Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 150

Chapter 150: Already Sunk

After dating for a few years but not getting his parents’ support, Zhan Luo’s girlfriend finally broke up with him.

In the first few weeks after the breakup, his world was emptied by his girlfriend. Zhan Luo suffered from severe insomnia. To prevent his life from continuing to be terrible, he went to the hospital and got sleeping pills, but unfortunately, the medicine could not soothe his despair.

In his sleepless nights, he would repeatedly recall their life together, how they would talk about literature and movies together, and how his girlfriend could always accept his bad moods, his clumsiness, and his anxiety. He had never been used to someone approaching him without asking for anything in return. She did not judge, nor did she ask questions, letting time flow quietly in their love.

That period of peace had made Zhan Luo believe that he would find a place to dock. He had learned to depend on someone for the first time, like a branch sprouting in the spring light, and had slowly developed a trust in feelings.

He had a sense of belonging.

It was his girlfriend who had made him no longer feel empty inside. He had already forgotten about the existence of the tropical fish. But after the breakup, the ruins in those pictures had returned to his eyes.

So he had tried to win his girlfriend back.

Message after message was sent, but they all sank like a stone into the sea. Zhan Luo had no choice but to go to the bookstore she frequented to create a chance encounter, but he had returned empty-handed every time.

In the second week after the breakup, Zhan Luo had accidentally seen a volunteer recruitment notice from the reading group on an official account. He knew that his girlfriend was interested in Qin Luo’s public welfare activities, and they had also participated together when they were dating. He had sent an application email with a “let’s try it out” attitude, but it had been rejected because of his gender.

“Due to the gender ratio limit of the position, we are temporarily not accepting male applicants.”

He was blocked at the door. There was no room for argument, no room for supplement. Zhan Luo had stared at that sentence for a full ten minutes. He was confused by this, not understanding why gender would become a new obstacle.

“Woman” had once again become his threshold.

This anger could not be expressed and was swirling in his body. His body, which was not recognized by his father, his ability, which was not respected by his colleagues, his love, which was abandoned by his girlfriend, and even being a volunteer and being rejected because he was a man.

Those rights that he could not use because of his gender, he could not taste them anywhere.

Zhan Luo was dissatisfied with this rule. He believed that people who loved public welfare should have privileges, and this privilege should not be divided by gender. This was the meaning of the reading group’s existence, and it was the original intention of why he had liked Qin Luo’s works. So he had written a long comment on the official account, had sent an email to Qin Luo’s personal email, and had even gone to the reading group to cause trouble and had had an argument with the staff. It wasn’t until the storm had gradually grown bigger and had reached Qin Luo’s ears that Qin Luo had finally made an exception and had given him a spot.

Only then did Zhan Luo give up.

He had told his girlfriend about being a volunteer and had planned to fulfill their former dream—to follow the reading group into the mountains for poverty alleviation.

Zhan Luo had hoped that his girlfriend would reconsider this relationship and not give up on this feeling. But the woman had not paid any attention to him, and the message had once again sunk like a stone into the sea.

Zhan Luo could not suppress his longing for her, so he had gone around asking for her new address and new job, and had often blocked her to create a chance to meet. The other could not stand Zhan Luo’s harassment and had begun to speak harshly to him, and in the end, had even chosen to call the police and had moved away from Shanghai.

“You’re just like your dad.”
“Even if you get married, it won’t have a good result.”
“You haven’t changed at all.”

Zhan Luo had long forgotten many of the harsh words. He was unwilling to face a beautiful woman with a vicious face, so he had chosen to beautify it in his memory.

But he could always hear that clear sentence in his ear: “You’re just like your dad.”

It had rained heavily that night.

He had walked for more than ten kilometers. By the time he had reached his door, he was soaked. His mouth was full of the smell of earth, and he was dizzy.

His mother had been startled when she had opened the door for him and had asked him what had happened.

Zhan Luo had not said a word and had lain on the rocking chair that his father usually used to watch ball games. The commentator on the TV was still passionate, and his voice had pierced his eardrums. A sour feeling had come over him again and again.

His father had been woken up by the sound of the TV and had come out of the bedroom, cursing. They had not spoken for six months because of the matter of the woman getting married, and when they had met again, they had not shown any concern.

Zhan Luo had laughed wildly at his curses. He had laughed so hard he had almost bitten his tongue. The thought hidden behind his nerves was about to tear him apart. He could only use laughter to replace his criminal thoughts. Reason, between the so-called “awakening” and “betrayal,” was sometimes just a step away. He believed that at that moment, his spirit was still prostituting itself.

His mother had been scared again by his laughter. She had come to him with a bowl of ginger soup, hoping that he would take a sip and stop his strange laughter. She did not want to see the father and son fight again. She could not clean up the mess, and she had no strength to face their farce.

“Look at yourself. Do you look like a man?”

His father was still used to using a condescending expression, saying things that made Zhan Luo feel dangerous. He looked at his father’s eyes and stopped smiling. What echoed in his mind was not a roar, but an unusually calm thought.

—It must be ended to be reborn.

Once a belief is established, it is like a curse, and it will not return until it is dead.

