Qin Aihua felt deeply ashamed. Ignoring Qin Mu’s protests, he went to the school and filed a leave of absence on his son’s behalf, claiming it was for medical treatment.
Zheng Yan even stopped going to work altogether and dragged Qin Mu through every major hospital in K City. When she was told that homosexuality couldn’t be ‘cured’, she lashed out. She jabbed a finger at the doctor’s nose and shouted, “What do you mean it’s not a disease? He’s not like everyone else—how is that not a disease? How can you call yourself a doctor if you can’t cure it?”
She kept yelling until the security guards forcibly threw her out. Still not giving up, she turned to shady traditional medicine clinics tucked away in back alleys, clinging to every ‘miracle doctor’ and their concocted ‘remedies’. She brought these so-called prescriptions home and force-fed them to Qin Mu, one bowl at a time.
Qin Mu stayed silent, letting her do as she pleased—he drank whatever she gave him, listened when she cursed him, and endured when she hit him. And yet, every day, he still quietly kept up his self-study and exam prep. He believed that one day, his parents would come around. And when they did, he would be able to return to school.
He did his best to suppress his inner panic, repeatedly going over in his head all the possible situations he might face when he returned. He tried to comfort himself; the worst that could happen was everyone treating him like a freak and ignoring him. But he hadn’t had many friends to begin with—he was used to being alone. Once he got into K University, he could leave all this behind and start fresh.
In the dead of night, when everything was quiet, he couldn’t help but think of Han Zhang. His heart filled with guilt—he had dragged Han Zhang into this mess for no reason, and he had no idea how to make things right.
While Qin Mu was thinking of Han Zhang and trying to plan for his future, just one wall away, Zheng Yan was tossing and turning. She was tormented by her son’s ‘illness’. Beside her, Qin Aihua had already fallen asleep watching TV. His snores was uneven and raspy, like he might stop breathing at any moment. Annoyed, she yanked the remote control from his hand and was just about to turn off the TV—when she froze.
Leaning forward, she stared at the midnight commercial on the screen. It was as if a terminally ill patient had just discovered the elixir of immortality—every cell in her body lit up with excitement.
In that silent moment, fate drew a hard pause. Dipped in heavy ink, the pen turned sharply, veering off in a completely different direction.
Qin Mu remembered it was a Wednesday, and the weather was cold.
Zheng Yan took him out early in the morning. The destination was far—they had to transfer three times. Finally, bus No. 598 left the city and rumbled its way into a remote, unfamiliar county on the outskirts.
After getting off the bus, a lanky young man in his early twenties came up to them and asked, “Are you Ms. Zheng?”
“Yes, yes, that’s me,” Zheng Yan replied quickly, giving Qin Mu a push forward. “This is my son.”
The young man had deeply tanned skin and a face covered in acne. He looked Qin Mu up and down with an unreadable expression, pursed his lips, and threw out a curt, “Get in the car,” before turning and walking off.
Zheng Yan and Qin Mu followed him into a bronze-colored van parked by the roadside. Though old, the van was scrubbed clean. In the driver’s seat sat a burly man who grinned at them, revealing a mouth full of teeth yellowed from cigarette smoke. “Hold on tight,” he said. “The road’s rough from here.”
The van drove out of the county and into increasingly desolate terrain. Ramshackle buildings faded from view, replaced by barren hills.
Qin Mu began to feel uneasy. He couldn’t help but ask, “Where are we going?”
“To cure your illness,” Zheng Yan replied flatly.
The driver with the yellow teeth chuckled. “Almost there, don’t worry.”
The acne-faced guy in the front seat glanced back at him, as if about to say something. Their eyes met only for a fleeting second, and Qin Mu couldn’t read anything in it.
After a long, jarring ride, the van finally came to a stop.
In front of them stood a massive iron gate flanked by tall walls. The tops of the walls were lined with broken glass and several coils of barbed wire. A heavy padlock hung on the main gate, clearly not meant to be opened casually—only a small door at the bottom right was used for entry. Four men stood guard at the gate, each with a metal baton strapped to their waist. Hanging beside the entrance were several white signs with black lettering. One of them read, “Yongning Behavioral Correction School for Adolescents, K City.”
