When I went to the countryside to work at the Draining Dragon River Labor Reform Farm in the North Badlands, I met an old man whose goodness was unpredictable. He was a “second labor reformer,” and many people would ask, “What is a “second labor reformer”? It all started at our labor reform farm.
Before the arrival of the Zhiqing, the main labor force in the labor reform farms were reformed criminals, and if there were reformed criminals, there had to be prisons. But in the labor reform farms, everyone avoids the word “prison” and calls it a “compound”, which is much more gentle and humane.
The compound is surrounded by high earthen walls, barbed wire, and deep trenches, and the main gate of the compound has a ten-meter high guard tower made of thick logs, which is very strong. There are two PLA soldiers on guard duty with guns 24 hours a day, no matter how hot it is in the summer or cold in the winter, for four hours a day. There is a hut next to the main gate, which is the duty room of the compound and controls access to the compound, and some well-behaved inmates are often sent to the family area to do masonry and other relatively light and free work. When they returned, they would hold up their arms outside the barbed wire gate with their white cloth armbands with the word “field” on them, and shout through the window, “Report to the government, 3068 has returned from work. The correctional officer inside would move a large iron wrench and the door would open automatically. When the prisoner entered the door, the correctional officer would reset the wrench and the door would automatically close again without moving. At this time, if you want to open the door from the outside, there is absolutely no way.
It dawned early in the summer in North Dakota, at three o’clock in the morning, with the light of day already appearing in the east.
For days, I was awakened by the ear-splitting clanging of metal in the morning. Someone told me that the inmates had left the compound to work in the fields. In the dawn, on a dirt road stained with grass and frost, a procession was marching under the custody of armed PLA and correctional cadres. Their gray prison uniforms were all in different shades, some with stubbly beards, some with stubbly eyes, some with pale faces, and some who walked past me and made faces at me ……. It was difficult to walk, apparently because of a violation of prison rules. For the first time in my life, I saw such a scene. Life showed me the cruelest and most severe side of the world, and it existed all around me. Living next door to these vicious sinners, we were filled with unhappiness and fear, all of us fresh from the countryside.
When we first went to the countryside, the company seldom organized us to work. According to the cadres, it was quite troublesome to organize the young people to work, and the assemblies dragged on and on, and they even argued with you when they got louder, and the teams were like sheep shitting. In the field, the work did not do much, the crops trampled a lot. “If you have the time to dawdle for the youngsters, I’ll take the reformed prisoners down to the ground and do the work three times a day.”
I’ve seen convicts at work. In the endless sea of wheat, at the beginning of the field, the correctional cadres placed four small red flags at the four corners of a hundred-meter-square area as a warning line. Four heavily armed PLA troops watched over the area. At the order of the correctional officers, the reformed prisoners would scuffle forward together, sickles would fly up and down, wheat would brush and fall down, and with a twist of the left wrist, a bundle of wheat would stand up behind them, arching their backs and moving forward. In the blink of an eye, a large field of golden wheat was exposed as black soil, and the stubble was brushed like the landlord’s freshly shaved head. Having been trained and reformed in this way, I had a complicated and indescribable feeling for these evil sinners.
When they are released from prison, some of them feel ashamed to see their parents and brothers and children in their hometowns and will ask to stay on the farm and become agricultural laborers, commonly known as “two labor reformers.
One day, I was carrying a net with a netted bag to the canteen of Zhiqing. One day, I was carrying a pocket of nests of food from the canteen, and I passed by the dormitory and saw a man bending over and picking up some food. When I got closer, I saw a mushroom plant I had never seen before: a pale yellow bean sprout-like slender stalk and a mushroom head the size of a soybean, like a small parasol. “Is this a mushroom too? Is it edible? Is it poisonous?” I asked a curious question. The farmhand slowly raised his head and faced me head-on. A few age spots touched his eyes. He smiled slowly and confidently, “It’s not poisonous, it’s delicious.” “Yeah, where do you pick them?” “There are plenty of them at South Dagon.” I secretly remembered the characteristics of the mushrooms and went straight to Nandaigang. At that time, the cafeteria of the Zhiqing, all day eating either millet rice or nests, even no pickles, always “monkey gong – soup, soup, soup,” which is a diluted well water without oil and only a small amount of salt and soy sauce. It made us skinny and yellow-skinned, with eyes like potatoes at the sight of food.
I picked a big pile of mushrooms and cooked them into soup, but before I could get them on the bed, my buddies who had something to eat, no matter if they were dead or alive, hailed me.
He was called Lao Zhou.
That’s how I got to know him. I often chatted with him unobtrusively, and often wandered around his dormitory to see where he slept. To be honest, I was struck by the indescribable serenity, cleanliness, and peacefulness of his bedside, which was completely devoid of the filth, disorder, and crudeness often found in Zhiqing dormitories. The bedding is so neat and organized, the tea set and other things in order, spotless, a few books stacked on the pillow, the top one is actually a book of internal science. My eyes lit up, and I couldn’t help looking back at his old, haggard face. –My intuition told me that the compound was not full of scum! Not all are sinners!
Later, I was transferred to teach at the Field Primary School, and then the “second labor reformer”, Zhou, died. I heard that he left his last will and testament: his body would be given to the health center for medical dissection, and his bones would be made into human skeletal specimens. As a former doctor, he knew that the health center needed this. At that time, this was a shocking thing to do. The coffin was left in Beidagang in the freezing weather, and the earth was frozen, so it was impossible to bury it. It was dragged out from the coffin by a few daring health workers of the health center, and pulled back with a plow. The coffin was cooked in a small quantity of water and made into a specimen ……
I once went to the health center to see the human skeleton specimen made from Zhou’s bones. It was locked in a white-painted glass wooden cabinet, staring into the world with deep, hollow eyes, gazing at the world with philosophical contemplation. Old Zhou may have committed sins that are not worthy of eternal remembrance. However, in his own unique way, he paid tribute to himself, his sins and his life, making us living be shocked and ponder!
Human nature is fluid, and so are good and evil; human nature is in fact the fluid fluctuations of good and evil that manifest themselves quietly and abruptly, isn’t it?
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