This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
(I) Opening
Zhuhua thought the three people walking in were a strange combination: two men and one woman, one man extremely tall, the other extremely short. The short one was almost no taller than the woman on the right.
“Brother, did you bring everything?” the woman asked the short one.
“Yeah. Dad has it,” the short one said, taking a suitcase from the tall man. That reminded Zhuhua he needed to tidy up quickly, so he went back to packing his own things.
Now Zhuhua knew who they were: the short one was Sugula, the tall one must be his dad, and the woman his mom. Zhuhua did not like Sugula. In fact, he disliked him so much that his hands moved even faster. Staying in the same room with him was torture.
“Hey, are you Chu Hua?” the woman interrupted him while he was looking down.
“No, auntie, my name is Zhu Hua,” Zhuhua said, turning around and standing up.
In Zhuhua’s impression, Sugula’s mother was indeed a good mother. She often asked about Sugula over the phone, and now she came in person to help him settle in. She almost seemed saintly, caring not only for her own son but even for Zhuhua.
Only her way of caring was unusual. She held a drying pole, one that looked suspiciously familiar to Zhuhua, and pointed all over his suitcase with it.
As if that care were not enough, she started digging through his luggage.
Then she asked, “Why didn’t you buy a bigger suitcase?”
Her tone was strangely warm, warm in a forceful way.
Zhuhua, far too naive, told her he did have a bigger one in the cabinet.
She, in turn, was far too caring. Apparently unsatisfied with his answer, the so-called dignity of a loving mother instantly appeared on her face:
“You have a lot of nerve… How dare you hit my son? How dare you hit my son!”
This was not some utopian world. Saints, after all, only love their own children first.
(II) Before Courtesy
During winter break two years earlier, fifteen-year-old Zhuhua was full of joy because he was about to be assigned to a new class. How could that not make him happy? But fate likes to tease people. Sugula’s appearance was destined to complicate everything.
Sugula had actually known Zhuhua for a long time. They had been in the same middle school but different classes, then fatefully entered the same high school, fatefully got assigned to the same new class, fatefully moved into the same dorm room, and fatefully wanted to use the same locker.
“Hey, I already put my stuff in here. Besides, isn’t this assigned by bed position? Mine is here, yours is over there.” Sugula nearly threw everything out of the locker. Zhuhua was startled and rushed over to stop him, at least getting his hands to pause.
“F***… fine, then…” Sugula suddenly acted aggrieved, rolled his eyes, then muttered something under his breath.
Maybe that was fate too: “fate” arranged this kind of conflict. Zhuhua had never seen such a “fated” attack before, so he started reflecting on his relationship with Sugula. They should not have been at this level of hostility.
“I’ve never even talked to him before…” Zhuhua thought, returning to his own unpacking. But Sugula’s insults stuck in his mind.
In the end, Zhuhua never got an apology. Maybe Sugula had simply forgotten it.
(III) Courtesy
Even though Sugula was rude to strangers on day one, he really did care about manners.
Coughing is ordinary, but Sugula could make it elegant. He would cough dozens of times in a few minutes, loud enough to wake people from sleep. He always covered his nose and mouth with his hand for hygiene, though the sound waves were unavoidable. Others only wished he would cover the sound too.
Polite Sugula was excellent at reading faces. Seeing Zhuhua hesitate to speak, he apologized right away: “Sorry, sir.”
But he dragged out the last syllable of “sorry,” and “sir” sounded affected. Zhuhua suddenly felt Sugula resembled a girl and broke into a cold sweat, so he could only respond, “Alright, Mr. Su.” From then on, Zhuhua and everyone else could hear Mr. Su coughing all day long.
Sugula was the kind of person who said “sorry” and “my apologies” all the time. But if he did not keep doing things that hurt others, why apologize so often?
He always brought physical apology gifts, though, usually his treasured fruit.
“Want some?” Sugula asked the whole class while holding a box of fruit.
Some people took a piece, but after one bite they put it down. Not because they were shy, but because they treated it as Sugula’s treasured specialty. Also, kids should not have alcohol, and fruit wine counts, so they declined more.
His care for the dorm was obvious too. Sugula often brought tissues and plastic bags, which was useful and hard to criticize.
But he also broke many drying poles. Zhuhua often complained about that with others. Luckily Sugula would bring new poles, bragging they were “extra durable quality.” Perhaps they could not bear such honor, because they soon broke again. In a fit of anger, Sugula snapped another perfectly good one with his own hands. Now there were none left in working condition.
(IV) Art
Sugula looked like an art student and considered both his dancing and singing first-class.
Zhuhua guessed Sugula might truly believe that.
Back in middle school, before Zhuhua even knew Sugula’s name, he would see him walking alone on campus roads. But most people’s attention was fixed on his swaying hips. Many years passed, yet Sugula still swayed them. What surprised Zhuhua and others was that Sugula had long since expanded this movement to his entire body.
Without music, Sugula sang loudly by himself, though Zhuhua never understood what tune he was humming. Sugula claimed he sang Western music, but Zhuhua never caught the words.
