Chen Sihan taught himself guitar at the detention center, and now in his free time, he will play and sing by himself. (Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian/photo)
Chen Sihan did not calculate exactly how many days he would lose his freedom. Eight years in prison, if counted day by day, is too long and difficult to endure. Probably, in about two thousand days, he was able to get out of the juvenile correctional facility and complete the real rites of passage.
The calamity that caused the bitter fruit occurred in only a minute or two, and the more complete passage rose and fell in only one day. It was seven years ago, on April 30, 2014, and in the morning, Li Xiaodong, a co-student at Guizhou Wong'an No. 4 Middle School, stepped on his feet and provoked an incident. Between classes, at noon, and after school, Li Xiaodong and his companions repeatedly beat Chen Sihan and asked them out to "kill alone" - one person took a knife and "killed". At about 5:30 p.m., Chen Sihan was again pulled into the unsupervised laneway and beaten, and in the chaos, Chen Sihan was "killed" to the back, and he in turn stabbed Li Xiaodong in the chest, and the other party died.
The Yong'an County Court in Guizhou Province rendered a first-instance judgment, and Chen Sihan was convicted of intentional injury and sentenced to eight years in prison.
At the age of 15, Chen Sihan suffered major changes in his life, and Chen Sihan was "ignorant" many times. He could not remember Li Xiaodong's appearance, could not describe the exact feelings when he learned of the sentence, "not anger, but do not know what it is."
He strives to live a good life in an unmanaged place and prevents the rupture of growth. The results are to obtain secondary school and college diplomas, learn guitar and saxophone. He was more concerned about winning two commutations and being released on parole on August 25, 2020.
Lawyer Lin Lihong calculated the length of time spent in the uninhabited firm for Chen Sihan, who had regained his freedom, 2264 days.
April 8, 2021 is the last day of parole. After completing the procedures for lifting community corrections, Chen Sihan was able to move freely out of Fuquan City, where he lived. He went to Zunyi the next day to celebrate his friend's birthday, and when he returned a few days later, he lovingly held his head to head with his mother Li Ronghui, leaned together, and squeezed her shoulders to relax. Some of his jealous father, Chen Shankun, judged that Chen Sihan was in a much better mood.
In the six months since he was released on parole, Chen Sihan rarely spoke to his father and was sullen. Spending 2264 days and nights in the uncared office, he grew much taller, a meter and a half-eight head, thin, with glasses on the bridge of his nose, and appeared to be Sven. He would wear clothes from classmates, dark in color, but embellished with some fashion brand patterns.
At one point, the family was careful to get around "that thing." However, with the expiration of Chen Sihan's parole and his return to freedom, many media heard about it, and the details of the crime of seven years ago were revived again and again.
Chen Sihan, labeled "stabbing the bully to death," was pushed to a certain position and had to tell it repeatedly to defend himself. His inner sense of morality made him feel guilty—the knife in the chaos that had hurt both families. But on the other hand, he stubbornly believes that he is not the kind of criminal that ordinary people understand.
Many emotions are entangled, torn, and pushed him forward.
<h3>"Kill against each other"</h3>
Now when he hears the words "Wong An", Li Ronghui's heart will cluck a little, uncomfortable. She asked her son Chen Sihan to avoid any opportunity to go to Wong An, especially near wong an no. 4 Middle School, where the accident occurred. Even, just transferring from Wongan to go home is not allowed.
For Li Ronghui, the tragedy began at 5 p.m. on April 30, 2014, when she received a call from Wong An, from Chen Sihan's classmates, "Grandma, Chen Sihan was beaten" and "You still have to hurry up." Half an hour after hanging up the phone, she received a call from Wong An Minkang Hospital, "Your child must have surgery quickly, otherwise it will take up to 20 minutes."
She was dumbfounded.
In Li Ronghui's narration, Chen Sihan has been studious and sensible since childhood. He was originally in the first year of junior high school in Fuquan, but Wong An, more than fifty kilometers away, paid more attention to education, so he transferred to Wong An No. 4 Middle School, and his academic performance ranked in the top ten in the class, and he was a very "well-behaved" child.
When Li Ronghui and her husband Chen Shankun arrived at the hospital, Chen Sihan's surgery had ended, and his left chest was pierced by a knife, resulting in a bloody pneumothorax that endangered his life.
The memory was panicked and scattered. Li Ronghui recalled that that night, he learned that Li Xiaodong, who had been "killed" with Chen Sihan, had died, and someone suggested that the Chen family raise some money as soon as possible to appease the Parents of the Li family.
"I don't know what's going on, why I lost money." Li Ronghui spent a long time piecing together the whole picture of what happened, and through listening to Chen Sihan's record, he returned to the scene of the crime and asked his classmates and teachers.
