[B] Chapter 2

Translator: MysticRain

02

When I walked into the dormitory, I didn’t know what this place really was. I even felt that this shabby place with the hanging sign of “psychological rehabilitation center” was to cheat money.

I followed him upstairs and passed one dormitory after another.

The rooms here weren’t very much different from those in school. There were four beds in a room. At this time, every dormitory was empty, but the doors were open.

The man who led me in said to call him “teaching assistant Feng” in the future. He said: “You will live here in bed 4 from now on.”

I glanced at the room number, and it was 523.

After we went in, the teaching assistant named Feng asked me to change into the “school uniform” then go with him for a physical examination.

I did not know I needed a physical examination here.

However, I knew that this person was not very easy to provoke. He was like a gangster in early Hong Kong movies, very fierce-looking. If he walks outside, no one will associate him with the two words “teaching assistant”.

He waited for me at the door and I changed my clothes.

Teaching assistant Feng took me to the first floor. The innermost room on the first floor was called the “Physical examination room”.

I asked him why I needed a physical examination, he glanced at me and said nothing.

The physical examination was good, height and weight, blood pressure and heart rate, and finally several small tubes of blood were drawn.

Teaching assistant Feng said: “All right, it’s lunchtime, I’ll take you to the canteen, and we will start the treatment process in the afternoon.”

I looked at him, and one word was all in my mind: treatment.

The canteen in this place was not bad, but one thing was very strange.

When I went in with teaching assistant Feng, I found that the canteen was divided into several areas. There was a small group of people sitting together, and the amount of food in front of them was less than one-third of that of others.

Teaching assistant Feng said: “Don’t be surprised, you will understand when I issue the school rules to you this afternoon.”

I followed him to get food and found everywhere in this place was very strange.

During the lunch break, teaching assistant Feng didn’t let me go back to the dormitory but took me to his office.

He took out a notebook and began to read.

“Chen Shi, 18, male, suffering from serious homosexual complex……”

“Wait a minute!” I interrupted him, “I am a homosexual, that is right, but it is not a disease.”

He smiled at me: “Who told you it wasn’t a disease?”

“It was never a disease.”

He ignored me and continued to read: “Indulged in the fantasy of male bodies. It has been two and a half years since the onset of the disease.”

He raised his head: “It should be more than two and a half years, right?”

When I heard him said these words, I began to want to leave this place.

“First of all, homosexuality is not a disease. It was excluded from the category of disease in the 1990s,” I felt myself shaking, “Second, my sexual orientation was born in this way, and whether I like the same sex or the opposite sex, it has nothing to do with you.”

Teaching assistant Feng smiled and nodded: “Every student was like you when they first arrived.”

There was a triumphant smile on his face, which also appeared to be cunning.

He said: “But it doesn’t matter, our task is to help you realize your mistakes and correct them. Being sick is not your fault, we can help you.”

“Absurd.” I got up to leave and he asked me where I was going.

“It’s none of your concern.”

I opened the door and walked out, but I found that I couldn’t get out.

Every door here needed to be swipe, and I can’t go anywhere without an access card.

Teaching assistant Feng stood half a meter away from me, with his hands folded in front of his chest. He looked at me with disdain as if looking at a piece of garbage.

He said: “Have you ever thought about what impact this will have on society?”

He turned sideways to make way and said to me: “Come back with me, we still have information to fill in.”

I began to believe that, many times, the route we have to take cannot be chosen by ourselves.

I can’t get out of here. The only thing I can do was to accept.

At that time, I was still praying, praying that the next two months will not be too difficult for me. He looked at me like garbage, and I looked at him like an idiot.

Teaching assistant Feng threw me a paper form containing some of my basic information. There was a column in it: The onset frequency of the disease.

He probably saw me spaced out when looking at this column and thought I didn’t understand. He knocked on the table and said: “Number of times you masturbate per week.”

I looked at him puzzled: “Masturbation is also a disease?”

“Masturbation is not a disease, but people like you must be thinking about the same-sex to masturbate, that is a disease.”

I think it was he, who was ill.

We stayed in his office until class was about to begin in the afternoon, then he took me to another building.

When walking in the courtyard, I looked in the direction of the gate, and in less than half a day, I began to regret my choice. At that time, I should not have followed my mother in.

I felt even worse when thinking of her.

My parents sent me here, do they know what place this was?

I went into the so-called teaching building.

In summer, the air-conditioning here was fully turned on, so high that I felt the coldness at my fingertips as soon as I stepped in.

He took me into the classroom and said to me: “It has been two days since school began, you should study with everyone first, and I’ll fill you in what you have missed after class in the evening.”

It was really a “summer school”, I sneered in my heart.

After I entered the door, this classroom was just as strange as this so-called center.

There were very few students, and there were less than ten of them. Everyone was wearing the same clothes and had the same gloomy expression on their faces. All of them sat together in a circle as if they were having a seminar.

The projector in front was showing a picture, it was a comparison of male and female genitalia.

I just glanced at it and couldn’t stand it. Teaching assistant Feng pointed to an empty seat on the edge, and asked me to sit down. I dared not look at the projector and walked over with my head down and sat down. I saw the number tag on the uniform of the boy who sat next to me, No. 126 Song Yuanxi.

The male teacher in the white coat in front saw me, put down the laser pointer in his hand, and turned to said, “New classmate, introduce yourself.”