Chapter Twenty-Two

  Just as they were about to exit a narrow alleyway, Dai Yu was caught by the previously laid-out agents.

  He arrived in a small car with curtains at a heavily guarded mansion, then walked through two courtyards and was led into a beautifully decorated room that completely exceeded his expectations. A young agent in plain clothes let him sit on the sofa and walked out. The room was left with only him. Although he was feeling anxious and uneasy, Dai Yu couldn't help but observe every corner of the room.

  How strange, this doesn't look like a prison cell or an interrogation room... it's clearly a rich family's study and guest room. The bright large glass window has silk curtains in a light blue color; the books are neatly arranged on rows of glass bookshelves; there is a small round table in the center of the room, with an antique ceramic vase on top - the vase still has fresh flowers in it, and around it are several bottles of fine wine - Maotai, Daqu, Brandy, etc. And those large and small velvet sofas, the colorful paintings on the snow-white walls, all shine brightly before his eyes. All this not only surprises him but also makes him enter a state of confusion - what's going on? Just now, he was still in the midst of a noisy crowd, shouting and fighting; just now, he was still distributing flyers on the podium of the Bible study group; how did he suddenly end up in such a quiet and comfortable place? This is so different from the foul-smelling damp earth and bloody torture he had expected when he was in the car! This is two different worlds. But he indeed has entered another world - a world that is both unfamiliar and familiar to him. It's been a long, long time since he last saw this world. However, he did have such a world before. When he was 18 years old and participated in the *** struggle, he also had such a quiet and comfortable room, with his own glass bookshelves full of books, and his favorite Maotai wine - his landlord and bureaucratic father had given him a comfortable and enjoyable world. But after he accepted the *** party member's classmate's indoctrination of *** truth, he left this world and entered another world that was full of hard work, bitterness, and danger. Several years passed, and he seemed to have forgotten those glass bookshelves and Maotai wine, forgotten the beautiful curtains and paintings he had hung up himself. But today - no, just now, less than an hour after his capture, when he saw all these familiar scenes again, everything from the past that he had long forgotten suddenly came back to life in his heart, suddenly appeared before his eyes again. Ah, dream! Is he dreaming?... Just as he was sitting on the soft sofa, quietly looking around and thinking deeply, the shiny wooden door beside him opened, and a middle-aged man wearing a suit followed a woman who was dressed up very attractively into the room. He was so startled that he didn't know how to react when the woman and the man walked quickly to his side, stretched out their hands: "Mr. Dai Yu, hello?" The thin man took the lead in wanting to shake hands with Dai Yu, but Dai Yu looked at him in surprise, didn't stretch out his hand, and instead turned his face towards the woman standing beside him - this woman also smiled and stretched out her hand to him. But he painfully turned his head away and bowed it deeply down.

  Under the temptation of the enemy's benefits, he began to waver. The warm world of the past and the comfortable world in front of him somehow naturally attracted each other like two magnetic poles, strongly breaking through his weak resistance. After just over half an hour, Dai Yu finally sat down with those two people at a small round table to drink his favorite Maotai liquor. Then he was immediately released. As he was about to leave this beautiful and comfortable room, the man smiled and said: "Mr. Dai, you are very smart. Peng Cheng Wan Li, take care of yourself! ... You don't know yet? My name is Hu Meng'an, a member of the Beiping Municipal Party Committee. Let's keep in touch in the future."

  The woman also gave him a charming smile and said softly, "Mr. Dai, my name is Wang Fengjuan, we'll probably run into each other again sometime."

  Then he walked out of the Kuomintang Municipal Party Committee's 'gate', and took advantage of the fact that no one in the organization knew about his capture to 'mix' back into the party. Of course, subsequently, the organizations he knew were destroyed one after another. And Lu Jiachuan's capture was also closely related to this traitor.

  Lu Jiachuan was arrested outside the door of his temporary residence, a friend's apartment, immediately after leaving Yu Yongze's home. He had anticipated this possibility and made all necessary preparations. No materials fell into enemy hands, not even in the room of the friend he was staying with. The enemy took him to the garrison command of the third regiment, but naturally, no confession would be forthcoming. Thus began Lu Jiachuan's life of struggle as a *** party member in prison and in court.

  The enemy also wanted to use the same method as they used on Dai Yu to deal with Lu Jia-chuan, trying to get him to betray and surrender. However, they wasted their efforts; instead, Lu Jia-chuan took advantage of the enemy's attempt to win him over and established a prison branch, leading his comrades in struggle. When the enemy discovered that he could not be won over, brutal torture was inflicted upon him.

