Chapter Thirty-One: The Awkward Conversation Atmosphere

  I walked into the house, swept up the flour bucket and Qin Ke Yi's broken phone on the floor, then picked up the phone to call Guo Cheng. I asked her if she knew where Qin Ke Yi had gone, but Guo Cheng's answer was disappointing. So I called Zhang Wei again, but she was out of reach. The two of them were the only people who might know where Qin Ke Yi was, and now neither of them had any news about Qin Ke Yi. I sat alone on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. My mind was a mix of worry for Qin Ke Yi and memories of dinner with Ding Ning earlier. Sometimes I regretted how I treated Qin Ke Yi before she left, and sometimes I felt disappointed that today's date with Ding Ning had yielded nothing. All these thoughts and conflicts swirled around Qin Ke Yi and Ding Ning in my mind, until eventually, accompanied by these questions and psychological contradictions, I fell asleep unknowingly on the sofa.

  In the morning, due to the biological clock, I got up from the sofa in a daze, tidied myself up a bit, and then went to school for class. As soon as I walked to the second building of the school, I found a group of people gathered on the lawn beside the No. 2 building, with two police cars parked beside them. I realized that something had happened, and then thought of Qin Keyi who didn't come back yesterday, cold sweat suddenly burst out from the back of my head, and I rushed towards the crowd without caring about anything.

  There were too many onlookers, fortunately my height allowed me to stand out in the crowd, I pushed aside a few people and squeezed in, saw that the crowd was surrounding a spot, where someone was lying on the ground, to be exact, it was a corpse, covered with white cloth. Two police officers were using chalk to draw the outline of the body on the ground, while another officer was taking pictures. From the shoes exposed by the corpse, it could be seen that the deceased was a male. So I let out a deep sigh and asked a boy next to me what had happened.

  Originally lying on the ground was a senior student who was about to graduate, because he did not pass the last four-level exam in school and worried that he would not be able to find a job because of this, so he chose to jump from the top of Building 2 this morning to eliminate this worry. I haven't counted how many people have gone on the road of no return because of English. Like the previous months, Huazhong Agricultural University had four students jumping off buildings in one week, people may as usual condemn and lament, condemning the current education system for being inhumane, and lamenting the fragility of life like a thread in the wind. After condemnation and lamentation, it is usually forgotten, and life is still the same as before. In China, the disappearance of a life really doesn't stir up much ripple, this point was mentioned by Lu Xun decades ago. If we only look at the death of an unknown person at a certain point in time, it's indeed hard to cause our lasting sorrow, the reason can only be attributed to the deceased's personal psychological weakness. But when we connect all the people who died because of the unreasonable education system with the reform process of China's education on the entire timeline, we will find that they are pushing forward the progress of education at the cost of their blood.

  In a country where the invention of exams has shackled the thoughts of thousands of Chinese people for years, it's not surprising that the CET-4 exists. In my eyes, its value is no less than a roll of toilet paper, especially in this era where answers are flying everywhere and cheating is rampant. Its existence has become meaningless, and its role has become negligible, but its derivative value has increased year by year, with hundreds of millions of yuan in registration fees each year. The training, books, cram schools, and even answer-selling vendors surrounding the exam are all thriving. This may also be the reason why the country is reluctant to cancel the CET-4.

  The sluggish relevant departments finally introduced a seemingly beautiful reform two years ago, but it was actually meaningless. However, many recruitment units, which were even more sluggish than the relevant departments, still stubbornly used the CET-4 as a recruitment threshold.

  To be honest, I don't feel any sympathy for the deceased in front of me. He doesn't deserve it. A certain general once said: "Only the strong are worthy of living." If a mere level 4 exam can push him to the crossroads of life and death, then even if he chose to continue living instead of seeking death, when he goes out into society and faces pressures thousands of times heavier than the level 4 exam, he will still take this step. Since it's only a matter of time, it's better to be free from suffering earlier rather than later. If there is reincarnation, maybe he can be reborn sooner. I just hope that this student's death can have some meaning like Sun Zhigang's, and can draw attention from relevant departments.

  I stood in silence for a few seconds, then walked towards the classroom. All my classmates were commenting on today's suicide incident, but I was thinking about Qin Ke Yi. I didn't know if her actions meant that we would become enemies from now on. Yesterday, I started to doubt my feelings for Tong Chen for the first time. I didn't know if it was because of Qin Ke Yi's appearance or not. I also didn't know if my feelings for Qin Ke Yi were love or just a simple liking. But I knew that after living together for a month, we had slowly begun to integrate into each other's lives.

  With these questions and conflicting emotions in mind, I dazedly finished the class. At noon, I didn't have an appetite to go to the cafeteria to eat, so after school, I chose to return to my dormitory to lie down. Not long after, Lao Er and San Pàngzi returned from the cafeteria after finishing dinner, and they were very surprised by my behavior in the dormitory. So, I suggested playing Dou Di Zhu to eliminate their surprise, while also trying to distract myself so that I wouldn't keep thinking about these annoying things.

  It can be seen from the score after playing for two hours that my bad mood was not only not alleviated by fighting landlords, but also brought into it. The whole process was confused and made mistakes one after another, which made San Baozi and Lao Er feel happy to see me lose. As long as they had a chance to take the card, they would never let it go, which also made them forget their humble psychology and painful memories in the game of fighting landlords because of me. Since the original intention of playing poker was not fully achieved, I chose to escape in time, regardless of San Baozi's and Lao Er's contemptuous eyes.

