In the autumn of 1948, within the iron bars of Chongqing's Zhazidong Prison, Li Qinglin sat against the wall, dragging her broken leg. When the traitor Tu Xiaowen was pushed in front of her by the agents, this battered female communist only broke the dead silence of the interrogation room with a calm yet resonant statement: "I know you; you are not a human!"
That summer, the fine rain in Wanxian fell like sorrow. Li Qinglin, a Chinese teacher at Fucheng Academy, was tidying up the chalk-dusted lecture notes. The students loved her classes—when discussing "The Memorial on the Expedition," she would connect it to the exploitation by local landlords, and when teaching "The Yueyang Tower," she would mention the suffering of tenant farmers during the Yangtze River floods. No one knew that this elegantly composed female teacher was actually the Deputy Secretary of the CPC Wanxian County Committee, tasked with developing rural armed forces and establishing grassroots organizations.
At that time, the mountain city had already fallen into the darkness before dawn, with military police checks becoming increasingly strict. On June 15, an urgent message came in: the school had important documents that needed to be destroyed immediately. Li Qinglin changed into a blue cloth qipao and styled her hair like a local female teacher, walking to the school, but as soon as she entered, she was intercepted by plainclothes agents. "I'm just passing by, looking for an acquaintance," she replied calmly but was still forcibly taken away.
In the interrogation room of the Wanxian police station, the windows were nailed shut with wooden boards, allowing only a sliver of dim light to seep in. The chief agent, Lei Tianyuan, got straight to the point: "Tell me about your county committee's matters." "I'm just a teacher; I don't understand what you're saying," was Li Qinglin's reply, which resulted in torture on the tiger bench. When the third brick was stuffed into her heel, there was a sharp crack, and her right leg bone fractured. Cold sweat soaked her clothes, yet she only let out a groan, gritting her teeth to endure; with the fourth brick stacked on top, blood oozed from her mouth, staining her blue cloth qipao and blooming into dark red flowers.
A female inmate from the same cell recalled that on that night, Li Qinglin did not utter a single cry; only the creaking of the bed as she turned spoke of the unbearable agony. When agent Lei Tianyuan reported to his superior Xu Yuanju, he had to admit that this woman was "remarkably tough." But they knew very well that this Deputy Secretary held a wealth of information about grassroots contact points and would never let go easily.
September in Chongqing was unbearably hot, and Xu Yuanju devised a "trump card"—to have the traitor identify her. When Tu Xiaowen entered the interrogation room, Li Qinglin scrutinized him for a few seconds. This man, who had once been the Secretary of the Eastern Sichuan Working Committee and a delegate to the Party's Seventh National Congress, had completely betrayed the Party four months prior when agents held a gun to his forehead, revealing the addresses of all underground party members, including hers.
"You recognize him, right?" Lei Tianyuan pressed. Li Qinglin withdrew her gaze, calmly yet with each word carrying weight: "I know him; he is not a human." Tu Xiaowen's face turned crimson, veins bulging, and he opened his mouth only to remain speechless, turning away in embarrassment. This reprimand became the eternal mark of shame for the traitor.
Subsequently, Li Qinglin was sent to Zhazidong. Dragging her broken leg, she continued to work in the women's prison: teaching fellow inmates to read, analyzing the situation for new comrades, and scratching marks on the wall with her nails to count the days. Although Tu Xiaowen collaborated with the oppressors, he ultimately fell out of favor with the agents. On October 28, 1949, a month before the liberation of Chongqing, he was listed for execution, heading to the execution ground with martyrs like Chen Ran, reportedly shouting slogans before his death, but by then, no one acknowledged him.
On November 14, 1949, just ten days after the liberation of Chongqing, Li Qinglin was executed at the Lanya Radio Station, at the young age of thirty-one. Before her execution, she told a fellow inmate beside her: "Help me see what the new China looks like." That fortunate inmate survived and, after the liberation, taught in Wanxian, visiting her grave every year during Qingming to recount the changes in their hometown: the roads widened, students received new textbooks, and the countryside got electricity.
More than seventy years have passed, and the elderly in Wanxian always mention Li Qinglin as "a tough nut to crack"; when speaking of Tu Xiaowen, they only sigh. Li Qinglin lived out the belief that "the day will eventually break," and her spirit has long become part of the Red Rock spirit, forever illuminating the path for future generations.