1.
After graduating from college in 2005, I was assigned to the rehabilitation department of a men’s prison in a mountainous region of southwestern China, where I became a psychological counselor.
My daily work was to provide psychological education for inmates, helping them correct their psychological distortions so they could reform more effectively.
There was an inmate named Chen Yuan who hadn’t originally been one of my primary cases. He had been given a suspended death sentence for intentional murder and had been serving his sentence for over a year.
His conduct was average—not exactly exemplary—but he was obedient and never got into fights with the other inmates.
He was usually quiet. In the chaotic, complicated prison environment, he barely registered. If he could just keep his head down for a few more months, Chen Yuan would get through his period of probation and have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
But then something happened.
A while ago, Chen Yuan suddenly launched a brutal, unprovoked attack on a fellow inmate. He repeatedly punched him in the most vulnerable places, and the man died within ten seconds.
The guards on duty didn’t react in time. Chen Yuan’s usual docile behavior had nearly made everyone forget that he was a ruthless murderer.
He had received a two-year reprieve thanks to his lawyer’s cunning. But now Chen Yuan had met the end he deserved.
With a suspended death sentence, if an offender deliberately commits a serious crime during the probation period, the suspension is revoked and the death sentence is carried out immediately. After the sentence was announced, we gave the inmate a day’s notice. Chen Yuan was informed that the last 24 hours of his life had been laid out for him.
Tomorrow, he could see his family, take a refreshing bath, enjoy a good meal, and receive psychological counseling before being identified and taken away for execution.
Chen Yuan wore a strange expression and said nothing.
I asked, “Do you have any questions?”
“No.”
2.
The next day, Chen Yuan was transferred to the death-row prison. As his psychological counselor, I had to go with him.
A prisoner could arrange a meeting with family before an execution, but Chen Yuan was an orphan with no relatives at all. Nobody had ever visited him before, and now there was no one to say goodbye.
The only person Chen Yuan was in contact with was a male friend named Ha Van Hi. They exchanged letters every two months.
Inmates’ letters had to be inspected before they were sent to ensure there was nothing objectionable in them. Chen Yuan had written to ask how his friend and his family were doing, and the reply was always full of careful detail.
There was nothing strange in the letter’s contents, but something between the lines felt off.
After careful consideration, my colleagues in the mailroom detected a subtle intimacy in the letters, unlike that between ordinary friends. They came to a shocking conclusion.
But this close friend, Ha Van Hi, had never once appeared in the visiting room. The last reply was rather unusual: it had been written by Ha Van Hi’s wife.
She had noticed the clues and wrote to ask Chen Yuan who he was. Only then did we learn that Ha Van Hi had married not long before. Perhaps that was why Chen Yuan had suddenly gone crazy.
Now Chen Yuan was sitting on the floor in handcuffs, writing his final letter to Ha Van Hi. It was still full of ordinary questions about how he was doing, except for one added line: “No need to reply.”
There were still two hours until the execution, so I began counseling Chen Yuan.
Chen Yuan looked gentle and educated, but the scars and burns on his face gave him a touch of menace.
He sat in the middle of the cell, looking perfectly calm. No matter how stubborn a death-row inmate might be, at a moment like this they would usually regret what they’d done or break down sobbing. But Chen Yuan gave me the impression that he wasn’t going to die.
I said, “Chen Yuan, you have two hours left. Prepare yourself. Is there anything else you want to say?”
Chen Yuan said, “I’m about to die, and yet someone still cares about my mental health. What a waste.”
“This is a necessary part of humane care.”
But I felt he truly didn’t need it.
“Dr. Lu, I’ve heard you were the top student in criminal psychology. But working here now—isn’t that a bit of a waste of your talent?”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words.
Chen Yuan continued, “I’ve studied psychology too. Psychology shouldn’t be this useless.”
I kept the conversation going. “Then what is the use of the psychology you’ve studied?”
“Want to know?”
He paused, then said pointedly, “I’m about to be shot. That’ll be the end of everything. This ending is meaningless. Should I fight a little longer? Maybe I can change how it ends?”
“You still want to overturn the verdict?”
“Let me tell you a story, Dr. Lu.”
I nodded.
“You have that right. I’ll listen. But we don’t have much time.”
3.
Chen Yuan’s Account (1)
Outside was the Taishan Execution Ground. I knew this place well because my home used to be nearby.
Coming back here now felt like coming home. It was almost like “seeing death as a homecoming.”
In 1995, I was fifteen and in my second year of junior high. My mother brought me here to move into the dormitory of Taishan County No. 2 Machinery Factory. The area has since been abandoned.
Our dormitory building was in the last row, next to the Taishan execution grounds, with a barbed-wire fence and a row of cedars in between. But from the room’s window, you could still see the execution grounds hidden among the trees.
Every morning at six, after waking up, I would use binoculars to watch the shooting grounds. At dawn, while the sun still shone on the other side of the hill, the entire execution ground remained bathed in the blue light of early morning, as death-row inmates were escorted there.
Every living person who stood on that patch of ground, without exception, would let their shoulders droop and wear a vacant expression, as if their soul had been torn away.
When the guns were loaded, they would suddenly come to their senses. Some desperately begged for mercy, some wept bitterly, and some struggled to run away.
Some were so terrified they wet themselves, but in the end they had no choice but to accept their fate, gradually giving in. Then they knelt on the ground and, at the command, opened their mouths to await the final sentence.
When the shots rang out, flocks of birds startled and scattered, and the mountains and fields grew quiet again. The wait for an execution was exhausting, yet when it finally happened, it was over in a flash. But dead was dead: they lay motionless on the ground.
Whether they cried or laughed, ran or made a scene, in the end they all lay motionless on the ground like that, turned into soulless corpses. Their faces looked perfectly calm.
Because their mouths were open wide, the bullet passed through the back of the head and out the front, so their faces weren't too badly damaged and they could still have a funeral.
I was only fifteen then. Every morning, I had to look toward the execution ground. I was terrified, but I also really wanted to watch. My whole body would tremble. It was like the shot was being fired into my own head.
“Almost every day, I had to get shot like this before I went to school. Dr. Lu, would you say that was a rather unusual experience?”
4.
After hearing Chen Yuan's story, I said, “It really is unusual. The Taishan County No. 2 Machinery Factory you mentioned really is nearby, and it's been abandoned for years. But I'm not sure this actually happened to you, and there's something a little strange about your story.”
He asked, “What's strange about it?”
“At first, you said your mother brought you here. So your mother worked at the Taishan County No. 2 Machinery Factory, right? I can't believe any mother would let her child face an execution. Was she not paying attention, or did she not know?”
“No, she knew.”