In 2016, Ni Hanxiang, an international student at the University of Iowa in the United States, uploaded a photo on social networks. He was subsequently expelled from the school and deported back to China by the US government the next day.
When news of the incident reached China, surprisingly, no one in the country expressed sympathy for Ni Hanxiang.
It was originally quite a tragedy, but why no one sympathized with him. It turned out that Ni Hanxiang uploaded a photo of himself holding a gun, and included a text threatening the school. The main idea was that he had been serious throughout the semester. If he failed the class at the end of the semester, he would let the professors experience the fear of Lu Gang.
Who is Lu Gang? Why did the school urgently expel Ni Hanxiang when he saw this name? Even the American police were on alert, fearing that the tragedy would happen again.
What kind of things did Lu Gang do back then? Why does he make everyone so afraid?
Lu Gang was born in Beijing in 1963. His parents were ordinary workers. He also has two older sisters. As the youngest in the family and a boy, Lu Gang has become the focus of the family since he was born. His parents love him and his sister tolerates him. He lived a carefree childhood, doing whatever he wanted.
In addition, Lu Gang is very smart and ranks first in every final exam. He is recognized as a "god of learning". Every time the parents mentioned this little son, they felt that they were more dignified, and because of this, their love for him grew even more.
It can be said that Lu Gang has always been a star-studded existence. Both his family and teachers regard him as a treasure. Therefore, although Lu Gang showed some domineering, withdrawn, and unsociable traits from that time on, everyone did not pay much attention to it, thinking that excellent people would inevitably have some weird tempers.
At the age of 18, Lu Gang was admitted to the Department of Physics of Peking University with the best score in the school. On the Peking University campus where masters gathered, Lu Gang was still able to remain among the best, receive scholarships, and was once known as the physics genius of Peking University.
In that era, if students majoring in physics wanted to achieve success in the future, they would usually choose to go abroad for further study after graduating from their undergraduate degree. Lu Gang also had this plan. Just like sleepiness encountering a pillow, Lu Gang soon encountered a good opportunity.
In 1984, Nobel Prize winner in physics Lee Tsung-dao and the Ivy League University of Iowa in the United States jointly launched a Sino-US joint graduate program in physics. Lu Gang, who was still in his third year of college, saw it and signed up decisively. With excellent results, he stood out and successfully obtained the opportunity to study in the United States at public expense.
The next summer, Lu Gang officially graduated from Peking University, and then embarked on the road to study in the United States.
After arriving at the University of Iowa, Lu Gang began to study astrophysics with his mentor, Professor Gorzi. Professor Gorzi is of German descent and has typical German characteristics. He is calm, rational, unsmiling, and extremely rigorous in his academic approach.
He has published more than 150 papers on astrophysics and . He is a world-renowned space physicist and a consultant to NASA. It can be said to be a great blessing in life to be a student of Professor Gorzi.
At the University of Iowa, Lu Gang's academic performance is still very good. He could get A's in every course he took. Especially in the doctoral qualifying competition, Lu Gang got the highest score, directly breaking the record for the doctoral examination in the school's physics department. No one has been able to break it to this day.
Compared with his academic success, Lu Gang's personal life feels a bit like a piece of cake.
From elementary school to university, Lu Gang did nothing but study. His mother took care of everything in his life. Even after Lu Gang went to college, she often went to school to clean up his dormitory and wash his dirty clothes.
After arriving in a foreign country, without the care of his mother, Lu Gang began to be ridiculously slovenly. He threw the milk bottle everywhere after drinking it and never cleaned the dormitory.In the summer, there was no air conditioning in the dormitory. In order to keep cool, Lu Gang directly opened the refrigerator door and slept near the refrigerator, never caring whether the food inside would spoil.
Another time, students from the physics department went out together and bought a lot of food. When checking out, everyone followed the AA system. Lu Gang took the opportunity to propose that he would bring a portion of French fries and share it with his classmates. Unexpectedly, when he got the money, he was unwilling to share the French fries with everyone, and in the end everyone ate them all.
In addition to the above behaviors, he often insults his classmates, speaks harshly, likes to be sarcastic, and does not consider other people's feelings at all. Slowly, Lu Gang's popularity became worse and worse, and almost no one wanted to play with him.
Lu Gang not only went his own way in life, but also began to show his extreme conceitedness and his mentality of not taking anyone seriously in his academic research.
Once, the school had an opportunity to go to Europe for further study, and Professor Gorzi strongly recommended Lu Gang. Originally, Lu Gang was not eligible because of his status as an international student. But Professor Gorzi cherished his talent so much that he made an exception and gave him the opportunity. However, Lu Gang's performance made him a little disappointed.
Professor Gorzi thought that Lu Gang would devote himself to learning there and constantly improve himself. Unexpectedly, after Lu Gang arrived in Europe, he spent half of his time traveling at public expense and delayed his return for two months. This made Professor Gorzi very angry. After Lu Gang came back, Professor Gorzi called him over and criticized him.