With music, Sugula started dancing. People say where there is a dream, there is a stage. For Sugula, the dorm was his stage. Thankfully he only danced in the dorm, or the number of people made physically uncomfortable would have been much larger.
Zhuhua watched him twisting his body, twisting his tongue, twisting his lips, forcing out notes.
The common review from everyone else was simple:
“Your voice is really not pleasant, Mr. Su.”
Sugula did not care and kept dancing until he reached his bed. The scene reminded Zhuhua of pole dancing.
Sugula slept on the upper bunk. He would grab the ladder rail, and before one foot even entered the bed, his legs were already performing. He swung one leg over the side rail, kicked with the other, and finally got up. But he still was not done. He had to strike flirtatious poses and throw flirtatious looks. Sadly no one dared to receive them, so he would let out a huge sigh. Somehow that sigh pulled another round of coughs from him. Sigh, cough, sing, sway, only then could he sleep.
Sometimes Sugula got tired of swaying and switched to singing alone. Maybe he loved his idol too deeply, because now and then he erupted into earth-shaking shrieks, followed by coughs squeezed out in succession.
A king of songs always practices when the room is quiet. Sometimes he would not sing or dance, just vocalize like warm-ups: “oh-oh-eh-ah-ah,” then mix in some low-grade noises no one could bear.
Maybe Sugula was preparing for some competition. At least he embodied “one minute on stage, ten years of practice off stage.”
But Sugula was not an art student. He had no competition at all.
His only audience was Zhuhua and others suffering in silence.
One day, Zhuhua would make Sugula shut up.
That day would come soon.
(V) Study
Sugula was supposedly an excellent student in both conduct and grades. We had already seen his “virtues”; now we could discuss his talent.
A good learner should be self-disciplined, and Zhuhua felt Sugula was extremely self-disciplined.
First, from Sugula’s own perspective, a perfect day:
6:20 a.m., wake up. 6:30, breakfast. 6:40, morning reading. 7:40, morning classes begin. Around 10:00, serious eye exercises. Noon, study seriously until 1:00 before returning to dorm for rest. Before 1:40, continue studying in bed. 2:20 p.m., get up. Before 7:00 p.m., go to classroom for evening reading. 10:15 p.m., classes end; continue studying until lights out, then go back to dorm.
Now from Zhuhua’s perspective:
“He does get up early, sure, but after getting up he just sits on the bed and does nothing. Not exactly nothing, he says he’s thinking. But ten minutes later, when I’m ready to leave, Mr. Su is still sitting there. Morning reading might be real, but I’ve seen it fewer than five days total. Most days I see Mr. Su entering the classroom at the last second. Maybe he’s working hard in places we can’t see.” Zhuhua laughed openly. “Ha… when I watch him study, he’s staring at paper very seriously. But when I look again half a long while later, it’s still the same page, and his face is still… blank, I guess. I won’t say more. I don’t want his parents calling me.”
Zhuhua really disliked Sugula, but whenever he saw him, he could not resist making a comment.
One day Sugula studied so “hard” he nearly forgot food and sleep, staying out past 11 p.m. and still not returning. Zhuhua and the others worried something had happened. “Don’t drag us down with this,” they muttered and called the homeroom teacher. Just as they were about to explain, Sugula staggered into the dorm, panting and holding the wall.
“Where did you go this late?” everyone asked from their beds.
Sugula stayed silent for several seconds, hung up his bag with the keychain that read “Heaven Rewards Diligence,” took several deep breaths, and then casually said, “Just now the dorm supervisor heard movement, came up with a flashlight, and chased me.”
“So what were you doing?”
At this point Zhuhua found him especially infuriating. Everyone asked the same question, and he still pretended not to hear.
After a while Sugula mumbled in a tongue-cut voice: “Wuh-si… went… du-shu xie-shu… hu-cong… brain-dead…”
Zhuhua became even more certain. “Your tongue got smashed by the supervisor’s flashlight, right?”
Still, Sugula had not forgotten manners. He pulled a box of pears from his “Heaven Rewards Diligence” bag. That explained the “food” part of his “forgot sleep and food” story. He asked again, “Want some?” But nobody dared eat alcohol-flavored fruit, so no one accepted.
Seeing no response, Sugula went to the balcony to wash up. Coughing and running water sounded together.
“Be grateful. At least I showered. Otherwise none of you would sleep.”
“Oh wow, your tongue is healed now!” Zhuhua laughed quietly.
Soon after, people noticed Sugula was about to drop out of the grade ranking.
(VI) Philosophy
Sugula had his own worldview, which often drove people speechless in conversation. More precisely, everyone felt there was no point continuing to talk with him.
One part was his view of romance.
People often asked Sugula whom he liked or disliked.
“Who am I? A modern independent woman!”
He would raise his head proudly and explain how, as an “independent woman,” he stood above others. But Sugula’s chromosomes were still XY. People were unsatisfied with the answer. Still, Mr. Su did carry many feminine traits, and over time everyone got used to it.
People would point out someone with a similar personality and ask whether he approved.
“Not. My. Type!” Sugula stretched each word. “I have my own standards in love! That one is not good enough!”
