AB Gate: The Second Half of a Corrupt Official's Life

Chapter 35 Postscript——The Best Commemorative Book for Decades of Trials and Trials
Zhang Hongwei

In mid-December, I was on a business trip in Yibin, and Hong Yu called me, hoping that I could write an afterword for the film.On the phone, I told him that I couldn't write the postscript well, and I suggested that he ask a famous writer to write it, and the effect would definitely be different.Frankly speaking, I clearly know that I am not capable and qualified to talk about his novels, and I do not have the vision to properly view his novels.I feel deeply guilty for such a friend and colleague who has been with me for a long time, knows each other, and has been with me. We are in the same city, but there is too little care, greetings, and support between us.

Many years ago, Hong Yu and I used to work and live in a small town surrounded by mountains at the southern foot of Micang Mountain in northern Sichuan.At that time, the prison was hidden in the mountains of the small town. After graduating from college and coming there, our youth began to become fragmented, and we couldn't piece together a complete skeleton.Many times, the youth we thought would be unforgettable is actually quickly wiped out. No one can stop the torrent of time, just like no one can catch up with the footsteps of the wind.What's more, youth is to us, like a handful of broken glass in the palm of our hand, each side is as sharp as a needle tip, and every time we turn it, it will bleed and hurt.

At that time, the production of the prison was dominated by mining, and the suspension bridge made of steel wire ropes and long planks was the only scenery in the prison.Walking on the suspension bridge, the whole body and mind will shake violently along with the bridge body. At the bottom of the canyon tens of meters deep is the black water waves swirling, leaving people with gray-black dizziness.The water in the ditches around the prison mining area became darker and darker with the passage of time, and more and more civilian police workers suffered from lung diseases.Many times when the sun was setting, I would go to the back of the mountain in the mining area to watch the afterglow of the sunset. At this time, the idea of ​​leaving the mining area would become stronger and stronger in my heart.

Several years later, Hong Yudu and I left the mountainous area of ​​northern Sichuan one after another, and came to Xikou at the foot of Huaying Mountain.Known as the No. 2007 town in eastern Sichuan, Xikou has striking similarities with the small towns in northern Sichuan: it is far away from the city, surrounded by mountains, dominated by mining, and shrouded in black smoke.At that time, Huaying Prison (now Jialing Prison) was moving away from Xikou, planning to relocate to the suburb of Nanchong in Sichuan as a whole.At that time, we were all lucky enough to stay in the Propaganda Department of the prison. I was engaged in propaganda work, and he was engaged in the editing work of "Jiayuan".We often talked all night in the office or the guest house, and in the conversation he showed his willingness to write novels.Since [-], his creative work has obviously been fruitful, and his major works include the novels "The Warden", "The Enemy", "The Prime Minister of the Great Country-Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of Shu Han" and so on.He is not only a member of the Sichuan Writers Association, but also a signed writer of Xinhua Wenxuan.

Strictly speaking, the creation of prison-themed novels is still a blank in the history of Chinese novel literature.Although there are many film and television literary and artistic works with similar themes, those stories are almost too fictitious and exaggerated, and have been divorced from the basic facts of modern prison management, so they cannot be regarded as a true display of modern Chinese prisons. The degenerate trajectory of Wu Youming and Xie Tianming in "AB Gate" once again confirms the truth that in today's material feast, the emotions nurtured by material and power are vulnerable.The emotions bred by material and power are so fragile that no one can believe that people and people can create a kind of love and eternity of love. They are so fragile that they only want to use anonymous virtual pseudonyms in the network of finger tapping keyboards to feel each other. There are strands of warmth that seem real and illusory, and feel the more real ethereal and emptiness.Under such circumstances, many people began to worry, regardless of age, gender, rich or poor, and in the hustle and bustle of material desires, unprecedented anxiety, anger, jealousy, resentment, and confusion about the future began. Money, beauties, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Pierre Cardin, LV, everything sucks.People have everything in life, but there is no happiness.

Hong Yu was already middle-aged when he finished writing "AB Gate" when the prison system reform and layout adjustment were coming to an end.People have their birth year, and middle age is the most emaciated stage of life. It is necessary to provide for the elderly and to feed the young, but he insists on creating novels as always, which is really valuable.As early as when I was studying in Neijiang, I also had a literary dream.At that time, I used the courage to stay out of the house for half a month, trying to create what I thought was a vast and far-reaching novel, but it was a pity that I couldn't finish it after all. Once it swelled, then it declined, and three times it dried up, and my literary dream was broken.But today, many years later, when I read Hong Yu's words, I realized that literary works are not created, but a true reproduction of work and life, which are realized through real experience and perception with heart.As I write this, I can't help but feel ashamed and guilty that I often spend extra time soaking in the mahjong table.

