A Story about a Death Row Inmate

[PureInsight.org] A few years ago, I was illegally kidnapped by the police force and thrown into a detention center where I met a death row inmate. The inmate’s faith in Falun Dafa at the end of his life was marvelous.

It was at mid-night when I was dragged into the detention cell; it was raining outside, and when the front iron gate door closed, it made a loud “bang”. There were already around 20 people in the cell, many of them were already sleeping on a connected row of beds inside the room. Three people lying down close to the cell door were still talking to each other. I later learnt that the person lying down closest to the door was known as the “big cat”, and the next one “second cat”; these two people were the so-called bosses of the cell and they were supposed to receive the most respect among the people in the cell. Now, the person lying down close to the “second cat” was a little bit different, he was wearing a heavy shackle that restraint both his legs and his hands, usually, only those people who had committed serious crimes would wear such a shackle.

The “second cat” was very thin; he asked: “Why are you here?” I replied: “Falun Gong.” The “big cat” was a fat short one, he said: “Wow, Falun Gong? Finally, we’ve seen a real one.” The man in shackle approached and asked: “I want you to tell me, what’s going on with the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident?” I responded: “Well, it’s already late now, I don’t want to disturb people’s sleeps. I will just give you two questions to think about, first, who was video recording the whole incident? second, isn’t true that the same TV station was recording as well as playing the videos?” The man nodded: “Okay, you can go to rest now, let’s continue talk tomorrow.”

Everyone got up very early next morning. After a few minutes of cleaning, the “big cat” asked everyone to sit down and start working. The work was to place a yellowish paper on top of a thin aluminum foil and then press the two pieces together hard enough so that they would stick together, and the finished product was called “aluminum paper”. People would buy such “aluminum paper” to burn in front of burial ground because they thought such papers were treated as money in the other world for those who had passed away.

I firmly said no and refused to do the work. The “big cat” became irritated: “What’s going on? Everyone’s doing it, why don’t you do it?” I replied: “I am not a prisoner and I was kidnapped.” The “big cat” then shouted at me, and immediately a couple of people came close to me. I took a look at the person in shackle, the man was looking at me with a calm face, he didn’t seem to have any attitude towards me; the “second cat” said then: “Okay, it’s not a big deal, this newcomer is my friend, we will talk later.”

Everyone began to work on the papers, after a while, both the “big cat” and “second cat” themselves started to work on the papers as well. I sat down and started to meditate, the man in shackle was lying down on his bed smoking. I couldn’t calm down though, I said to myself: “What’s going on? Why the big shots in here are also doing the papers but that man in shackle is having a good time himself?”

I recalled what had happened the day before. I was illegally kidnapped while I was browsing the Minghui website at home. I was first taken to the local public security station and later I was thrown into this detention center. I refused to be searched on my body when I first got to the center, one police officer shouted at me: “You look like an educated person, we’d like to place you in the minor cell, now that you behaved in such a way, we are going to place in cell 13, you will know what you will get in there!”

I realized I shouldn’t think too much so I gradually calmed down.

After breakfast, the man in shackle asked me to sit down on his bed and said: “The two questions you raised yesterday about the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident kept me awake throughout the night. What on earth was going then? Can you tell us in details?”

I said: “Okay. The incident happened on January 23^rd of 2001, it was the Eve of the Chinese New Year. Jiang Zemin’s persecution on Falun Gong had just run across huge resistances from everywhere, it was almost impossible for Jiang to continue his campaign to persecute Falun Gong. Jiang then decided to adapt a more vicious way to suppress Falun Gong and this was the reason behind this so-called self-immolation incident, Jiang tried to create more excuses to escalate his plan to persecute Falun Gong; the self-immolation incident was indeed very vicious that such an incident could easily incite people’s hatred towards Falun Gong. The people involved in the incident, the time the incident happened, and the self-immolation way of a human being’s suicidal act, all attracted people’s attentions. The state-run media then kept playing out the horrible news and all newspapers in the country rushed to criticize Falun Gong in unison, as a result, all the Chinese people have been fooled by this incident.”

