Out of sheer boredom, I picked up the prison regulations again. Halfway through, a sudden burst of shouting and commotion came from outside my door. My first thought was: Is this a riot?
I tossed the booklet aside and rushed toward the door. Just as I reached for the handle, it slammed inward with a heavy bang.
The first one through was the butch-looking female guard who had spoken to me in the cafeteria. Behind her were two more officers, dragging a female inmate who was thrashing wildly.
"Let me go! Let me out! Let me go!" the woman screamed, hair flying loose like a furious lioness. She clawed and pushed, but the three guards forced her onto a bolted-down chair, cuffing her hands tightly to the armrest.
Still she shrieked, incoherent, desperate. The butch guard spat at her:
"Keep struggling and I'll beat the hell out of you!"
God, I thought. Do they really treat prisoners like they're not human?
The woman's voice cracked with rage, then despair. "Let me out! I need to get out!"
"Go on," the guard mocked, "scream until your throat bursts. See if anyone cares."
I asked quietly, "What happened to her?"
"No idea. She just went crazy," one of them replied.
"Did something trigger it?"
"That's why we brought her to you," the butch guard snapped. "Calm her down. Once she settles, we'll take her back."
And then, without another word, the three of them left—abandoning the raging lioness to me.
At first she shrieked like an animal, half laughing, half crying. Then her cries broke into sobs, raw and sharp, echoing in the small room.
My professors had taught me to deal with depression, trauma, paranoia—but not a hysterical woman prisoner strapped to a chair. I decided to wait until her storm passed.
Eventually her wails faded into uneven sobs.
"Comrade," I said softly. "Hello."
She slowly raised her head. A woman in her thirties, face worn and prematurely aged. Her eyes were empty, tears clinging to the edges.
"Has someone been hurting you?" I asked.
She didn't answer—just sighed, lowered her head, and wiped her face with one hand.
"Are you feeling unwell? You can tell me. Maybe I can help."
Her eyes lit with sudden desperation. "Really? You can really help me? I just… I want to go out, to see my child!"
I sighed inwardly—she had misunderstood. "I meant… I'm a counselor. I can only help with psychological matters."
Her brief hope collapsed back into despair. She slumped against the chair, silent again.
"How old is your child?" I asked.
Minutes passed. She said nothing.
So I offered gently, "If you don't mind, you could tell me about him. If possible, maybe I could visit him for you."
At that, she slowly lifted her head, gratitude flooding her weary face. "Thank you… thank you. But he's not here anymore."
"That's unfortunate. How old is he?"
"Five."
Her voice softened when she spoke of him.
"Must be adorable. Tell me about him?"
Bit by bit, she opened up.
Her surname was Qu—like Qu Yuan, the poet. A village girl, orphaned young, married to a divorced farmer in her village. Life was hard, but manageable—they farmed, raised pigs, made tofu. Then her husband fell into gambling. He sold their land, then the house. One drunken night, wild-eyed, he tried to drag their son away, swearing he would sell him for money.
She'd fought him, desperate. When he tried to pull the boy out the door, she had grabbed the first thing at hand—a pair of scissors—and stabbed.
Her husband died.
The court spared her the death penalty thanks to villagers pleading on her behalf, but sentenced her heavily: involuntary manslaughter.
She entrusted her son to kind neighbors. But just days ago, her in-laws—her dead husband's estranged parents, who had long vanished into shady pyramid schemes out of province—suddenly reappeared, claiming custody as the boy's grandparents. They took him away. She hadn't seen them in years, had no idea where they lived, and feared the worst.
As she spoke, her voice cracked. Then she broke into sobs again.
"My poor boy… such a cruel fate!"
I could only sigh. Life was a stage full of twists, each person acting out their own tragedy.
I wanted to console her, but what could I really do? All I managed was the cliché: "Don't despair, Sister Qu. Heaven protects the innocent."
I knew I sounded less like a trained psychologist and more like some fortune-teller on the street, waving a bell and chanting fate. Words alone could never untie her knots. All I could offer was someone to talk to.
A knock at the door interrupted us. The three guards entered.