Li Ronghui learned that Chen Sihan originally did not know Li Xiaodong. Until now, Chen Sihan couldn't remember Li Xiaodong's appearance. The two clashed in line for breakfast on the morning of April 30, 2014, when Li Xiaodong deliberately stepped on Chen Sihan "in order to establish his prestige."
Throughout that day, Chen Sihan was in a panic of being beaten. During the big recess, Li Xiaodong went to the classroom corridor and pulled Chen Sihan to the stairs of the toilet on the same floor and the stairs on the fifth floor and beat him. At noon, after school, Li Xiaodong and his companions had made a "single kill" with Chen Sihan. Li Ronghui stressed that Chen Sihan never answered the appointment and kept calling his cousin in the afternoon to let them pick them up and go home together.
After school, Chen Sihan was pulled downstairs by Li Xiaodong's companions. The fatal minute occurred in the Huazhuyuan community, three or four hundred meters away from the old school gate of Wong An No. 4 Middle School. There were no cameras there, and Chen Sihan was pulled over and beaten.
The roadway leading to the Huazhuyuan community is currently gated. (Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian/photo)
"I gave the knife to Chen Sihan for self-defense, and I didn't expect him to kill people." According to the verdict of the first instance, the classmate who provided the knife to Chen Sihan testified that it was Chen Sihan who took the initiative to ask him for the knife. But Li Ronghui insisted that in the alley before entering the community, an unknown classmate handed Chen Sihan a knife.
Within a minute, Chen Sihan suffered a knife wound to his back and Li Xiaodong to his chest. Chen Sihan did not know when Li Xiaodong fell, "the last picture he saw was Li Xiaodong and a group of people chasing behind him," Mr. Li said. She drew a road map of the crime with a pen and paper, and those moments that had not been experienced were as solid as engraved in her mind.
But for Chen Sihan, the picture of the accident is best not to mention. Every time he mentioned it, he would unconsciously become excited. On April 14, 2021, when telling southern weekend reporters about the case, he lowered his head, his fingers scratching under the table, and made a stinging sound. Many times, he shrank his body, revealing uneasiness.
Li Xiaodong, who beat people first, was called a "bully" by the media. His father was interviewed in 2019, when he said that he had never heard of his son fighting with people, and he usually "strictly disciplined" his son, even breaking a stick. On April 18, 2021, Southern Weekend reporters contacted him by phone, and the interview request was rejected.
Chen Sihan expressed guilt in july 2014 when the Yong'an County People's Court first tried the case: he had caused Li Xiaodong to lose his life and brought harm to Li Xiaodong's parents. But these words stung the Parents of the Li family, and Li Xiaodong's father stood up and rushed over to beat Chen Sihan, but was pulled by everyone.
Chen Sihan's parents knelt down twice, hoping for forgiveness. The Li family's parents did not agree.
<h3>"Look at the sky more when you think of me"</h3>
On the first night of the Wong An Detention Center, the lights from the ceiling were full of bugs and fell on Chen Sihan. He only slept for an hour.
Chen Sihan, the detention center's discipline, comforted Chen Sihan, saying that the sentence in such cases would not be too long, "up to 5 years." I didn't expect that this was really just a consolation. After learning of the sentence, Chen Sihan "softened his whole body" and could not hold the pen he signed.
On October 28, 2014, the Wong'an County Court sentenced Chen Sihan to eight years in prison for intentional injury in the first instance. The court held that Chen Sihan knew that a fight with Li Xiaodong would cause injuries, and also prepared a card knife to put on his body; when Li Xiaodong beat Chen Sihan, Chen Sihan first took out a card knife and stabbed Li Xiaodong. "Chen Sihan subjectively pursued the motive and intention of harming the other party, and objectively implemented the serious consequences of stabbing the opponent in the chest with a card knife and causing the death of the other party."
After the verdict was pronounced in the first instance, in March 2015, Chen Sihan was placed at the Guizhou Provincial Juvenile Correctional Facility in Guiding County.
On the first day of the detention center, he did not fall asleep, and at 5 o'clock in the morning, he woke up early to learn to sort out the housekeeping. After that, he began to deal with endless insomnia. As long as it is a night of thinking about things, it is doomed to sleepless nights. Even when asleep, it was very light and light, and at three or four o'clock in the morning, there would usually be a sound that woke him up—purring, closing the door, and sometimes just a companion on duty sitting on the edge of his bed.
The non-custodial offices are managed in a semi-military manner, and everything is regulated, and it is prescribed to get up, work, rest, and watch television. The days of losing freedom are boring, and every day is like a repetition of yesterday.