Although there is not much ink on Pingxi Prison in "AB Gate", its shadow has been lingering in my mind. The wilderness of the northern Sichuan mining area, as well as the people and things in the wilderness of the mining area, have always been lingering in my mind.

To this day, I still remember such a winter, Uncle Yang in the office lit a fire, and several of us sat around the fire to keep warm.The coals were burning warmly in the furnace, and the room was very warm. My hands and face were burning hot, but my back was still chilly.The cold wind outside the window is blowing in through cracks that I can't see.The cold winter came to this barren hill again, and came to each of us.A few days ago I saw Uncle Yang paste the windows with newspapers, but the cold wind still came in.It knows every tiny crack in the wall better than any of us.

In the small town of North Sichuan, I don't know how big the hill I work on is really, I live on a corner of it.I don't know how many people lived on that mountain.In those cold winters, I fancifully thought that when it snowed, I could stop working, and the prison police would not have to wear police uniforms to lead inmates down to mines to mine coal.Animals will go into hibernation in snowy days, and we all have reasons to put down the things in our hands, huddle around the stove, try to heat ourselves up, and then use warm hands to caress our cold life from beginning to end in winter.

However, for those distant mountains in northern Sichuan in winter, I clearly remember those working figures, they are so real that they are almost nothingness.They have no voice, and no other sounds bother them.This is a group of strictly disciplined real laborers who get up from the darkness every morning and start working.I can't believe they are human.They are more shadows, or machines.I can't see anything deep or see through. My vision limits me. The lonely life of living on the top of the mountain for a long time limits my vision and my whole life.At that time, I was thinking that the reason for a person to live may not be bigger than a sesame seed.In those wilderness, I suddenly realized that everyone's living condition is not a choice, but a destiny.The law of the origin of species tells me that all life must start from water. At that time, I was so pessimistic that I thought I was just an earthworm growing in the soil. Secretes dirt and seeks to survive like a root.

I clearly remember the first night when I went to northern Sichuan to report for work. I couldn't sleep all night, and I heard a dog outside barking non-stop around the two barren graves outside the house.Its barking was shrill and long. At that time, I didn't know what it was going to do. It was like a cat that was lost in my family when I was a child came back to Qingshui Prison. It couldn't find the door to enter the house, so it kept barking.I wanted to get up and have a look, but when I thought of those two barren graves, I couldn't move, my chest seemed to be pressed by something, and I couldn't cry out.

In those nights of tossing and turning, the lingering thoughts that flew like chaotic clouds gently teased my self-esteem and silence.At that time, I especially wanted to escape.

I believe that all the policemen who have worked at the grassroots level of the prison are the same as Wang Shougui in "AB Gate", or the same as me and Hong Yu, who have experienced the wild hills, and those wild hills and cold winters have frozen them The last ideals and wishes of the young and frivolous hid their normal lives in the snow.In their eyes, those reasonable or unreasonable rules and things suddenly become a dilapidated stage, and some crappy plays are being staged in turn on the stage, and their waists are also in the crappy plays. It has already become a curved bow.

Pascal said: "Man is a thinking reed." A reed is fragile, but a thinking soul in its fragility is nobler than anything in nature.Here, what I want to say is that the prison police have never lacked thinkers, let alone explorers of ideas and pioneers of reform, but they are really miserable, tired, and poor.Working in a prison is really difficult.I just hope that with the publication of "AB Gate", readers and various functional departments of society can really understand, understand, and support prisons.

At this point in writing, I suddenly felt refreshed, and inadvertently raised my head to look out of the window. I couldn't help but imagine that on the other side of winter, it must be the warm spring when all things recover.The stories about the rebirth of the prison, about the loneliness, bewilderment, poverty, and desolation of the prison, as well as the images of the perseverance, persistence, patience, and waiting of the prison police, are all collected and bound by Hong Yu in his "AB Gate". The completed text is the best commemorative book to commemorate the decades of trials and hardships of our prison police and prisons.

(End of this chapter)