The Harvest

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.

—Joseph Stalin

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.

—Zhuang Zhou

One

The bait

Chapter 1

He was supposed to be in prison.

That was the good thing about being a criminal in a small town. Since murder was a rare occurrence, there was no proper prison, the place reserved for hardened criminals and death row inmates and segregated from the rest of the civilised world with thick walls topped with razor wires and guarded by mean-looking guards with guns and dogs with sharp teeth. Instead, he was stuffed into a cell at the detention house, a glorified term for the row of low-slung brick building at the back of the police compound.

He knew the police station had been relocated, but still, when he returned to his hometown under the cover of darkness and asked a pedestrian for the way to the station three days ago, he thought the pedestrian had made a mistake—after all, the balding man with a paunch reeked of alcohol and could barely walk in a straight line, but he got the same answer from the next two slightly less drunk men.

When he arrived at the address, he had to do another double-check.

The first incarnation of the police station was housed on the ground floor of a hostel in the south section of town. The entire floor was rented by the government. Twin beds and colour TVs and vanity mirrors went out; hardwood desks and steel file cabinets went in. There was the Chief of Police, a commissar, and two policemen. It was the year 1992. He was three years old.

An upgrade was made necessary when the town’s economy boomed, followed closely by an explosion of crime rate. It simply wouldn’t do if every Tom and Harry handcuffed to the the water pipe could pick the lock with a bobby pin and jump out the ground floor window. The station moved to a building in Xincun Alley. That was where he was taken after he’d been accused of rape and murder days before his eighteenth birthday.

He was intimately familiar with its layout. In the third windowless room on the left side of the corridor on the ground floor, he was interrogated, tortured, and forced to sign a confession. In the iron-barred holding cell at Basement Level One, he was given a key to unlock the door by his father, who’d rather see his son become a fugitive of the law than a corpse. Behind the pantry with a glass-paned door, he’d waited for the officer on duty to doze off before making his escape.

The third incarnation of the police station was nothing like the first two. For starters, it was located next to an industrial park, right alongside a firm that produced lithium battery, a construction materials supplier, and a synthetic rubber manufacturer—the lifeblood of the small town’s economy.

The new compound took up two thousand square metres. It even came with five hundred square metres of green space—white fig trees, potted Asiatic pennywort, bush lily, and orchids. There were twenty-seven rooms for official purposes: reception, administration, filing, evidence, storeroom, holding cells, and of course, interrogation rooms, which had been renamed to the more politically correct interview rooms.

There was also a reading room, a cafeteria, a shower room, and a laundry room. It felt more like a student hostel than a public security bureau in charge of the safety of seven schools, twelve banks, twenty-five complex public places (think karaoke lounges where the menu offered more than pop hits and refreshments, teahouses where card and mahjong players carried cash in one pocket and a switchblade in the other), and a bus terminal where independent streetwalkers (the affiliated ones worked out of the comfort of red-lantern hair salons), scam artists, and pickpockets vied for the passengers’ attention and money.

A team of twenty-four officers took an oath to protect the property and life of forty-six thousand residents in their jurisdiction, aided by six police cars, four motorcycles, and, to keep up with the go-green trend, five electric scooters. Each officer was equipped with a handheld radio, a glare flashlight, a telescopic baton, a standard knife, CS-spray, first-aid packet, anti-cutting gloves, and handcuffs. On his second day here, he’d overheard one of the officers refer to their kit as the Eight Treasures Belt.

He’d gathered all this intelligence on a recce three nights ago. He could have gotten into the station by hanging onto the back of one of the many trucks carrying supplies into the industrial park—the police station and the park shared a common service entrance. None of the officers carried a gun, and Tasers stayed in locked cabinets unless the officers were expecting trouble when they responded to a call.

His parents were locked up somewhere inside the police station. Despite the reassurances from the Deputy Mayor, he wasn’t completely convinced that once he gave himself up, his parents would be released. Before he walked into the station forty-eight hours earlier, he’d stashed several tools around the compound, including the rooftop where there was no surveillance camera. Flex cuffs, a Taser, bean bag rounds, pepper spray, a sledgehammer, a glass cutter, and a pair of night-vision goggles. He hoped he didn’t have to use them, but if the Deputy Mayor went back on his word, he had planned for an escape route that would allow him to reach his stashed equipment and carry out a one-man rescue mission.

