Chapter 33

Folk performance

In the middle of winter, the big tent is not cold, and many people gather together to exude a stinking heat. Most of the audience are idle men in the countryside. They sit on rows of long wooden boards with bricks, smoking cigarettes and spitting phlegm, watching with relish. When Hualong and others bought tickets, the performance was coming to an end, and the finale was about to begin.

A clown stood on the stage and was breathing fire, while a girl was jumping and taking off her clothes, wiggling her bra in circles.

The host appeared and said something sensationally on the stage, and the audience applauded loudly.

Bao Zhan said: "Okay, I'm just in time for the 10th anniversary celebration of the grass-roots team."

Su Mei said: "I'm looking forward to it, I don't know what skills will be next."

The assistant police officer said: "I don't really want to watch the dance anymore."

Hualong said, "Haha, little brother, are you shy when you see the little girl with a stink just now?"

The little assistant police stammered and couldn't speak.

The host shouted with his throat: "There are two beauties, Da Bing and Xiao Wu, to perform the eighteen tricks of strange women for everyone. This is not magic or acrobatics. This is the unique skill that will open your eyes. This is the finale of this performance of going to the countryside to comfort the masses."

The two girls came out from behind, both wearing white sweaters, red wool skirts on their lower bodies, and over-the-knee boots on their feet. The boots had rigidity and wrinkles that were unique to leather products. Both girls were wearing heavy makeup, dark circles, scarlet lips, and exaggerated large and round plastic colored earrings.

The two girls introduced themselves with the microphone. The girl named Xiaowu was thin and small, and the girl named Dabing was a little fat. The white sweater on her body was very tight, making her belly round, the sleeves and underarms of the sweater were wide, and her arms were spread out, looking like a bat.

The music started, and Dabing and Xiaowu danced passionately. They twisted their bodies frantically to the rhythm of the music. When they raised their legs and turned around, the audience saw that there was a "vacuum" inside the skirt and they were not wearing underwear.

After the warm-up, the real performance begins.

They first performed their lower body to open beer and shoot balloons, and the subsequent performances were even more unsightly and shocking. For example, they connected the shaving blades together with thread, put them in their lower body and then pulled them out; for example, smoking and smoking rings on their lower body...

Hualong said, "It's almost done, little brother, come with me."

The police officer of the little association said incoherently: "I...is not good, so many people are watching...why, wait for them..."

Hualong pulled the young assistant police officer to the stage and angrily scolded the two girls, asking them to stop the pornographic performance. Then he took out the police officer's ID and showed it to the audience below. The audience ran out one after another. Bao Zhan and Su Mei were busy evacuating the audience to prevent the stampede from happening.

Hualong and others explained their purpose and said that they did not come to fight against pornography.

The head of the song and dance troupe is willing to cooperate with the police investigation. After learning that the deceased Zhang Jing had a conflict with the troupe staff the day before his disappearance. The two sides fought together. Zhang Jing threatened to call the police. In the end, the song and dance troupe lost money. At around 5 a.m. the next day, before dawn, an energy-saving lamp was hanging at the door of the tent of the song and dance troupe. Dabing and Xiaowu saw Zhang Jing standing alone under the bus sign through the light. The two girls were startled and thought they had seen a ghost. They carefully identified it before they could recognize it.

It turned out to be the woman who quarreled during the day.

This was the last time a witness saw the deceased. Zhang Jing was carrying a shoulder bag and a hat, and looked like she was going to travel far.

His wife ran away from home in the middle of the night. Liu Wei was still sleeping at that time. After a few days of disappearance, he did not call the police. These abnormal behaviors aroused the alert of the special case team. After asking repeatedly, Liu Wei wanted to speak but stopped. After hesitating, he told the special case team that Zhang Jing might have gone to petition.

Five years ago, they had a son who died after treatment at the First People's Hospital of the Provincial Capital due to tuberculosis. Zhang Jing believed that this was an abnormal death in a medical accident. The hospital felt that there was no fault and both parties had a different opinion. The normal way failed to resolve the dispute. Zhang Jing began to petition at the provincial government, put banners, slept on the streets, and blocked the doors, but the problem was still not solved. Zhang Jing went to Beijing to petition again and again, but he returned in vain and was sent back by the intercepted personnel.

Liu Wei said: "I advised my wife not to go anymore. It's useless, and her arms can't twist her thighs."

Hualong said: "Why don't you go to petition with your wife?"

Liu Wei said: "I have been there and detained me, so I dare not go again."

Su Mei said: "Zhang Jing petitioned, why did he set out secretly before dawn, but he didn't even tell you?"

Liu Wei said: "There are intercepting visits in the villages, counties, cities and provinces, and they can't go if they are discovered."

What are petitions and intercepts?

