The jeep continued down the driveway, passed through another iron gate, drove past the barracks of the army stationed at the prison, and braked in front of the main building of a courtyard. Two men in the car got out and went inside, and a female guard, wearing a uniform cap with a red coat of arms on her head, led me into an empty room. Another woman in uniform was already waiting there, and she closed the door behind her, unlocked my handcuffs and said, “Take off your clothes!” I took off my clothes and put them on the table. That was the only furnishing in the room. The two women searched my clothes fully and thoroughly, and in my trouser pocket they found an envelope containing four hundred yuan, which I had intended to give to the master florist.
“Why do you carry so much money with you?” One of the guards asked me.
“This is what I was going to give to the master florist. I waited for him to come and get it, but he never came. Could you send someone to deliver it to him on my behalf.” I said.
They returned all the clothes to me, except for the bra, which was withheld. Because leftists consider it to represent the Western decadence factor. When I had finished dressing, the woman escorted me through a narrow, dimly lit aisle and into another room.
A man with the appearance and demeanor of a northern countryman sat behind a high counter like a ledger. On the ceiling, a bare light bulb swung unsteadily above our heads. The woman guard pointed to a chair not far from the wooden table and told me to sit down. She put the envelope with four hundred dollars on the table, leaned over and whispered a few words to the man. The man looked up at me, unexpectedly, he was quite kindly asked my name, age, address, etc., and then registered them one by one in a book. He wrote slowly and awkwardly, seemingly unaccustomed to holding a pencil, and he was undoubtedly only literate. This was not surprising, because the ultra-leftists only required political reliability in assigning jobs and hiring people, and did not take into account their level of education at all.
After the man finished registering, he said to me, “Once you get here, you can’t use your own name, only your number. You can’t use your own name for the guards either, understand?”
I nodded my head.
At that moment, a young man came in with a camera and a flash. He said to me, “Stand up!” Then he took several pictures of me from all angles, and when he was done, he walked away with his head held high. I sat down again, hoping they would hurry up and get the paperwork done because I was so tired.
The man behind the wooden desk said to me slowly and in a tiresome tone, “Your number is one eighty-six. From now on, you are one eighty-six, remember?”
I nodded again.
At that moment, the guard pointed to a bulletin posted on the wall and said, “Read it out loud.”
It was a prison code. The first was that all prisoners must study the writings of Chairman Mao and reform their minds. The second was that they must give a full and complete account of their crimes, and also expose the crimes of others. The third was that inmates in the same cell who violated the prison code must immediately report to the guards. The rest were about meals, laundry and other daily living rules.
After reading them, the woman said, “Remember these rules and follow them to the letter.”
The man pressed my thumb into the red clay and made a handprint in the register. After typing I asked the man for a piece of paper to wipe my thumb.
“Hurry up!” The female guard was a little impatient and shouted at the door. But the man had a good heart and took a scrap of paper from the drawer and handed it to me. I hurriedly wiped my hands and followed the female guard out.
They sent me to the First Detention Center as if they did not care. The man and the woman sitting at the ledger made it a matter of routine. It seemed to them that my admission to the detention center was a trivial matter, quite normal. But for me, stepping through the prison door was the beginning of another chapter in my life. At this stage, I fought for survival and fought for justice, which made me stronger spiritually and more mature politically. I had more time to reflect on my past and on what had happened since 1949. It also gave me a deeper understanding of myself and the environment in which I found myself. Although the future was already unimaginable when I was arrested on the night of September 27, 1966, I did not feel any fear. I believed in a just God, and I was convinced that He could bring me out of hell.
I followed the female guard outside. It was dark and dreary outside, the ground was uneven, but the air was very clean. We passed a red gate with peeling paint along the main building and entered a small courtyard by the dismal light. Inside is a two-story house, that is the women’s prison.
In a small room at the entrance, a female guard was yawning. The female guard who brought me in said nothing and handed me over to her.
“Follow me!” She led me sleepily into a cell block with large, heavy iron locks dangling from the door. The first impression I got from this cell was one I will never forget. In the years to come, I would often dream about the long rows of cells with big iron locks hanging down in the miserable light. I will never forget the suffering and loneliness I experienced in this room.
When we reached the end of the tunnel, the guard opened an empty cell on the left.
“Come in!” she said. She said, “You don’t have anything else with you?” I shook my head.
“We’ll let your family know tomorrow to bring in any clothes you need. Now you go to sleep!”
I asked her if she could go to the bathroom. She pointed to a concrete toilet in the left corner of the cell and said, “I’ll lend you some toilet paper.”
She slammed the bolt shut, put the iron lock on, and left, the sound of her silent, dull footsteps disappearing down the hallway.
I looked around my neck, feeling very horrified. The ceiling was crawling with cobwebs. The walls, which should have been white, had yellowed with age and were covered with black cracks. A small bare light bulb is also covered with a layer of dust. The devastated concrete floor, everywhere you can see spots of stains. The room was filled with a musty smell. I was desperate to open the only small window, and the latch was rusty. As I was too short, I had to climb on my feet to reach it. I squeezed the window hook and pushed it open, and the dust and peeling paint fell down like raindrops. The only furniture in the room was three beds made of three rough narrow boards, one close to the wall and two stacked on top of each other. I have never touched or imagined in my life that there could be such a simple and dirty place in the world.
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