The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

The stinging sensation of disinfectant alcohol came from the wound on my left arm, mixed with an indescribable rusty smell and chemical odor.

Lin Zheng sat on the makeshift emergency bed, cotton balls rubbing against his skin, removing the bloodstains and taking away the last bit of his composure.

After the brawl in the chemistry lab, he and several other students present were taken away by campus police and are now in a separate room at the campus hospital.

His right arm was bruised, and his lungs still felt slightly burning; each deep breath was accompanied by a faint whistling sound.

Medical staff examined his left arm and found that the bullet had only grazed it, causing the skin to bulge out, but there was nothing seriously wrong.

The entire cubicle was filled with the smell of medicine, and the walls were a stark white, reflecting the cold light of the fluorescent lights overhead.

He felt as if a stone was stuck in his stomach, or as if something cold had completely emptied it out.

Exhaustion surged like a tide, every cell screamed for rest, but the nerves remained taut.

He could faintly hear conversations coming from next door; it was Smith and Sam's voices, mixed with police questioning.

Footsteps and whispers could be heard from time to time in the corridor outside, and the air was filled with a tense and stagnant atmosphere.

This chaos and waiting is more agonizing than the close combat in the laboratory.

After a while, an elderly detective in uniform with a badge on his chest pushed open the door and came in.

His badge was worn down, revealing the metallic base underneath. His face was deeply wrinkled, and his eyes held a numbness born from years of exposure to various events.

He sat down opposite Lin Zheng and gestured for the medical staff to leave first.

"Mr. Lin, let's go over the details again." The detective's voice was calm and devoid of any emotion.

Lin Zheng took a deep breath, and the whistle in his throat became clearer.

He recounted everything that had happened in the laboratory from beginning to end, using as calm a language as possible.

The appearance of the gunman, how he, Sam, and Smith work together to fight back until they subdue the gunman.

Whenever he mentioned the gunman's strange pronouncements about "liberation," "truth," and "desire," the detective would frown slightly and tap his fingers unconsciously on the table twice—a subtle movement that Lin Zheng noticed.

"Are you sure he said those words?" the detective asked, his tone carrying a subtle hint of scrutiny.

Lin Zheng nodded, his gaze sweeping over the confusion and slight impatience in the detective's eyes, and his premonition that the truth would be eroded by official power grew stronger.

"I'm absolutely certain. He said, 'I have already written down the truth of this world and will eventually receive the blessing of liberation.' He also told me, 'You will also yearn for this one day.'" Lin Zheng emphasized, enunciating each word heavily, trying to let these words penetrate the detective's calm surface.

The detective tapped the table again with his index and middle fingers, producing two dull thuds.

"Understood. We checked his suicide note, and these weren't in it." The detective pushed a file bag in front of Lin Zheng.

Lin Zheng didn't look at it; his gaze remained fixed on the detective's weathered face.

"A suicide note? It was prepared before he fired?"

The detective nodded.

"Preliminary assessment indicates he is a freshman at this university named Kevin Baker. He has been emotionally unstable recently and exhibits clear characteristics of a bullying victim. In his suicide note, he detailed the bullying he suffered at school and the resulting desire for revenge. He wrote that he believed the world was full of people who ignored the suffering of others, and he wanted to kill them all to achieve inner peace." The detective's voice lowered as he spoke, as if reading an official statement.

Lin Zheng's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

This is completely contrary to what Kevin Baker said in the lab.

In the laboratory, Kevin Baker's tone conveyed far more pity and compassion than revenge.

That strange sense of "gift" radiated from his face as a pure, even ecstatic, "liberation," rather than the pleasure of revenge.

"What Kevin Baker said was, 'To help those who suffer to achieve ultimate liberation, and to kill those who are noble to achieve ultimate justice,'" Lin Zheng corrected, each word carrying an undeniable certainty.

The detective's expression remained unchanged; he simply tapped the table twice more.

"Listen, Mr. Lin, we know you just went through a life-or-death crisis. In such situations, people's mental state can be very tense, and memories can sometimes be distorted. Your emotions were likely highly stressed." The detective tried to steer Lin Zheng's testimony toward official acceptance in a subtle way.

Lin Zheng stared into the detective's eyes, and the numbness and pragmatism of someone who had been immersed in the power system for years gave him a familiar chill.

Countless times, in the corners of the "Gundam" assembly factory, facing those corpses stripped of their dignity, he glimpsed the truth of this world: personal experience being ruthlessly crushed by grand narratives is the norm in this world.

"Detective." Lin Zheng lowered his voice, his tone carrying a firmness that only a detective could detect.

"I fought him at close range, and every word he said and every expression he made is etched in my mind. He didn't feel the thrill of revenge, only a sense of relief, a giver's pity. He felt he was bestowing upon us a kind of... blessing."

The detective was silent for a few seconds, observing Lin Zheng's eyes, seemingly trying to determine whether the young Asian man in front of him was truly mentally unstable or simply clinging to something out of place.

"Mr. Lin, we must consider that Kevin Baker's behavior, according to existing psychological analysis, is entirely consistent with the antisocial personality traits resulting from long-term bullying. The suicide note he wrote reflects his true inner thoughts." The detective ultimately chose the official explanation.

"Then what about his oral account?" Lin Zheng asked in return.

"Oral account?" The detective scoffed, shaking his head as if he thought the word was too naive for a formal investigation.