I then continued to offer more suspicious points in the whole incident: “Look, Tiananmen Square is so large, where can one find so many fire extinguishers all at once in about just one minute? The man named Wang Jindong in the incident got all his clothes burnt out, however, his hair was still intact, the Sprit soft drink bottle placed in between his legs was still intact, the police standing right behind Wang’s back was holding a fire blanket waiting for Wang to finish yelling slogans and then cover Wang with the blanket; when Wang was yelling his slogans, there was no fire on his body at all, what was the need to cover Wang with the fire blanket? The little girl named Liu Siying was supposed to suffer a serious burn and her throat was cut, however, 4 days later, when a Chinese Central TV station journalist was visiting the girl to conduct a report, the girl would even be able to sing songs. There were so many very close-up pictures in the recorded incident video, how could someone make such a detailed video record out of sudden without prior preparations? Anyhow, just take a look at all the propagandas against Falun Gong these years, isn’t true that all those so-called news were solely reported by the Chinese Communist Party alone? The CCP regime keeps fabricating news, it plays out its own scripts by its own people, do you think it dares to allow genuine Falun Gong practitioners to show up and tell their own stories?”

The man in shackle listened attentively to my truth clarification; he kept nodding his head while I was telling the story. After I finished, the man sighed and lay down on his bed: “CCP is too wicked, I have been fooled by it as well, and how many Chinese people have been fooled by it?” The man then asked a few things about myself and said, “Brother, you are a good man, Falun Gong is good, there is no question for that. Now, I can’t do much for you, but here in this place I can guarantee one thing for you, nobody is going to harass you, even if you are to be transferred to some other cell, you won’t be bothered just the same, people here all respect me.”

While I was clarifying the truth about the Tiananmen self-immolation incident, I intentionally raised my voice so that more people could hear me. The man in shackle said to everyone, “Look, this Falun Gong friend is an educated person; the way he speaks is very impressive, we all admire him, let’s call him our teacher, let’s respect our teacher from now on.”

Someone then uttered, “Teacher, you believe in Falun Gong so much, can you cure my illness? I’ve got a stomachache problem.” I replied, “I can’t make it clear to you in just a few words about the principles of Falun Gong, we can discuss more on that later on. Now, if you are keen on curing your ailments, there is a way, you just need to sincerely murmur ‘Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good’.”

Everyone laughed and asked, “Is it so simple?” The man in shackle obviously noticed that those people in the cell were starting to joke, he shouted, “Shut up! If you believe in it, you go ahead and murmur it, otherwise, don’t say any words!” Everyone became quiet at once.

As I was only wearing a thin layer of clothes that day, my nose was running, it seemed that I caught a cold. I said to myself: “I shouldn’t develop any ailment in here, how can I tell people Falun Gong is powerful if my own physical health is in trouble.” I then asked Master to give me protection. After one night’s sleep, the cold was gone completely. The man in shackle noticed my change and said to the rest people in the room, “Hey, look at our teacher in here, yesterday his nose was running just like some of you people, now he’s completely recovered, how about you?” Everyone then looked at me. One man said, “Is it really true that murmuring ‘Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good’ will cure my cold?” I replied: “Well, it all depends on your sincerity.” The man who said he got a stomachache earlier said, “I really want to thank this teacher. I began to murmur yesterday, I am feeling much better right now. The power of Falun Gong is real.” I said to this man, “Don’t thank me, you need to thank Master Li Hongzhi!”

The man in shackle asked me to get to his bedside and said, “Look at my wrists, the shackle has made my wrists swollen, one doctor told me that it was caused by the shackle rust. I tried all kinds of ointments and none seemed to help. You told me to murmur ‘Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good’, I then kept murmuring in my heart, now, take a close look at my wrists, they look much better right now.”

The particular shackle that the man was wearing was made of welded steel bars; it was a special shackle that was put on only those serious crime suspects. I asked: “Why are you wearing this shackle?” the man started to tell his story to me.

The man’s name was Qi Jie, he had kidnapped the richest person in the county before, he was also involved in a murder case, as a result, he had been sentenced to death, and his family was still trying hard to appeal for his case though. Jie said: “When I was sentenced to death, I didn’t feel any regrets at all; I’ve committed such a great crime, I deserve to receive the capital punishment. The other people that worked together with me in the crime were so scared that they were unable to sign on their sentence papers. I was the only person that laughed with ease that day. I told others that I deserved to die, it was just a matter of time; one should live with a broad mind. There were a big audience in the court that day, and many people looked at me with respect.”

