He looked at me,
I looked at him,
four eyes facing each other,
There is no light in his eyes,
Like ashes that have all been burned out of energy.
He was wearing a pair of old cloth shoes,
Maybe it was the night of the escape,
The pair I took on someone else's windowsill.
1
When the Xiangxi Labor Camp was rectified, the provincial bureau vacated all the prisoners (hereinafter referred to as "trainees") and diverted them to four provincial centers, and our institute assigned 40 of them. According to the brigade, squadron, and detachment, these 40 people were specifically distributed to our detachment, including two students from Xiangxi: Zeng Xiangyue and Cheng Qiang.
We have never been able to contain Xiangxi students, which is the first time in our history. The above was very nervous, for fear that something would happen, so they held meetings at various levels, demanding that they must manage this group of students from the bandit places.
Not long after I joined the labor re-education work, the students from Xiangxi were described as like beasts of a flood, which made me nervous, staring at these two people every day. However, it turned out that the above concerns were completely overkill. Xiangxi students are also re-education through labor inmates. They move from a familiar environment to an unfamiliar environment, people are separated, and they themselves are nervous, observing words and feelings, trying to adapt to the changes in the environment. But with such instructions, I have always been nervous about Zeng and Cheng, hoping that they will jump out as soon as possible to make trouble, the calmer they are, the more worried I am, and I am tired.
Finally one day, a large group of horses (the squad leader of the labor re-education personnel) came to report, Zeng Xiangyue said that his stomach hurt, he was lying in bed, and he was unwilling to go to work.
The day has finally come!
In the long struggle between discipline and anti-discipline, the trainees have accumulated a wealth of experience, and faking illness is one of the most common uses they use. Among them, there are three kinds of headaches, stomach aches, and discomforts in pretending to be sick, and they use them more. How can these three symptoms be diagnosed? The doctors of the brigade have no choice, and when a cadre encounters such a situation, he must first judge whether he is pretending to be sick or not.
Bedroom interior
I came to the dormitory, pushed open the hidden door, and there were two rows of bunk beds on the left and right, and Zeng Xiangyue slept in the middle of the left. I was tall, standing by the bed, and I just happened to see him. Zeng Xiangyue didn't sleep, he knew that the cadres would come in this case, and when he turned around, we looked at each other. He is a small, thin and dark man who looks like Keiji Yokoji from "Manhunt". His eyes revealed timidity, and he didn't know what to do, so he hesitated, propped up half of his body from the bed, and called me.
"What should you do when you see a cadre?" I said smoothly because I didn't know how to talk to him. From this sentence, I immediately found the foothold of the conversation: rules. My tone changed, accusing him of not knowing the rules and respecting cadres. I only accuse him of this, the so-called "attacking one point, not the rest". I walked up and down the bed, walking hurriedly, because he was from Xiangxi, and I was afraid of the language barrier, so I was more emotional when I spoke Mandarin, and my voice became more and more harsh.
This was the first time I had a head-to-head confrontation with a student from Xiangxi, and I was quite proud at that time and thought that it was handled very properly.
"You have a stomachache, don't you?" I said.
"Stomach pain is not clear, you can not provide evidence to prove that you really have a stomachache, and I can't show evidence to prove that your stomach does not hurt, but if I don't talk about stomach problems now, this problem will be bypassed by you. Under my fierce scolding, Zeng Xiangyue admitted defeat. He got out of bed, dressed in the same clothes he had come to the day, and went to the workshop to do his work.
He was gone, and I stood in the house, looking at the messy bedding he had left behind, and I suddenly felt lost in my heart. He is a labor re-education inmate, and in the labor camp, he is the lowest person, like a dog, he has to do whatever the cadres tell him to do. I fought him, and he was completely at the point where he couldn't fight back, and he didn't win the game, and he didn't deserve to boast about.
- And what if his stomach really hurts?
2
Zeng Xiangyue's later performance has always been good, although he can't complete the task at work, he does not resist labor, and works honestly. Because he couldn't complete the production task, he had to deduct points every month, which was equivalent to extending it for a few days every month, I couldn't bear it, and occasionally I hid from Zeng Xiangyue to give him a little reward.
