Yu Shuzhong got hold of an important document that made the Detention Treatment Centre open their gate obediently. The staff obliged, but coldly. The atmosphere inside the facility was strange. They did not allow me inside the cells, saying that some of the mental patients were unruly, and it would not be safe for me. I could not differentiate between doctors, nurses, and nurse support workers. Their identities were confusing, and each person seemed to have multiple roles. They were like ghosts, their eyes shifting and their faces expressionless. When they answered my questions, there was no logic, as if they were all psychotic. When they finished their interviews, they turned into busy worker bees, very abruptly leaving me like a dead branch in the midst of flowering shrubs.

I smelt a bloody stench – a hot, disgusting smell. The cells were silent. The whole facility was quiet and stifling. There was a pot of devil’s ivy outside every window. At a glance, I knew they were all newly bought. Obviously, the staff heard that someone was coming to interview them, so they had made a series of arrangements, sprucing up the Detention Treatment Centre, but I could still detect the chaos underneath the surface. I conducted interviews for two hours, but got nothing.

When I asked about Qiao Feiyan, everyone became imbecilic and incoherent, as if a gun was secretly pointed at their forehead. One by one, they all praised Qiao fervently. From my interviews, I found out Qiao was ex-military, and he was strong. He had been recruited the previous year to work in security, and had done very well. He was quickly made team leader. The security and nurse support workers were the same at the Detention Treatment Centre, and everyone followed his orders willingly. One girl panicked a little. She was Qiao’s girlfriend, but she said she had just come back from a holiday and did not know anything.

When I left the treatment centre and the metal gate clanked shut behind me, I felt like I had been released from a prison for ghosts. The little ghosts I had interviewed floated in my mind, with their blood-red lips and their teeth stuffed with human flesh, making my back feel cold. A motorcycle suddenly slammed on its brakes. A cloud of dust and black smoke came out of the bike’s rear end. Hu Lilai appeared riding on a cloud, as if the God of Earth had appeared from the ground.

‘Get on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

We went to a herbal tea shop. There were two fans mounted on the wall, rattling and circulating the warm air. I turned on my recorder and wrapped my hands around my cold drink, hoping to cool off. Hu tossed his straw aside and took a couple of gulps of his mango smoothie, then puckered his mouth as if he had been burned.

‘Can you please introduce yourself briefly?’

‘I’m Hu Lilai, a nurse support worker at the Detention Treatment Centre. I’ve been working there for three months.’

‘What does a nurse support worker do?’

‘We wear camouflage uniforms and carry rubber batons. We keep the patients from making trouble, and also assist the nurses when they distribute meals or medicine.’

‘What sort of people are the patients?’

‘All sorts. They come from different shelters.’

‘Are they all ill?’

‘Not necessarily. Some are delinquents, so they come here for “treatment.”’

‘Was Ma Liujia one of these?’

‘When Ma Liujia came in, I was on duty. He kicked up a big fuss as soon as he came in. He was really strong. Some people had just been released that day, so he shouted for help. Before long, Qiao Feiyan said to me, “Someone is way too noisy in there. Put him in Cell 206; let them have some fun. Play hard, but be careful not to hit his head, and don’t draw blood. Anyway, if you kill him, it doesn’t matter. A person dying here is like an ant dying.” So I put Ma Liujia in Cell 206, and I kicked him a couple of times. I did that just so Qiao would see. If I didn’t kick him, Qiao would kick me. He’s very strong. He can kill a dog with one kick. We’re all afraid of him.’

‘What was were the cells like?’

‘A dozen or so cement bunks. Those who pay the nurse support workers money become the cells’ chiefs. They get to sleep next to the window. They’re responsible for snitching.’

‘So who are the ones who beat people up?’

‘They’re also sent from the shelter. They don’t want to beat people up, but if you’re told to beat and you don’t do it, you’ll be beaten. It’s miserable. Cell 206 is especially for beating people. When those sent there have been beaten, they’ll be transferred. They go in standing erect, but they’re carried out.’

‘Tell me about Ma Liujia’s beating.’

‘Seven or eight people surrounded him. They hit him with their fists and elbows, and they kicked him, then picked him up and threw him to the ground. When Ma Liujia squatted and covered his head, some of them jumped on his back and stepped and stomped. He knelt and begged for mercy. Qiao’s girlfriend tried to stop them, but Qiao scolded and chased her away. Feeling the beating had not been severe enough yet, he wanted them to continue. The cell chief said if the instructions of the security were not carried out well, everyone would be in trouble, so they should keep beating him for another half hour. When they finished, Ma Liujia was moved to Cell 208. I saw him through the window. A nurse support worker was using a police baton to poke Ma Liujia. Ma went from screaming to groaning. He lost his voice quickly. The next morning when the nurses were making their rounds, Ma Liujia was lying on his stomach on the cement bed, his face purple. He was hardly breathing. They carried him to the emergency ward, but he died shortly after.’

I imagined his dead, purple skin, like a yam.

The electric fans whirred.

‘I’ve resigned. I smuggled some material out for you.’ He stood up. ‘Actually . . . The Detention Treatment Centre is a prison. Those who aren’t ill will become sick.’

He put the material in front of me. Without waiting for me to shake his hand or thank him, he turned away and left the teahouse. His motorcycle roared, and its rear kicked up a cloud of black fog.

I immediately looked at the material and found some amazing data. There were only four medical professionals in the treatment centre. It had been open for over a year, and had received more than eight hundred patients. More than a hundred of them had died, and the cause of death had not been specified.

