Chapter 1

Chapter 1

July 1 – Clear

My husband’s mother dumped me in a gay conversion center.

Before she left, she looked at me with naked disgust, as if I were some loathsome rat that belonged in the dark.

She said her son didn’t like men and could never be gay. I should give up on him, stay here and cleanse myself of my sins, and learn to be a decent person again.

I only smiled. I said nothing.

What she didn’t know was that her son not only liked men, but had become gay because of her.

My husband was the one who hounded me relentlessly at university. He was the one who pursued me, the one who bent a man as straight as a steel plate.

And yet I’m the one in the gay conversion center now.

With a deafening clang, my husband’s mother slammed the iron door behind her. Her heels struck the floor in a furious rhythm as she stormed out of the room…

Maybe she was going home to deal with my husband. Maybe I’d spoiled an otherwise pleasant day. Or maybe my impervious, couldn’t-care-less attitude had made her lose face.

Who the hell cares? I’m not the one dating her. Why should I give a damn?

Even with the light on, the room is dim. The floor is clammy, the bedding damp. Only the table is reasonably dry. But the light is so poor that I have to hunch right over the tabletop to see what I’m writing.

Looking around, I couldn’t help taking stock of my life. I’m a university professor, for heaven’s sake. I earn more than I know what to do with, live in a villa, and stay in five-star hotels when I travel for work. When have I ever lived in a place like this?

What a joke.

That’s enough writing. Any more and I’ll go blind.

July 2 – Clear

Are you kidding me? What is wrong with these people? They made us get up at the crack of dawn to run.

Morning exercises were what I hated most at school. Back then, I swore that once I had a job, I would never run again.

Turns out becoming a professor doesn’t spare me from reliving the miseries of student life.

I could cry…

After the run, the man supervising us checked his watch and waved us off to breakfast.

God, I’m exhausted.

…

Breakfast was simple: two eggs and a bowl of millet porridge, with seconds if we wanted them.

Not that anyone would. It tasted awful. One breakfast was enough to ruin my mood for the entire day.

In the morning they showed us a film. The gist of it was that homosexuality is a psychological and mental illness, and that anyone with enough faith can be corrected, and so on and so forth.

Mental illness, my ass. You’re the one who’s sick. Your whole damn family is sick.

For fuck’s sake. I’m sick of this already.

According to the staff, my husband’s mother paid for two months. That means I have to live here for the next two months and can’t go anywhere. Even if I’m “cured,” I still have to stay until the time is up.

Two whole months of watching garbage like this. The thought alone is infuriating.

Once the nauseating film ended, it was time for lunch.

Three dishes and a soup. It looked decent enough, but everything was bland. Maybe the cook discovered they were running out of salt halfway through. Or maybe they were just too stingy to use more, saving every penny they could.

I’m the one who has to suffer for it.

I miss my husband’s cooking. I wonder when I’ll get to eat it again.

All right. I just miss him.

Before Dawn, July 3

I had a nightmare.

I dreamed I’d gotten out and my husband had come to pick me up. Then the scene changed without warning. He was covered in blood, surrounded and attacked by a mob.
They were armed with baseball bats, metal rods, and knives. They all rushed him at once.

Strong as my husband was, one man couldn’t fight off so many. He was badly hurt, but he kept shouting at me, “Run! Liang Anping, run!”

I ran toward him, only to get farther and farther away. Then I woke up.

I was drenched in cold sweat when I came to. My clothes clung to me, wet and sticky and miserable.

I decided to go take a shower.

The night watchman by the door was an elderly man. When he saw me come out, he didn’t immediately order me back inside. Instead, he kindly asked why I wasn’t asleep.

I smiled and explained, “I just woke up. Thought I’d take a shower.”

He nodded without another word and gestured for me to be quick.

I thanked him and headed straight for the communal showers.

When I came back with my hair dripping wet, the old man was still standing outside. Seeing that I wasn’t drying it, he led me over to his station and handed me a hair dryer.

“Young people these days never take care of themselves. You’ll learn once you catch a cold.” He glared at me and told me to hurry up and dry my hair.

I smiled, and we fell into conversation.

His surname was Wang, and he was in his sixties. He felt sorry for the kids here, so instead of settling into retirement, he’d come to work at this place.

The last person assigned to his care had already been released. According to Old Wang, they had been a wonderful kid: always smiling, like a little sun. The person they loved was good to them too, and loved them sincerely.

Then, just before they were due to leave last month, someone assaulted them. They felt filthy afterward, unworthy of the person they loved, and jumped from a building.

Old Wang looked deeply saddened as he told me this.

Before I left, he warned me that this place was dangerous and told me to be careful.

I nodded and went back to my room.

Old Wang lied to me. Pity for us kids wasn’t his only reason for coming here. There was something else he hadn’t told me.

July 4 – Overcast

I waited a little too long to dry my hair yesterday morning, and somehow I caught a cold! Since when did I get so frail???

There was nothing for it. I reported sick and spent the day in the dormitory.

The nurse who came to look after me was a sweet-looking young woman, only twenty-three. She worked here for her uncle and was specifically responsible for anyone who fell ill.

We hit it off. It had been so long since I’d met anyone I could really talk to that I was practically giddy.

More than that, there was nothing loaded in the way she looked at me. No disgust. No pity. No contempt.

She treated me like a normal person.

I asked her, “Don’t you think I’m disgusting?”

She went quiet for a moment, then gave me a long look. “If I truly hated someone, I wouldn’t bother speaking to them at all. Do I look like I hate you?”

I stared at her in surprise. “You don’t think there’s something wrong with me?”

She considered it. “Does having a different sexual orientation make someone abnormal? Is loving someone of the same sex a mental illness? If you ask me, the people with minds that narrow are the ones who are truly sick.”

Her answer left me speechless, but I admired her from the bottom of my heart.

Before I knew it, we’d talked the whole morning away. We only stopped when her boyfriend arrived to take her home after her shift.

I lay on the damp bed with my head pillowed on my arm, thinking: It has been so long since my husband came to take me home.