by Andrew Watts
On the first day at the Guangzhou camp, there were over one hundred of them. Those numbers were whittled down fast. The physical activity picked up and many of them couldn’t take it.
Their instructors woke them up each day before dawn to start physical training. Push-ups and other calisthenics. Long, arduous runs. They attended classes during the day and got tested each afternoon on what they retained. The classes were a mix of military recognition and academic aptitude. Those who did not score above a ninety percent on any given test were sent home.
Most quit. After the first week, there were only forty of them. The ones who were still here at the completion of camp would be promised entry into a special government program. If they could make it that long. No one was told what that program was, but they all wanted to be chosen.
Now they stood at attention in the hot gymnasium.
“Li!”
The instructor, a short, red-faced man, liked to yell in her ear.
“Yes, Sergeant?” she answered.
“Step forward and put on the boxing gloves and headgear.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
She raced forward, throwing the smelly equipment on over her head and hands. She took a mouth guard and washed it off in the sink, then scurried to the center mat.
Today was her first day of live hand-to-hand combat training. They had been taught technique for the past three days but hadn’t actually fought each other yet. As with most new endeavors, Li had mastered it right away. The PLA sergeant who taught the class tried not to show favoritism, but he was clearly thrilled at how much promise Li showed.
The instructor called on another pupil to face her on the mat. She could feel all the students’ eyes on her, wanting to see what would happen to the girl who embarrassed them on the track and in the classroom.
Her classmates treated her differently. Some respected her for her exceptional ability. But most showed disdain. She deemed their attitudes a product of jealousy or sexism. Many of them teased her at meals. During exercise, some gawked at her body, the sweat causing her clothes to cling tight.
Her chosen opponent walked out onto the mat in front of her. His name was Fang. He was one of the ones who called her names. Not to her face. In whispers, in the cafeteria. Out of earshot of most of the military instructors.
One of the military instructors, however, was quite aware of her treatment. A lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army. One of the heads of this camp.
It was this lieutenant, by the name of Lin, who began causing her real problems. He saw what the boys were doing by making fun of her, and instead of stopping it, he actually encouraged it. Perhaps he didn’t think she deserved to be there with the rest of them. Perhaps he knew her father from the military and didn’t like him. Whatever the reason, Lieutenant Lin and his favorite student, Fang, made Li’s life a living hell.
Lunch earlier that day had started like any other. She sat at her table, alone. A group of boys, including Fang, sat at the next table. Fang had used a derogatory term for female genitalia and nodded in her direction. The other boys laughed. She had pretended not to hear it.
Now he smiled. She knew a little English and thought his name appropriate. He had the smile of a wolf. He was a bully. She had dealt with bullies before. She tried to ignore him, but that wasn’t going to work here.
They had hand-to-hand combat class after lunch. In the gym. When she arrived, she glanced at the rows of her male classmates. Their eyes were alive with excitement, their fists clenched and legs locked at attention. She fell in line in the back row, wondering why everyone was so quiet.
She darted a glance behind the rows of students and saw something she didn’t expect. Two of the instructors were speaking with a man in a suit. One of the instructors was Lieutenant Lin. The man was nodding and listening. The instructors were pointing at her and making gestures. The man in the suit was looking at his notepad and made a face that implied he approved. Lieutenant Lin shook his head vigorously, frowning and speaking to the man in the suit. Li realized that the man was watching her and she quickly faced front.
Lieutenant Lin walked in front of the group. He called out two names: Chou and Fang. The sergeant quickly echoed his commands.
Lieutenant Lin walked to the center of the mat and smiled at her, whispering so only she could hear, “Let’s see how exceptional you really are.”
He stepped away from the two students, now standing in the middle of the mat, and exclaimed, “Fight!” The voice of the lead instructor broke her spell and she focused on the boy in front of her.
Li looked at Fang and felt a rage swelling up inside her. Her heart beat faster as she bobbed lightly on her feet. He came at her fast, his gloves rising to the fighting position, but she was ready.
Li had always been an exceptional athlete. While growing up, she had run track at a local running club for girls. She swam competitively, but she had never played a contact sport. She had never really fought anyone. As the bully crept closer to her, the anger inside her mixed with the familiar excitement that she got during her most competitive races. The thirst for victory pulsed through her veins. She desperately wanted to teach this boy and the lieutenant a lesson.
Fang was a foot taller, at least fifty pounds heavier, and much too confident. He started in on her with a left jab. It was quick, but not as quick as Li. Using the lessons her hand-to-hand combat instructor had taught her over the last week, she ducked under and snapped her hips to the right, using the motion to drive her clenched right fist into his undefended stomach. It was a quick, twisting movement, and a powerful, targeted blow.
He doubled over, eyes wide, unable to breathe. Fang’s mouth came open and his mouth guard fell out just as her left knee came up into his face, her kneecap crunching into his nose and teeth. A mix of blood, saliva, and two teeth spilled onto the floor, and the boy fell like a sack.