  In the middle of the night, Lu Jia-chuan woke up from the small cell. His first thought after waking up was "thirst". His dry and cracked lips were covered with black blood, as if burning with heat, his throat was salty and bitter.

  "Water... water..." He moaned softly, wanting to turn over, but it felt like millions of needles were stabbing his back, and his whole body was in intense pain. He gritted his teeth and remained still.

  "Water... water..." His hazy and not quite clear consciousness told him he was thirsty, so thirsty it was almost unbearable. ...Due to the stimulation of thirst, he seemed to understand his own existence, so he opened his eyes and stared blankly into the dark and gloomy cell. A few stars shone through the high iron window from the sky outside, and in the distance, it seemed like the sound of a guard's boots was walking back and forth. Next to him, several emaciated old mice jumped around on the ground - as if they were probing whether to eat the congealed blood that had flowed out of his body... Gradually, he became completely awake. A thought suddenly occupied his mind - making him forget the unbearable thirst, and also forget the intense pain burning throughout his entire body.

  "Tell the comrades... tell the comrades..." He lay prostrate on the damp ground, his whole body aching so much that he didn't dare move at all. "Must tell them... must tell them!"

  He had been imprisoned in the Beiping Garrison Command's prison for over two months. The cruel punishment did not shake his will, and he struggled stubbornly. Although he was beaten to death, he still led the hunger strike in prison to fight for a public trial and to improve the living conditions of political prisoners. This was the third day after the hunger strike, and they were preparing to write a message about the torture and inhumane treatment that political prisoners suffered here, which would be passed on to society through a "connection" in prison, when Lu Jiaxiang was suddenly taken out for interrogation. His legs had been broken by the iron chair; his ten fingers had been pierced by iron nails, bleeding profusely; he was beaten to the brink of death and had lost all human form. But not a word of the message or secret that any enemy wanted to get out of him was revealed from his mouth. He missed Li Dazhao, who had educated and nurtured him, and he was prepared to shed his last drop of blood for the cause he admired... However, the cunning enemy did not immediately execute him. When he was beaten into a daze, there was a moment when he seemed to hear the conversation between two executioners: "This kid is done for, why bother with this effort? Just give him a black plum and be done with it!"

  "What a cheap thing! The commander can see that this kid is quite capable, and will likely be sent to Nanjing for rewards..."

  …………

  When Lu Jia-chuan came to from his faint, when his life had once again conquered death, and as he lay on the cold, damp earth able to think clearly, the thought of "informing his comrades" strongly, transcending all pain, occupied his mind.

  He forced open his swollen eyelids and gazed around the dark surroundings - this was not the cell he originally lived in. Originally, he lived in a small single room at one end of a row of cells, with a small window on the iron door that allowed him to see a grey wall and a piece of barbed wire across from it. But now, looking out the window, he saw the sky and stars. Clearly, the enemy wanted to quickly destroy their organization and break the hunger strike of political prisoners, so they must have moved him or other comrades suddenly before taking them away, transferring them to a new secret location where they could no longer contact each other... He lay on the ground thinking silently for a moment: "Right, that's it!" He judged that he would soon be taken out and shot, or transferred away. No matter what the outcome, he had to take advantage of the present moment while he still had breath to tell his comrades some things, some important things.

  He then began a stubborn struggle with his own body, which completely disobeyed his commands.

  His legs were crushed, with only a thin layer of blood and blurry muscle tissue connecting the broken bones; it was unimaginable to move such "legs"; his upper limbs and spine were also numb from pain; his ten fingers, swollen with fresh blood, had turned into giant paws; not to mention the heavy handcuffs tightly locked on them. However, he still had to move himself. The result of his thinking was to approach the wall, trying to find the person he needed to find.

  He seemed to want to recover a bit of 'energy', closed his eyes and rested for a while, then started trying to turn over, but it was useless. The whole body seemed like a stone, he gritted his teeth and used all his strength to try to move his body, but it was impossible; instead, due to the vibration of the wound, a severe pain came, and he fell into a state of dizziness again.

  At night, when a corner of the blue sky and a few stars reappeared before his eyes, the pain in his heart surpassed all the physical pain.

  "...... Isn't it almost dawn? ...... Once daytime comes - can I make it to daylight?" He then recalled the events of the entire night: around 10 o'clock, when all the prisoners had fallen asleep, he was suddenly taken out for interrogation. In a dimly lit, small room, a pale fatty with a terrifying, cunning smile sat behind a brown, snake-like desk and said to him: "Feng Sen, capable young fellow! Unfortunately - this isn't the time for you to show off your skills...... Hurry up and hand over the list of names of your newly established organization!"