The person they pointed out was actually his lower-bunk roommate, physically and mentally a male with XY identity. The reason for the pairing was simple: similar personality, and people suspected Sugula liked men.
Sugula’s second worldview was the wisdom of arguing.
Interesting fact: Sugula later told Zhuhua, “I always use sophistry.”
If that was true, then his behavior makes perfect sense.
Wisdom One: “It’s not for you.”
As mentioned earlier, Sugula’s obsession with singing and dancing made Zhuhua loathe him.
“Can you calm down for a while?”
“I’m not performing for you. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. Nobody forced you to watch.”
Sugula mastered argument strategy. Three sentences and he could flip defeat into victory. Zhuhua went speechless, unable to find a better response.
Sugula was indeed pleasing himself, but this “not for you” logic carried a strange flavor: taking pleasure in others’ suffering.
Wisdom Two: Chaos.
When losing on logic, Sugula was good at inventing false connections.
This time Sugula rushed out of dorm. Thanks to his habit of meditating after waking up, he forgot his cleaning duty while “thinking about life,” then brushed teeth calmly, ignoring the umbrella by his bed and the trash on the balcony. In the afternoon he stared at the demerit slip by his bed and felt upset. Zhuhua was unsurprised. It was not the first time. Still, he teased him:
“Sugula, why didn’t you do duty today?”
“Because you guys didn’t remind me. You failed your duty to remind me.” Sugula sounded aggrieved, smoothly spreading responsibility from himself to everyone else.
Zhuhua was stunned. Being suddenly assigned such a huge duty, he shot back:
“If we owe you that duty, then what duty do you owe us? Your reminder service? But in this dorm only you keep forgetting duty.”
Now Sugula exploded with anger, pouting and unpouting as if preparing a speech. After over half a minute he replied:
“I… I did remind you! You ignored me and now say I didn’t.” Then he coughed.
That pause stirred everyone. Where was this vanished memory of his “reminder”? Sugula started making up a story on the spot.
In Sugula’s eyes: if I think I did it, then I did it. If everyone says I didn’t, then everyone forgot. As long as I remember, that’s enough.
“Besides, why are you reacting so much? Can’t I just redo it?” Sugula seemed to regain upper hand.
Zhuhua did not buy it. He had heard that line many times.
“You always say that. We want you to remember duty in the future. Not everything can be fixed with after-the-fact patching.”
“Why not? Tell me what cannot be fixed.” Sugula clung to his patch theory.
Someone else came over and answered for Zhuhua:
“Simplest example: you can’t take the college entrance exam forever.”
“I can. I totally can. Who says I can’t? I can take it ten times, twenty times, as long as I want!”
No one knew who muttered this, but someone did:
“With his grades, he’ll only keep retaking anyway. Not a choice issue. Stop arguing with him. If a dog is eating shit, don’t bother it. It’ll think you’re trying to steal its meal.”
Everyone dispersed.
Interestingly, Sugula did go back to redo cleaning. But right at the dorm door he ran into the supervisor recording demerits. He explained he came to do duty, yet still got points deducted. Polite Sugula finished the duty anyway, but this time there was no boozy fruit reward.
Wisdom Three: Amnesia.
Sugula could implant nonexistent memories into others, but could not implant memory into himself. Instead, he selectively forgot.
One example happened on the balcony. Sugula was washing clothes, then moved the basin aside and forgot to close the tap. Zhuhua thought of turning it off, but since Sugula was nearby, he assumed Sugula would do it himself.
After quite a while, the water sound continued, and then blame appeared.
“Who used the tap and didn’t close it? Isn’t that wasting water?” No need to ask. Mr. Sugula had started screaming.
“Wasn’t it you?” Zhuhua asked.
“Huh? Me? I don’t remember. Maybe me. Oh, fine.” Perhaps he doubted himself again. A few minutes later he finally turned it off.
You can never wake someone pretending to sleep.
Wisdom Four: Dialectics.
Sugula loved playing with philosophy, especially dialectics.
One time he complained quietly that a knife was too sharp. Someone passing by found it hilarious and teased him:
“Sugula, if you don’t want sharp knives, do you want dull ones?”
Sugula used his specialty again, twisting his body and waist, hugging himself as he swayed:
“Nooo~ It’s not like sharper is always better. What if you cut yourself?”
The other person’s fist tightened from that tone.
“Isn’t that throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Besides, why do you think there are knife sharpeners but no knife dullers?”
Mr. Su’s eyes seemed to light up. He pointed upward with his right hand, adjusted his square glasses with his left, and lectured like a philosopher:
“You’re wrong! You must view problems dialectically and follow the principle of moderation. How can knives be better and better the sharper they get? The best knife is neither sharp nor dull. As for your sharpeners, I can only say your social experience is too shallow. There are absolutely knife-dulling craftsmen. You just don’t know them.”
His tone, fast then slow, startled the other person. Sugula had once again reversed defeat into victory.
Sugula walked away proudly, leaving the other guy standing there, probably still wondering where Sugula got that confidence.
Let’s recall the previous node and appreciate Sugula’s third worldview: philosophical thinking about the world.
