Spring Breeze Twenty Years

Chapter 636 Martial Power

Wuli is a person's name.

It's the name of a female police officer.

Warden of the Ninth Ward of the Women's Prison.

Most of the owners of printing, packaging and food bag businesses in Fengtian and surrounding cities know the armed police officers.

The process of pasting, shaping, gluing, perforating, and threading rope onto paper bags and boxes is a tedious and time-consuming task, but it is the most important step in all packaging production. This step is usually completed in women's prisons around the world because labor costs are lowest there.

However, even though the job is the same, the work process is not the same.

In places like Qingdao Women's Prison, where workers are required to squat barefoot in a very clean room, this method of working is the most common in the country.

Da Lian also worked barefoot on the ground, but he had a small stool.

The Ninth Ward was the only place I'd ever seen with tables and chairs. Inmates could sit while working and even use cushions to put their bottoms down, as long as they washed their hands. Inmates could talk and chat quietly among themselves and also interact with the guards; sometimes, the guards would even joke with the inmates.

……

The prison is located in Dadong District, more than five kilometers away from the Wanliu headquarters building. It's just a short walk from Pangjiang Street.

This area is full of old buildings, red brick buildings, and they're not tall, only four or five stories. The roads aren't wide, and there are all sorts of shops and restaurants on both sides. The shops here are all named something like "New Life," giving it a rather uniform feel.

The prison gates are always closed, two large iron gates, with a similar electric mechanism to those in Xiaoweilong City's compound. However, this prison has guard towers above the gates.

There is a street-facing window on the right side of the gate, which is where visitors exchange their access passes. Xiaowei and Xiaohong parked their car on the side of the road and went there with their ID cards to exchange for access passes.

The police officer inside peeked at Xiao Wei through the gap in the bars and asked, "Where's your police ID?" It's suspicious that police officers don't carry ID cards when they're working within the system.

Xiao Wei said, "I'm a citizen representative for the National People's Congress this year. At the police station, I'm required to wear a police uniform, but I don't have a police officer's ID. Would it be acceptable to have a membership card from the National People's Congress or the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference?"

The police officers inside were expressionless as they recorded information. After a while, they asked, "Who do you want to see? Do you have visitation permission?"

Xiao Wei said, "I'm looking for Officer Wu Li from the Ninth Prison District. I need to ask her to do something. The prison administration should have called us."

The expressionless policeman wrote with one hand and picked up the phone with the other, dialing with one hand: "Hey? Ninth District? Is District Chief Wu there? District Chief Wu, someone named Zhang Wei wants to come in to see you. He said the Provincial Department called you. Okay." He hung up and handed out two access cards: "Enter through the side gate. Someone will meet you at the main gate. Don't wander around."

Xiao Wei took the access pass and walked a few steps forward with Xiao Hong to the prison gate. The main gate was tightly closed, but there was a side gate on the right. There were two guards inside and outside, and a curved passage made of welded iron pipes, much like the security checkpoints at train stations today. It took several turns to get through, which was to prevent prisoners from escaping.

After showing my access pass, I walked in through the winding passage and was told to wait on the side.

After entering, there was a square, not very big, where a line of female prisoners was walking past on the side of the square.

The police who came to pick them up arrived very quickly. They arrived before the row of prisoners had even finished walking. They led Xiaowei and Xiaohong to the right. There were several red brick buildings, probably quite old. There were piles of coal like mountains in the recessed open space of the buildings. The group walked along the coal mountain and stepped on the coal slag to the right. After walking for more than a hundred meters, they went in through a side door of one of the buildings.

This is a spacious room where six rows of female prisoners are sitting neatly working. A foreman, who is also a prisoner, walks back and forth in the aisle to patrol. Female police officers are watching from the front and back, either sitting or standing. It seems like a very relaxed working environment.

Under the furtive gazes of the female inmates, Xiaowei and Xiaohong followed the policewoman who led the way into a room inside the building. This was the office, with three desks. Sitting at the desk placed alone by the window was a short-haired, valiant policewoman; she was Wu Li.

"Hello." Wu Li stood up, shook hands with Xiao Wei, and glanced at Xiao Hong, who was turning her head and looking around.

Xiao Wei said, "Thank you for your help, District Chief Wu. This is my boyfriend; he studies at Northeast Institute of Technology."

Wu Li covered his mouth and chuckled a few times, waving his hand and saying, "Don't call me that, it's just something people call me internally, it sounds awful. Just call me Wu Li." Several policewomen nearby laughed.

Xiao Wei asked, "Can I see Yang Xuemei?"

Wu Li said to a policewoman, "Xiao Liu, go call her." Turning to Xiao Wei, he said, "She's not here. These are all veterans, experienced officers. The newcomers are still learning. She's over there, wait a minute. I haven't seen her in person yet. They say she's very beautiful. What's going on with her? I saw in the case file that she was involved in a murder? Who are you?"

Xiao Wei said, "I'm the one who arrested her." After thinking for a moment, he said, "She's a very pitiful person. She was abandoned as a baby and raised by adoptive parents, the same family that was murdered."

One of the policewomen said, "That's ruthless?"

Xiao Wei glanced at the policewoman and said, "Her adoptive father raped her when she was sixteen and threatened her not to date, not to move out, and not to tell anyone, or he would kill her. Then last year, Qin Aihua pursued her, and this year, after threatening suicide, she finally told Qin Aihua what happened. He's the murderer in this case. Qin Aihua served in the war and made meritorious contributions; he has no criminal record. He just really likes Yang Xuemei."

The policewoman stared in disbelief and asked, "Is there anyone else in her family?"

Xiao Wei said, "Yes, they pretended not to know and also threatened her not to go out and talk about it."

Wu Li clicked his tongue and said, "It's truly pitiful, what a pity."

Xiao Wei said, "That day, the two of us from the station chief went to arrest Qin Aihua. He didn't resist at all. To be honest, if he had resisted, who knows what would have happened. I estimate that even if all of us had joined forces, we wouldn't have been able to defeat him. We only had two pistols, while he had a Type 56 submachine gun, fully loaded. I was so nervous at the time that my legs went weak when I came out. I was terrified afterwards."

Wu Li said, "You guys are really brave and daring. Well done!"

Xiao Wei said, "Qin Aihua is definitely going to die, we all know that. We were just hoping to save Yang Xuemei, but she was still sentenced. I've now recognized her as my older sister, and I'll take care of her for the rest of her life. I even had to swallow my pride and ask Director Liu to call you guys. I'm really counting on you for the next year or so. She's very gentle and beautiful, and I'm just worried that she'll be bullied."

Xiao Hong said, "Sister Xiao Mei is too weak, that's why she's always bullied."

Wu Li asked Xiao Hong, "You've seen it too?"

Xiao Hong said, "I was the one who brought food to Sister Xiao Mei during those days at the criminal investigation team. She was so pitiful."

(End of this chapter)