2025-05-29
When [incomprehensible] I really felt how absurd this world is. Sometimes I even wonder if one of my readers might be from my university too. I was even taken away right on campus in front of my friends, who watched as the officers followed me up to the dorm and searched my stuff. Back then I felt like I had completely lost face. Luckily, those were some of the very few closet friends I had, and they already knew I wrote fiction online.
Just the night before, I had received my provisional admission for graduate school. I told several friends that I was screwed, but no one believed me. But deep down, I knew very clearly: I was the author of the novel [title hidden by editor]; If anyone knew me, they would’ve known that the novel was on three major ranking lists—both the revenue and the clicks would not be low. I already knew I was screwed at that time. I begged the police not to tell my parents, saying I’d figure it out myself. But the school refused, because they wanted to revoke my undergrad degree as well. So my parents were informed immediately. My mom, who had never flown in her life, got on a plane for the first time—just to come pick me up. I was overwhelmed with guilt. In the end, I kept my undergrad diploma but lost the grad school admission. I was kicked out and sent home. (Honestly, that part was on me—I was so emotional that night when I was bailed out that I told the student counselor I wanted to die. The school, worried about liability, forcibly expelled me from the dorm.)
My life has always been pretty hard, but I’ve never experienced anything as unique as this. During my undergraduate thesis defense, there were over 400 students in my major, and aside from one person who was quarantined for tuberculosis, I was the only one who had to do it online. One of the officers who came to investigate me had actually graduated from the same major as me, just from a different university. He told the other officers that my school was a top-tier 985 and 211 university—guess I unintentionally helped boost my major’s reputation in the weirdest way. They even joked that in the future when we meet at our alumni reunion, everyone else would say they went to work at the Meteorological Bureau, but I headed to the detention center. What a riot, huh.
This past month has been incredibly painful for me—and for my parents too. They’ve been scrambling to figure out how to pay back the illegal earnings. We couldn’t afford a lawyer. I was pretty upset about that at first. But then I found out that even with a lawyer, there’s no way to avoid prosecution, so I just gave up. A few more months or less—it probably won’t make much of a difference for me.
What really pains me is this—anyone who’s gone through a grad school entrance exam would know just how much energy it takes. And I actually felt proud of myself at that time. I was preparing for the entrance exams while writing fiction at the same time. I felt like I had really balanced my life well, doing great on both fronts. It was like I was raising my younger, pitiful self all over again—this time, I raised her well. But in the end, both things collapsed at once. It just made me feel how brutal and unpredictable life can be.
It’s totally fair for some people to criticize me. The only reason I’m still venting a little is because I just can’t help but feel sorry for myself—for the whole year I spent preparing for the exam, for all the effort I put in, and for everything I lost. The only thing that ever allowed me to somewhat keep up with others was my academic ability. But now, I can only end up unemployed and making bubble tea for a living after graduating from college.
I went through college on student loans, and I had to apply for financial aid back in high school. My family really couldn’t afford to give me anything beyond tuition, so I never wanted to push them for more. Why did I start writing back then? It was just for a graduation trip. Many people have graduation trips, and I wanted to save up money for a graduation trip, too—I wanted to go to western Sichuan, or even further, to Tibet.I’ve lived in Sichuan for over twenty years and never been there. It’s always been something I longed for. Since my parents couldn’t help, I figured I’d just earn the money myself.
I had a pretty rosy picture in my head—maybe because I hardly knew anyone around me with a criminal record. At the time, I was so sure nothing bad would happen. (Looking back now, I was just too young, with a kind of weird way of thinking?) Now, of course, I’m just staying at home and keeping my head down.