Earlier we mentioned his morning meditation in bed, which he described as “thinking about life.” The meditation kept getting longer, from ten minutes to half an hour. Zhuhua cared about time and remembered it clearly.
Maybe to show off knowledge, Sugula would always drag grand principles into ordinary conversation, as if preparing to preach.
Zhuhua liked teasing him, so he asked a few questions.
“Sugula, what is the meaning of life?”
Sugula said he needed to “enter long-thinking mode.” After more than a minute he turned around and produced:
“The meaning of life is this… uh… is… then… study… love… finally… you… so…”
Seeing him mumble nonsense, Zhuhua raised a hand and cut him off:
“Stop, next question. Do bacteria have consciousness?”
“Long-thinking… bacteria of course… because… and also… meaning… they… consciousness…!”
Zhuhua interrupted again and walked away. “Someone else asked me to ask you. Looks like you can’t answer much.”
In fact, someone had seen Sugula asking himself those exact questions, so they asked Zhuhua to ask him directly. Sugula still could not answer. To comfort him, people gave him the title “Socrates Su.”
Perhaps feeling Zhuhua was unworthy of pursuing wisdom with him, Sugula preferred exploring wisdom with AI alone.
“You people are just chatting. I’m obtaining wisdom,” Sugula said, visibly intoxicated by himself.
(VII) Study, Continued
Sugula was extremely sensitive to time. He not only strictly followed his own schedule but obsessed over college entrance exam timing. During three years of preparation, he set up a countdown card in his dorm locker: “_ _ _ days until gaokao.”
But Mr. Sugula seemed wind-up powered, flipping the number down on a fixed routine regardless of actual month or date. If the card said “021 days,” Sugula would still wind himself and flip it to “020” even when the calendar disagreed.
He was sensitive not only to dates but to his future in general. Meaning this style applied to everything: “_ _ _ days until gaokao / graduate exam / civil service exam / CET-4 / CET-6 / high school entrance exam.” Even if someone flipped the card to “high school entrance exam,” Sugula might not notice.
This uncertainty about exam timing and type gave his self-discipline great satisfaction.
Even amid uncertainty, Sugula was occasionally corrected by others, though he usually corrected himself into deeper error. Getting countdown days wrong was normal for him; accepting correction was rare.
“Sugula, it’s 581 days today!” Zhuhua reminded him after checking.
“Oh? Is it? Fineee, thank you for your reminder, sir.” Sugula replied in a long, sharp voice hard for normal ears.
Zhuhua was annoyed but used to it, so he walked away. In the afternoon he saw the board still showing 581 and flipped it to the correct number.
Soon Sugula screamed again: “Ah! Who touched my stuff?!”
Zhuhua came over and told him to lower his voice.
“If you mean the countdown, I changed it. You still hadn’t corrected it.”
Sugula’s eyes suddenly widened, making Zhuhua step back. Sugula kept yelling:
“Who told you to touch my things? And today is 581, not 481 or 681!”
“Fine, I apologize for touching it. But it truly isn’t 581 days till gaokao,” Zhuhua said, quickly bringing a calculator and showing the math step by step.
Today was indeed not 581.
The moment the result appeared, Sugula’s expression shifted, then returned.
“Even if I remembered wrong, I’m still not wrong. Gaokao isn’t only one day. Mine is countdown to day three of gaokao.”
Studious Sugula, once again, reversed defeat into victory.
Zhuhua knew continuing was meaningless, so he left, leaving victorious Sugula basking in triumph. Interestingly, after Zhuhua left, others noticed Sugula quietly flipping the number.
Sugula loved English and called his own accent “British.” But everyone doubted whether he recognized words at all, and whether he misunderstood British pronunciation.
He did recognize words, of course. During lunch break he always held a heavily worn vocabulary notebook and memorized words. At first people teased him:
“Hey Sugula, why are you secretly reading Empress Dowager Cixi’s English textbook?”
Everyone laughed. Sugula did not.
“Books look like this when you flip them a lot. Cixi? I don’t know her.”
The laughter got louder. People pointed at the near-falling pages:
“Sugula, hold your pages tight. Don’t let them be left alone.”
“Oh, thanks for the reminder.”
Everyone kept laughing, and eventually Sugula laughed too.
“Yeah, I stole Cixi’s book!”
Yet despite all this hard vocabulary work, he still seemed unclear on basic words.
Once on the balcony, Zhuhua teased him again. Sugula suddenly shouted:
“That’s no fear!”
Zhuhua was stumped for a long time. What did “no fear” have to do with what they were just talking about?
Sugula looked very pleased.
After a while Zhuhua jumped and laughed:
“Sugula, so unfairness makes you feel fear?”
Sugula did not seem to realize he had said “fear” instead of “fair,” and looked confused.
“It’s ‘That’s not fair,’ not ‘That’s no fear,’ Sugula. Aren’t you memorizing words every day?” Zhuhua called everyone over and laughed as he explained.
For a long while afterward, people kept asking Sugula:
“How do you say ’this is unfair’ in English?”
“I know already! Stop asking!”
Still, people remained deeply skeptical of his “British accent.”
