground. What a delightful first meeting! Later, I learned that the landlord's surname was Liang, and he had a wife and a daughter, but his wife had left with their daughter. Of course, I only found this out months later from someone else.

We struggled up to the fifth floor with our belongings. As we reached the top, I happened to glance up at the stairs leading to the sixth floor and noticed an iron gate secured with a heavy chain. I figured there must be a unit like ours on the sixth floor, but why wasn't the landlord renting it out? I thought I was being too nosy and dismissed the thought. Our unit was right next to the stairs, and when we opened the door, I felt that while it wasn't spacious, it was certainly better than the dorm.

Seeing that everyone liked the place and considering it only cost 250 yuan a month, Qin Ye proudly praised his own discerning eye. We divided the rooms based on our sizes, and in the end, Fei Rong got Room 1 to himself, while I shared Room 2 with Qin Ye, and Lao Jiang and Yi Ge took Room 3.

Around 10 PM, we staggered back to the apartment after dinner, all quite drunk. As we passed the first floor, I noticed the landlord's door was closed, with colorful lights flashing inside, probably from the TV. The light bulbs in the stairwell seemed to have gone a long time without being replaced, casting a dim glow. We stumbled our way up to the fifth floor, but then, for some reason, Fei Rong absentmindedly continued up to the sixth floor. Suddenly, I heard a man's voice loudly shout in Cantonese-accented Mandarin, "Hey! Don't you live downstairs?!" The deep voice snapped us out of our drunken haze.

In the dim light, I vaguely saw a portly man standing at the iron gate on the sixth floor, holding the chain that locked the gate. As I got a better look, I realized it was the landlord, Mr. Liang. Fei Rong, not completely drunk, quickly turned around and apologized, "Oh... sorry, I went the wrong way... sorry..." We were all surprised by the landlord's intense reaction, but we didn't think too much about it, assuming many middle-aged men can be a bit neurotic. We just opened the door and went into our apartment. Before entering, I glanced back at the landlord and saw him still staring intently at us, his head twisted around.

That night was my first night staying in that apartment. After lying down, I suddenly felt very cold—maybe it was just the alcohol. Soon, Qin Ye, who was next to me, started snoring, and I quickly fell asleep as well.