As the two of them hurried off to another food station, the rest of the line turned and looked back at Fang Mu, who was still standing at the end. Then, as if by tacit agreement, everyone scattered at once, allowing Fang Mu to walk up to the front. As they hurried away, everyone had the same expression on their face: panic.
The cafeteria worker himself was stunned. He stared at Fang Mu for several seconds, and then yelled roughly, "Hey, are you gonna order food or not?"
Gritting his teeth, Fang Mu walked slowly forward, feeling as if the looks from everyone's eyes were stabbing into him like needles.
His vision started to blur and the short distance in front of him suddenly felt as long as a football field. "A bowl of porridge and two tea eggs."
Fang Mu sat in a corner of the dining hall and ate his breakfast. Although he kept his head down the whole time, he could still feel everyone's eyes as they watched him and hear their voices as they whispered to each other.
No one would sit anywhere near him, making the area around his table seem like a strange no-man's land.
It was like he was a poisonous plant with long, spreading vines, and if anyone got too close, their life would be at risk.
After eating half his breakfast, he found his appetite was gone, so he got up and quickly left the dining hall.
As soon as he entered the third floor corridor, Fang Mu saw that a big mess had been made in front of his door. His computer monitor and tower were sitting on the floor, covered by a bunch of his clothes. A crowd of people were standing around his open door, watching the person inside.
Had Du Yu returned?
He hurried forward, reaching his room just as Du Yu threw his blanket out the door. Seeing Fang Mu, Du Yu seemed to pause for an instant, but then he bent over, grabbed Fang Mu's washbasin from beneath his bed, and tossed it outside.
Fang Mu dodged out of the way and the washbasin smacked against the opposite wall, causing his soap and toiletries inside to fall to the floor.
"What are you doing?" Fang Mu asked.
Du Yu didn't respond, just walked over to Fang Mu's bookshelf and knocked all the books onto the floor. Then he picked them up and threw them out of the room one by one. All the people watching outside quickly got out of the way.
Fang Mu didn't move, letting book after book strike his body and legs.
This behavior enraged Du Yu, and he grabbed several more books and hurled them directly at Fang Mu's face and body.
Blood was soon flowing from Fang Mu's nose and mouth, running down his chin and dripping onto his clothing.
Zou Tuanjie had been watching and he couldn't bear to watch this, so he grabbed Fang Mu and pulled him to the side. "Come on, man," he said to Du Yu. "Don't do this…"
The words hadn't even left Zou Tuanjie's mouth when Du Yu hit him in the forehead with a book. Zou Tuanjie gave an outcry of pain and shrank back.
Soon all of Fang Mu's belongings had been thrown into the hall. Clapping the dust off his hands, Du Yu walked out and stared at him for several seconds.
"Beat it!" he barked through clenched teeth.
Wiping his bloody nose, Fang Mu squatted down and began picking up his things.
"Go!" yelled Du Yu, his voice rising in volume.
Seeming not to hear him, Fang Mu patiently organized his things. When he couldn't find the cap to a pen, he began carefully looking for it in a pile of clothing.
"Get out of here," said Du Yu, his voice a little quieter, but still ice-cold. "None of us want to die!"
Fang Mu stopped what he was doing, stood up and turned around. He felt Du Yu and everyone else's eyes boring into his face.
He looked at them one by one. As soon as they met his eyes, almost everyone quickly looked own. Only Du Yu glared firmly back at him.
Fang Mu looked into Du Yu's eyes for several seconds. He slowly said: "I won't leave until I've caught him."
Then he grabbed his blanket and clothes and walked down to Meng Fanzhe's already locked room. With the creak of wood, he swiftly kicked it open. He tossed his things inside, went back to the hallway, collected more, and did the same.
No one stopped him. No one helped him. As everyone else just stood there and watched, Fang Mu picked up the last of his belongings. He walked inside the room that once belonged to Meng Fanzhe and slammed the door shut.
After standing empty for several days, Room 304 finally had a new resident. Fang Mu took the left side of the room, making the bed and placing his things on the left desk and in the left cupboard. Only once everything was neatly put away did he realize that the left bed had been Meng Fanzhe's. For an instant he considered moving his things to the other side of the room, but then he took off his shoes, lay down on the bed, and that was it.
Fang Mu sized up his new lair. No one had lived there after Meng Fanzhe died, so everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. The walls were badly watermarked, as if someone had splashed them with cups of liquid. In short, the place looked awful.
Fang Mu thought and looked around, looked around and thought. After not sleeping for a whole night, his eyelids began to feel heavier and heavier, until sleep won out.
When he awoke it was already night. Even though his stomach was growling from hunger, Fang Mu had no desire to get up. The lights from the dormitory across the way shined into his dark room, sending shadows across the walls that moved faintly.
Feeling a little cold, Fang Mu involuntarily curled up under the covers. By force of habit, he glanced at the other bed across the room, but now there was only a thin straw mattress.
So this is how cold it is, sleeping alone in a dorm room.
Compared to Room 313, which had always been packed full of his and Du Yu's stuff, Room 304 seemed terribly spacious.
So spacious, in fact, that it made him nervous.
Suddenly Fang Mu wondered whether, during Meng Fanzhe's final days alone in this room, he had also laid here in the dark, silently savoring the feeling of solitude.
Until he truly lost his mind.
Will I go mad, too?
Fang Mu hopped out of bed and looked at the dim lights from the distant dormitory. Seeing them, he felt a little better, a little less alone.
First, he told himself, you need to get something to eat.
But no matter what, he was not going back to the dining hall. He reached out and turned on the light and then grabbed a pack of instant noodles. He shook his kettle. Luckily, Du Yu hadn't broken it. It was empty.
Holding the kettle, he stood in front of his door for several seconds. Then, with what seemed a great deal of determination, he opened it and walked out.
Something fluttered to his feet. Fang Mu picked it up. It was an envelope with a letter inside.
He looked down either end of the hallway. It was very quiet. No one was there.
Fang Mu sat down on his bed and took the letter out of the envelope. It was from Deng Linyue; he recognized her handwriting.
My Dearest Fang Mu,
Please allow me to call you this one final time, and please believe that as I do so, I love you. Perhaps this love will gradually disappear with the passage of time, but at the very least, I firmly believe that at the moment in which I write these words, I do still love you.
By the time you read this letter, I will probably already be on my way home. Don't try to find me (although perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part; you would probably never consider looking for me if I left). I will not be returning to school for some time; I have entrusted my family with handling the necessary procedures to apply for time off.