More than a year later, the policy of the institute changed, and the dry land was allocated to the workers to grow crops. The staff was unwilling, so the institute called the team to help and took the trainees to help the workers turn over the ground. One day at noon, just after eating, the squadron leader Shucheng called me, today he and another cadre led people, but that cadre finished in the morning, and asked him for leave in the afternoon, Shucheng asked me if I could go together? At about four o'clock in the afternoon, someone from the brigade came to me and said to hurry up, go to the construction site, and run away!
"Run?" I was startled. Although I have heard from my colleagues about running and chasing people many times, I have never encountered such a thing. As soon as I came to the labor camp, I took the initiative to apply for a "pursuit warrant" and never used it.
"Which brigade?" I asked. During this period, each detachment was engaged in two tasks, one was indoor processing, and the other was to transfer more than half of the personnel to plough the dry land.
"Which brigade? I'm coming to you, of course it's from our brigade. ”
"Which squadron?"
"You squadron. ”
"Which - detachment?" "I'm a little worried, there are two detachments in the squadron, it's not our detachment, right?
"I don't know this yet, the instructor asked me to inform people, I have already informed many people, you have a motorcycle, I will take your motorcycle. Hurry!"
The dry land of the squadron, in the innermost part of the road leaving the main road to enter. On the left side of this old cement road is dry land, rice fields, and fish ponds, and on the right, there is a ditch 3 meters wide. On both sides of the ditch, there are trees planted on the bank, and there are trees from end to end. At the bottom of the bank, because the ditch has not been dredged for many years, the water weeds are shading, and the ditch that was originally 3 meters is only 2 meters left, and the narrow place is only 1 meter, and some even connect the land on both sides.
ditch
When we arrived at the dry land, a huge piece of yellow land, empty, it seemed that the students had all taken it back. We answered the phone call, and the manhunt plan in the station had come out, and we were asked to rush back to the brigade immediately.
When I arrived at the brigade, all the male police officers were in the pursuit task assigned by our brigade. I was assigned to go to the temporary entrance with two middle-level leaders of the department, and we waited until seven or eight o'clock in the evening before we could intercept it. At one o'clock in the evening, the deputy chief of the financial department excitedly shouted into the phone: "If you catch it, it's good if you catch it, and we'll be back early tomorrow morning!" He and the secretary of the Youth League Committee both received calls from different people, who caught it and where they were arrested.
3
After a period of time, Zeng Xiangyue's matter has been summarized, and the actual situation of the day can be outlined through the summary of news from all sides, and the general process is as follows:
At about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, squadron leader Shucheng took the trainees to the dry land and began to work. He put four men in the four corners to guard it, and two large groups of horses to move to check the posts, and he himself was in the innermost corner to the north.
Some of the students smoked and some urinated. Some people don't want to urinate in front of others, so they go to a place far away from the construction site.
At less than 3 o'clock, Zeng Xiangyue was ready to urinate. He said to the cadet on duty, and walked slowly to the ditch to the south. When he finished urinating, he looked back and no one paid attention to him. He crouched down, sat on the ground, looked back again, then quickly stretched out his legs, and his hands slid and fell down the grassy slope into the water.
He looked along the left and right sides of the ditch, which was straight and almost without a turn, and on the left was east, not long, only a little past the construction site, and at the end was a tall and dense woods, with the squadron on the north side. On the right was West, which he knew, and the brigade was in that direction, and they were coming from there. The opposite side was not wide, and he wanted to go to the opposite bank, and if he climbed on the opposite bank, he would immediately disappear behind the trees.
He stepped on the middle of the ditch twice, and the ditch water did not reach his chest, and there was no problem in dripping through. But the water and grass are too entangled, and you have to raise your feet high, and if you don't raise your feet, you will be tripped up. And that's not all, the most troublesome thing is the mud. The mud at the bottom of the ditch was so deep that with only two feet, one of his shoes was swallowed up by the mud.
