When they reached the labour reform camp after walking a long distance and then partly travelling in a truck, they were totally exhausted. They could not even imagine the kind of pleasant surprise that was waiting for them there. After the initial formalities were over, when they approached the rows of thatched huts, they stopped midway, witnessing a near-impossible scene. With the setting sun behind him and carrying a bunch of sugarcane on his shoulder and wearing a straw hat, Tung Chin was coming from the opposite direction on a dusty road.

Tung Chin also stopped and looked at the group of familiar faces with children and belongings in hand.

In the last few years, they had withered.

About three years had passed by.

Besides rearing silkworms, Mei Lin and the others also assisted Lee Chang in the sugarcane fields.

However, Hong’s condition had improved a little. One day, while the water of the fishery was being pumped out, the machine broke down. When the operator could not repair the machine, Hong went ahead and fixed it on his own.

That was the beginning. After he repaired the machine, the supervisors of the camp started to engage with him and soon came to depend on his skills. These days he was in charge of operating the machine. He fitted the machine in the boat and went to the town market to sell the farm produce once in a while and brought back human excreta to be used as manure. He had gone to the town the previous day to sell the farm produce and was due to return.

The environment of the labour reform camp, however, had changed to some extent now. New prisoners were coming in but in lesser numbers. The suspicions which had been directed at the Chinese refugees from abroad had slowly disappeared.

The internal situation in China had started changing after Mei Lin and the others had left Hua qiao Nongchang. It had begun after the central leadership decided to remove the Red Guards from the revolution. Slowly, things returned to normalcy.

Though it had almost been three years in this camp, no orders for their release had come. They were not even told the reason for their imprisonment. They had learnt from others that the length of imprisonment at this camp was never more than three years.

Slowly, they were breaking down. They were losing hope. Whenever they felt like compromising with their bleak future, the children provided them the thrust to live again. On hearing the whistle for lunch break, Mei Lin came out and returned to her room.