  "Are you not going to say anything? You've become like this and still won't speak?!... Organizing party branches in prison, leading hunger strikes, fighting for rights... You're the main leader, can you still keep hiding?!... Fine, I see that you deliberately want to bury all your 'comrades'! Let me tell you, we already know your entire list of names and plans. Before you can inform a single person on the outside, we will execute every last one of you!"

  Although this cunning fat man used both soft and hard tactics to intimidate him, Lu Jia-chuan remained calm and composed. He knew that if the enemy had really obtained their list of names, they would not have bothered him so much; precisely because they did not know, he said "I know". However, no matter what, he knew that their activities and struggle plans had been betrayed; some comrades would also be suspected and killed. In order to save these comrades' lives and continue the struggle, he must quickly inform his fellow comrades of the enemy's conspiracy in this sudden attack, when none of them knew about the plot, so that the struggle could persist until victory.

  He tried to move his stiffened body again. He put all his strength into his two arms, biting his teeth and pushing his elbows against the ground, shouting in his heart: "Move!" Although the pain made blood and sweat flow out together, but his body was still as motionless as a thousand-pound boulder.

  He gasped, dazed and confused. Thirst, a terrible thirst that seemed to suck out the last bit of warmth from his life, made him feel like he was about to collapse. Panting, he licked his dry, cracked lips, trying to swallow some saliva, but there wasn't a single drop. He wanted to stick his fingers into the damp soil, dig up a handful of mud and put it in his mouth, but even before he moved his fingers, they were already aching to the bone...

  The sound of hobnailed boots and low voices came from a short distance away, and according to the habit of the past two or three months, he knew it was already 3 o'clock in the morning. This was the last shift change of the night watchmen. In another hour or two, the sky would be bright, and by then... No, every minute he could be suddenly dragged away from the ground. What did personal life, everything mean? But the party's cause, the collective's cause, the burning flames of struggle couldn't be extinguished. He began to blame himself for his weakness and fear in the face of pain. As long as there was a breath left, as long as there was still a drop of blood flowing through his veins, he shouldn't give up the fight - neither against the enemy nor against his own "rebellious" body. So he suddenly squirmed like a big worm, and then rolled around in a ball of fire - his body turned over, but he fainted again.

  When he came to, his lips were pressed against the cold earth, and he smiled. He closed his eyes, holding back the wild pounding of his heart and the burning pain, using his elbows to prop himself up, and then slowly began to crawl forward.

  He crawled to the bottom of a wall and fainted twice. However, there seemed to be an indomitable power in his life that would never dry up. As soon as he came to himself a little, he hastily tapped on the wall with his clumsy fingers like wooden sticks.

  "Dada, dada dada dada, da, da, da."

  He waited for a while, but there was no response. In the silent depths of the night, only the faint sound of mice jumping on the ground replied to his heavy and uneasy inquiry.

  The sky is about to brighten up, the stars in the blue sky outside the window are sparse, what will happen is getting closer and closer, but his last task in this prison has not been completed yet.

  "Life only has one chance......" A sneer of self-mockery floated across his twisted, red and purple face, "Is it going to end like this? Am I just going to wait quietly for the executioner to take me out and shoot me? Watch as my comrades are ambushed by the enemy? No! No!..."

  He didn't know how he had crawled to the second wall. He knocked on the dark, cold and desolate wall again, but still got no answer. Then he turned to the third side - also the last one. If there was no response here either, then tonight would be in vain, and there were no comrades around... He couldn't think any further.

  "Tap tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap, tap, tap."

  Ignoring his wound, which was bleeding profusely due to the constant movement, he lay in a pool of blood and used his fingers to tap out the same sound again.

  Like a lynx, he perked up his ears.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  On the other side of this wall, a knock came over that made him ecstatic. The accurate voice of his comrade called out to him clearly! Just as he was in a state of wild joy for an instant, he fainted again.

  Weak and exhausted. When he woke up, he heard that the prison cell was quiet inside and out, so he started a wireless conversation with his comrades on the other side of the wall using hand gestures.

  "Who are you?"

  "Number Eight - Li Liang."

  "Number one... Lu..." He closed his eyes and rested for a moment.

  "Emergency, quickly pass on to comrades - the situation of struggle in prison has changed, the enemy has learned of our plan, some comrades and I may be executed or 'taken care of'. But our struggle must continue; our hunger strike and the enemy's murderous plot must be quickly spread outside, and fellow prisoners must also be vigilant and unite..."

  If there was anything to be said, it had been said. The last drop of blood seemed to have been drained, but on Lu Jia-chuan's face appeared a peaceful and harmonious smile that he had never shown before. It wasn't until then that he seemed to have put down the burden of his heart, the weight on his shoulders was gone, his head slowly drooped, and his body couldn't move anymore.