Just as Qin Mu was still unprepared, the van driver suddenly gave him a hard shove in the back. He lost his balance and stumbled through the gate. The four men immediately surrounded him, half-coercing and half-shoving him forward.
Panic-stricken, Qin Mu struggled, only to be firmly restrained. He twisted his head around with all his strength in disbelief—and saw Zheng Yan’s emotionless face.
“MOM!” Qin Mu shouted.
Zheng Yan stood still like a clay statue. She was not speaking or moving, just looking at him silently.
“When it comes to raising kids,” the yellow-toothed driver said with a grin, “you parents can’t go soft. Go soft, and the kid’s ruined. The ones who come out of here? Each one’s better behaved than the last. No matter how rebellious, we straighten them out. Your son’s got a mental issue—don’t worry; we’ve already worked with professionals to design a one-on-one correction plan. Guaranteed results.”
Zheng Yan nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. She forced herself to look away and asked, “Where do I pay the tuition?”
“No rush. Our school policy is to charge only after we see results.”
“Good, good,” Zheng Yan nodded repeatedly, pulling a pack of Red Pagoda Mountain cigarettes from her bag and stuffing it into the driver’s hand. “I’ll leave it all to you… I’m counting on you.”
How could one make someone obedient in a short amount of time?
For teenagers who were entering adolescence—those with a certain level of knowledge and already forming their own thoughts—there wasn’t enough time to reprogram them. The most effective method, then would be violence. By instilling fear, they could make them ‘obedient’ out of terror.
What kind of torture was painful enough, yet wouldn’t leave visible marks?
The perfect choice was electric shocks.
When the small door behind him closed, Qin Mu still didn’t know what kind of torment awaited him. He naively thought this place was just a strictly closed-off school, and that the teachers here were like those outside.
That illusion was quickly destroyed by the electric current that pierced into his brain.
Electricity surged in from his temples, traveling through his entire body like a serrated rasp desperately scraping through his bones and flesh. Just a few seconds were enough to make him convulse and cry out in unbearable pain.
He was strapped to a steel-framed hospital bed. His head and limbs were bound tight with restraints, unable to move. A mouthguard was jammed between his teeth, reducing his cries to muffled groans. The man in a white coat who was supposedly a ‘professional doctor’ was fiddling with the power switch and casually said, “Don’t worry, ten seconds per round. Let’s start with three rounds.”
At seventeen, Qin Mu experienced what it meant to wish for death rather than endure life—in just thirty seconds.
After the shocks, the man in white removed the mouthguard from his mouth, smiling as he said, “Now I’m going to ask you a few questions. Think carefully before answering. If you don’t answer well, you’ll be punished again. Do you understand?”
Drenched in cold sweat and trembling, Qin Mu nodded. He was already broken under the terror of the shocks.
The man pressed record on a nearby recorder and asked, “Do you know why you were sent here?”
Qin Mu tried to guess the answer he wanted and replied, “Because I’m sick.”
“What illness do you have?”
“A mental illness.” Seeing the displeasure on the man’s face, he hurriedly added, “The illness of being homosexual.”
“And? Are you disobedient and unfilial to your parents?”
“…Yes.”
“Do you want to stay here and learn to correct yourself?”
Seeing the warning in the man’s eyes, Qin Mu hesitated for a second, then, tears welling in his eyes, said, “Yes.”
The man in white nodded, satisfied, and hit the stop button. He handed the recorder to his assistant, who then delivered it to the parents.
Zheng Yan listened to it over and over again, tears of joy streaming down her face. She thanked them profusely and paid the full tuition of 45,000 yuan.
Her sick son was finally saved.
She loved him so much—so much that she was willing to give everything for him, even her entire life savings.
Qin Mu nearly collapsed from the iron bed, his legs trembling as he knelt on the ground.