He didn't have time to get used to it, when he heard the staff on duty at the construction site shouting his name, shouted twice, and someone came. He clung to the wall of the ditch and sank into the water. The visitor looked at the ditch and muttered, "What about the ghost!"
I was sure that the person was gone, and listened carefully, but there was no loud sound over there, maybe this person didn't think that Zeng Xiangyue would run away, and just thought that he was doing something temporarily, so he didn't make a noise - there are often people who go out to work and go to the ditch to touch the fish, without the permission of the cadres in advance, and when the cadres see the fish afterwards, they take the fish with a smile and scold a few words.
Zeng Xiangyue still wanted to climb to the other side, they had seen it here, the opposite bank was dry land, the ground was full of grass, the grass was higher than people, as long as it was not in the grass, looking for a path to rush, others could not see it. In such a wilderness, there are many small animals, and it is not uncommon for the grass in the unmoving wilderness to suddenly be turbulent.
His shoes were a pair of liberation shoes worn from Xiangxi, which had already been torn, and the one on his right foot was already unstable, so he fell into the mud just now, and the one on his left foot was tied up with the copper wire produced indoors, so it didn't fall off.
He hesitated, looking longingly at the other side, the shore at hand, the key point is to climb ashore, if the people behind him are watching, they will see him at a glance, what should they do then?
There were all kinds of bugs in the water, and he felt something crawling on his bare ankles.
4
What should I do? I have already gone into the water, but whether I go to the other side or not, this is a big difference, if I climb the other side and get caught, this is preparing to get out of the supervision area, and it is qualitative to escape. If it's only in the water, you can play and catch fish. After thinking about it, he decided to give it a try, he had to give it a try.
He stood up, shifted his feet, and approached the opposite shore in two steps. Just as he reached the bottom of the ditch on the opposite bank, as soon as he rushed up, he heard a voice from the other side of the construction site, and the voice of the team in the book also came out:
"Assemble! roll call!" is the powerful Changsha dialect of the team in the book.
"Hurry up, hurry up, assemble, roll call!" were the voices of the two large group of horses. A lot of footsteps rushed towards the road by the ditch.
Almost without thinking, Zeng Xiangyue immediately returned to the original point, and his body was immersed in the water. His movements are quick and small. This time he learned the lesson of the last time, last time he was face down and his head was exposed, so he showed a lot of his body. This time he was face up, his whole body was in the water, only his face was outside. If a person comes, he is ready to dip his face in the water as well, showing only his nose. Dense aquatic plants, it is difficult to find a face, let alone a nose?
After the roll call, the students looked at each other, and now it was completely certain that there was one person missing. Shucheng ordered the team not to move, and sent a large group of horses in two detachments, as well as the men who were guarded at the first four corners, six people, to search around. Shu Cheng lit a cigarette and grim his face as his gaze swept over the faces of everyone in the team. He said: "Hold your posture, don't move, whoever moves, break your leg immediately!" The last sentence was very heavy, coupled with his majestic face and his prestige in the squadron, no one in the team dared to move.
After searching for 20 minutes, Shu Cheng gave up and ordered to return in two columns, and behind him, the six people gathered around the team, two in front and two on the left and right. He called the instructor and told him that someone had run away.
Zeng Xiangyue stayed where he was, and after the people of the squadron left, waves of cadres came, and each wave of cadres stood by the ditch, in a different position, and no one was standing next to him, and they all left him at a distance. He waited until it was dark, and there was indeed no one around, so he climbed up, not on the other side, but on the construction site, where he had come down.
What kind of feeling is this? Zeng Xiangyue at this moment, what is his feeling? The dark sky is full of stars, and in the slight wind, there is the sound of small animals running. The construction site is right next to it. He looked at the road he had come, it was pitch black, where should he go? In the end, his choice was to go to the place where the team in the book sat during the day, since the cadres sat here, was this the easiest place to run?
This is the last stretch of the place, surrounded by right-angled trees. Zeng Xiangyue walked through a forest with a river to the east and rice paddies to the north, and a line in the distance that looked like a levee. He walked along the embankment past the rice fields and fish ponds to a good road. Here he has not been, there is a light in the west, there is a brigade there, there is a light in the sky to the east of the embankment, there should be outside. He dragged his shoe with one foot and bare the other, simply threw off his shoe and walked to the east.