Chen Sihan could not get pleasure from his labor, and the prison uniform with a bar on his back always reminded him of what kind of environment he was in and what kind of work he was doing. At first, he also cried, "not in front of others." But then he understood that crying was just a physiological phenomenon that could not bring about deep release, so he used more reading books and "writing lyrical things" to vent his heart.
The place to work is spacious, and if you look out the window, you can see the blue sky. In February 2015, Chen Sihan learned that his case might be tried for the second time, and comforted his mother that "when she thinks about me, she looks at the sky more, maybe I am also watching."
It was a difficult time, the second instance did not hold a trial, and the court mailed a criminal ruling that "upheld the original judgment". Mother wrote back: "Hao'er (Chen Sihan's nickname), I think you already know the final result, mother just wants to say that you will be able to adjust your mentality, no matter what the result we have to face calmly." ”
More than a hundred letters written by junior high school classmates are Chen Sihan's "spiritual pillar". (Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian/photo)
Junior high school classmates write to Chen Sihan almost every month:
"Unconsciously, you have been away from us for almost a year, and our high school life is almost a year, every day we study until eleven o'clock."
"I know you're not having a good time inside, and the next time I see you, be sure to confide in us about your troubles."
"The weather turns cold, pay attention to the body. If someone throws a stone at you, don't throw it back, but keep it as the cornerstone of your tall building. ”
"The above paragraph is the lyrics of 'Hurry That Year', I think it's beautiful, so I want to share it with you, we will listen to it together when I wait for you to come out, I know you like to listen to songs." 」
……
Most of these letters were made by a few classmates and handed over to one of them for mail. Plaid paper, paper torn from notebooks, all kinds of letter paper, leaving all kinds of handwriting. Some of the letters were forwarded by Chen Sihan's parents, and under the regular italic characters of the classmates, his father Chen Shankun continued to write, "Chen Hao (nickname) Are you?" ”
Chen Sihan never wrote "bad". The classmate who received Chen Sihan's reply said that he only wrote "don't worry about me", which has always been the case. He often read letters at night, carefully packed them in folders and placed them on the bottom floor of a plastic storage box, covered with clothing. After so many years, these letters are still intact and flat.
<h3>“Never Give Up”</h3>
Some of the light in the dark night comes from inside the high walls, which is equally warm and soft.
There was an instructor with a stubble face, in his fifties, with a humorous humor. On the first day that Chen Sihan entered the detention center, he was on duty, carefully and carefully read Chen Sihan's verdict, and exhorted: "This is a special school, and it is a very difficult process to turn the sentence into a semester, take it slowly." "It was the first year of coming to the uncared for a while, and many things were being learned, and the stubble instructor would stand silently and give him demonstrations and assistance.
Another instructor in his thirties gave Chen Sihan a pen with the inscription "Never Give Up" on it. He has a calm personality, does not beat people, does not scold people, and is a "friend, brother, teacher" like a character. There are also cadres who teach computer classes, always borrowing more books from prisoners who are studying secondary school courses, and treating prisoners as "his students".
Chen Sihan is always worried that telling the media too much "inside things" will bring trouble to others, so these stories are vague and sloppy. But as he spoke, he inadvertently had a smile on his face, and the listener could feel that these people and things had really comforted him and calmed down his shaking self.
In Chen Sihan's own words, in the days of the uncarriaged office, he "did not allow himself to degenerate."
He squeezed in time to study. After the prescribed labor, others watched television and he read books. After coming out to detect vision, myopia deepened by two hundred degrees, and astigmatism was severe. Father said that this was a bad eye.
He was also the leader of the group and the squad leader, and at most assisted the cadres in managing seventy or eighty people. He has his own set of management methods, if someone has a conflict, he will listen to what the parties say, what grievances there are, and explain their duties.
Parents come every month when they meet, look at the bulletin board in the meeting hall, and look for praise notices and sentence reduction notices in one notice after another. Basically, they can see "Chen Sihan" in the praise list every few months.
Li Ronghui turned out the school bag used by Chen Sihan when the incident occurred, which still contained the examination papers of the third grade. (Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian/photo)
But they have not confessed to their son's guilt and have been trying to find a way to appeal. At the end of 2018, they turned to Lin Lihong, a Beijing lawyer on a business trip in Guizhou.
Lin Lihong was very busy that time, and his spare time was only 20 minutes. But Li Ronghui opened his mouth, became emotional, and kept repeating "the child is very wronged", and finally only had a few minutes left to present the case. After reading the materials, Lin Lihong and Li Ronghui talked in detail again, and initially believed that there were problems in the trial procedure, and the court found that Chen Sihan belonged to the party who was bullied and should consider whether it was legitimate defense. She took the case.
In 2019, Lin Lihong met Chen Sihan for the first time at the unintended detention center. She remembers that after Li Ronghui introduced "this is the lawyer we hired," Chen Sihan bowed deeply to her through the glass. Next, when talking about the case, Chen Sihan's first request was, "Can you not implicate my class teacher because of this matter?"