What awaited him was a new life of ‘correction’.
In the first few days, he was locked in a small windowless room at the end of a corridor, where he was given only one meal a day. Five senior students took turns teaching him the ‘school rules’. They recited one rule, and he had to repeat it. If he didn’t, he would be beaten. The ruler in the teacher’s hand was thick and long, and if it hit too hard, it could cause bleeding.
There were fourty school rules, including things like students could not speak to each other for more than ten seconds, they couldn’t close the door when using the restroom, they couldn’t show resistance in their words, they couldn’t slack off during study time, and they couldn’t say they wanted to leave when meeting their parents, etc. The school also set up a points reward-punishment system, where violations would result in point deductions, and reporting others could earn extra points. If the score dropped below sixty, the student would be punished with electric shocks.
On the third day, after memorizing the school rules, Qin Mu was assigned to Room 213, where eight students shared the room, and his bed number was 1607, the lower bunk. The youth with pimples on his face was facing him.
Every morning at 6:30 AM, all students had to get up, pack their belongings within ten minutes, fold their blankets into neat squares, and then run for an hour on the sports field. This was followed by self-reflection time, where each student had to speak. If their self-criticism was not deep or thorough enough, they were punished with frog jumps on the field. There were also mutual criticism meetings, where students pointed out each other’s faults and improper behaviors. Reporting others could earn points, so students eagerly participated in this, becoming expert informants, eager to catch others in disobedience and accuse them of ‘not following the rules and being dissatisfied with the teachers’. Then, everyone would watch as the ‘bad student’ was punished, setting an example to deter others.
In the afternoon, there were Chinese classics lessons, where they recited lines like ‘When parents call, answer without delay; when parents command, act without laziness. When parents teach, listen respectfully; when parents scold, accept with obedience…’
In addition, students were divided into groups based on their ‘flaws’, such as internet addiction, gambling, learning encouragement, and filial piety groups. Qin Mu’s situation was unique in the school, so he had one-on-one sessions with a teacher.
The teacher was the driver of the van who picked him up that day, the man with yellow teeth. He had Qin Mu take off his shirt and stand in front of a mirror while swinging a ruler, demanding responses. Any hesitation would be met with punishment.
“You’re a boy or a girl?”
Qin Mu answered, “A boy.”
“Do you like boys or girls?”
“Girls.”
“A man liking a woman, and a woman liking a man is natural, it’s the law of nature. Liking someone of the same sex is perverted, it’s a mental illness, do you understand?”
“Understand.”
“Say it!”
“I was wrong. I am sick. I like women.”
“Say it again!”
“I was wrong. I am sick. I like women!”
For an hour, similar dialogues repeated many times. Qin Mu went from crying out in anguish to responding numbly, forming a conditioned reflex.
At night, there was dormitory night study, where everyone wrote a diary to record the day’s learning and activities. Afterwards, they placed their diaries in a mailbox in the room, which the class monitor would collect and hand to the teacher. The teacher would select the best ones to send to parents as proof of progress.
The school was full of spying eyes, and no one was to be trusted. After being reported several times, Qin Mu learned to hide all his emotions. He trembled as he complied with the teacher’s demands to be a good, obedient student.
After one month at the school, he witnessed a student jump from the roof. The building was only two stories tall, and the student didn’t die after the fall. Fearing that it would cause a scandal, the school didn’t call an ambulance immediately. Only after seeing the blood streaming from the student’s head was he sent to the hospital. The student never returned.
Qin Mu leaned on the railing and looked down, hearing someone beside him whisper, “It’s an escape; it’s not so bad.”
He froze, turning to look into the eyes of the youth with pimples beside him, and saw the same look in his eyes as the one he saw on the driver’s face when he picked him up that day.
Only then did he understand.
It was a pity.
T/N:
I know Qin Mu will have a hard past… But I didn’t expect it’ll be this hard.. HOLY HELL???!
All those correction centre stories in other novels are like this too and what’s worse is that it really exist…
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