During morning reading he read English loudly, but everyone felt uncomfortable hearing it.
“Sugula, your stress placement sounds off.” “Sugula, this word should be pronounced like this.” People told him to build basics before accent.
“It’s okayyy! If I think I am, then I am!” After that, no one wanted to correct him anymore, and Sugula never improved.
Sugula always revered studying. “Slow work yields fine work” described his style best. He was meticulous with homework, especially politics homework.
“We collect politics homework after second evening-study period. Pass from back to front,” the class rep announced, then wrote it on the whiteboard. This time it was Chapter Five. Hearing this, Sugula diligently took out his workbook.
And then nothing happened.
Indeed, Sugula was doing “slow and fine” work, or perhaps “investigating things to acquire knowledge.” In any case, he stared blankly at his workbook for an entire class period. Maybe he was practicing “sharpening the axe before chopping wood,” pondering what pen to use, what handwriting style, how much pressure. Or perhaps in his worldview all these choices required philosophical deliberation.
In the end, Sugula still submitted nothing.
“Sugula, what chapter are you on? I’m submitting tomorrow morning reading. Give it to me before then,” the class rep urged.
“Oh, okay. I’m on Chapter One.”
“Huh? Isn’t Chapter One from the previous assignment? You still haven’t made it up?”
Sugula gave an awkward smile.
That night everyone noticed Sugula did not return on time. They assumed he had gone to make up homework.
But the next morning, the class rep received a note:
“Because my knowledge points are not yet consolidated and progress on other assignments is incomplete, I cannot submit politics homework on time.”
After that no one chased him anymore. Only people teasingly asked.
Still, the teacher could not help asking: “Why does he never submit homework?”
Eventually Sugula decided to “change himself”: “Thanks for your concern, but I don’t need your concern.” This time he really finished and planned to submit.
Again, politics homework was collected during morning reading. The rep collected group by group. Sugula kept his style unchanged.
Seeing him not submit, everyone was already used to it and stopped pressing. They took the stacks to the office.
Most politics teachers were there. The rep reported submission status.
When Sugula came up, a teacher again asked: “Why does he always fail to submit?”
Right then the man of the hour walked in, coughing to announce his arrival.
People thought he came to submit. Instead he looked innocent, as if preparing to tell a hardship story.
“You’ve already collected it? But I didn’t hear anything.” Sometimes you had to admire Sugula’s speaking skill. One sentence could stun the whole room.
“If we didn’t announce collection, where did all these homework piles come from?” the rep said, patting the stacks for him to see. “Uh…”
Before he could argue, the rep added:
“It’s not too late. Hand it over now.”
“But I didn’t know you collected it. How could I submit?” Sugula’s face was slightly red, maybe from the heat.
“Then why did you come to the office empty-handed?”
Now Sugula changed his line. His face no longer red, his tone suddenly righteous:
“I did submit. I forgot. Maybe you failed to register mine?”
“Really? Then find yours in this pile,” the rep said, half laughing half helpless.
Sugula was truly a master of shirking:
“You’re the reps. I submitted. You failed to register it, and now you ask me to search. That’s your responsibility.”
Whether the homework existed was already obvious. Sugula insisted on lying to the end. No one wanted to continue arguing. The rep dropped one last line, said nothing else, and walked out.
“Own your mistake. We can’t help you. Submit or don’t submit, your choice. No need to make a special trip just to lie.”
The rep left, teachers laughed, and this time Sugula’s face turned completely red.
At last a teacher spoke and gave him a way out:
“Go back. Maybe pressure has been too high lately. Just go back first.”
(VIII) Before the Final Clash
Sugula became noisier and noisier. Everyone, especially Zhuhua, kept asking him to quiet down and correct himself, because he had seriously affected everyone’s life.
“Sugula, if you keep this up, we really need to call your parents,” Zhuhua warned countless times, though he never actually called. It might embarrass Sugula too much.
But in reality, the more you indulged him, the louder he became.
Zhuhua hinted to the homeroom teacher many times, but no action came. He could only hint because he felt embarrassed to state it directly: “Sugula in our dorm keeps striking poses and making erotic loud noises all day.”
When reasoning failed, people began using limited physical contact within what they considered reasonable bounds. They feared Mr. Su’s thin skin and thick face would label it bullying.
Inevitably, tensions piled up until irreconcilable. The gunpowder was fully packed. One match was enough.
Soon a match arrived, handed over by Sugula himself.
At semester’s end everyone looked forward to vacation, and dorm discipline loosened. The night was long, so people chatted.
Sugula was anti-seasonal. Usually he never went to bed quietly on time and instead banged around on the balcony. But now when no one was policing, he played saint:
“Alright! Sleep time! Stop talking!”
Zhuhua was mid-conversation and got interrupted again. He snapped:
“You know what? You’re the least qualified person in this dorm to say that.”
He glared at Sugula.
The fire was lit. Everyone pushed Sugula to the front. The execution team stood ready, waiting for final judgment.
“Why am I unqualified? I’m telling you to rest quietly. What’s wrong with that? It’s late and you’re disturbing my sleep,” Sugula argued while climbing to bed. He grabbed his quilt by two corners and slammed it down hard, as if trying to fan away all criticism.
