I discovered I was addicted to suicide when I was in junior high school.
How did I first discover this? Perhaps I just found life, for some reason, boring. It was just the same routine of going to school, doing homework, and eating, and suddenly I became interested in the afterlife. I once read a report about someone who had been rescued from the brink of death and said they had seen the world on the other side.
What is the boundary between life and death like?
On the surface, I am no different from an ordinary male junior high school student, maybe I am just not as noisy and a little precocious in the eyes of my elders.
Ah, you're going to say "this guy's idol is Dazai Osamu." No one can say for sure if that guy is a smut addict like me, but if you try it once, just once, it's easy to get addicted to that feeling.
Without anxiety, casting aside all worries, I calmly sat down behind the door, the rope tied to the doorknob looped around my neck. I quietly lowered myself down, savoring the suffocation. The rope gradually tightened, and the scene before me was pink. It was funny, wasn't it? It wasn't blood-red or black. When you slowly suffocate, your vision turns pink.
Some young people like to listen to music, smoke, ride bicycles down hills, and skate... But I like to enjoy death quietly.
There were a few times when I nearly lost control. The rope tightened around my neck, my feet slipped on the ground, and I couldn't stand up. The pink gradually turned gray, and I entered that state of "blackness"—no, what followed wasn't pain, but a strange song.
It was the kind of humming a child makes, so thin it sounded like a mosquito's buzz.
I don't know how long it took (perhaps only a few seconds), but two flashes of light, like camera flashes, appeared in the darkness. Let me think about how to describe it... Have you ever been through a tunnel in a car? As the car is about to leave the dim tunnel, the light at the exit flashes continuously in front of you... It's that feeling. It's also like what's said in the Peach Blossom Spring: At first it's very narrow, but then it becomes passable... Suddenly, it becomes clear...
If the knot around my neck hadn't loosened by itself, I would have been completely immersed in it and wouldn't have woken up.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not a malicious misanthrope; I really like this world. Cats, dogs, girls, dads, moms, clean kitchen windows... they're all cute, right?
I just like simulating hanging, putting a plastic bag over my head, suffocating in the bathtub... these are easy to control and don't pollute the environment. Cutting your wrists, jumping from a building, or even lying on the railway tracks will not only harm yourself, but also cause a lot of trouble for others.
Ultimately, I don't think I'm special in any way.
My name is Dai Xueming. I'm an average student with above-average grades and a quiet personality. My hobby is experiencing death. I hate loud noises and violence, I hate TV dramas, and I enjoy old movies and beautiful women with old-fashioned makeup... Look, if you change "experiencing death" to "painting," "classical music," or "basketball," wouldn't this self-introduction suddenly become boring and disgusting?
——Next, I will talk about my troubles.
My death addiction has made my life virtually worry-free. No matter how much pressure I face to get into college, just savoring the sensation of death for a few seconds instantly dissipates the stress. As a result, I've excelled in my studies, ranking among the top students in high school. This makes my parents very proud.
My father has placed many hopes on me, and these hopes are lovely things. I like them to stay in me and make me seem to shine. He wants me to study abroad for two months during the summer vacation of my second year of high school. If conditions permit, he will find an opportunity to send me abroad to study.
The so-called "conditions" are mainly in the economic sense.
To supplement our household income, we rented out the upper floors of our home. We bought two floors of an apartment building in the city center in the early 1990s, and it turned out to be a wise investment.
The rent was reasonable, the landlord was friendly, the location was convenient... Soon, the tenant named Xu Tuo moved in.
Xu Tuo was about 27 or 28, but looked young, like a college student. He worked at a nearby IT company, was single, and seemed very nice. My mother soon invited him down for dinner every day.
The dining table with Xu Tuo around always had a relaxed and joyful atmosphere. He was like a long-lost friend reunited with my family, fitting in naturally like water dissolving into water. I called him Brother Xu, and my parents called him Little Xu. He often helped us fix computers, install routers, and so on.
If you don't tell anyone that this is the tenant, he looks like my brother.
At dinnertime, Dad would turn on the TV, and we'd eat while listening to the news. There had been a dismemberment case last week, and one the week before. It was brutal, and there weren't many clues left.
Honestly, my family has lived in this area for so many years and we've never heard of anything like this happening in the neighborhood.
My dad opened a can of beer and handed it to Brother Xu. "I only know that there was a dismemberment case in the old city two years ago... It's been so chaotic lately. He feels embarrassed when I always say I want to drive to pick Xueming up from school."
"Boys, at this age, don't like being picked up and dropped off at school by their parents."
"Yeah, boys should be more self-reliant," my dad muttered. "It's just that sometimes the school makes up lessons late, and parents feel uneasy."
"--How about I pick you up on my way, Xueming?" Xu Tuo asked me, "I'm off from work and on my way home from school."
