I never quite knew what the convicts did in prison. From what I had seen on television programmes, I thought the prison was like a school: the reforming prisoners like students in clean uniforms, listening to the instructor lecture, watching television, playing basketball, celebrating the Spring Festival, some even preparing for the college entrance exam, and each one eventually looking into the camera to express their gratitude toward the prison. . . This made prison life look more interesting than the world outside its walls, so that there were always people going in – so much so that when some convicts were released, they missed the place so badly they found a way to break the law and be sent back again.

Before school started in September, I asked Shunqiu if his early release was like in school too, where you could complete a four-year programme in two years by working hard and taking extra credits. He smiled shyly, as if he was surprised by his own good results, and said, ‘This country has no law whatsoever. Whether to catch you or not, sentence you or not, is all up to a few people to judge and weigh. Whether they let you graduate or not, it all depends on the instructor’s mood.’

My brother had worked desperately hard to outperform in the prison reform farm. He cited an example. If his quota was to finish carrying enough soil for 10 000 plots in a year, he worked hard and did it in half a year. He could put down an acre of paddy in three days, and like a reaping machine, he could complete rolling in two. The farm planted two seasons of paddy and he learned everything he needed to know about the labour involved. The instructors all said that he was so honest he did not qualify to be in the labour reform camp. When my brother was released, everyone asked him to add a handful of soil to the ancestral grave in hopes that his filial remembrance would secure their protection for him. Our family only had one ancestral grave. Inside it lay Li Xinhai’s wife, her feet bound, who died during childbirth. Very early on, my grandfather had blocked out the others, so nobody else knew what unhappy events had happened among our ancestors.

My brother made the vast farmland sound very attractive, highlighting features such as large plots of reeds, hidden marshes, muddy ponds, lakes, and flood control dykes, all within a hundred mile radius. Sometimes the sky was not variegated, and other times it was quite turbid. The prisoners moved like a flock of birds, sometimes lined up in a V-formation, sometimes in a straight line. The instructors walked back and forth with their hunting rifles, sometimes shouting or cursing, and when the situation got out of control, firing their guns into the air. Those who were disobedient were punished with solitary confinement, sealed in a room the size of a coffin, to reflect on their mistakes. Those who were tired of prison life and tried to escape ended up in one of two situations – either swallowed by the swamp or having their sentence extended. Another violent end came to those who chose to swallow spoons and razor blades.

Shunqiu was not affected by any of this. He was very thankful for the protective callous that had grown naturally on his hands, which was even tougher than the handle of a hoe. I asked him what the easiest work was. He said it was weeding. It was only later that I discovered that weeding was not actually easy. The weeders spent ten hours every day in the water, bent at a ninety-degree angle, facing downward, their faces so swollen by the end of the workday, they were hardly recognisable. Imagine that. The artistic quality is no less than Jean-Francois Millet’s famous painting The Gleaners. One did not know what went on behind the scenes, like what happened to prisoners who did not know how to distinguish between weeds and rice. Pulling the rice seedlings would have a negative effect on production. Prisoners who did that were criticised. A light punishment was given to them, such as a demerit on their record or solitary confinement. Heavy punishment would be extended sentencing. But absent of that knowledge, one cannot deny the poetic quality and beauty of the picture presented by prisoners weeding. When these same people were not working on the farm, they were repairing roads or embankments or carrying silt, with so many people passing back and forth, creating an impression of ants in motion.

My brother looked at his leg and said he had hurt his knee while working in the prison. But there were much more terrible things there, such as the deadly mosquitoes on the farm. These mosquitoes would normally form themselves into an egg-shaped swarm, then when they saw people, would rush forward, surround, and attack, covering the inmates’ white clothing so thoroughly it appeared black. While they worked, they tied the cuffs of their sleeves and trousers tightly and covered their faces with cloths, leaving only the eyes exposed. When one of the prisoners had talked back to an instructor, he was thrown into a ditch to feed the mosquitoes. Later, the prisoner’s entire body was covered in blood, and his face swollen to the size of his arse. When he returned, he was sent to solitary confinement, where he died two days later.

There were many things that bit in the prison. Besides the gadflies and leeches, there were numerous poisonous things, for which no one even knew the names.