"Kevin Baker's statement is very clear. He felt extremely desperate because he was bullied at school, so he decided to take revenge on society in this way." The detective's tone left no room for argument.

"Are you telling me that he wrote a suicide note, then went to commit the murder, but the motives he spoke while committing the murder were completely different from those written in the suicide note? And you chose to believe his suicide note, rather than what he actually said?" Lin Zheng spoke slowly, each word carrying a thoughtful tone.

The detective did not answer the question directly.

He leaned forward slightly, and the rhythm of his fingers tapping on the table became slightly faster.

"Mr. Lin, we're not here for a philosophical debate. What we need is a clear, publicly understandable motive for the crime, a reasonable explanation to close the case. Do you understand what I mean?"

Lin Zheng fell silent. He looked at the detective's eyes, which seemed to suggest that "as long as the result is correct, the process can be appropriately edited." This wasn't the first time he had seen it.

This kind of look was equally common in his underground world, made up of cold metal and decaying flesh.

Back then, the objects of "cutting" were silent corpses, but now, they are vivid memories and cruel truths.

"Of course," Lin Zheng uttered, a bitter taste lingering in his mouth.

He was well aware that the police's intention was to quickly quell public panic and maintain a semblance of stability in the school and society as a whole.

A mentally ill student seeking revenge on society due to school bullying is clearly more in line with public perception than a "prophetic" madman attempting to commit massacres under the guise of "liberation."

The former can be categorized as an "isolated event," while the latter signifies a deeper pathology that may trigger reflection on the existing social structure.

"Very good." The detective nodded in satisfaction, as if he had completed a difficult task.

He handed Lin Zheng a card with the police station's phone number and his name printed on it.

"We will contact you if there are any follow-up issues. The school will also be organizing psychological counseling soon, and we suggest you all attend. You acted very bravely this time, and the university will appreciate your cooperation."

After saying that, the detective got up to leave, but as he reached the door, he seemed to remember something and turned back.

"By the way, Mr. Lin, regarding Miskatonic University... Due to this incident, the university has decided to close the chemistry lab and suspend all teaching activities in related majors for a comprehensive safety assessment and rectification."

The detective's voice carried a hint of regret, but this regret was not directed at the students who had to drop out of school as a result; rather, it reflected a certain official concern about the damage to the university's reputation.

"So, your lab class..." The detective shrugged, his meaning clear.

Lin Zheng instantly understood the unspoken part of the detective's words: not only the lab class, but also the "part-time job" he found in the chemistry lab—obtained through Evelyn's personal connections, ostensibly as a "temporary lab assistant," but in reality secretly providing Evelyn with "samples"—would cease to exist.

Although this income is meager, it is one of the few sources of income he can earn in the open and that can help him subsidize his tuition fees, in addition to his work assembling Gundam models on the black market.

Lin Zheng knew perfectly well what it meant for an international student who was struggling to make ends meet with tuition loans to lose that source of income.

The sense of relief from escaping the laboratory was instantly replaced by a colder, more realistic survival crisis.

He remained silent, watching the detective's figure disappear through the doorway, taking away the last trace of human voice from the cubicle.

The medical staff came in again and skillfully applied medicine and bandaged Lin Zheng's wound.

The muscles in my left arm twitched involuntarily under the stimulation of the disinfectant alcohol.

The pain was real, but it paled in comparison to everything he had just experienced and the impact of the detective's final words.

Lin Zheng walked out of the emergency room. There were no police officers in the corridor anymore, only a few tired-looking school doctors packing up their things.

Smith and Sam were also in the hallway. Both had changed into clean clothes provided by the school, but their faces still showed signs of shock and exhaustion.

"Hey, Lin." Smith saw him and gave a bitter smile; his school badge-printed sweatshirt looked somewhat out of place.

Sam didn't say anything, but silently walked to Lin Zheng's side and patted his shoulder hard, the force of his palm heavy and powerful.

"They've asked me many times what exactly Kevin Baker said," Smith said in a low voice.

"I told them that he had been talking nonsense and was mentally unstable."

Lin Zheng did not respond, but looked at the news playing on the TV screen at the end of the corridor.

On television, a well-dressed university spokesperson stood solemnly in front of the camera.

She emphasized emotionally that this was an "isolated, unfortunate incident caused by personal mental health issues," and the school deeply regretted it.

She stated that all measures would be taken to ensure the "absolute safety" of the campus.

The accompanying news photo shows that the entrance to the chemistry laboratory has been cordoned off, and the school emblem stands out prominently under the flashing police lights.

Everything seemed so orderly, so… meticulously designed.

They replaced "campus massacre" with "unfortunate incident" and "distorted goodwill" with "personal mental problems".

They used the most respectable language to reintegrate all the incomprehensible madness into a narrative framework that could be accepted by the public.

"See, that's exactly what they did." Smith smiled coldly, a hint of disdain in his eyes.

"They'll force everything they can't understand into the category of 'mental illness.' That way, nobody has to really think about why things are like this."

Lin Zheng lowered his head as the medical staff handed him a form for insurance claims. On the white paper, the "Cause of Injury" section had already been filled in with cold, unalterable printed text: "Accidental abrasion during a sudden school violence riot."

Riots, not massacres.

Abrasions, not a desperate, life-or-death struggle.

His war was simplified to an "accident" in official terms.

He looked at the form in his hand, then glanced up at the righteous face on the television news, and a huge sense of absurdity washed over him.

This world is, in a way he never imagined, silently shaping all the true stories into the form it desired.