Growing up, Lu Gang has always been pampered by his family and teachers, and rarely criticized. Being criticized this time, Lu Gang felt greatly wronged. He didn't realize there was anything wrong with his behavior at all. Instead, he felt that the professor was making a fuss out of a molehill.
From then on, if Professor Fangelzi was more strict with Lu Gang in his studies, in Lu Gang's eyes, it would become that the professor was deliberately making things difficult for him and making things difficult for him. Slowly, Lu Gang became more and more dissatisfied with Professor Gorzi.
This situation has not improved at all with the passage of time. Until later, the arrival of a person made everything even more irreversible.
In 1986, Lu Gang’s second year of studying abroad, another Chinese student came to the Department of Physics at the University of Iowa. He was Shan Linhua, who was the trigger for Lu Gang’s murder.
Like Lu Gang, Shan Linhua was also an academic master since he was a child. When he was 16 years old, he was admitted to the junior class of University of Science and Technology of China and spent his college career there.
Later, Shan Linhua also got the opportunity to study abroad at public expense, but he first went to Texas A&M University. After determining his research direction, he transferred to the University of Iowa to study astronomy and physics, and thus became Lu Gang's junior student and roommate. Although
are both talented academics, their personalities are completely opposite. Lu Gang is aloof and unsociable, but Shan Linhua is very easy to get along with and has a particularly high emotional intelligence.
Shan Linhua was born in poverty and his parents were weak and sick. As the eldest son in the family, he took on the responsibility of taking care of the family early on. Because of this, he is particularly considerate of others and takes care of them. Shan Linhua will personally drive to pick up every international student who first arrives at the University of Iowa, and then take them to their dormitory. After making arrangements, he will also familiarize them with the campus environment and help them quickly adapt there.
In his spare time, Shan Linhua also likes to organize various activities among international students, so that those students in a foreign country can feel the warmth of home. Therefore, he was very popular and was unanimously elected as the chairman of the Chinese Alumni Association by his classmates.
At first, the existence of Shan Linhua did not cause too much emotional disturbance to Lu Gang. After all, what Lu Gang values and is most proud of is his academics. He considers himself the smartest student and has never taken other students seriously.
Until he saw that Shan Linhua, who entered school two years later than him, had skipped two grades in a row through his own efforts and was tending to catch up with him academically, he began to feel the crisis.
Shan Linhua has a high emotional intelligence, is very humble, and is always full of enthusiasm for research work. Every time the instructor assigns him a task, he can complete it conscientiously and the results he produces make the instructor very satisfied. Moreover, Shan Linhua closely follows the research directions of his tutors and often communicates and discusses with them. When
was a graduate student and doctoral student, he collaborated with his mentor many times and published papers in , the most authoritative academic journal.
Shan Linhua's academic prominence made Lu Gang suddenly find that he began to pale in front of Shan Linhua.
The elective topic Lu Gang took at that time was plasma . This topic was not only extremely difficult, but also not easy to produce results. To date, there are only about 300 people taking this subject in the United States. And, more importantly, this is not Professor Gortz's area of expertise.
Professor Gorzi repeatedly persuaded Lu Gang to change his subject and return to the mainstream research direction, otherwise he would not be able to give him more guidance and support.
But Lu Gang insisted on going his own way and refused to change his research direction. Even, Lu Gang always complained to his classmates that Professor Gorzi was too harsh on him. It didn't take long for these words to reach Professor Gorzi's ears, and the relationship between the two became increasingly tense. When
was defending his doctoral thesis, Professor Nickerson, head of the Department of Physics, believed that there was a problem with Lu Gang's calculation method, which led to frequent errors in the paper, and asked him to take it back for revision. This means that it will take at least half a year.
While Lu Gang was revising his thesis, Shan Linhua's doctoral thesis not only passed smoothly, but was also rated as an outstanding thesis and won the DSC Academic Honor Award, and thus received a scholarship of 2,500 yuan, which is the highest honor for graduates of the school.
Lu Gang was very angry when he learned about it. He stubbornly believed that there must be something fishy in this. It must be Shan Linhua's glib talk that coaxed the professors into confusion. They colluded and awarded Shan Linhua the paper award that should have belonged to them. Otherwise, why is my paper so good but not appreciated?
After that, Lu Gang immediately went to Professor Smith and Professor Nickerson from the Department of Physics for theory, but they insisted that they were fair and impartial. Later, Lu Gang approached the vice president, Professor Clary, and wanted to expose the "shady story" in the paper award process.
When Professor Clary first heard about this matter, she took it very seriously and organized a review team to investigate the matter. However, in the end, she found that everything was in compliance with the regulations and there was no behind-the-scenes operation. This matter is over.
Lu Gang was naturally unconvinced by such a result, but he endured it for the time being because he had not yet obtained his doctorate. Half a year later, Lu Gang's thesis was revised and successfully passed the defense. Subsequently, Lu Gang received a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Iowa. Normally, this matter could be brought to an end, but then Lu Gang made a discovery that brought him into a dead end.