No wonder Qiao Feiyan had said a person dying was no different from an ant dying.

I called Yu. ‘A storm is coming,’ he said.

*

Yu did not go home. I wrote, and he waited for my article. He said that when this report came out, it would be earth-shattering. This was Yu’s form of praise. His two dimples appeared every time there was a major event. They were not sweet, but solemn and full of worry. Even so, I had the desire to swim nude in those dimples, especially when I thought that in private, they also had their non-serious moments. The small claw in my heart was scratching. Weariness did not dull my instincts. The wearier I became, the greater my desire. I really wanted to finish the article, then have a go with him. If he were willing, he should reward me according to my demands.

As my thoughts strayed, Yu answered a call from his wife. He told her not to leave a light on for him; he would be at the office all night.

The words ‘leave a light on’ hit me like a dart, striking coldly in the bull’s eye of my desire.

The lights in the office were incandescent. They made it look like a morgue.

Yu was beside me; he was the light left on for me. So, I was like any wife in the bedroom, heart warm as I went about my day’s work. We were all preparing for battle, though each battlefield was different. Theirs was the bedroom; mine was the newsroom.

By three in the morning, I had finished a 4000-word report. Yu read it, then tweaked the title to read, Death of the Lowly.

When day broke, we went to a small restaurant for breakfast, waiting for the paper to hit the streets. We ate green bean porridge, eggs, preserved vegetables, and dumplings. Yu suddenly started talking about my brother, saying how much I was like Xiazhi, sharing his stubborn streak. A bicycle sped by. Wearing a yellow Mandarin jacket, the newspaper delivery man pedalled on, desperately. I smelt the fragrance of ink. My words flew about. The number of diners around us gradually increased, their topics of conversation behind the time. We silently munched on our dumplings. Yu said something was sure to happen. I did not want to go home and sleep.

Not long after we returned to the newsroom, the phones started ringing. We answered the calls one after another, listening to the angry voices of readers, calling to share their own experiences. A middle school student got lost in the streets, was sent to the shelter and, when he returned home four days later, he was black and blue all over and incoherent. Two 13-year-old girls in the shelter were pimped and forced into prostitution. When a young woman showed her temporary residence permit to the police, the other party ripped the document up and detained her. She was gang-raped by a group of rabid men in the human cell in the shelter.

Traffic to our website increased rapidly. People were sharing the story everywhere.

At ten o’clock, Yu called for an emergency editorial board meeting.

‘We’ve just received instructions from above, telling us to stop reporting on the Ma Liujia case.’ Yu went straight to the point, ’We all know the situation of the Today Newspaper. I think if we put a temporary stop to reporting the Ma Liujia case, we can continue to report on other similar cases. Even if they prohibit us from reporting similar cases, we can still attack the C&R system. In short, continue questioning, and attack the detention system until the whole thing is finally abolished.’

‘The C&R system was first set up to help vagrants get back home, but when the police started using it for their own economic gain, it became government-sanctioned kidnapping and ransom. It’s black gold politics,’ the deputy editor said, ‘But this system has been around for twenty years, and just one small newspaper will not be able to abolish it.’

‘When you have a sword in hand, you have to polish it. You can’t let it get rusty,’ Yu said. ‘A thousand miles of embankment can be broken by ant nests, and we’ll be that small ant colony.’

‘Mr Yu, the C&R system involves very solid interests. In five years, one of Guangdong’s shelters have earned four million. If you trim the fat, you make yourself their enemy. And anyway, we’ve been warned twice now,’ reminded the director of the editorial department.

‘A good newspaper should promote social progress,’ Yu said. ‘Perhaps each time we are warned, we should wear the mark proudly.’

The atmosphere in the room was quite dignified. Yu started telling stories. He spoke of Xiazhi and their generation. A new young reporter was shocked. He had never known that sort of thing had happened in his country.

‘The reason a newspaper exists should be for the rights and well-being of the public. We have come into this world, and we should do something.’ Yu’s words gradually heated up the atmosphere, and everyone was eager to get into action. This group of ordinary editors and reporters was transformed into soldiers during peacetime. Suddenly, we felt the adrenaline of being armed with live ammunition and sent to the battlefield.

‘Before, we would lose our lives. Now, at most, we might lose our jobs.’A young reporter made the worst of calculations.

‘Li Xiaohan, you continue to interview Ma Liujia’s family. Any problem?’ Yu asked me.

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘We’re all from Yiyang. We speak the same dialect, so we should be able to communicate easily.’

One of my colleagues pushed the door open and came in, her face flushed. ‘Mr Yu, a CDC interview turned up a death suspected to be SARS-related. Do we want to report it?’

Yu nearly stood up from his seat. He adjusted his position and said, ‘Let’s discuss it. I want to hear everyone’s opinions.’

‘It’s the first case. We’ll be the first to offer media coverage of SARS.’

‘But there are the unified propaganda specifications from above. If we . . . ’

‘Right. With both of these issues together, the Today Newspaper will attract too much attention.’

When he had heard all the pros and cons, Yu asked, ‘What is the beast trainer’s whip made of?’

‘Just ordinary material. Nothing special.’

Yu asked, ‘And why are wild beasts afraid of an ordinary whip?’

‘They’re afraid of hunger and punishment.’

‘They’re afraid of the pain inflicted by the trainer’s whip.’

No one spoke.

‘No,’ Yu said, smiling faintly. ‘The beasts are afraid because they have lost their freedom and their savage ambition.’