“Nice words, but on normal days you don’t stop wandering around until after 11:20. Now it’s barely past 11. You think behaving one day cancels everything before that? You think we’ll fake amnesia like you?” Zhuhua and others sat up. They had long been unhappy with Sugula. Tonight, they were ready to fight it out.
Sugula remained committed to silence for a while, then spoke:
“Now is now, before was before. How can you treat before as now, sir? Am I not allowed to change?”
“Get out of here. Don’t talk to me about changing. The biggest joke is you saying you’ve changed. This is your nature. Unless you die or something, you won’t change,” Zhuhua said, pointing at him. “And I’m not cursing you, okay? Don’t twist it tomorrow into self-defense talk.”
“Then I am truly sorry, sir. But are you all blameless? You hit me and cursed me. I remember every time. I’ve been bullied for ten years. Do you think I can’t make you get out of this school?” Sugula suddenly became serious.
Zhuhua and the others were startled, not by his aura but by his claim of “ten years of bullying.” Then they were amused by “kick you out of this school.”
“Listen, Sugula. If you’ve been bullied one, two, three years, it’s likely bullies’ fault. If you claim ten years, unless you’re bragging, maybe you should consider whether it’s your own problem too. Also, do you think people ignoring you, telling you to improve, and touching you physically equals bullying?” Zhuhua fired back in one breath, body still trembling with adrenaline.
Sugula fell silent again.
When he did not respond, Zhuhua continued:
“You say we hit and insulted you. Show evidence. Don’t slander. You are the one striking poses and shouting all day in the dorm. Let me be blunter: your dance is not graceful, your singing is not pleasant, and your late returns are extremely noisy. We’ve told you this countless times for two semesters. You show no sign of remorse. Do you still think we’re insulting you? Even if we were, you never listen anyway. So we used limited contact. Is that beating you? If you insist we’re bullying you, then go ahead. Go!”
Sugula stayed silent, but the dorm supervisor broke in this time. Sugula spoke in a trembling voice, reporting his own name.
“Damn sissy,” Zhuhua muttered, then vented in one sweep:
“Beds one through eight, dock points if you want. Two beds are empty; put those on me. The one who just gave you his name has depression. We’re counseling him so he doesn’t jump one day. We can’t afford that.”
Hearing this, others joined in:
“Yeah, he’s depressed. Dock us if you want. Tonight we must cure him. Keep docking if you like.”
The supervisor laughed and looked Sugula up and down.
“Enough. It’s the last two days anyway. Docking points is pointless. Sleep. Stop joking around.”
Everyone went quiet.
Finally Zhuhua broke the silence:
“Sugula, anything else you want to argue?”
Sugula answered quickly this time.
“No argument.”
Amid cheers, Sugula was metaphorically nailed to the stake and subjected to cruel fire.
But this was the result he had chosen for himself over a full year.
(IX) After the Final Clash
Winter break passed quickly. Zhuhua’s dislike did not fade at all. The thought of seeing Sugula again left a bitter taste.
“After a whole vacation, maybe he’ll change,” Zhuhua could only tell himself.
The night before school started again.
The phone rang.
Zhuhua rarely answered unknown calls instantly, but this one was from the homeroom teacher personally.
“What huge trouble did I land in that she calls this late instead of messaging me?” His heart skipped. The phone was right in front of him, yet he hesitated, index finger trembling above the screen.
“Forget it. Answer. Deal with it step by step.”
“Is Zhu Hua there? I’m his homeroom teacher. I want to ask him something,” came her voice as soon as he picked up.
“Yes, teacher, it’s me.”
“Let me ask this directly. In your dorm, do you all have conflicts with Sugula?”
No small talk. Straight to the point. Zhuhua had not expected this to be about Sugula.
Since earlier hints had gone nowhere and now she asked proactively, Zhuhua poured everything out, both Sugula’s good and bad sides.
“Okay, I understand. What I mainly want to ask is: did you ever hit Sugula because of this?”
Zhuhua realized his earlier worry had come true.
“So Sugula really believes he was beaten…”
“Teacher, I don’t think we beat him. We had limited physical contact within reason, at least that’s how all of us see it,” Zhuhua said after a long pause.
“Sugula’s parents reported that you hit him, so I need your side,” the teacher replied, stressing the word “you.”
“Zhuhua, you may feel you didn’t hit him, but Sugula feels he was hit. You have no way around this now because you used your hands. Whether you call it touching or hitting, if he dislikes it and feels hit, then to him he was hit. So tonight you write a guarantee statement explaining the situation. Don’t be perfunctory. Bring it tomorrow at opening.”
Zhuhua felt wronged to the core. How could the villain file first?
“Teacher, we never touched him without reason. We’ve tried talking to him for almost a year. If talking worked, we wouldn’t have had physical contact. If I have to write a statement, he must write one too.”
“No matter what, using hands is wrong. If you hadn’t touched him, you’d be the stronger side. Now you’re the weaker side. Next time, if you can’t resolve something, come to me. Don’t use hands.”