It sounded much harder than it really was. Only six officers out of twenty-four were present in the station at any given time. Two of those would be sitting at the reception desk, dozing off. Another three would be playing cards—Fight the Landlord. The remaining one was, more likely than not, watching the clock on the wall and waiting to cross off another day on the calendar until retirement. They weren’t used to dealing with resistance, unless the person was a drunk or a madman. After all, this was a small town.

Besides, he had one advantage over all the lawmen: he didn’t care if he died or lived.

But the equipment and escape route turned out to be unnecessary. The current Chief of Police was a man named Shu Hongtu, a faithful disciple of the ex-Chief, now Deputy Mayor, Jing Cha. Shu followed Jing Cha’s instructions to the letter, accepted his surrender, printed out the confession for him to sign, and then duly released his parents, who had been held on charges of aiding and abetting multiple felony murders.

So here he was, once again in prison. No, detention house. The only difference was that the last time, he didn’t do what they’d accused him of doing.

He lay on the rock-hard mattress with his hands laced behind his head, staring at the square window no larger than a person’s face, and waited for his death sentence to be passed down.

5137000236, a baton clanged on the iron bars. A different voice again.

Since he’d been remanded into custody, the officers took turns to come into the detention house on all sorts of pretext—change of clothes, breakfast, lunch, search for contraband, offers of cigarettes, or just plain gawking. It had been like a zoo down here for the past forty-eight hours.

He should have charged for admission tickets.

Someone’s here to see you.

Chapter 2

Inmate 5137000236.

That was his name now.

Through first and second grade in primary school, he was called Astro Boy, on account of his fascination with the Japanese manga character, a robotic boy with searchlights for eyes and jet engines on his feet.

From the third grade onwards, he secretly called himself Prince, as in, the prince who brought the poisoned Snow White back to life and who married her and who lived happily ever after. He’d stolen his sister’s fairy tale storybook and found a picture of the nameless prince sharing a kiss with the princess who had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony. When Luo Xue walked into his classroom and into his life one dog day afternoon, he’d christened her Snow White, and himself Prince.

For the three months when he was in police custody, accused of raping then killing Luo Xue, he was always referred to as the Student Murderer in newspapers and in townsfolk’s shared finger-pointing.

Then he was Adam, Jim, Ah Hua, Hey, Guy, You, The Weird One . . . After his escape, he was given so many different names by so many different people—gangsters, drug lords, snakeheads, cops, and prostitutes, that he no longer cared. What was in a name, anyway?

Now he was Inmate 5137000236.

51 for the name of the province. 37 for the code of the police station. 000236 for the 236th guest in the detention house. Hard to believe that in the six years since the station moved to its new home, there had only been two hundred and thirty-six arrests. An average of three point seven arrests per month.

Despite the fact that he was currently the sole occupant of the twelve-cell detention house, the officers took pleasure in calling him by this number: the officer who’d come to collect him, the officer who put the cuffs on his wrists and ankles, the two officers who brought him into the main building and into one of the many interview rooms, and the officer who announced his arrival to his visitors.

A five-minute walk from the detention house to the interview room involved the concerted effort of five police officers.

His parents sat at one side of the only table in the interview room. It was a simple wood table, with no glass partition in the middle, no corded phones for the visitor to pick up and speak into. The red light of a surveillance camera blinked in a corner of the ceiling.

The officers who brought him in locked his ankle chains to a bolt on the floor, then left, considerately closing the door behind them. The camera was running and recording, and they didn’t need to be in the room to hear what was said.

Physical contact was forbidden, but when his mother leapt out of the chair and gave him a fierce hug, no one kicked down the door.

He spoke first, pre-empting the questions he knew were coming. He told them that he was fine, he wasn’t being ill-treated here, there was no secret torture chamber, and he was given more food than he could eat.

His father’s lips trembled, then a question was squeezed out. Why did you come back?

Liling.

When he was on the run from the law, unable to clear his name and get his life back, the only consolation he had was that at least, his parents would still have Liling. She was the younger one, the smarter one, and the good one.

After he’d exacted revenge on the ones who were involved in Luo Xue’s murder, including the real killer and the people who helped cover it up, he was already on his way out of the country when he decided to pay a visit to Liling, who was a Year Two student at a Shanghai university. Just a look from afar, to see that she was alright, then he would leave.

He never got to see her.

She’d leapt to her death from the top of a student dormitory, supposedly unable to bear the shame of being outed an escort.

