Chapter 53: The Wheel Turns

At noon, Lou Yanru indeed called. Her voice over the phone was filled with unconcealed excitement and joy.

"Weidong, I took two subjects this morning, Chinese and history. I checked my answers afterwards, and I did really well. I am just one step away from university. Are you happy?"

Liu Weidong smiled. "Didn't I tell you my wife would have no problem? How did your younger sister do? She didn't bomb it, did she?"

"Yancheng made more mistakes than I did, but the teachers at No. 1 High School said it should be fine. Anyway, art students don't need a very high score in academic subjects. How are you doing? When can you get out?"

"Yanru, you don't need to worry about me. You saw how it was when you came here last time. I'm as comfortable here as I would be at home. At a critical time like this, we can't cause trouble for the leaders, so staying here is just staying here.

"However, Li Baotian should be hauled in within the next couple of days. Never mind that he managed to take those photos through Li Hong; he has committed more than just one bad deed over the years. A letter of accusation has already been sent to the county committee, and this time he is definitely in for a world of hurt.

"Just set your mind at ease and focus on your exams. I won't be staying inside for long. After all, the machinery at the grease plant can't operate without me. That's a key project in Binjiang City, and the city leaders and Li Tie are much more anxious about it than I am."

Back in the cell, Liu Weidong was grinning. Boss Cai walked up to him and asked, "Are you getting out, Boss?"

Liu Weidong shook his head. "I'm not in a rush. I haven't seen Li Baotian yet. At this rate, he'll probably be brought in today. He doesn't recognize a single complex character, and he certainly doesn't know the detention center rules by heart. You'll have to teach him well."

Boss Cai understood instantly, and the look he gave Liu Weidong was filled with awe.

No matter how he looked at it, Liu Weidong didn't seem like a typical street hoodlum, yet this "Boss" was completely unfathomable to him—like a blade hidden in its sheath, bound to draw blood the moment it was pulled out.

After much anticipation, the evening meal concluded, and the ward guard finally shouted the roll call for a new admission.

"Cell Number Three takes a new inmate! Li Baotian, you fucking bastard, are you used to having people wait on you? Hold your own food basin! If you don't have one, are you going to fucking grab the food with your bare hands?"

Liu Weidong leaped up like a spring and started singing on the heated brick kang:

"The mountains don't turn, the rivers turn; the rivers don't turn, the people turn..."

The moment Li Baotian saw Liu Weidong standing atop the kang, his face instantly turned ashen...

Liu Weidong looked at Li Baotian with an expression of utter astonishment. "Well, well, well! If it isn't Director Li! Why did you end up in here too? Come to experience life?"

Li Baotian's calves were trembling so violently they were practically cramping. He grabbed onto the doorframe with both hands, refusing to enter the cell, but a jolt from an electric baton sent him shrieking like a ghost as he was kicked stumbling inside by the guard.

"Boss Cai, the newcomer doesn't know the rules. Teach him the detention center regulations properly. If he can't recite them, nobody in this entire cell eats dinner."

With that, the guard slammed the iron door shut with a loud *clang*.

Hardly had the door closed than at least half the bald inmates leapt down from the kang, immediately swarming over Li Baotian and burying him underneath a pile of bodies.

A flurry of flying kicks and heavy blows, accompanied by Li Baotian's miserable shrieks, lasted for a full minute before Liu Weidong finally shouted, "Stop!"

"Alright, with his old bones, the only thing he's good at is exerting himself with women on the kang. Quick, check if he's still breathing! He's my 'uncle,' after all—if you kill him, how am I supposed to face my 'aunt'?"

The group of bald inmates scattered with a laugh. Li Baotian was bleeding from his nose and mouth, twitching as he lay sprawled on the floor.

"Number Two Reform-Through-Labor, what the fuck kind of mess is this? His face is covered in blood. If the guard sees this, we'll all be getting a taste of the electric baton! Hurry up and wash him off."

Boss Cai cursed.

Number Two Reform-Through-Labor waved his hand, and two bald inmates jumped off the kang, dragging Li Baotian over to the slop bucket.

There was water in the cell indeed, though it was the leftover foot-washing water Liu Weidong had used the night before.

Number Two fished out a worn-out toothbrush from somewhere. The two bald inmates set to work—washing Li Baotian's face and brushing his teeth, stopping just short of making him eat shit.

