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39 Return to Qincheng and Resumption of Translation Work (1973–75) In 1973 Deng Xiaoping returned to power, taking up the post of deputy premier of the State Council and chief of the general staff. He bravely set about reorganising government departments, with quick results. In the summer the deputy director of Qincheng Prison came to Fushun and said that they intended to re-establish the translation team and wanted to take us back. Not all were welcome and those who had no real talent in foreign languages stayed at Fushun—including Zhang Zhitian, Diao Peishu, Xiong Shounong and a certain Lin whose given name I have forgotten. This time we got to travel by sleeper car and en route they bought watermelons for us and were exceptionally polite. Thus we returned to Qincheng Prison. After we had entered the main gate of Qincheng, we immediately noticed a big difference. The original four blocks of the jail were now six, which implied that there were more prisoners and that the original cell blocks were insufficient to accommodate them. We were locked up in the same compound as before, but there was no sign of Director Sun or Officer Ma; the disciplinary officers had been changed and the new ones were very polite. We started to translate all over again. On one occasion we were led to another compound, where we saw many fruit trees, in particular peach trees. The peaches were already ripe, but we didn’t dare eat many, while old man Fang Huanru wolfed down about 20 of them. In the middle of the night we heard his groans as his stomach was in agony. He was sent to Fuxing Hospital in Beijing to be saved. Two days later we were informed by the guards that Fang had died. He had previously been operated on for an intestinal obstruction in which they had cut away a section of his intestine and stitched it back together. When he ate that many peaches all at once his intestine was ripped open. He was only a year from completing 256 The Memoirs of Jin Luxian his sentence. Thus he died for such a petty reason. The prison informed his two daughters at the Iron and Steel Institute, but they refused to collect his body. I had been arrested on 8 September 1955 and sentenced to eighteen years in jail. After finishing my sentence I was to be designated a counter-revolutionary for a further nine years. On 8 September 1973 my sentence was completed, but the prison authorities forgot all about it. My fellow prisoner Liu Chunxiang wrote a report to the authorities, asking why they were not allowed to release me. The authorities then sped up the formalities and I was released on 20 September. The disciplinary officer told me: “You should tell people that you were released on 8 September.” He took me to the gate of the prison, along with some of my fellow-workers who had also been released: Zhang Ke, Zhang Xiaohu, Shan Jiaxiang and Wang Tiemei. They also told me that I would be registered as a counter-revolutionary activist for nine years, was not a citizen and was thus different from the others. I was given 50 yuan and told that this was my monthly salary. In those days 50 yuan was not too bad. Reform through labour, re-education through labour and employment by the Ministry of Public Security were three different categories, all being targets of the dictatorship of the People, while designation as a counter-revolutionary activist necessitated even more careful supervision: my movements and freedom of speech were thus carefully circumscribed. We were permitted to go to the cadre’s dining hall to eat. Vegetables were 3 fen (0.03 yuan) a dish, while meat dishes were 1 mao and 8 fen (0.18 yuan). It would be hard to spend 20 yuan a month. The cadres were all prison guards and their families. Apart from a few individuals, they kept their distance from us. About 7 km from Qincheng is a place called Little Tangshan where there is a hot spring. Every Sunday I went there to take a bath in the hot spring, which cost 2 mao every time, which was very cheap. We had to report to the guards if we wanted to go to Beijing, but we were not permitted to spend the night there. Rong Dexian had a niece named Zhang Bochen who had graduated...

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