I was really rebellious back in high school. Honestly, I even resented my family, maybe because of money. I always felt like, as a kid, I never gave my parents any reason to feel ashamed. But as parents, they made me feel like we were the poorest, most embarrassing family in the whole world. To be fair, we weren’t that poor—not on government welfare or starving or anything. We had a small 60-70 square meter old house, and my parents ran a little shop that could at least keep things going. But they were just extremely stingy. I still don’t know how I ended up being raised like that. In elementary school, I once lost a few yuan (about one dollar) of someone else’s money and was too scared to ask my parents to help repay it. So I sneaked coins from a little pouch of change at home, even stealing from other people’s drawers. In middle school, I wanted to buy a pair of shoes that cost 40 or 50 yuan(less than 10 usd). When I asked them for money, they’d scold me first. During all three years of middle school, there was only one time I went out and hung out with friends, but they did not give me any money. I still remember it so clearly—standing on an upward escalator in a mall, feeling humiliated, having to tell my friend I couldn’t even come up with 30 yuan. After that, I never went out with anyone again.
So maybe that kind of emotion is also driving me to keep writing all these pieces. I’ve always felt that art comes from the suffering in life. My mom said that I’ve mellowed out a lot since coming back this time. She said I no longer blow up over trivial things like I used to. She’ll never understand why I was so hysterical all those years. Now I think, it wasn’t poverty. It was stinginess. There were people poorer than us, but they still had dignity, a sense of worth. Not like me, wearing a bright red, worn-out T-shirt under my blue school uniform, getting mocked by boys. Or buying a new pair of shoes, only to be asked, “Are those knock-offs? They probably don’t cost more than a hundred.” Back then I couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake brands. I just bought whatever was cheap and looked nice.
Of course, now I live without any confidence. I’m just waiting for my parents to use what little they’ve saved over a lifetime to cover me. How could I not behave myself? These days, I live quietly and cautiously at home. But in a way, it feels kind of good. I’ve realized that when you’re not among people, if you don’t socialize, then you stop comparing. It no longer matters that my clothes or shoes are cheap.
After what happened, I’ve written so much on my main account and alt accounts. Most of it is set to “only me.” With my major, the only career paths are government jobs or state-facilitated companies. If I end up with a criminal record, then honestly, the degree I worked so hard for is basically meaningless.
I always thought I’d have a chance not to be prosecuted if I paid the fine. So, honestly, It felt like I had more reason to be hopeful than many people. Pretty soon, I wrote a new novel, signed a contract, even looked forward to the possibility that I might not get charged. Worst case, I’d just owe my parents money. I could go out and work to pay them back. I thought I could treat it like a trip to Gansu.
When the cop left, he even told me that they would try to pursue a non-prosecution. So for the past month, I clung to that tiny bit of hope and asked around, talked to so many people. Then a couple of days ago, the police called again. And that’s when my mom finally told me, from the very beginning, they already told my parents that with everything they had on me, there was no way I wouldn’t be prosecuted. Maybe the officer saw how unstable I was emotionally and just wanted to comfort me. I’ve gone over everything in my head ten thousand times. I keep thinking, when they didn’t even have solid evidence at first and asked me to pull up my transaction history myself, if I had pulled out a little less, maybe things would be different now. But then I thought, why was I always like this? Even when I first started writing stories about same-sex relationships, I was already gambling, thinking I might just get away with it. Then when I got caught, when I might be convicted, I still clung to that illusion. There’s something quite pathetic, honestly.
Honestly I kind of want the outcome to come sooner. They also keep pushing me to go there(Lanzhou). But my diploma isn’t issued yet. The school keeps using “political screening” to stall me. I still don’t even know if getting a diploma actually involves political screening or not. So all I can do is be grateful that the officers were willing to give me a bit extra time to at least wait until I officially graduate.
After being stuck at home for so long, I guess I’ve built up a lot of need to express myself. You could treat these posts like a joke if you want. I knew it was me taking a risk at the beginning, so I don’t blame anyone else. Sometimes I resent the way society works, but then I think, what’s the point? As for the punishment, my thoughts haven’t really changed. I still feel I’m different from those involved in prostitution. At least I earned my money word by word, line by line. But once something goes wrong, it’s like everyone assumes I got it all without doing the work. Sometimes when my parents scold me, I even want to talk back, “You won’t be able to earn as much writing what I wrote!” Of course, I can’t actually say that out loud, especially when they’re the ones bailing me out now. I can only think about it.