Li Baotian was gagging continuously, vomiting up everything he had eaten earlier that day.

"Everyone on the kang, sit up straight! Don't be so fucking undisciplined. Number Three by the aisle, make some room for the newcomer. Number Two, teach him the regulations sentence by sentence. You know what happens if he gets them wrong, right?"

Boss Cai selected a choice spot for Li Baotian. The "edge of the road" was the very rim of the brick kang, meaning half of his buttocks had to hang off the edge, and Boss Cai could easily kick him down with a flick of his leg.

By the time his face was washed, Li Baotian had been stripped bare, left wearing only a pair of red cotton underwear.

"Holy shit, these red underpants were even made out of a quilt cover, and they've got mandarin ducks playing in the water embroidered on them! You old bastard are quite the beast."

Two men came over and forcefully bent Li Baotian's legs, cruelly folding him into a full lotus position with the soles of his feet facing upward. The excruciating pain wrung a tortured, unnatural howl out of him.

"What the fuck are you howling for? Do you think this is Qianjin Commune? You can sleep wherever you want, with whoever you want? Once you're in here, if you're a dragon you coil up, and if you're a tiger you lie flat! Hurry up and memorize the regulations, unless you want to drag everyone down with you."

Number Two was truly vicious. He pulled a rusty nail from somewhere and began sharpening it against the windowsill until it threw off sparks. Once he had ground it to a sharp point, he walked over to Li Baotian and pressed the tip right against him.

"Obey the guards and confess your wrongdoings."

"Obey the guards and confess your wrongdoings."

Number Two said a line, and Li Baotian repeated it. Before long, the entire set of regulations had been read through.

"Newcomer, you look like a real sluttery piece of work. From now on, your nickname in here is 'Big Rotten Boar' (meaning a breeding boar). Now tell me, what is Article Seven of the detention center regulations?"

Li Baotian...

Another round of blood-curdling shrieks echoed as the pointed nail targeted Li Baotian's crotch.

"Alright, Number Two, why are you being so damn malicious? My uncle here has a soft spot for this sort of thing, can't you leave him some dignity? Learning has to be step-by-step. If he can't memorize it, can't you make him write it down? A good memory is no match for a worn-out brush—don't you even know that?"

Li Baotian...

How could Li Baotian possibly write? He couldn't even recognize all the basic characters.

Consequently, he was subjected to another round of torture by Number Two, forced to dip a toothbrush in water and kneel on the ground to write out the regulations stroke by stroke.

Although Liu Weidong had been a wild and lawless man in his past life, he still believed in sparing people where possible. Yet, after his rebirth, looking at Li Baotian kneeling on the floor, he wished he could take a knife and castrate this beast right then and there.

The image flashed in his mind once again of the night he caught them in the act—Li Baotian hoisting Li Hong's thigh over his shoulder.

True, Li Hong wasn't a sympathetic figure either, but if Li Baotian hadn't coerced her, would she have gone out of her way to deceive Lou Yanru?

Before eleven o'clock, Li Baotian had passed out cold. His red underpants were riddled with nail holes, and the dried blood had glued the fabric to his skin.

"Boss, the guard specifically said earlier that if he can't memorize the regulations, the whole cell goes hungry. Can he just play dead like this? The guard will come for morning roll call at the crack of dawn tomorrow—looks like he's going to be reciting all night long."

Boss Cai wore an expression of profound disappointment in the man.

"As a leading cadre, he has state affairs to attend to every single minute, and his body is already completely hollowed out. Number Two, you shouldn't rely on corporal punishment all the time; you need to learn how to do ideological work. You're useless at everything."

With a final curse, Liu Weidong closed his eyes.

A basin of foot-washing water was dumped over Li Baotian from head to toe, and he groaned as he slowly regained consciousness.

Not only was his backside peppered with puncture wounds, but his kneecaps were also scraped raw, oozing fresh blood.

"Considering you're the Boss's 'uncle,' we'll set the nail aside for now. But you must memorize the regulations. You don't sleep until you can recite them. Am I being fair enough or what? Aren't you going to thank the Boss?"

With that, Number Two kicked Li Baotian, who promptly kowtowed and kowtowed again toward Liu Weidong before awkwardly crossing his legs and sitting back up on the edge of the brick kang.