We might as well extract a passage from the Legal Evening News to explain: "Citizen petitions are the basic rights granted to citizens by the Constitution. In this sense, restricting and even depriving citizens of their rights to petitions in the form of interception, or even restricting citizens' personal freedom is actually a naked unconstitutional and illegal act. The most terrifying and bad thing about interception is that citizens' personal freedom can be illegally restricted without any legal procedures. If the circumstances are serious, it may also constitute a criminal crime of illegal detention. For a long time, illegal interceptions have existed in practice, and it is extremely rare to be held criminally responsible."

Most of the petitioners are vulnerable groups who suffer from conflicts of interest with local government authorities.

Interception is an act of individual local governments, illegal and existential, and most of them have not been properly handled.

The special case team felt that the situation was serious and the complexity of this case was beyond imagination.

Professor Liang deployed new work tasks, Hualong and Su Mei went to the provincial capital hospital to investigate the dispute between Zhang Jing and the hospital. Bao Zhan and the small assistant police pretended to be Liu Wei's family and accompanied Liu Wei to Beijing to petition to learn about the whereabouts of the deceased Zhang Jing during the petition.

Liu Wei was timid and cowardly, worried that he would be arrested and beaten when he went to petition, so he was reluctant to cooperate.

Bao Zhan finally understood Liu Wei's ideological work, but before leaving, Liu Wei hesitated.

Liu Wei said: "My child died, and my wife went to ask for an explanation, but she was killed again. Can I come back alive?"

Bao Zhan said, "Take out your courage to chop your arms with an axe. Besides, there are two of us police officers who are with you, what are you afraid of?"

A few days later, Zhang Jing's funeral was finished, Bao Zhan and the assistant police changed into casual clothes and accompanied Liu Wei on the road.

In this place, petitioning and intercepting visits are a process of fighting wits and courage, no less than spy movies.

Local interception

The personnel set up several blockade lines, the first one was at the train station. Once the petitioners were found, they were sent away immediately. The local government focused on monitoring individual petitioners, mastering photos, mobile phone numbers and travel information, and intercepting them before they entered Beijing.

Bao Zhan, the small assistant policeman, and Liu Wei witnessed the interception of the visit together in the waiting hall.

Several people with big belly and poop-like cadre whispered, then rushed to an old man who was waiting for the ticket check. A cadre took out a photo to confirm his identity, hugged the old man's shoulder and asked with a smile. The old man first argued loudly that he went out to visit relatives, but after they took out the petition materials from their bag, he was deflated and was taken away without any resistance.

The young assistant police officer said: "Why don't the old man call the police?"

Liu Wei said: "What's the use? Maybe there will be police among those people."

Bao Zhan said: "What should I do after I take it back?"

Liu Wei said: "Enter the 'study class'."

Bao Zhan said: "What is the study class?"

Liu Wei was still scared of this word. He looked at a place in a daze, then held his head with his hands and said nothing.

Bao Zhan and the other three arrived in Beijing successfully. As the first historical city, the center of politics and culture, there is also unknown dilapidation behind the prosperity. A village near a station gathers petitioners from all over the country, and the sufferings of various villages are adjacent to each other, forming a "petition village". Almost all the bungalows nearby are black hotels without business licenses. They are extremely simple, with only a few dollars a night, which is the lowest price in the country. Even so, many petitioners have no money to stay. They built simple shacks with picked paper shells and plastic cloth under the walls and in the alleys.

Here, petitioners are forcibly taken away by interceptors almost every day.

Bao Zhan and the other two asked around with Zhang Jing's photos. The information they received was exciting. A hotel owner confirmed that Zhang Jing had been here, but his whereabouts were unknown.

The next day, Bao Zhan and the other two went to the national petition reception station, which was also where Zhang Jing must come.

One hundred meters away from entering the registration hall, Bao Zhan and his three others encountered several investigations by the interceptors. As soon as Liu Wei spoke, more than a dozen people who spoke the same dialect as him rushed over immediately. One of them wore a badge of a certain place stationed in Beijing on his clothes, and he twisted Liu Wei's arm at once. The others also controlled Bao Zhan and the small assistant police and pushed them onto a white Iveco.

Bao Zhan and the other two sat in the back seat. There were several people wearing "special service" uniforms in the car, all wearing steel helmets and a serious expression.

A man who looked like a special service captain, holding a metal detector in his hand, asked Bao Zhan and the other two to hand over their mobile phones and ID cards.

The young assistant policeman asked, "Who are you?"

The captain of the special service replied expressionlessly: "No one can tell me."

Liu Wei said: "Where are you going to take us?"

The captain still said, "Nothing can be told."

Bao Zhan couldn't bear it anymore and said, "You are violating human rights, let us go."

A special service warned: "Give me a little tummy, if you are not at peace, you will die."
Chapter completed!