Chen Sihan explained to Southern Weekend reporters that if the school is sued, the class teacher will be affected. And the class teacher was very kind to him, did not do anything wrong, and should not pay the price for it. In prison, he is always thinking about others, worried that his case will affect his former teachers and classmates.
The lawyer met three times in total, the first two of which were mainly case investigations, and the last one was completely heart-to-heart. Lin Lihong encouraged Chen Sihan that most of the time life is bittersweet and mixed, "you have tasted the bitter taste, the next will be sweet."
But Chen Sihan had a knot in his heart: If he had gotten up early that morning and had breakfast outside the school, wouldn't he have met Li Xiaodong, and everything would have been completely different?
Lin Lihong advised Chen Sihan that on the moral level, he held his own moral law, which made him feel guilty and uneasy; but at the legal level, his behavior should be legitimate defense.
<h3>The future and heart of a teenager</h3>
After the Yu Huan case in 2017 and the Kunshan anti-homicide case in 2018, the whole society set off a wave of attention to the legitimate defense system. The case pressed on Chen Sihan has a new space for discussion.
On August 28, 2020, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on the Lawful Application of the Legitimate Defense System, proposing to safeguard citizens' legitimate defense rights, prevent the erroneous practice of "who dies and is injured who is justified", fully consider the state of urgency and nervousness of defenders when they face unlawful infringement, and prevent defenders from being judged after the fact with calm, rational, objective and accurate standards under normal circumstances.
Three days earlier, Chen Sihan had just been released from prison on parole. The junior high school classmates who broke off contact added WeChat, and the first sentence was "Welcome back." He replied "thank you" with a "hug" expression.
But Chen Sihan knew that some things could never come back. The interruption was obvious, he was unable to attend high school and did not take the college entrance examination. And his junior high school classmates are distributed all over the country to go to college, have their own lives, their own circles, and a chasm lies between them.
Even when attending a friend's birthday party, Chen Sihan often stays alone, "Of course, they can't play together, I play mine, they play theirs."
Lin Lihong understands Chen Sihan's anxiety: after living in an uninhabited detention center for 2264 days, she is forced to face social stratification among her peers as soon as she comes out. But this is also no way to do, "to get different cards, of course, there must be a different way of playing."
She arranged for Chen Sihan to go to her law firm for a remote internship, writing legal documents, and running Weibo and WeChat. Every Sunday, they talk about the progress of their work.
The family is worried about Chen Sihan's future. The case of intentional injury will affect his career, friendship, and marriage. But Li Ronghui found that Chen Sihan did not understand this. The 22-year-old adult's mind is still stuck at the age of 15 at the time of the crime.
According to Chen Sihan's personality, he did not like his name to appear in the report, and did not want to be scrutinized by many people. Li Ronghui advised him, "Before, it was mom and dad running, but now that you're out, it's your turn to take on this responsibility." "At some point, the whole family began to be interviewed under their real names, appearing more and more in front of the camera.
After the sentence ended, Chen Sihan posted in the media under his real name, describing his feelings. (Network screenshot/figure)
When the reporter visited, the parents were busy. Chen Sihan didn't talk much, occasionally helping to pour water and clean up the dishes. But as soon as the interview begins, he is still willing to confide in a lot of things. He promised to continue complaining because "the parents have done so much and don't want their hard work to be wasted."
Chen Sihan had a plan, after regaining his freedom, to visit the people who had helped him over the years — instructors, class teachers, classmates, and so on. Li Ronghui did not support, "We are appealing, there are many media interviews. You want to thank you, but the other person may not understand. "This plan has been put on hold for the time being.
A security booth was set up opposite the gate of Colonel Wong An No. 4 Middle School, and police officers were on duty inside the kiosk during school hours on the evening of April 11, 2021. (Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian/photo)
In the face of reporters, "school bullying" is a high-frequency word in Li Ronghui's mouth. She repeatedly told a scene where she went to a high school in Wong An to pick up a joint letter written by her classmates for Chen Sihan and witnessed a school bullying at the school gate. A dozen boys chased after one man and beat him, and the beaten boy was just pushed to her feet, his face covered in blood. She called the police, who soon arrived, and the fight had dispersed. Afterwards, she always thought, "If there was a person at the scene who called the police at that time, would Chen Sihan and Li Xiaodong be saved?"
On the Qingming Festival in 2021, Li Ronghui and his wife went to Li Xiaodong's cemetery for the third time to worship. It was rainy that day, and they followed the memory to find the location of the cemetery and offered two bouquets of chrysanthemums.
(Li Xiaodong is a pseudonym in the text)
Southern Weekend reporter Liu Yixian