“But haven’t I told you many times already?”
“You need to tell me face to face, formally.”
Zhuhua regretted it then. He should not have protected Sugula’s face before. Why protect Sugula’s face?
There was no better option. He started writing.
“…I hereby guarantee… if similar situations happen again… I will not use physical contact…”
“I hereby guarantee…”
…
The next day. School reopening. Dorm room.
Zhuhua again saw an odd trio coming in: two men and one woman, one very tall, one very short. The short one was almost no taller than the woman on the right.
“Looks like a family of three. Tall father, short mother. But how is the father so tall while the son is only as tall as the mother?” Zhuhua thought, smiling. Then he immediately stopped smiling, because the short one was Sugula.
Zhuhua lowered his head and kept packing, only wanting to leave quickly.
“Should’ve packed and left right away. Shouldn’t have wandered around first,” he thought.
As he crouched to take clothes from a small suitcase, Sugula’s mother pulled out half of a broken drying pole.
“You, you, you… are you Chu Hua?” she asked, waving the broken pole.
“Auntie, my name is Zhu Hua.”
“Zhu Hua, right… ah…” she said, stirring his suitcase with the pole. “Why such a small suitcase? No bigger one?”
“I do have one, in the cabinet…”
Finding the suitcase uninteresting, she turned to his book box and tapped tightly packed books with the pole.
“You brought so many books?”
“This is already the minimum. I only kept the necessary ones. If you have fewer, maybe you left some somewhere.”
Now the smell of gunpowder rushed straight to the head. A battle was about to erupt.
Small talk ended. Sugula’s mother launched full attack.
“You have some nerve. How could you hit my son? How dare you hit my son!”
“So we’re doing this right here,” Zhuhua thought. “If I don’t explain thoroughly, I won’t even get to start school.”
He knew she was like a storm wave and would not listen, so he folded his arms and listened first.
“My son came back saying he was beaten. We were shocked. He even defended you, you know? We asked how many times, and he first said only a few. We pressed further and he said more than ten times. More than ten! What did my son do to deserve this?”
Zhuhua could already guess Sugula had downplayed context and exaggerated physical contact. But hearing “what did he do wrong” almost made him laugh. He barely held his face still.
Sugula’s father then moved one beloved person to the stairwell while leaving one beloved person in place. Zhuhua also stepped toward the stairwell, under surveillance camera, facing Sugula’s mother.
“Listen. If you dare touch my son again, I really… I curse your whole family to die!” Wrinkles piled up on her once-young face, veins bulging like an enraged monkey. “Auntie is not afraid of trouble. Auntie is not afraid of going to the police station. Touch him again if you dare.”
She never put down the pole. After a pause, she raised it like a sword at Zhuhua.
“Tell me. Did you break this drying pole?”
Now Zhuhua remembered. Sugula had broken this one himself. No wonder it looked familiar.
“No wonder it disappeared the week after it broke. I thought it got thrown away. Turns out it was taken home and hidden. If she’s asking this, did Sugula tell her I beat him so hard the pole snapped?” Zhuhua thought. He extended his right hand slightly, signaling her to lower it, but she seemed too focused to notice.
“Auntie, listen to me for a few minutes first. Please don’t interrupt yet. You can calm down first,” Zhuhua said. In his mind: “My turn now.”
“First, this drying pole was broken by your son himself. It has nothing to do with me or anyone else. It was entirely his own behavior.”
“Second, your son does have faults. He moans, poses, and shouts in the dorm all day, seriously disturbing not only me but everyone else. We persuaded him many times with no result, and then used physical contact within what we considered reasonable bounds.”
“Finally, we do not touch your son for no reason. No one wants to touch him anyway. We’d love not to. If you don’t want us to, fine, we won’t. But your son has to stop first.”
Now she seemed blazing furious. Borrowing the teacher’s words: “This is someone else’s parent. Do you understand what that means now?”
“What do you mean by moaning? What do you mean by posing?” Her spit flew as she shouted. Zhuhua focused on something else: “You don’t like my son’s walk, so you can beat him?”
Zhuhua suddenly understood. The family did know what Sugula was like, just not enough.
“Just ask him to show you. He does it every day in the dorm: twisting hips and waist, stretching his neck and making loud weird cries. Does he stop at home? If yes, then he’s very polite, only troubling people outside.”
“Dorms are public spaces. Just because you dislike it, you can stop him? Who do you think you are?” she roared. Only then did Zhuhua realize the hallway was full of onlookers.
He noticed this logic was no different from Sugula’s “not for you.” No wonder: birds of a feather.
He decided to remind her that Sugula was the common enemy of the dorm.
“Yes, I alone have no power. But the other seven people in the dorm, everyone except him, have clearly said they dislike this. Should he still keep doing it?”
“No matter what, you hitting him is wrong.” She avoided the “public enemy” point entirely.
“So I promise I won’t touch your son again,” Zhuhua said. “The guarantee statement you asked for is in my bag. Want to see it now?”
“Does it have fingerprint? Parent signature? If not, I won’t accept it,” she said, now looming from moral high ground again.
