Photo of Hu Yanxiang
I'm Huang Tao, 28 years old, and live in Hongxing Village, Xunsi Town, Junlian County, Sichuan Province, where is located in Mountainous Area of Sichuan Basin. Apart from raising crops at our rice fields and tea garden, my father also went to the county town to work during slack season. My mother Hu Yanxiang raised pigs and chicken, and kept house at home.
However, my father died of illness when I was seven years old, leaving mother with the job of providing for the whole family. Facing the poor and lonely days, my mother felt helpless. But in order to shoulder the burdens of the family, she was busy at the farm work and housework everyday, not paying much attention to me and my younger brother, so I became introverted from then on.
Just after graduation from junior middle school in 2001, I went to work for a shoe factory in Zhejiang Province with several young townees, without saying good-bye to my mother. Due to my lacking knowledge, I could but do some heavy work such as adhesion and spray paint, which could only support myself. Because of contacting with toxic substances for long time, my body started to show the symptoms of lacking in strength and difficult breathing. In January 2004, I couldn't work anymore but go back home with illness.
I was diagnosed with pulmonary cyst after examination and it needed more than 10 thousand yuan for medical expenses to effect a radical cure. It was too much for me, so I had to buy some common medicines and went back home in desperation. However, misfortunes never come singly, my mother was also diagnosed with diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure, which is one disaster after another.
As both my mother and I were ill, the 2,000 Yuan I brought back from Zhejiang was used up quickly. My family was so poor that my brother, who was still a junior middle school student, stopped schooling and left home to work, and my girlfriend also parted with me without a word.
It was busy farming season in May 2004, but I could only do some simple chores, and all the heavy work fell on my mother. Several distant aunts of the same village also came to help. The warmhearted aunts helped my mother with the work during the day and chatted with her at night, for which I was really thankful at that time.
One late night, I was woke up by some slight voice. When I opened the door, I saw there was a white flag with a red cross hung on the wall, and my mother and the aunts were kneeling on the ground, talking about something that I couldn't understand. One aunt said they all believed the Disciples Sect, including my mother. According to them, joining the Disciples Sect and praying everyday could cure any illnesses without injections and medicine; believing in the Lord could remove ill fortune and disaster and keep you safe all the year round; the people who believed in the Lord could go to the Heaven, and those who didn't believe would go to the hell, etc..
Since then，my mother hung a piece of white cloth with a red cross on the wall according to the request of the Disciples Sect. She prayed facing to it everyday and refused to take medicines for diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure.
She not only believed the Disciples Sect, but also asked me to join it, and I refused. As a result, she discontinued my medicine that the doctor gave to me. No matter how I dissuaded and begged piteously, she was deaf to it.
In June 2005, I suffered from shock due to severe condition and was sent to hospital for rescue by the kindhearted neighbors and relatives. Seeing them but not my mother when I woke up, I was brokenhearted. The money scraped together from the neighbors and relatives could only for simple treatment, so I went home the next day.
My illness took a turn for the worse on July 23, 2005. I found my mother and begged her to give me some money for treatment, but she refused. She said I didn't listen to her to believe in the Disciples Sect, so I got ailment. Then she and I began to quarrel, and suddenly she hit me with a shoulder pole to "cast out devils and take away ailment for me". I felt completely despairing and lost my head at that time. When my mother and I snatched the shoulder pole, I shoved her into the wall, which made she die on the spot due to craniocerebral injury and intracranial hypertension.
When I was in prison, I was penitent for killing my mother. But if it were not for the Disciples Sect, my mother wouldn't lose her mind and hit me to eliminate devil, and I wouldn't kill my mother accidentally. It was the Disciples Sect that broken up my family and made me move towards abyss.