He’d refused to believe either the reason or the verdict of suicide, had stayed behind to investigate, and brought down the ring of loansharks responsible for her death.

Taking no notice of the police who were just outside the room, listening to and recording everything, he told his parents about Liling. She was never an escort. She tried to help her roommates who got caught up in the loanshark scam, and was betrayed by them. She was plied with alcohol. Her drink was spiked. She was lured out to the rooftop by one of the roommates. Then the Deputy Director of the Education Commission, one of the masterminds of the loanshark ring, sprayed her with concentrated laughing gas, a hallucinogen, and watched her step off the roof.

She didn’t kill herself. She died trying to help people who didn’t deserve it, he said. It was important that his parents know the truth, that Liling was not an escort, that not both of their children were criminals.

The tears on his mother’s face hadn’t stopped flowing since he’d stepped foot inside this room. His father, as usual, hid his emotions well. Only the white knuckles on his clenched fists betrayed his feeling.

You shouldn’t have come back, his father said again, as if that was the only response he was capable of giving.

If I hadn’t, Jing Cha would have charged both of you with the crimes I’d committed. Harbouring a fugitive, aiding and abetting in multiple murders. Any one of these is enough to get you ten years in jail. I’d already ruined your life once. I don’t want to be responsible for ruining what’s left of it. He stretched his lips in an attempt to smile. If the police had their way, I would have been dead six years ago. I’ve already lived longer than I was supposed to. So, no regrets.

But you are only twenty-five years old! his mother hadn’t let go of his hand since he’d come in.

We’ll appeal. We’ll write letters to the court. There’s going to be a trial. You gave yourself up. That has to count for something. I’ll get the best lawyer. We can fight this. His father was always more a doer than a talker.

The door opened. Deputy Mayor Jing Cha walked in.

The position of mayor had remained vacant since its previous occupant, Qian Xiaoren, was killed. Jing Cha practically ran everything in town. He slapped a white envelope onto the table, a mysterious smile on his thin lips.

I’m afraid that’s not possible, he extracted a piece of printed paper from the envelope. The sentencing has come down. Death penalty.

No surprises there. Inmate 5137000236 had been accused of killing an ex-con, a deputy party secretary, the mayor, a high school chemistry teacher, and Luo Xue. The last two murders were actually committed by someone else. But it didn’t matter. Killing three or killing five. Both would only end with death penalty.

Before the inmate’s parents could protest or faint, Jing Cha added with a grin. Don’t bother with appeals or hope for last minute reprieve. This is death penalty, immediate execution.

Chapter 3

Four days to execution

The officer who walked into the cell looked unsure of what he was doing.

He had called for backup. Two officers had strapped the inmate down on the cot, tied his feet together, but left his arms free.

The officer, a 47-year-old native of the town named Zhang Ting, checked the kit in his hand again, and shook his head. He was handpicked by Deputy Mayor Jing Cha, who used to be the Chief of Police here, as Zhang was the only one with a remotely relevant background from his days as a paramedic.

They need a bloody proper doctor for this, not a stretcher bearer, Zhang Ting muttered to himself as he cleaned the space between the inmate’s left thumb and forefinger with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol, made a 2-cm incision on the meaty part with a scalpel, and wiped away the blood that seeped out with cotton wool. The inmate didn’t stir, or make a sound.

Zhang Ting took out something from a tiny plastic box. It looked like a little glass bead, about the size of a grain of rice. Picking it up delicately with a pair of blunt-nosed thumb forceps, he inserted the microchip into the incision on the prisoner’s hand, prodded it with the serrated tips of the forceps until the microchip was lodged safely deep inside the prisoner’s flesh. With a pair of scissors, a sterilised needle and thread, Zhang Ting stitched up the incision. The only evidence left of the procedure was a pair of badly tied knots. The thread was made of synthetic polymer, and was designed to disintegrate in a few days’ time.

Zhang Ting didn’t offer an explanation for the procedure. Nor did the prisoner ask.

His job done, Zhang Ting heaved a sigh, packed up his equipment and was on his way out when another officer came in, carrying in a medical kit.

Luo Yuan, what are you doing here?

Boss’s order. Have to take a blood sample, Luo Yuan pointed to the kit in Zhang Ting’s hand. "What are you doing here?"

Boss’s order, like you, though I actually have no idea whatever it was that I just did.

