Yang Xiaoling (a pseudonym) was born in 1991 and gave birth to two children. When not looking after her children, this smiling woman runs a thriving health spa in the center of Jieshou City, Anhui Province. But who could imagine that ten years ago, this sunny-looking woman broke the law as the result of believing in the “world’s Doomsday” fallacies advocated by the “Almighty God” cult.
In November 2012, Yang Xiaoling was only 21 years old. She left her hometown Xinma Town, Jieshou City with her father for a market town in Xinhui County, Guangdong Province where her father ran a furniture factory. As a newcomer, Yang Xiaoling had difficulties in communicating with local people because of dialect barriers. She could hardly understand what the local people said. Furthermore, due to the reserved and shy nature of a young girl, she rarely talked to other workers in the factory.
As the boss’s daughter, Yang Xiaoling was always looked upon favorably by people working in the factory. At that time, two girls of about the same age from Guangxi Province often went to chat with her about daily life or have intimate conversations between girls. They whispered to Yang Xiaoling in their non-standard Mandarin that their fellow villagers who came out together as migrant workers all secretly talked about that, December 21, 2012 was predicted by foreign prophets as the end of the world a long time ago.
Yang Xiaolong was shocked by the news but she didn’t tell the news to her father, who was busy with business every day. She decided to get more information about it in a careful manner. In the following days, invited by those two girls, she went with them to attend “lectures” which were mainly about the end of the world issue. In class, it was said that there was a “God” called “Real God” or “Almighty God”, and that as the world entered the era of apocalyptic judgement, all people in the world should unconditionally obey the “Almighty God” and follow His instructions so as to eventually establish the kingdom of God. To achieve the goal, it required people to have unquestioning obedience to “God’s” doings without any complaint, judgement, analysis, and even less research.
As an inexperienced girl who just graduated from junior high school, Yang Xiaoling didn’t believe the existence of ghosts or God in the world before. But after several classes, she started to have some doubts. In her subconscious mind, such a catastrophe would mean total destruction of the whole world, so it’s better to believe it, rather than disbelieve it. Thinking that she was still quite young with a bright future ready to unfold, she secretly joined those people in their activities of awakening the world to “save” mankind from falling into troubles, as if she had been brainwashed. Out of kindness and ignorance, Yang Xiaoling blundered to become a member of them. As the date of “the end of the world” approached, Yang Xiaoling was often too frightened to sleep late at night. She kept thinking about what she could do to save her loved ones, or at least herself.
The date of December 17, 2012 was a special day that Yang Xiaoling vividly remembered in shame. That morning, according to the arrangement of the head of the local organization, she received a thick stack of leaflets printed in advance, which was all about the “doomsday” fallacy advocated by the “Almighty God” cult in the name of rallying people to collectively defuse the crisis. Additionally, it was written on the leaflets that all those who didn’t believe in “Almighty God” would be annihilated when the doomsday arrived.
Driven by such a fallacy, Yang Xiaoling followed them to a morning fair at the local market in the town and began to hand out leaflets. In less than 10 minutes, the market suddenly descended into chaos just as she managed to distribute a few leaflets. It turned out that they were reported by the local people. Then, they were arrested on the spot by the police who quickly arrived at the scene. It happened so fast that Yang Xiaoling didn’t even had time to throw away those leaflets in her hands before she was taken away from the spot.
With the patient education of the police officers handling the case, Yang Xiaoling finally understood what she did was a big mistake. She also realized that the “Almighty God” was nothing but an evil cult which bewitched and deceived innocent people by spreading the “end of the world” fallacy or “saving mankind” propagandas. In the end, Yang Xiaoling received the penalty of administrative detention for 15 days, about which she was extremely regretful.
Fifteen days passed, and the mankind survived the so-called “world’s doomsday” peacefully, nothing happened. When walking out of the detention center, Yang Xiaoling saw a blue sky with white clouds, a constant flow of cars on the streets, and everything was still so normal and orderly. When she took over the down jacket from her father who was waiting outside, tears of regret and self-reproach came to her eyes. She threw herself on her father's shoulder and cried, "Dad, I was wrong!"
Returning to the normal world and settling down in the factory, she still felt uneasy somehow, so, at her request, she went back to her hometown, Jieshou City, Anhui Province. Later on, with the help of relatives and friends, she got married on the 16th day of the 12th lunar month that year. Then, she enjoyed a happy marriage life and soon gave birth to two sons.
At the present, Yang Xiaoling’s husband works in the Gongdong Xinhui Furniture Factory owned by her father, while she stays at home in her hometown and takes care of her two young children, ensuring that the two boys live and study without worries. In 2019, she also invested and opened a traditional Chinese medicine health spa, specializing in health preservation services for women. In the process of her investment and operation, Yang Xiaoling paid much attention to making sure that everything was in accordance with national laws. For that purpose, she consulted with market supervision and management departments, applied for a business license, seriously participated in relevant learning and training activities, and accepted supervision from governmental departments on her own initiative.
Yang Xiaoling attaches a great importance to reputation when running the spa. With her considerate services and effective health care, she owns a high percentage of regular customers who like and trust her.
Nowadays, besides doing the school run by car for her two children, she bends all her efforts to her business. Through three years of diligent management, her average monthly income exceeds 10,000 Yuan in spite of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Yang Xiaoling once said with emotion that in the first step of her life, she had suffered such a big fall, it was certainly a traumatic experience for her. However, as the old saying goes, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ After stepping out the shadow, she surely has a brighter future to embrace.
