This story was told to me by one of my father's colleagues.
People of his generation lived through the most chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution, and almost all of them carry memories they rarely speak about.
During those years, social order collapsed entirely. Political campaigns followed one another without pause—one day it was this person, the next day someone else. Everyone lived in fear. A careless sentence, a word written the wrong way, could be enough to ruin a life. Intellectuals were the first to fall. They were branded with names like "stinking scholars" or "demons and monsters." Some were placed under surveillance or sent to forced labor; others were beaten, crippled, or driven to suicide. Many of these events were never officially recorded.
When this story took place, my uncle was only in his early teens.
School had long since stopped. Classes were suspended so students and teachers could "carry out the revolution." The principal and teachers were dragged out to be publicly denounced every few days—sometimes on the school grounds, sometimes at street intersections. They were forced to wear tall paper hats, with placards hung around their necks listing their supposed crimes. Heads bowed, they stood on tables or trucks while crowds gathered to shout insults and abuse.
With nothing to do, my uncle spent his days wandering around the neighborhood.
The central figure of this story was an English teacher at his school. Her surname was Shui.
She was mixed-race, in her twenties, young and beautiful. But in those years, even the faintest connection to the overseas was enough to seal one's fate. The charge of "colluding with foreign powers" required no evidence.
Her husband was also a teacher. Years earlier, he had been labeled a rightist and sent to a labor farm in the north. He was never heard from again. When the Cultural Revolution began, she became an obvious "key target." At nearly every public denunciation meeting, her name was called.
She once had long black hair.
It was cut off in public.
A placard bearing her name and accusations hung from her neck, a red X scrawled across it. She was forced to stand bent forward, head lowered. If she raised her head even slightly, she would be shouted at or shoved. One by one, people stepped forward to "expose" her crimes, while Red Guards stood beside her, shouting slogans, keeping order, and sometimes laughing along with the crowd.
It was not a single act of humiliation.
It was a sustained, grinding torment.
Among the Red Guards was a young man named Wang Qiang.
He had just turned eighteen.
He fixated on Ms. Shui.
During that period, she was often kept out late into the night. Using excuses like "strengthening ideological education" or "private confession sessions," Wang Qiang dragged her to an isolated classroom, where he raped her. Again and again. She didn't resist. She didn't scream. She endured it in silence.
She knew that even if she spoke, no one would believe her.
For a while, my uncle stopped seeing her altogether.
At first, he didn't think much of it. In those days, people disappeared all the time.
Then one day, as he passed by the courtyard where she lived, he noticed a crowd gathered outside. People whispered among themselves. A few local order-keepers stood nearby. Before long, two medical workers in white coats emerged carrying a stretcher, covered with a white sheet.
The shape beneath the sheet was wrong.
Too long, slack and misshapen, its proportions unsettling. A foul odor hung in the air.
Neighbors said Ms. Shui hadn't been seen for days. With the heat, a stench began seeping from the house. No one answered when they knocked, so the situation was reported. When the door was finally opened, the scene inside caused people to recoil.
Her head was still hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling beam.
Her body had collapsed onto the floor.
The corpse was badly decomposed, crawling with maggots. In the sealed heat, the flesh and muscle of her neck could no longer support the weight. They had torn apart.
There was no detailed investigation.
She was quickly classified as someone who had "chosen to die in opposition to the people."
On the surface, that was the end of it.
But a few weeks later, Wang Qiang suddenly ran into the local office in a frenzy. He dropped to his knees the moment he entered, slamming his head against the floor and crying out:
"I'm guilty. I deserve death. Execute me!"
At first, no one understood what he was talking about.
Then, trembling uncontrollably, he confessed everything.
He had believed that once Ms. Shui was dead, the truth would be buried forever.
Until one night, he heard knocking at his door.
He opened it. No one was there.
Only a small green schoolbag lay on the ground.
He picked it up and unzipped it. Inside were a lock of cut hair, several pieces of women's underclothing, and a photograph of Ms. Shui.
He collapsed where he stood.
He threw the bag downstairs. The next morning, it was back at his door.
He burned it. The next day, it was there again, completely intact.
He threw it into a river. The following morning, it reappeared.
No one knocked.
The bag was simply there.
The unrelenting fear eventually crushed him.
In the end, Wang Qiang was sentenced to death for rape.
Justice, in its own way, was served.
But even now, no one can say for certain—
whether the green schoolbag was placed there by someone seeking justice on Ms. Shui's behalf, a silent warning meant to break him;
or whether, in that era, when every path for the living was sealed shut, even the wronged dead were forced to seek justice on their own.
This story stands alone. No prior or subsequent reading is required.