Jie had developed some superpower before, he was able to foresee certain things, and he was capable of telepathy as well. Jie continued, “Before I was sentenced to death, I was the ‘big cat’ in this cell. The previous ‘big cat’ before me once had a dream and asked me to tell him what his dream was all about, I told him: ‘You are going to be released today, your prison life will end today.’ I just knew such an occurrence. Everyone thought I was just joking. Around noon of that day, the ‘big cat’ was just about to hold his rice bowl to eat; I said to him, ‘Put down your bowl, someone is coming to release you, why are you eating in here? You can go outside and eat whatever you like.’ As soon as I said those words, the cell door was opened and the ‘big cat’ was indeed released. The ‘big cat’ thanked me and recommended to the police officer named Jing who was in charge of the detention center that I should be the next ‘big cat’ for the cell. Jing agreed and I became the ‘big cat’. As a matter of fact, I had helped Jing to earn quite some extra money while I was the ‘big cat’.”

Jie said that he worked together with Jing to help those inmates find ways to be released earlier. “Do you know why Jing believed in me so much? When an inmate was brought into the cell, I could tell whether or not the inmate had committed a serious crime with just a glance at the person, I could tell whether or not the person should be sentenced in the end. If I found that someone was good enough, I would then talk to the person while we were playing at the outside yard, I would learn about the person’s family background. When Jing showed up, I just nodded to Jing and Jing would ask me to go with him. I would then tell Jing all the family information about the person that I just talked to; after that, Jing would ask his friends to help that person to be released as soon as possible. Everything went smoothly, so, when that person was later released, he would definitely thank me for the help, of course, Jing would also receive money from the person’s family. Everyone was happy.”

“Why do you think this particular cell is so famous? We treat people fairly in here, look at those four guards over there, two of them were once armed police officers, and the other two were surveillance soldiers before. I just need to give a small hint, the guards would come over right away and beat up whomever I intended. Now that I am sentenced to death, I can’t be the ‘big cat’ anymore according to the rules of the center. These two current ‘cats’ all listen to me, I just need to utter a single word, some other people will immediately become a ‘cat’. Jing had already talked to the two ‘cats’, telling them that I was still the person in charge in here. Now, you are absolutely a good person. That night when you arrived in here, I noticed that you had a very kind face; I immediately knew you were a good person. Falun Gong is indeed being treated so unfairly and without any justice, if the CCP didn’t persecute Falun Gong, how can people like you end up in this place?”

Once I was taken to the interrogation room, after I came out from the interrogation, Jie asked me: “Were there two officers interrogating you there? One of them was sitting down, the other standing by? The one standing by was very high and fat?” I became curious: “How did you know it?” Jie replied, “I just saw it.”

On several occasions Jie told the people in the room that someone was going to bring foods to the cell, and at the end of day, indeed, some police officer would bring foods such as roasted chickens to the cell. It was a hidden rule inside the center that only police officers were allowed to bring forbidden items such as cigarettes, alcohol, meat, or even drugs to the cell.

Jie told me he had trouble trying to understand two strange dreams, “Once I saw a transparent pyramid in my dream, on the pyramid I saw the maps of America, Russia, France and others, isn’t the earth round? In another dream, I saw dozens of huge gods sitting in the air, they all closed their eyes; I got close to the gods and tried to tickle one of the gods’ armpit, the god immediately grabbed me and lifted me up in the air, he then turned me around in the air, I was so scared I woke up then. This particular dream of gods, I had kept it to myself for sometimes, I was afraid that once I talked about such a dream, people would start to say, ‘Hey, this guy is finished, he’s seen gods in his dreams.’”

I laughed and said, “At least this dream of yours doesn’t mean you are finished. Think about it, how much blessed one is to have seen gods in one’s dreams? It only means that you are well blessed, you have a very good inborn quality. Why don’t you start to practice Falun Gong then?”