Lu Gang discovered that Shan Linhua didn’t know when he got a postdoctoral spot in the school. Lu Gang hoped that he could also get a postdoctoral invitation from the school, but the school obviously had no intention of doing so. Therefore, he had to go out and find a job by himself.
Although Professor Gorzi wrote a letter of recommendation to Lu Gang, it coincided with the economic crisis in the United States and their research in this field was too unpopular. Lu Gang contacted many companies and did not get an interview opportunity.
After learning about it, his parents in China called Lu Gang and said, "Why don't you go back to China? It would be good to have an ordinary job." Hearing this, Lu Gang couldn't help but lose his temper. In his view, returning to China means admitting that he can no longer survive in the United States. Therefore, he was unwilling to go back no matter what.
Looking at Shan Linhua again, scientific research work is proceeding vigorously. He, Professor Gorzi and Professor Smith jointly published a paper, which was highly praised by the academic community. Moreover, he also married his girlfriend of ten years, which can be said to be a good harvest in both marriage and career.
Look at yourself again. You are about to turn thirty, but you have nothing, and your heart is even more unbalanced. Lu Gang felt that if it weren't for Shan Linhua's "secret operation", this kind of life should have belonged to him. At that moment, Lu Gang felt as if he had been abandoned by the whole world, and Lu Gang's inner resentment accumulated more and more.
Due to his personality, Lu Gang had no friends with whom he could talk, and his emotions were not relieved in time. In the end, he was completely trapped and unable to get out. He began to hatch a sinful plan in his mind, which was to eliminate all these "enemies".
Later, Lu Gang obtained a gun license through various channels, and purchased two pistols, one was a 38-caliber repeating revolver , and the other was a 22-caliber pistol, and went to the shooting range for some practice.
The time has come to November 1, 1991. This day is Halloween in the West. Many people start the day of study and work as usual.
Lu Gang sat in the dormitory with a solemn expression and wrote a suicide note. Then he simply sorted out some of his belongings, packed them up, and prepared to send them to his second sister who was far away in China.
Afterwards, Lu Gang took out the gun from the drawer, put it in a black bag, and went straight to Room 309 on the third floor of the Van Allen Physics Department Building of the school, where a special seminar was being held. Professor Gorezi, Professor Smith, Shan Linhua, and other seven or eight people in total, all of whom were top researchers in the American physics community, were participating.
Lu Gang walked into the classroom, sat down in the row of seats behind Professor Gorzi, and listened quietly. Five minutes later, he suddenly pulled out his pistol and shot Professor Gorzi in the back of the head. Professor Gorzi fell to the ground, and Lu Gang aimed two more shots at him. After confirming his death, he immediately turned his gun, pointed it at Associate Professor Smith, and fired twice.
Then, Lu Gang shot Shan Linhua several times in the head and chest, causing blood to splash everywhere. It happened so fast that only when Shan Linhua's blood spurted onto the faces of the people around him, did the people present realize that someone had killed someone!
Later, Lu Gang came to the office of the dean of the physics department on the second floor and shot Professor Nickerson. At this time, Lu Gang suddenly seemed to remember something, and turned back to Classroom 309. He saw several students rescuing the dying Professor Smith. Lu Gang shot Professor Smith again, and Professor Smith completely lost his life.
Then Lu Gang started looking for his next target. He ran to the biology department building first, but couldn't find anyone. Then he quickly ran to the office of Professor Clary, the vice president of the administration building, and shot her to death. Clary's secretary, Siosun, who was only 25 years old, witnessed the tragedy. Her first reaction was to call the police, but Lu Gang noticed it and Lu Gang shot her.
After Lu Gang dealt with all his "enemies", he came to the classroom on the second floor, sat down, and then shot himself in the temple, ending his young life.
The entire shooting process took less than 20 minutes, but it resulted in 5 deaths and 1 injury. Siosun, a 25-year-old secretary, was hit in the spine and paralyzed from the neck down. She is still in a wheelchair. After the
tragedy, the police quickly intercepted the packages and letters that Lu Gang sent back to China, and found a last-minute letter written by Lu Gang to his second sister. In the letter, he complained that he was still blaming his parents, claiming that his parents were also responsible for getting to this point, complaining that they could not provide him with academic guidance, let alone financial support.
On the fourth day after the incident, all 28,000 teachers and students at the University of Iowa voluntarily suspended classes for one day to hold a funeral for Vice President Anne Clary. At the same time, a moment of silence was also held for the other four alumni who died.
Clary's three brothers subsequently held a press conference, announcing that they had donated a sum of money in Clary's name to establish an international student psychology scholarship, aiming to comfort and promote the mental health of international students and reduce the occurrence of such tragedies.
After the Lu Gang incident happened, it quickly aroused heated discussions around the world.While everyone felt sorry for the innocent people who sacrificed their lives, they also couldn't help but think about why Lu Gang came to this point.
In addition to his personality, it is undeniable that his family education is also to blame. The Lu Gang incident has also sounded a wake-up call for parents, reminding everyone to always remember that the family is the first school for children. While focusing on children's academic performance, their mental health must not be ignored.