“No fingerprint. If you want one, I can’t give it, and I won’t give it. I can’t hand over biometric data.”
This time she said nothing further. She just held the broken pole and walked in circles around Zhuhua. He began suspecting violent tendencies. On her second lap, the pole nearly crashed onto his forehead. On her fifth lap, she whipped it hard against the iron railing. The hollow railing echoed like a painful groan, drawing even more onlookers.
Sugula’s father was stimulated by this physical information and rushed out to check on his beloved. Seeing she was merely circling, he turned to Zhuhua.
Now it was Father’s round.
He was indeed tall. Zhuhua had to look up.
“You came from the same middle school, then same high school class, same dorm. That means fate. He’s not little anymore, and neither are you,” the father said, calmer than the mother. Then his tone shifted. “I warn you, do not touch my son. We’re not afraid of trouble.”
Then he pivoted again:
“You should be more tolerant of each other.”
At some unknown moment the mother stopped circling and shouted toward Zhuhua:
“Who can he tolerate anymore?!”
Was there tolerance? The whole dorm had tolerated Sugula for a year and did not immediately tell teachers or parents, partly to protect his dignity. That should count as enough.
After saying this, the father went back. The mother remained.
“Auntie, if there’s nothing else, I’m leaving first.”
“Don’t go yet. I still have questions,” she said, finally sounding somewhat calmer.
Yet instead of asking, she took out her phone, opened this app, checked that app, and finally opened Xiaohongshu.
“If you have something to say, just say it. No need to keep scrolling social media,” Zhuhua said impatiently, lifting his bag.
Now the father came out again, with Sugula following behind.
Zhuhua stared at Sugula. Sugula did not dare meet his eyes, only kept looking at his own shoe tips while going downstairs.
The mother left too.
“What a bizarre family,” a bystander whispered to a companion, pointing at the trio below.
Zhuhua slung his backpack, picked up his book box, and left as well.
“The villain complains first, says he’s ‘protecting me,’ yet doesn’t even dare look me in the eye?”
(X) Final Clash, Endgame
That evening the homeroom teacher called Zhuhua and Sugula out and made both apologize.
“Sugula, I sincerely apologize for the impact on you. In the future I will not have physical conflict with you,” Zhuhua said first, then handed over his guarantee statement.
“Sugula, this is Zhuhua’s statement. Take a look,” said the teacher. “I will keep it for you.”
Carrying on his mother’s will, Sugula insisted on fingerprinting.
“This… doesn’t it need a fingerprint?”
“No. Keeping it with me is enough,” the teacher explained, taking it back.
“Then I guarantee I will do my best to correct the issues my dormmates raised,” Sugula said. This time he finally glanced at Zhuhua, then quickly moved his gaze away.
“Zhuhua, any requests from your side? Speak now,” the teacher asked.
“Yes. Classmate Sugula, when exactly will you finish correcting these issues?”
“March,” Sugula answered after a long pause.
Zhuhua found it absurd. Was this a chronic disease? Did it need gradual treatment? Could it not be corrected immediately?
“Also, please have your parents apologize to me. Their attitude was very aggressive and expanded from me personally to my whole family,” Zhuhua added.
“Then I apologize on behalf of my parents.”
“Sugula, anything else you require?”
Sugula started swaying again.
“Mm… I hope when you give me suggestions in the future, you keep some distance.”
“Okay, we’ll do that.”
“You’ve both expressed apologies. Go back now,” said the teacher.
Later, Sugula finally corrected himself.
But could it relapse?
(XI) Epilogue
“Zhuhua, wake up! It’s already :40! If you don’t get up you’ll be late!”
“Oh, okay, okay, I’m getting up now!”
…
“Sugula, can you calm down for once?”
“Screw you. You calm down first!”
…
“Teacher! Zhuhua collapsed on the floor! He’s bleeding!”
“Call an ambulance, now!”
…
“Zhuhua, you have to be okay…”
…
“Doctor, how is Zhuhua?!”
“His condition is still not optimistic…”
…
“You’re finally awake!”
“Who are you? Why am I here? Wasn’t I still in class?”
…
“Doctor, what is happening to Zhuhua…?”
“We’ve done our best. Because he suffered long-term external mental pressure, plus severe head trauma this time, waking up at all is already fortunate…”
…
“This is a courtroom! Suspect, be quiet! Observe courtroom discipline!”
“Suspect… sit down, do not stand… suspect! Put down the knife! Bailiff! Stop him!”
…
“If I can’t live, then you won’t live peacefully either…”
“Ah!”
…
Zhuhua finally woke up. It had only been a dream. He had almost believed he was really going to die.
It was Saturday afternoon. He had just enjoyed a comfortable nap. Weekends with two days off were rare.
The sunset passed through the glass and fell on his face, warm and bright but not harsh.
“So nice.”
“But didn’t Sugula reform? Why do I feel he’ll relapse?”
“Bang, bang, bang…” Someone knocked on the door.
“Zhuhua, get out here. I know you’re home. How dare you hit my son?” It was Sugula’s mother.
“Sigh. Looks like I’m still not awake.”
Zhuhua fell asleep forever.
(End)