Li kept bobbing, light on her feet. She watched her opponent, waiting to see what would come next. But he didn’t get up. The instructor, alarmed at the blood, called off the training and sent one of the other pupils to get the nurse.
Lieutenant Lin began yelling at her. “What did you do that for?”
She didn’t know what to say. She shrugged, saying through her mouth guard, “Because you told us to fight.”
The man in the suit kept watching her, a wide smile on his face.
The man in the suit watched the girl from the other end of the gymnasium. She had just put down a much larger male candidate. “How has she been doing?”
Lieutenant Lin was back over with him now. Begrudgingly, he admitted, “She has received high marks, Mr. Jinshan. She has excelled in each evaluation that we have given her. But I don’t think she has the fortitude for the People’s Liberation Army.”
Jinshan looked at Lieutenant Lin with skepticism. “Fortitude?”
“Yes.”
“Are we talking about the woman who just embarrassed a much larger man in physical combat?”
Lin scowled. “She got lucky. That boy was complacent.”
Jinshan asked, “How does she get along with the others?”
“She is an introvert. We have not observed her speaking much with the other candidates beyond that which is required.”
The boy who had just been pummeled was walked off to the side by a nurse. She held a bag of ice and a blood-soaked gauze pad to his mouth.
“That boy won’t be happy when he heals. She just humiliated him.”
Lieutenant Lin didn’t reply.
The annual Junxun programs for China’s rising college freshmen served several purposes. They helped serve as a method of drilling a sense of discipline and patriotism into an increasingly pampered generation of teenagers. They registered the best and brightest of China’s children for the military, in case there ever came a time that a dramatic military expansion was needed. And they served as an excellent recruiting tool for China’s military and government agencies.
Many of these students would b
e sent around the world to foreign universities. Those students were flagged by China’s intelligence organizations. It was crucial for the well-being of the motherland that these students brought back what they learned to benefit China. Some of them were asked to perform extra work on behalf of China’s intelligence agencies. Refusal was not permitted.
In some cases, Junxun was used to identify students who were not already planning to attend a foreign university, but who showed all the qualities that Jinshan’s special team of spies would want in a sleeper agent.
This Junxun location pulled all the top recruits from the Guangdong region. The group that started with more than one hundred would eventually go down to about ten. All but one of them would be sent on to various government programs.
Every year, Cheng Jinshan came and got the pick of the litter. This year it looked like it would be this girl named Li.
Lieutenant Lin said, “Her father is a colonel. Did they tell you that? He has asked to be notified if she is selected for any particular government programs.”
Jinshan said, “Give me this colonel’s name.”
Lin wrote it down and handed him the paper, which Jinshan stuffed in his pocket. He looked at the girl. She had gone back in line and stood at attention. Two other boys were fighting on the mat now.
This girl was special, Jinshan could see that. He wanted her on his team. This would be one of the ones that he sent to America. She would need to modify her identity. No ties back to China. The work she would be doing would be too important. This girl wouldn’t just be a student there. Jinshan wanted her to become a US citizen. To stay there and infiltrate an agency of his choosing.
He would decide what role she would play later. For now, he needed to find a way for she and her father to part voluntarily.
He looked over at the boy being tended to by the nurse. The one she had just dispatched in short order. The boy’s eyes were ablaze. He looked straight at the girl. There was a great deal of anger there. That could be useful.
Li’s room was the only one occupied on her floor. The male candidates all slept in the dorm rooms one floor below. So when she heard the footsteps that night, it not only woke her up, it alarmed her.
Mosquito netting covered her bed. They all had it. They slept with the windows open, as there was no air conditioning. A luxury for the rich. The bugs were something awful this time of year. She lifted up the net and checked her alarm clock. It was just past midnight.
In the three weeks she had been at the camp, no one had come up to her floor at night.
Her relationship with the other candidates had remained poor. After defeating Fang in front of the others a few days ago, she had temporarily thought that she might have won increased respect. She had been sadly mistaken. The chiding at meals had increased, and Lieutenant Lin glared at her. After hours, when the other candidates would gather to socialize, she retreated to the solitude of her own floor. It was a lonely existence, but there was an end in sight. She only had to do this a little longer. Then she would find out what, if any, government assignment she would get, and head off to university.
The footsteps grew closer. Was it an instructor? Was this part of the training? The hard floors of the hallway carried the echo. Just one person, by the sound of it. But her door was locked, and only the instructors had the keys. So she need not worry about…
A jingle of keys, and the sound of the door handle turning.
Her pulse began pounding. The door opened and she sprang out of bed, flipping on her light.
Fang stood in the doorway, holding the keys.
She attempted to cover herself with her arms. She wore only a thin tee shirt and white cotton underwear.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Fang looked back at her, anger and lust in his eyes. He closed the door behind him.
“I asked you what you are doing here.”
“I came to see you,” he said, the wolf’s grin on his face.
“How did you get the keys?”
He took a step toward her. She wasn’t sure whether to continue covering herself or get in the fighting stance. She wanted to scream for help, but her pride wouldn’t let her.