Jie said, “Yes, I’d like to cultivate, I now know Falun Gong is the best. If I had started to practice Falun Gong before, how could I have ended up committing crimes? If I had known you earlier, well, look at me, I am already sentenced to death, even though my family is still appealing for my case, who knows how long I can live on.” I then told Jie, “Well, it all depends on your determination to cultivation. As long as you are determined to cultivate from now on, your life will be re-arranged by Master.” When we were talking about cultivation, I really hoped that some miracle would happen, I really hoped that Jie would live on, maybe, the death sentence would be changed to delayed sentence; but then, I was also wondering how much determination Jie really had to practice Falun Gong, Jie must develop a sincere desire to practice Falun Gong. Many people like to make very strong vows before doing things, but deep in their hearts, they are not moved at all. Some people have already lost the ability to sincerely express their true own thoughts.

Later, Jie said to me again, “I’ve been having many dreams in these days, I always saw many messed up things chasing me in my dreams, those things claimed that I had to repay them back now that I was about to start practicing Falun Gong. There were so many such messed up things, I couldn’t even see the end of those things. They ran towards me, I tried hard to escape. How much do I owe? I am afraid I really can’t cultivate anymore.”

I offered my encouragements to Jie, “As long as one doesn’t commit any unpardonable crimes against Falun Dafa in this Dafa spreading period of time, there is always hope for such a person even if the person is indeed very wicked. The purpose of one’s life on earth is to receive Dafa; throughout the whole human history, however, many people have committed bad deeds out of ignorance. Master doesn’t examine such deeds; he only cares about the person’s original intention to be good.”

Jie kept silent for a while after hearing such words from me, he then uttered, “Look, this murder case is not the only thing for me, I had killed people before as well.” I was completely shocked and my shock was not about Jie’s crime history, I got worried about Jie; once one commits a serious crime, it is really very difficult for one to cultivate. In many cultivation teachings, it is often said that one has to pay back one’s own life once one kills people; only after one has repaid with one’s life now can one start practicing cultivation in one’s next life. All those debts that one has accumulated throughout one’s life will have to be repaid during one’s cultivation process; many debtors would try hard to block one’s cultivation. Now, I said to myself, “Dafa is omnipotent. It is a person’s greatest blessing to have born in the current time when Dafa is spreading across the globe.” I then told Jie, “Don’t think too much about those past deeds, right now, do you want to practice or not? Do you want to cultivate Falun Dafa?” Jie replied at once, “I have no excuse to refuse Falun Dafa.”

One day later, Jie came to me, “Can you teach me how to practice Falun Gong? I have made up my mind that I am going to cultivate no matter what happens to me, I don’t care how much longer I will live on, even if I receive the capital punishment tomorrow, I still want to cultivate now. I’d like to make the most of my remaining days; at least I’d like to plant the seed for me to cultivate Dafa in my next life.” I felt happy for Jie for his decision, I said to myself, “Look, every living being’s original intention is to assimilate into the principles of ‘Zhen Shan Ren’, the universal Dafa.” Jie continued, “I thought quite a lot last night. It is really my uttermost luck to have run into you at such a time in my life. You have come to me; it is Master who has asked you to teach me Falun Gong.”

I replied, “Yes, I can teach you how to practice Falun Gong; now, I’d like to make it clear, the most important requirement for practicing Falun Gong is to improve one’s Xinxin; in order to improve one’s Xinxin, one has to be guided by Dafa principles. It is only Master who can reveal the principles. Now under this special circumstance, I can recite Master’s teachings for you. Later on, when you get to read Master’s teachings yourself, you can follow such teachings in your cultivation. You must use Master’s teachings as the only references to guide your cultivation.”

Jie nodded seriously and said, “I know, there is only one Master for me.” I then started to use my memory to recite the book of “Zhuan Falun”; if I was not able to recite a complete paragraph, I would briefly explain the general ideas in that paragraph; I would then tell Jie that Master’s Fa has different connotations at different levels, once one cultivates to a certain realm, the principles on the realm will automatically show up.

After I had recited the whole book of “Zhuan Falun”, Jie said to me, “I haven’t told you this one particular secret of mine, that is, I have always been feeling that I am waiting for someone, something in this world ever since my early childhood time. Event at the moment when I received the death sentence, this feeling was still accompanying me. Today I’ve finally realized the person I have been waiting for is Master Li Hongzhi, the thing that I have been waiting for is Falun Gong!”