Soon he saw a courtyard, which at first glance was not a brigade, with an iron gate, but no one.
He walked through the small open door next to the iron gate and found that it was a place to live. He was cold and hungry, and the main problem was that he could not walk barefoot. Outside the windowsill of a house, he found several pairs of shoes. He came out with a pair of shoes, then changed them and went up the embankment.
Xiang-chiang-hsien
Outside the embankment is the Xiangjiang River, the left side is pitch black, it belongs to the vast labor camp, and on the right side there are houses and lights, and there are no people. He went to the right. After walking through the short embankment and seeing the houses in front of him, he was convinced that this was not a labor camp. He hurried away, there was a street lamp in front of him, and he was anxious to hurry past the street lamp and disappear into the darkness.
As soon as he walked to the street lamp, people suddenly jumped out from both sides and shouted: "Stop!"
Zeng Xiangyue stood there with his mouth open, unable to believe that everything came so quickly, like a dream. Then he was caught.
5
If a re-education through labor inmate escapes, if he is arrested and returned to the prison within 24 hours, it will not be regarded as an escape. Zeng Xiangyue is back, of course he can't return to my detachment, let alone the squadron, even the original brigade, he can't go back. The reason is simple, the escape incident is to deal with the cadre, and if he is returned to his original unit, he is afraid that he will be killed.
So Zeng Xiangyue was placed in the strict management team of the Education Division. The strict management team entered from our brigade, and in the innermost part of the brigade, the wall separated a courtyard, a row of low and almost sealed cement houses, and the light could not be seen in the sun. Tall orange trees are planted outside the house, covering up the low house. The strict management team is not a permanent institution, but a temporary institution, and it did not start classes at this time, so Zeng Xiangyue was given special preferential treatment, and one person was detained here, and several cadres took turns on duty to watch him.
The main purpose of several cadres on duty was not to be afraid that he would run away, but that he would be beaten up.
Zeng Xiangyue was locked up here for several months, and despite his strict guards, he was beaten several times by cadres who came in from outside. There was no way to do it, so I took the initiative to let him go.
Inside a labor camp
I ran into him on the day he let him out, when he came out of the strict management team and walked out of the iron gate after passing the brigade. I didn't know that he was leaving today, I didn't know about it beforehand, and I guess the people in the squadron didn't know, I thought he was arraigned by the institute, and I was still wondering, why wasn't he in strict control of the team trial, was it mentioned to the department?
He looked at me, I looked at him, looking at each other, there was no light in his eyes, like ashes with all the energy burned. He was wearing a pair of old cloth shoes, probably the same pair he had taken on someone else's windowsill on the night he escaped. The shoes are too big to fit him, and they are tied by him with ropes, how ugly and ugly they are. His hair was shaggy and messy, and his beard was sparse, which reminded me of Keiji Yokoji.
I stopped him and said to the cadres who were holding him, "Wait a minute, I'm in charge." I handed a cigarette to a cadre, and I gave him one, but he didn't have a fire, so I lit it for him -- how many times have I tried to beat him up like a cadre who had beaten him, and he was the first and last one of the labor prisoners I took with me to escape.
He was much shorter than me, his thin body, dirty clothes, shoes with ropes, and old hands. How many times have I wanted to ask him if he heard me when I arrived at the construction site on the day I escaped, and if he was still motionless in the water at that time?
He was younger than me, and when he came in, he looked old, and now the skin on his face was crumbling. He quickly finished a cigarette, and I got out of the way, and when I saw him finish, I lit another one for him. The escort led him to the door, and I looked at his back, that tiny, skinny ass, submerged in baggy pants, like his man, engulfed in clothes.
The huge iron gate "Cangchangchang" opened, Zeng Xiangyue, and went out.
(Text/Xiao Bin, this article is the exclusive debut of "Human Story Shop", enjoying exclusive copyright authorization, and no third party may reprint it without authorization, and offenders will be held accountable in accordance with the law.) ）