He smirked. “You won’t catch me by surprise this time.”
“If I scream, the instructors will be here in an instant. They’ll punish you and kick you out of the program.”
Fang laughed. “Who do you think gave me the keys? Lieutenant Lin said you needed to be taught a lesson. No instructors will come.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
His eyes wandered over her body. “It’s true. They told me to teach you a lesson. They said that you needed to be humbled.”
He took another step toward her. “We don’t have to fight, you know. I won’t tell anyone. We could just…”
She gritted her teeth. “Stay where you are.”
If he was telling the truth…the thought made her sick. To think that one of the instructors would betray her trust in such a way. She wanted to serve China, like her father. She had done nothing but excel in the program. She wished only to perform with honor.
She had admired the instructors. They served in the PLA and had always been professional and courteous to her, except for Lieutenant Lin. But the others had treated her fairly. A few times they had even given her words of encouragement as she’d bested her classmates in the various evolutions.
Li didn’t want to believe that one of them would have given him the keys to her room—even if it was Lieutenant Lin. If Lieutenant Lin had handed Fang the keys, he had done so with the knowledge that he would do something reprehensible. That made Lin complicit.
She looked at the larger boy approaching her.
“I said to stop. Don’t take another step.”
“What can you do to stop me?”
She might win again if she fought him. But he would have his guard up this time. She was getting better at the martial arts they were teaching her, but it had still only been a few weeks of training. If she screamed, they might not hear her. If they did, her reputation would suffer. Or maybe Lieutenant Lin would hear her scream and just ignore it. Either way, everyone else would see her as weak. The colonel’s daughter who couldn’t take care of herself. What if they kicked her out of the program? What would her parents think?
Whether she fought him or screamed, she did not like her options. Then she thought of another alternative. The idea disgusted her to no end. But if she could get through the worst of it…
“Fine,” she said. Her eyes conceded defeat.
Fang, approaching her with caution until now, stopped in his tracks. A confused look on the bully’s face.
“What do you mean, fine?”
“When we are done, you will leave immediately. And speak of this to no one.”
His eyes grew wider. His smile faded. His words were shaky now. A nervous teenager. “Yes…of course.”
She turned out the light. “Then hurry up and get it over with.”
When Fang left, she remained in her bed, silent. Stewing. Humiliated and defiled. She waited a few moments and then went to the shower down the hall. She kept the lights off and turned the water on hot. She scrubbed and tried to get his stench off her. Steam filled the room. She wanted to cry. If there ever were a time to cry, it would be now.
But the tears wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t be defeated. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. Li focused all the emotion into anger.
Like the races and the fights and the physical competitions, this was just another challenge to overcome. Li must win it. And after what Fang had just done to her, the only way to win was vengeance. Li dried herself off in her room and put on her clothes. It was one o’clock in the morning now.
She worried that he would still be awake. Or worse, awake with the other boys. Telling them about his conquest. So she waited another full hour before making her move. She needed to be sure that he was asleep.
In her desk drawer there was
a long, sharp pair of metal scissors. She fit it neatly into her pocket and walked out into the hall. No shoes. She wanted her entrance to be as quiet as possible.
Li crept down the stairs and then along the hallway where all the other candidates slept. The lights were off. She waited outside Fang’s door for a full five minutes. Listening.
Nothing. Just the sound of two men breathing in their sleep.
She cursed herself as she realized that his door might be locked and she didn’t have a key. She tried it anyway. It twisted open. A bit of luck. Either he didn’t lock it at all, or he had forgotten to when he came back into the room.
Bullies didn’t worry about their prey coming after them in the night. This one would, soon enough. And for the rest of his days.
Her footsteps were silent on the linoleum floor. There was barely enough light from the window to discern which of the two boys was Fang. It would be a shame to make a mistake. Like a surgeon amputating the wrong leg.
She figured out which one was which. Li crept up to his bed and stood over him, watching his chest rise and fall. Deciding how to do it. There would only be one chance. Then she would need to be quick.
Fang slept with his mouth open. Big mistake.
She lifted up the thin mosquito netting over his bed, removed the scissors from her pocket, and held them firm in her right hand. With her left hand, in one quick movement, she reached into his open mouth and grabbed hold of his tongue with the tips of her fingers. She pulled up on his tongue as hard as she could. With her right hand, she sliced the scissors hard and fast, pushing them forward into the tongue muscle and squeezing.
His eyes shot open as the top inch of his tongue was sliced off like a thick rubber band being cut in half. Warm dark blood splattered over the scissors and both of her hands.
Then the screams began.
Blood-choked, gargling screams. High-pitched and terrified. Shocked in pain, Fang screamed loud enough to wake up everyone in the building.
Li raced out of the room and up the stairs before the roommate awoke and realized what was going on. The lights behind her flicked on, but she was already out of sight. She kept her bloody hand and scissors in her pocket, making sure that no drops fell to the floor as she ran.
