We went into the room, and I said, "Right, I have a question. No matter how unforgivable drug trafficking is, Uncle Xie and your father are still your uncles and father, how could you be so resolute? You don't even recognize your own family?"
She said, "Don't be upset when I say this, but I had a boyfriend abroad, and he was also from the mainland."
She paused, looking at me, as if waiting for my reaction.
I said, "You're all grown up now, it's normal to have a boyfriend in college. How could I be angry?"
She hummed and continued, "It wouldn't matter if I was angry, because he is no longer in this world."
I looked at her in surprise, full of questions.
She went on, "In my sophomore year, I fell in love with a male classmate who was also from our province. His name was Zheng Jian. He was a top student, an outstanding scholar in his field. Because of his excellent grades, he enjoyed the highest level of scholarship and could finish university without a penny from his family. Unlike me, who was just an account in my family, only outbound, never inbound. Let me tell you about him. My boyfriend and I started during a school-organized outing. It had just rained, and the road was slippery. I accidentally sprained my ankle, and he carried me the rest of the way, all the way to the infirmary, and then carried me back to the dormitory."
"My parents rarely spent time with me when I was growing up. Although I never suffered hardships, I was very lonely. After my sisters were born, they had even less time for me. Zheng Jian's actions deeply moved me and touched the most vulnerable part of my heart. Later, when my ankle could walk, I bought a large bouquet of flowers and waited for him at his dormitory. When he came out, I directly confessed my love to him. This was unprecedented among our Chinese students, and I was pointed at and gossiped about by my classmates for a long time.
So we fell in love. He accepted me passively but didn't look down on me. Although he spent more time studying than with me, I didn't complain. As long as he loved me, I didn't expect him to be with me all the time.
Precisely because we had so little time together, I didn't know many things about him. I only knew he was a top student; I knew nothing about his family or anything else."
She paused and then said, "Until one day, he suddenly collapsed in the classroom from exhaustion. I went with him to the hospital, and only then did I find out he was an addict, and he collapsed in the classroom not from exhaustion, but from drug withdrawal!"
I interrupted her, "That doesn't make sense. How could a model student with excellent academic performance be involved with drugs?"
Xie Nana: "Yes, I was also very confused. After he was rescued and after my repeated questioning, he finally told me the truth. His family lived on the southwestern border, where the three countries meet, and obtaining opium was very convenient. His parents firmly believed that opium could improve concentration and enhance physical fitness. To help him concentrate on his studies, they often made him water boiled with poppy seeds to drink. Perhaps because the dosage was small, he didn't become addicted in China, and he was never detected when crossing borders. After he came to school, he felt no discomfort. Later, he was working on a paper and stayed up all night. When his body couldn't take it, he suddenly remembered the 'immortal water' his parents made for him. However, far water cannot quench a nearby thirst, and he knew it was forbidden. His parents, living so far away on the border, definitely couldn't get poppy seeds here. So he asked his classmates if they had any alternatives. Coincidentally, one of the people he asked had a source for heroin. It started with a little, then it became more and more, to the point where he collapsed in the classroom due to drug withdrawal."
I said, "Where did he get the financial resources? This stuff is very expensive."
Xie Nana: "Yes, his family was not well-off, so they couldn't afford to supply him with drugs for a long time. He worked as a tutor to buy drugs. American families didn't need it; he tutored the children of our compatriots."
I nodded. This was truly absurd. A model student from a prestigious university was so ignorant as to use opium for a boost, all for the sake of becoming even more outstanding.