That was the deal. If I had extra classes at school that day and stayed out late, he'd pick me up and take me home. Even if my classmates asked me who he was, I could just say he was my neighbor.
And walking home with Xu Tuo, we could even stop by the supermarket to pick up some snacks. We didn't really have much in common; when we were together, he'd ask me about my studies and my aspirations, then broach the subject of employment opportunities for those aspirations. But Xu Tuo was much better than those adults who force conversations with children even when they clearly had nothing in common.
But problems soon arose.
That day at the convenience store, he bought me fried chicken and a Coke. We would eat in the convenience store dining area before going back home to avoid my mother's nagging.
It was dark outside, and the lights in the shop were the brightest in the area. Because of the dismemberment case, residents in the area were in a hurry, and fewer people were out and about at night.
He lowered his head and handed the can to me. Suddenly, he said, "Huh?" "Xueming, were you bullied at school?"
I was stunned and realized that it was the marks on my neck.
"The shirt is too small, and the collar is tight," I gave him the generic answer. For years, I'd been giving my parents the same perfunctory answer. They didn't think much of it. Boys grow so quickly, and clothes that fit them a year ago might not fit them today.
I also try to grow my hair longer to cover the marks under my ears.
"If you're being bullied, tell me."
"Why? Do you have any ideas?" I laughed. "Like 'GTO'?"
"Adults have their own ways."
But Xu Tuo's eyes were still fixed on the marks he had made on me. I heard something that sent a chill down my spine.
"—This isn't caused by a tight collar." He whispered, "Are you being bullied? Or are you suicidal?"
I stared at him. At times like this, people always want to say some trash talk as a counterattack, such as "It has nothing to do with you", "I was pinching you too hard when I was putting on my clothes", "I was pinching you with props during the school play rehearsal"...
But perhaps because I was unhappy about having my secret discovered, I tried desperately to observe everything he did, trying to find a way to fight back.
The man in front of me, Xu Tuo, a programmer at an IT company, looked younger than his actual age. He had fair skin, a tall and well-proportioned build, a kind personality, and a slight obsession with cleanliness. Because of his handsome appearance, many elderly women in the neighborhood were curious about his relationship status...
This is a frustrating discovery. I found that the Xu Tuo I knew was just like me without the "death experience", and seemed ordinary and boring.
There must be something about him that I can grasp. Everyone has their own dark secrets. Does he have hepatitis? Is he gay? Does he like cross-dressing? Does he only have one testicle? ...
No one would be so bland, he must have hidden his most colorful label.
Then, I found it.
"Is that stain on your collar blood?" I said. "If a black collar gets stained with a colored drink, it won't be visible. These little stains are clumped together, so I think they're blood. You..."
The blood on his collar—was it a nosebleed, coughing up blood, gingivitis, or a fight? I was stuck, not knowing which one to choose. There were two tiny stains on the collar of his black shirt, so small that I couldn't even be sure if it was blood or something else.
With a soft click, he pressed the can in my hand onto the table. Xu Tuo looked at me with a strange smile. It was like a spliced portrait: you put smiling eyes and a smiling mouth on a blank face, but you know the background is blank.
"How about we play a game?" he said. "Xueming, let's exchange secrets."
"I don't have any secrets."
"No, you have to play." He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me out of the convenience store with a force I couldn't break free from. "Your secret should be very interesting. Your father is a policeman, and he hasn't discovered your secret. If I discovered it, I would be very proud."
The street was deserted, and I wasn't sure whether to struggle or scream. He led me through City Park, the opposite direction of home.
"The first day I arrived at your house, I thought you were a very strange child," he said softly. "What do boys of your age like? Football, basketball, women's breasts, bands, physics experiments, video games, the Fast and Furious series... I was mentally prepared, thinking maybe the landlord had a noisy child that even dogs disliked. However, you are completely the opposite of what I imagined. I can't see what your hobbies are."
"What about you? What do you like?"
"No, we agreed to exchange secrets. You can't ask me to give you my secrets without my permission."
Before we knew it, we had walked a long way and stopped under a bridge. This was where the first dismemberment case took place.
Xu Tuo put his arm around my shoulder. Curious about my reaction, he said, "I thought you were going to yell and push me away. Aren't you afraid?"
"Should I be afraid?"
I asked this question sincerely. My obsession with death has numb me to the normal sources of fear in the human world. But it still sounded a bit provocative. Xu Tuo sighed and led me to the bridge arch.
At this point, I stopped and thought I should reveal my first secret to ease the deadlock - after all, I have an English test tomorrow and I still have to go home to finish my homework and memorize vocabulary.
"Do you like dying?" I asked.
As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Tuo suddenly turned around in the dark and put something like a thin rope around my neck, tightening it fiercely. His technique was fast and skillful, and all this happened in just three seconds.