Jie also told me that he was unable to sleep in the detention center right after he got the death sentence, he said, “This center is full of hellish smell, there are simply too many people who had died of injustices in here. Whenever someone is going to be executed, an owl would appear perching on the tree in front of the center; many people say that the owl is crying, let me tell you, actually, the owl is laughing.” I was not quite sure about what Jie was talking about, but I had once read an article from the Minghui website, the article mentioned that crows liked to gather in the trees around the Zhongnanhai complex in Beijing where the Chinese top CCP leaders reside; according to people who had developed supernormal capabilities, the Zhongnanhai complex was suitable for birds that preyed on dead and rotten animals. There was also a reference in Chinese literature which claimed that crows won’t approach the cemetery where Confucian and his disciples were buried; it meant that Confucian was a good character and crows won’t want to get close to such characters. What about owls then? There was a saying in our local area which went like: “If there is nothing bad coming, you won’t see an owl.” So once an owl appeared, something bad was going to happen soon.

Soon Jie became my fellow practitioner, we talked about anything and Jie kept cultivating with diligence. Jie said to me, “I used to tell people that I was not afraid of death, let me tell you, that was not true at all. I have been sentenced to death so I have to firm up myself with fake bravery. Now that I’ve started to practice Falun Dafa, I know how precious one’s life is. If my death sentence is repealed, I am going to devote my whole life to Dafa. If I am going to be executed, I will continue to cultivate in my next life.”

Later I learnt that Jie had one subtle hidden thought in his mind, he had hoped that his death sentence appeal would succeed once he started to practice Falun Dafa. I kept this observation to myself though. On several occasions, Jie asked me how I thought about the probability of his appeal to go through. I realized that such an attachment was not good for a genuine cultivation, it must be eliminated. At that time, I myself had not come to a thorough understanding on this matter; I had also hoped that his appeal would succeed, so I didn’t raise any question to him on this matter. I felt very sorry now, I should have directly told Jie that he should abandon this particular attachment, one must cultivate with a pure heart without any compromises whatsoever.

Jie became more and more calm, he slept very well. One day, Jie came to me and said, “Hey, I saw heavenly maidens dispatching flowers in my dream last night, those flowers were so beautiful, they were so tiny.” On another day, Jie told me that he had a wonderful dream again, he was running along a broad road in his dream, the two sides of the road were full of apple trees, and the apples were so big.”

One of the inmates from the same cell beat up someone seriously, as a result, this inmate had to be transferred to another cell. On the day when the inmate was going to leave the cell, Jie approached the inmate and said to him, “Now, look, from now on, I won’t be able to cover for you anymore, you will have to remember this, that is, Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good. When you run across Falun Gong practitioners later on, you must remember to help them out. Helping Falun Gong is the same as helping me.”

It was getting colder and colder. One night, as we were having the dinner, Jie stood up and said to everyone in the cell, “Teacher, it will snow on the day you leave here.” I asked why, Jie replied, “The injustice you are bearing will be wiped out by the snow!”

Later on, I was illegally sentenced to a forced labor camp. The day that I left the cell, the wind was blowing so hard, the armed vehicle that I was riding on was very shaky on the road. Later that day, it started to snow. I said to myself, “The people in the cell should still have remembered what Jie told them before, I hope they should think twice about Falun Gong now.”

After I was released from the forced labor camp in two years, the first thing I did was to visit Jie’s family. Jie’s wife cried loudly and told me that Jie was executed in the previous year without any notice. I comforted Jie’s wife and asked her to bring up her kids well. I also clarified the Falun Gong truth to Jie’s wife, she said afterwards, “If Jie had known you before; he shouldn’t have committed such a crime!”

I felt very sad on the way home. A death row inmate was able to understand Dafa, even at the very end of his life, he was still determined to cultivate. How many people around, however, were still fooled by the CCP?

From the perspective of one’s everlasting life, Jie’s life is much honorable than those who are still unwilling to accept Falun Dafa. Jie’s future life will be guided by Dafa so he will persist. Now, those who hate Falun Dafa have already lost their futures. At this critical moment in one life, one’s destiny will be determined by one’s own choice.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/153034