The news of Xiao Die's parents' deaths spread quickly through the apartment building. Yet it was the handsome class president who lived on the first floor who broadcast her misfortune to the entire grade. She sat by the classroom window, her long hair brushing across her desk, looking like a lonely mermaid princess.
"Both her parents are dead, and she can still be this calm? They must have left her a ton of money."
"As if! Her family's dirt poor."
Xiao Die knew the girls in her class were talking about her. In that moment, what came to her mind was not herself, but her older neighbor—just as lonely as she was. Had his heart ever felt the same despair as hers?
Xiao Die still didn't know that the news of her family's tragedy had been spread by the class president. She had always admired him—outstanding grades, handsome looks—even harboring the faint, innocent crush of an adolescent girl. Yet she understood very clearly that what she felt for the class president was different from what she felt for the older neighbor. Because the moment she saw her neighbor, she grew shy and nervous.
After her parents passed away, all they had left Xiao Die was their apartment and a few tens of thousands in savings. After the college entrance exam, she would have to find a part-time job to support herself and cover her university tuition.
By the time evening self-study ended, the sky had already turned completely dark. The sky Xiao Die could see had changed from deep blue to deep black. Deep blue was a faint melancholy. Deep black was a profound despair.
The class president approached her on his own, offering to walk home with her. "Xiao Die, if you're facing any difficulties, just tell me. I'm not only your class president—I'm also your good friend."
"Class President, which university are you planning to apply to?"
"I'm aiming for A City. A City is my dream city."
"But the tuition at A University is very expensive, and the cost of living in A City is especially high. I can only go to a university here in town."
"Are you really going to give up on your dreams just because of money? I thought better of you."
Dreams? A senior whose parents both had stable jobs and pensions could never understand what she was feeling right now. His sympathetic words carried a note of hypocrisy and quiet schadenfreude. Without money, there was no way to buy food, no way to pay the water and electric bills, no way to afford tuition or find the strength to keep moving forward. Dreams belonged to those flowers raised in greenhouses, or to those favored sons and daughters of heaven born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Xiao Die stood frozen in place, at a complete loss. She couldn't even feel the sharp sting of humiliation. She was like a deep blue flower, its color buried beneath the boundless, endless night.
Tonight, the apartment building was unusually lively once more. But the commotion had nothing to do with Su Mosheng. He was in his room, reviewing the business documents his stepmother had left behind. The piercing wail of police sirens pushed him toward a drowning darkness. He remembered the night he had lost both his parents—that same loneliness, that same piercing wail.
A homicide had occurred in the apartment building tonight. The victim was none other than the mother of the handsome class president. After his parting sarcasm, the class president had walked home with a trace of smug satisfaction—only to open the door and find his mother collapsed in a pool of blood, his father sitting in a corner with hollow eyes, laughing like a madman.
Deep blue had turned to deep black. And deep black would one day return to color—the true, original colors of this complex society.
"Little Die, hurry on home. Our apartment building is about to become a haunted house. Stay a little longer if you have to, but you need to move out as soon as you can. Auntie Li won't steer you wrong."
"What on earth happened?"
"Wen Nan's father murdered his mother. The police have already taken his father away."
Xiao Die had not yet realized it—but a psalm of pain and pain is the eternal social cycle that binds one person to another.