  I thought Qin Ke Yi might be back home, so I rushed back with this fantasy, but the result after opening the door still made me very disappointed. Qin Ke Yi had not returned yet. I sat in the living room that seemed a bit cold and quiet without Qin Ke Yi, stubbornly waiting for her return. During the wait, I fantasized about different scenarios of Qin Ke Yi entering the house and what I would say to her. Every time I heard footsteps downstairs, I couldn't help but tense up, straighten my back, and listen carefully, silently praying that it was Qin Ke Yi coming upstairs. But every time the footsteps continued without stopping, I slumped back onto the sofa in disappointment. Later, I suddenly realized how foolish my behavior was - Qin Ke Yi was now limping, she wouldn't make such loud footsteps.

  Just as I was continuing to stare blankly while waiting for Qin Ke, I suddenly remembered that Zhang Wei would practice sketching in the art room of Building 6 every Wednesday at 7 o'clock. And today happened to be Wednesday, so I quickly ran out of the house and rushed to school.

  When I ran to the door of the painting room panting, I happened to meet Zhang Wei walking out of the painting room. Seeing my arrival, she looked very surprised.

  "Hello! How did you come?"

  Just as I was about to take a deep breath and adjust my tone to explain the situation, Zhang Wei asked me again, "What's going on with you and Ke Yi? Yesterday she came to my place and seemed really upset, and didn't even want to talk to me."

  "Where...where is she really?" As soon as I heard Zhang Wei's words, my terrible mood suddenly dissipated.

  "Yes! You said you were too, she's already hurt like that, and you still bully her, and you're at ease letting her go out alone!"

  "I didn't bully her! And it's no use explaining to you for now, tell me where she is now and I'll go find her?"

  "I sent her to the multi-functional hall on the 6th floor of Building No.1, they are training there today."

  "Can she still train in that state?" I asked with some surprise.

  "She doesn't train anyway, mainly trains new people, if you want to apologize go find her."

  "What's wrong with me?! I didn't do anything! Forget it, I'm leaving!" After saying goodbye to Zhang Wei, I hastily headed towards the multi-functional hall on the 6th floor of Building No.1. When I arrived, Qin Ke Yi was indeed there, sitting in a chair at the entrance, facing away from me and watching a group of girls walking like cats inside, while I stared intently at Qin Ke Yi's back without having time to observe the girls inside.

  It's probably because of my sudden appearance, all the girls in the house looked at me with a start. At this time, Qin Ke Yi also turned her head back when she found out about their behavior. When she saw that I was standing behind her, her expression quickly became very angry and she quickly turned her head away.

  "May I, can we talk?" I asked after standing silently behind her for a few seconds.

  "What's there to talk about?" Qin Ke said coldly, and at this time the girls in the house started discussing in a low voice after hearing our conversation.

  "I was worried about you when I came back last night and didn't see you. Just now, Zhang Wei told me that you were very angry yesterday. Although I'm not clear why it made you so angry, but I think we still need to talk about it." I sincerely said to Qin Ke Yi.

  "You'd worry about me? Sorry to trouble you! My anger has nothing to do with you, you can leave at ease!" Qin Keyi said in a strange tone. I think that under the current circumstances, if I don't use some unconventional methods, it would be hard for Qin Keyi to give me this opportunity. So I leaned down and whispered into her ear, "Don't you want me to carry you out again? After being in contact with you for so long, I think you've also experienced my bold personality, and I'm very likely to do it!"

  Qin Ke Yi listened to the end, silently hesitating there. I think at this time her heart must be calculating the possibility of me doing so. Finally, Qin Ke Yi reluctantly supported the stool and got up with difficulty, walking hard towards the door. When passing by my side, she even elbowed me hard with her elbow. At this time, all the girls in the room started covering their mouths and laughing. So I blushed and waved goodbye to them, then followed Qin Ke Yi out. In the meantime, I tried to go up and support Qin Ke Yi, but was pushed away by her again.

  I followed Qin Ke to the staircase at the corner of the corridor, because the sixth floor of Building No. 1 was originally rarely visited, and it was around 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening, so basically no one would come, making this an ideal place for conversation, and also a haunt of many lovers.

  Qin Keiyi was standing with his back to me, and I didn't know where to start, so we just stood there in silence. At this time, a couple walked up the stairs between the 5th and 6th floors, stopping somewhere to talk about their love. Faintly, you could hear the boy complaining that the girl had no time to accompany him lately, making his ** aspect very depressed, so he wanted to solve it here, but the girl was worried that someone would suddenly appear and ruin their good thing. The remaining dialogue took place in a negotiation of threats and compromise. In the end, the girl reached an agreement with the boy on the condition of an mp3, and then from downstairs came the urgent breathing sounds of their kissing, about a minute later, followed by the girl's excited moans and the boy's heavy panting sounds.

  Due to environmental factors, all the lights in our school's corridors and stairwells are voice-controlled. When they receive a sound loud enough, the lights will automatically turn on, and then turn off again after a few seconds. At this time, the girl's moans happened to match the decibel and frequency required by the lights, so the lights in the stairwell turned on and off from time to time, perfectly matching their atmosphere.

  And I and Qin Ke stood silently in this relatively awkward environment.