Seeing the prisoner quiet, the butch guard smirked at me. "Not bad, doc. You actually managed to calm this crazy bitch."
Crazy bitch? I bristled inside. Whatever her crimes, she didn't deserve that label. Outwardly, I forced a smile and said nothing.
The guard unlocked her cuffs. "Listen. This is your first outburst, so I'll let you off. But next time, I won't be so nice. Move!"
Qu stood slowly. After a few steps, she turned back to me. "Brother, what's your name?"
"Zhang," I said.
"Thank you," she whispered, before the guards shoved her out.
I let out a long breath, slumped back in my chair, and instinctively reached for my pocket for a cigarette. Of course—everything had been confiscated at the gate. No smoke, no release.
I gazed out the barred window. The clean, silent compound felt like an immaculate cemetery. The weight of it pressed down on me.
Soon after, Li Yangyang came to call me for dinner. Seeing my face pale, she asked if I was alright.
"I'm fine," I lied.
She tried to comfort me. "I was the same when I first came here. You'll get used to it."
She was right. Humans adapt—give it twenty-one days, and almost anything becomes routine.
That night she told me the welcome ceremony for new staff was canceled. There had been a fight among inmates during labor, escalating into a brawl. Several were injured badly enough to be sent to the city prison hospital. The leadership was occupied with damage control.
Damn it. This place is never peaceful.
At dinner, I noticed again the way some female guards stared at me—like I was an exotic animal on display. But unlike the first day, I was already growing numb to it.
Li chatted with me casually. She explained how the women worked long hours of labor, exhausting and harsh.
Curiosity stirred in me. "Could you take me to see the prisoners? Just to observe?"
She shook her head firmly. "That's against regulations."
"Alright," I sighed, though I still longed to see where and how they lived.
Later, back at the dorms, I discovered Li lived right next door. Her roommate had quit last month, unable to endure the place.
Opening my own door to the lonely, empty room, I called across to her, "What do you usually do after work? To pass the time?"
She answered earnestly, "Play cards, chat, listen to music, take a walk. But lights out at ten, always."
That night, lying in bed, my mind wandered to the woman who had practically dragged me into this job. Who was she, really? Some kind of leader here? And then, inexplicably, I thought of Li next door.
Restless, I knocked on her door. She opened it, puzzled. "What's wrong?"
"I'm suffocating in there," I admitted.
She offered, innocent as could be, "Want my MP3 to listen to music?"
I almost laughed at myself. Here I was, having impure thoughts about a girl this pure.
Glancing at her desk, I spotted some books. "Maybe I'll just borrow something to read."
They were girlish magazines—celebrity gossip, high school romances. Still, better than nothing. Back in my room, I flipped a few pages… and before long, drifted into sleep.
The days that followed blurred into routine. Reporting to my supervisor, sitting idly in the office with no cases, eating with Li, returning to the dorm. No inmates, no guards, not even Ma Jie showed up again.
My only human contact was Li. The silence weighed on me, day after day. Sometimes I wanted to climb to the roof and scream: I'm going insane here!
No wonder the last counselors had all quit. The thought of resigning crept into my mind—but I shoved it away.
I came from a farming family. Once, "farmer" was a noble title. Now it seemed to mean nothing but poverty and backwardness. Our mountain village, untouched by industry, was paradise to city people but a cage to us. I longed for the lights, the noise, the chance to live differently.
My family was poor—too poor. I was one of three children, the youngest, an "over-quota" child fined at birth. My two sisters were older, five and eight years ahead of me. My parents, honest peasants, spent their lives bent over fields and pigs, struggling to keep us clothed and fed. Education was never their priority.
So it fell to my sisters to watch over me, protect me.
I grew up on corn porridge and greens, meat only on holidays. To this day, when people praise the taste of cornmeal porridge, I feel nothing but revulsion. I'd eaten enough to last a lifetime.
My sisters, barely ten years old, rose before dawn to tend cattle and cut grass before school. Then, after lessons, more farm work. But no matter how hard the family labored, money never stretched far enough. Books, tuition, food—we three children drained everything.
By the time I was in high school, my parents' hair was already white.