Zhan Luo had a new goal and had immediately detached himself from the grief of the breakup. He had begun to go home frequently, each time with health products and gifts. In the second month after the breakup, his father had been hospitalized for pancreatitis. As the son of the family, Zhan Luo had to bear the heavy responsibility and had come to the hospital every day to accompany him, and had taken the initiative to repair his terrible relationship with his father.

Zhan’s father had retired because of a heart condition, which was why he had pinned his own dreams on his children. He had been taking medicine all year round and would often have chest tightness and dizziness. But he was very stubborn and firmly believed that his physique as a former athlete was not bad, so he always skipped his physical examinations.

After he had turned sixty, he had always liked to buy all kinds of health products of unknown origin. The advertisements would say “strengthen the heart” and “calm the nerves.” Zhan Luo had seen the brochures for health products at home more than once, with slogans like “Sanqi powder can replace Western medicine.” As someone who worked in a pharmaceutical factory, he knew the tricks of health products, but he had never tried to dissuade his father.

After he was discharged from the hospital, Zhan Luo had pretended to be a filial son and had bought his father health products. He had even ground the powder, packed it in bags, and labeled it himself, mixing the health products with Western medicine.

Men, they are always careless.
And mothers, they never care about the sloppy and stinky habits of the father and son.

In his research, he had found a herbal powder containing a trace amount of a certain substance, a substance with a slight toxicity but which would cause arrhythmia and increase the burden on the heart if taken for a long time. He had controlled the dosage and had only put a small pinch in the so-called “calming powder.” It was not fatal, but it could slowly accumulate into a disease.

At first, nothing had happened.

He had almost suspected that this was just a delusion of his, just a painless and harmless prank. But Zhan Luo had felt a sense of relief because of these actions.

It was as if he had returned to the time of burying tropical fish in a mud pit. Those floating dreams were so exhilarating. He no longer needed sleeping pills to fall asleep, and he would no longer think of his girlfriend.

Zhan Luo had not given up his work at the reading group because of his breakup. He was very grateful to Qin Luo for giving him this spot, so he had taken the initiative to be a driver for the fleet and had often followed public welfare organizations to the mountains for poverty alleviation.

In the days that he had gone to the mountains to provide support, his mother had once called him and had asked if the health products were safe, because his father’s chest tightness had suddenly worsened, and he had even had night sweats.

Zhan Luo had told his mother not to worry. He had said that it was now the plum rain season, and it was caused by the humid weather. He had asked his mother about her mood on the phone and had asked her if she wanted to go on a trip with him in a few days.

His mother had not answered his question, but had asked him if it was hot in the mountains. In the end, she had said without any reason, “Your dad’s temper, I also thought of leaving when I was young. But you know, a person lives a lifetime just to endure.”

Everything was too natural, so natural that it was as if fate was also helping him to close the door.

Finally, on a cold and damp autumn day, his father was taken away by an ambulance.

He had had a sudden cardiac arrest. Although he had been rescued, he had been left with irreversible myocardial damage. The doctor had advised him to follow the doctor’s orders and not to take health products anymore, but Zhan’s father had remained stubborn and had still insisted on taking health products.

Three months later, in a sudden atrial fibrillation, he had finally died in the hospital.

The doctor was helpless about his death.

Zhan Luo and the police had arrived together, but Zhan Luo had been crying so loudly that the police could not ask a single question and had had to communicate with his sister at home.

When he had walked out of the hospital corridor, his mother was already standing at the end, waiting for him.

She was still wearing that old beige cardigan, the clothes she had been wearing for more than a decade. She was holding her arms. The two had looked at each other. The gaze was too short, but it could pierce the entire night. There was a kind of almost calm gentleness in her eyes, which was very similar to the look she had had when she had learned that he had been caught slaughtering wild cats.

“Mom, I’m sorry…”

Before Zhan Luo could finish his words, his mother had turned and had left. Her back had no ripples, no buoyancy, and her footsteps were insignificant, as if she were tacitly accepting a death that had been foreshadowed.

That night, after the funeral was over, he and his sister had been sitting in the living room, looking at the black and white photo in the corner. His mother had moved boxes of health products in front of them, and a strange silence had filled his chest.

He did not know if this was a collapsed ruin or an un-erupted volcano.

It wasn’t until Zhan Luo had seen his mother’s tears slowly fall that this empty room had seemed to have no roof, and the walls were bare. He had stood in the middle, having lost his shape and weight.

“Throw them away.”

His mother had shouted at the boxes.

“Hurry up and throw them away.”

His sisters had looked at their emotionally collapsed mother with some confusion, thinking that their father’s ghost had possessed her, and had hurriedly and obediently moved the boxes to the trash can downstairs.

Only the mother and son were left in the room.

He had stood where he was, guarding his sin.

His mother had wiped her tears and had turned her head, quietly flipping her father’s photo over on the table.

“Forget it.”

His mother had said this.

Zhan Luo had suddenly understood. Perhaps she had always known. That was the deepest kind of intimacy between them—at the intersection of violence and remorse, the connection of the umbilical cord had made her helpless.

She was guarding an island that was about to sink.

The island had already sunk.