The Story at Two in the Morning

I can’t remember exactly when this happened anymore.

That night I was reading “Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils” on my phone. Back in high school I’d decided I had to read this novel, but I never got around to it, and of course I hadn’t watched the TV series either. I was pretty engrossed and lost track of time when suddenly there was urgent knocking from the next dorm room. Annoyed, I heard Ce-ge loudly calling for people in the room to get up and go outside. Weird, why wake people up in the middle of the night? Then he used the same method to knock on the other adjacent dorms, “bang,” “bang,” “bang”…

I figured he’d come to our room next. I checked the time and thought, damn, 1:30!

Sure enough, the “bang,” “bang,” “bang” started pounding urgently on our door.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“XX, XX, XX, you three get up quick, come out and answer some questions, hurry!” Ce-ge replied.

I could already hear kids from other rooms coming to our doorway, grumbling and cursing in the middle of the night. I said I’d wake them right away. While getting dressed, I tried to guess what had happened.

We clattered downstairs as a group to the dorm supervisor’s place. Our counselor was sitting there along with a few other leaders. The dorm auntie had naturally had her sweet dreams interrupted and looked completely fed up. Turns out one of our classmates had posted something inappropriate on QQ that night, and unfortunately it caught the attention of the higher-ups. They called our principal to handle it. Since we’d all added him as a friend, we got dragged into it too. The principal was apparently among those people—I’d never met him and didn’t know who he was.

Later we were questioned. They asked if I’d logged into QQ that night. I said yes. They asked if I’d seen his QQ status. I said no—I couldn’t be bothered to check my classmates’ QQ statuses. We see each other every day, no need to look at their statuses. Then they rambled on about a bunch of stuff. Finally they made me write a guarantee letter, sign my name, and go back to sleep.

When I got back and checked my phone, it was 2 o’clock. I had no more interest in reading the novel and just fell asleep in a daze.

This is a legendary story. The deeper meaning is obvious to everyone, so no need to comment further.