They were far enough in to be uncertain of the way out, when they came to a wooden structure, an open-sided hut. Two men and a woman were waiting, all of them no older than 20. The woman welcomed them formally, saying they must now renounce their old way of living. Here they would be awake, and see the world as it was. The driver melted away—he wasn’t one of them, but a sympathiser from the outside. He shouldn’t see what came next. The new comrades swore an oath before a picture of Lenin, torn from a book and pinned to one of the wooden posts.

Xiongmin said his new name out loud, and already it belonged to him. One of the men made a speech full of revolutionary slogans and allusions to the glorious motherland, China. To finish the ceremony, they sang “March of the Righteous Forces,” their voices surprisingly resonant in the empty jungle. Then a sack of uniforms was produced, and they swapped around until they all had a set that fit. No insignia, no ranks. They were all Ma Gong now, all equal, all comrades. In uniform, they looked older, wearier. Xiongmin wondered if his expression was the same as the others: excitement subsiding, jaw set, as if against the hard whisper of fear.

They had a long walk ahead. The woman showed them how to tuck their trousers into their boots to guard against leeches—the big ones here could suck a man dry. They were given things to carry—supplies, groundsheets, other necessities. Weapons would come later. “We’ll protect you for now,” said one of the men, and with that they were led into the dark heart of the jungle.

•

He adjusted to his new life in a very short time. Everyone here was young, no one over 30 and most quite some years under. He wondered if this is what university would have been like, if he’d been the sort of person who’d gone—the camaraderie, the joy and energy of youth. The strict routine made it easy to forget there’d ever been any other way of living. He’d expected tents, but this was a sizeable compound, wood and rattan buildings housing two hundred. Dormitories, huts for storage, large lecture classrooms. Even a swimming pool, improvised by damming a section of river.