Luo Yuan’s puzzled gaze followed Zhang Ting who walked out of the cell, then he shrugged. He took out a rubber tourniquet from the medical kit, tied it around the prisoner’s left arm, cleaned a patch of skin on his forearm with an antiseptic wipe, and then plunged the tip of a hypodermic needle into a vein. A full syringe of blood was taken.

Since the pronouncement of death sentence, immediate execution, Inmate 5137000236 had shut down. He hadn’t moved, said a word, or shown any sign that he was aware of what was happening around him, or to him.

But he did eat.

Breakfast was rice vermicelli in chicken broth, with seaweed, peas, and beef, alongside a bowl of soybean milk and two clay-oven rolls. Lunch was shredded pork with vegetables, griddle-cooked spare ribs, braised chicken in hot spicy sauce, sautéed abalone mushrooms, deep-fried tofu, stir-fried rice with stewed beef, and shrimp and broccoli soup. Dinner was sautéed rabbit leg with hot spicy sauce, braised oxtail in chilli sauce, steamed tofu with spinach, noodle soup with wonton, and seafood in casserole.

He wasn’t sure if this was common practice, to fatten up an inmate before execution, but he didn’t ask.

The officers who brought his meals joked that he ate better than them.

This one meal alone costs 200 yuan on the outside, one officer placed the aluminium trays onto the foot of the cot. On his way down here, he had been tempted to steal a taste—the sautéed chicken with pepper in iron wok was smelling particularly mouth-watering, but felt uneasy about stealing food from a death row inmate.

Do you know how I know? ‘Cos I bought these dishes from that restaurant over on Jixiang Street. Four meat dishes, two vegetable dishes, one soup. Total cost 268 yuan. Not exactly an arm and a leg, and it’s not my money, but still. Deputy Mayor Jing Cha seems to have a soft spot for you, wants us to take good care of you. Did he used to know you?

No reply from the prisoner, except the sound of chewing.

You’ve made the headlines again, another officer had come down to witness the feeding ritual. Even Beijing newspapers ran an article about you. He stood inside the cell, waving an iPad in front of the prisoner. Don’t you want to see? They didn’t get a good picture of you, though. They still used the old one from your arrest six years ago.

Guess our small town has also become infamous, eh, thanks to you, the first officer chimed in. Lemme see.

The iPad screen showed an article from the online edition of a big national newspaper. Committed rape and murder at the age of eighteen, escaped police custody, blah blah, snuck back to town, killed five people, including prominent mayor, blah blah, then Chief of Police Jing Cha, hard work, persistent, finally captured, blah blah, execution date is . . . Huh, that’s in four days. The officer looked up.

The prisoner showed no reaction to his imminent death.

How come we don’t even know the date of execution, but the newspaper does?

Maybe they made it up, the second officer snatched back his iPad. You know how it is. Shock value. Sells more papers. He closed the tab showing the article and returned to the card game he was playing.

I thought the date of execution is not announced to the public.

You suddenly an expert on execution procedure now? the second officer poked the first one in the ribs. Maybe they want to bring back the old ways. Put up a big announcement, invite the public to come and watch. You know, kill one to warn a hundred.

Where are they going to do it? I don’t think we have an execution ground in town . . . Should we prep the prisoner for transport?

Relax. If boss says we move, we move. If boss doesn’t say anything, we play butler for the inmate.

Chapter 4

Three days to execution

Jing Cha had taken over Shu Hongtu’s office at the police station. This case was too important to let someone else handle it.

He sat in the familiar leather chair and perused a book he’d asked his secretary to order online. It was about criminal law, but the first chapter opened with a review of torture methods in ancient China. There was a common misconception that there were only ten of them, collectively called the Ten Torture Methods of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, made infamous by the 1994 Hong Kong adult film, A Chinese Torture Chamber Story.

The author of the book, a historian and a professor, did a rigorous study of all the ancient torture methods, and listed the most gruesome twenty: flaying, boiling to death in an urn, burying alive, sawing in half, pouring lead down the throat, removing the intestines . . .

There was even one method tailored for unfaithful women who’d murdered their own husband—lowering the woman onto a wooden donkey with a wooden pole on its back; the pole would penetrate the woman’s lower body and come out from the other end. It came with an illustration on the side, which made Jing Cha shiver.

The purpose of this macabre list became clear in the next chapter, where the author praised the progress made by modern penal reform and the abolition of most of these torture methods.

Under the newly amended Criminal Law, there were forty-six criminal offences eligible for the