_Translator’s note: The lack of detailed depiction of police brutality is not an editorial choice; the author has stated that she was forbidden by the police to talk about some of the details during the interrogation. _
2025-06-02
On August 1 last year, around 3pm, my mother suddenly shouted my name loudly on the first floor. She kept shouting, asking me to go downstairs.
At that moment, I actually felt something was wrong, because she has never shouted my name like that.
Her voice was very high and anxious.
I lived in the rural areas, in an old-fashioned four-story building. Because it was by the road, our house was just next to our neighbors’ houses, and there are several houses connected together like that.
My room was on the third floor. I still remember that day I was wearing a summer tank top and shorts pajamas. While I asked her what was going on, I heard a lot of footsteps coming upstairs.
There were rarely any guests coming to our house, so it was unlikely that so many people just came and wanted to go upstairs all of a sudden.
I already thought of that possibility.
After all, I had seen the news about the authors in Haitang being arrested on the Internet before.I’m used to not wearing a bra at home. I didn’t know how I managed to put it on in such a short time, and then immediately went downstairs.
I was halfway to the second floor when I saw a group of policemen. There were eight or nine of them. My mind went blank at that moment.
The stairs in my house are very narrow, and it seemed very cramped with so many people standing on it.
One of the uniformed policemen asked me if I was xxx. I said yes. Another policeman in civilian clothes next to him took out his police ID and showed it to me quickly. He said he was from the police station of Jixi, Anhui. “Do you know why we are looking for you?”, he asked.
The local policemen were all in uniform, and the three policemen in civvies were all from Jixi.
I was surrounded by the group of police in the utility room on the second floor of my house. The policemen in civvies questioned me if I knew what I had done.
I am actually kinda wimpy, and I like to escape from reality. You may not get what I’m saying, but even though I was already in the middle of it, at that moment my brain still felt that everything in front of me was fake.
I was pretty out of it throughout the whole process, the fear came to me in hindsight.
They said they would take me to the police station for questioning and asked me to change clothes.
A female police officer with a body cam followed me upstairs. I am from Southeastern China and don’t even have experience taking a bath in a public bathhouse (Translator’s note: People in Northeastern China are generally more used to public nudity i.e. changing in a public locker; this is generally not the case for people from Southeastern China). I have almost never changed in front of a strange woman. But that day I had to take off all my clothes in front of her.
I remember that I chose a short-sleeved shirt at first, the female police officer said kindly that the interrogation room was very cold, I would really feel cold in short sleeves.
So I changed into a long-sleeved shirt. After I changed, all the other policemen came in and took away my mobile phone and computer, then took me to the police car.
Two cars parked on the road in front of our house, and eight or nine police officers took me outside… This scene made all the neighbors next to us come out to watch…
I got into the police car, two policemen sat left and right trapping me in the middle, and the police camcorder was placed on the armrest just in front of me.
Then the first thing one of the policemen asked me was, “How much savings do you have?”
Funny, ridiculous, right?
I was actually still kinda out of it when I arrived at the police station in our city. Maybe it was to escape reality, my brain stopped working.
Didn’t the Internet say that the law enforcement cross-jurisdictions requires a lot of paperwork? They have all the paperwork. Anyway, the local police cooperated with them and arranged an interrogation room for them.
There was this protocol for entering the interrogation room, physical examination (that is, entering a small room and being touched all over my body), taking photos with height and weight and the front and side view (yes, like on TV), recording all fingerprints and voiceprints, and then taking your blood sample.
The blood sample was taken by pricking your finger with a push-pin-like needle.
I am very afraid of pain. Since I was a child I have never dared to look when a medical injection happens. At that time, when the needle pierced my finger, my suppressed emotions almost crumbled, but I still didn’t dare to cry. I was afraid that they would yell at me if I cried, so I tried my best to hold back tears.
It was not until the moment of being pricked by the needle that I accepted the reality. I was arrested now. At this moment in front of them, I lost my human rights. Later when I was asked to sign, my hands were shaking so much that I couldn’t write. The police even smiled and said, “Don’t be so scared.”
But how could I not be?
I just remember my voice was shaking.
Then there was the interrogation that lasted more than seven hours.
The interrogation process left a deep trauma. I feel nauseous when I recall the process.
Although I was released on bail that day, I still developed PTSD symptoms afterwards. I couldn’t hear if the phone rings, I wouldn’t let my mother call for me from downstairs, I was terrified whenever there was a sound downstairs, and I would tremble with fear when I heard someone’s footsteps coming upstairs.
I was so anxious that I found it hard to sleep or eat for a long time. I couldn’t sleep at night and went to the hospital to get sleeping pills. I only took them for two weeks, and stopped out of fear of substance dependence. Then I started drinking alcohol to sleep.
Thinking that I would be imprisoned for three to five years, I might as well die.
The stress of returning the illegal income was huge during that time; with everything going on, I had a lot of negative thoughts.
Although now I have survived, when I recall all this, the pain still comes.
It was when later I met Mr. Krabs(moniker of another author - Translator’s note) and we comforted each other, I slowly began to come to terms with it.
We have all encountered those interrogation “narratives” mentioned by Mr. Krabs, and there are even more disgusting ones, it’s just I’m not allowed to talk about them.
I remember the second interrogation, the police asked me, when you wrote those plots (explicit sexual content), did you think about them all day?
In their minds, we who write these are perverts, and women who write these are even more perverted.
There was a document that identified our novels as obscene and pornographic. At that time, the police said that I had the right to (apply for a) re-evaluate, so I asked, what are the rules for this? Is it based on percentage (of explicit content) or something else.
My readers should know that my novels don’t actually contain much sexual content. I have a novel of more than 400,000 words. If all the sexual related contents are deleted, it will only reduce the word count by about 20,000.
I was just trying to fight for myself and see if I could get the amount I was charged for a little less. But as a result, I was yelled at by the police for more than half an hour just because I asked.
He asked if he had to bring my novel here and read it in front of me so that I could learn how pornographic my writing was?
He slammed the table, said that I had a bad attitude, etc etc.
I went through two interrogations, the first one lasted from 4pm to the early morning, and the second one lasted more than 4 hours. I didn’t cry much during the first interrogation even though it lasted way longer, I am used to suppressing my emotions. But the second time I was really destroyed by that policeman many times, I almost cried my eyes out.
I have lived for more than 20 years, and I really never thought that I would encounter such things. I grew up in a poor family, I was reluctant to spend the money I earned, I lived a frugal life and worked hard to make money to change my life. Turns out I didn’t save or get to spend that money, instead, I got hundreds of thousands in debt.
I have written so much here, but I am not saying that I did nothing wrong. I made the wrong choice and took the wrong path, so I was punished.
The reason why I like ACGN and like to write novels is because that world is completely created by me. It is just the kind of world I like and want.
Reality is too cruel and too scary for me.
In fact, we tried to fight back at the beginning, and many authors hired reasonably competent lawyers.
It’s useless. No matter how we argued(we tried all the angles that we could think of, many were mentioned on the Internet at the time), as long as they didn’t agree to it, they could reject it(the lawyers’ arguments) completely.
After going through everything, you will understand that it is useless. The struggle of ordinary people is the most powerless. They have the final say in everything.
Just like now, it seems that we are all over, but are we really over?
(Photo) That day, the narrow stairs were full of people who filled me with fear.