My name is Xiao Rong. I’m over 60 years old this year. My husbandand I are both retired employees of an oil company in Sichuan Province. After retirement, our monthly pension combined is between 6000 and 7000 yuan. All of our children have settled down into a simple and comfortable familylife.
We lived in a harmonious life and enjoyed our retirement
My husbandis a member of Communist Party and heis fond of gardening or doing volunteer work for the community after retired. Healso often asked me to be volunteers together with him, but I turned him down simply because I preferred places without many people. My husbandsaid since we both retired and our children all married, we needed continue to make contributions to the society by doing something useful.
I grew up in the countryside. Before retirement, I liked to grow vegetables in the open space of the companydormitory quarters. The place I’m living right now is next to ariver bank where there are well-cultivated vegetable fields. And I found a piece of land there and worked there all day long to grow my own vegetables. Therefore, on the one hand I could harvest quality-assured vegetables, and on the other hand, I could share them with my children. I like this way of life.
So, during the day, my husband enjoyed his volunteer experience and I went to take care of the vegetable field, and during the night, we both went back home and watched TV together while talking to each other. We lived a simple but fulfilling retirement life like this for over a year before our quiet life was disturbed by a group of “warm-hearted” people.
A seemingly “warm-hearted” person turned out to be the one with malicious intent
I remembered that one morning in the summer of 2019, when I was watering my vegetables in the field as usual, several old ladies about my age came to my vegetable field and praised me for my diligence and having my vegetables well cultivated. I didn’t know any of them, but out of courtesy, I chatted with them for a few minutes. Those “warm-hearted” old ladies said they were also retired people from companies and they liked to travel widely together. They also added that people at their age should do whatever they liked to do before it was too late. I told them that I was kind of not a party animal so that a slow and leisure rustic life like this was quite fine by me. They didn’t linger long that day and they left after a few moments of polite conversation. I could never realize that this unexpected meeting was the beginning of my nightmare.
Afterwards, those warm-hearted elderly ladies often “casually” passed by my vegetable field. When they came, they always took some food and drinks with them so that they could eat and drink while chatting. Such “chance meetings” lasted over two months. As time went on, I became familiar with these “sisters”. One of them was called Ms. Quan who always talked in such an enthusiastic way that I had a deeper impression of her than anyone else among these “sisters”. She let me call her elder sister Quan. Later, I learned that Ms. Quan was no ordinary person but an executive of a state-owned enterprise before her retirement. After retired, she liked to travel around and make friends. Ms. Quan often shared with us her personal experience when she was a leader which greatlybroaden my horizon and made me felt inferior to her as I was only an ordinary worker before. But Ms. Quan was always nice and kind to me, and never looked down upon me and treated me as an ordinary worker. Slowly but surely, I became an “elderly but die-hard fan” of Ms. Quan. And everything she said was so novel and attractive to me as if her words had some kind of magic power. Every time she spoke, all sisters around her looked at her reverently and listened carefully, and so did I.
I mistakenly trusted a woman who lured me into traps
Two months later, Ms. Quan came to visit me again with all those sisters at my vegetable field. During the chat, Ms. Quan suddenly asked me bluntly, “My good sister, do you trust me?” I was taken by surprise and got quite confused by her question, but I had regarded her as a trustworthy person after contacting with for several occasions and I was habituated to believe whatever she said. Therefore, just after a second of hesitation, I nodded and repeatedly said yes.
Ms. Quan told me that they were devoting themselves into a great cause and they wanted me to be part of it as well. I explained that I was just a retired old woman who was barely eligible for growing vegetables let alone a great cause. Ms. Quan said what they were doing was to rescue sisters from suffering. She also preached to me about things such as “Three redemptions”, “Twelve apostles”, “Doomsday judgement”, etc. I told her that it sounded similar to Christianity but I was corrected by her that what they believed in was the real Christianity. Ms. Quan also added that only those participants could be rewarded with blessings and good fortune while those who didn’t believe in it had to face the doomsday judgement. Furthermore, Ms. Quan told me the only reason why she invited me to join them was that, she felt I was congenial to the way of “God”. I got confused by her words sinceI knew little about religion. Yet I resolutely joined in just because I believe in Ms. Quan.
At first, we gathered near my vegetable field to sing and read some books. Later, we were joined by some new people. Then, during our gathering, we all covered our heads with a white towel,which had a printed red cross in the white background. And all participants all knelt down with their hands folded, muttering prayers.
I only learned that it was a total fraud after coming to my sense
In this way, I spent lots of time on my “worship” which caused my vegetable field to gradually become desolate. Ms. Quan consoled me, “You are blessed by God only at the cost of a small piece of vegetable field.” Gradually, I spent more and more time on participating gatherings and often got back home till late at night. When my husband accused me of talking nonsense all day long, I started to preach to him about “Christ”. As a result, my husband was so angry about me being a nut that he stormed out of our room. But I ignored his anger and concern, so we gradually drifted apart and talked much less than before. After a period of time, Ms. Quan said we shouldn’t confine ourselves to current areas, instead, we should expand our territory to preach to more people so that more people could be blessed by God. Furthermore, Ms. Quan said it took money to cover the expense of our preach work, so we needed to contribute our savings to God, and the more contribution one made, the more merits that one deserved. In order to obtain more merits, I withdrew our family savings accumulated in decades by both my husband and me and turned it in as tributes to Ms. Quan.
Later, fooled by “teachings” of Ms. Quan, I frequently started to leavehome, go everywhere with “brothers and sisters” to preach God’s doctrines.
One day in 2020, When Ms. Quan guided us to do ceremony in the reeds, we were surrounded by a lot of police officers who suddenly appeared. I was taken to the police station and told that what I participated was not a Christian activity but the one organized by a cult called “Mentuhui” in the name of Christianity. At first, I tried my utmost efforts to fight for my point of view and accused them of misunderstanding our faith. It was not until the police officers showed me piles of criminal records about Ms. Quan that I came to my sense. It turned out that Ms. Quan, the so-called warm-hearted human rights defender, was not an executive of a state-owned enterprise at all but a complete fraud and a villain who collected money by preaching the cult. In the meantime, she turned me into a victim and an accomplice of the cult.
After coming out of the detention center, my husband didn’t blame me too much. On the contrary, he said that it was better than anything else as long as we were both fine. Now, I take care of my small vegetable garden as before, and my husband often comes by to help me with my gardening. Looking at those growing vegetables and having my husband by my side to renew our old memories, I feel quite satisfied and contented with my life now.
