(Clearwisdom.net) In the city of Jianyang, Sichuan Province, there is a family of four who are all Falun Dafa practitioners. Just like thousands upon thousands of other families of cultivators, this family, which has been suffering from illegal persecution, has been showing the world the magnificence and holiness of Dafa at all times. The story begins the moment the family learned of Falun Dafa.

In April 1995, Xu Changzheng heard about Falun Dafa in fulfillment of his predestined relationship when he was a student at Sichuan University. He was 17 years old. After studying Dafa Mr. Xu understood that the ultimate goal for one's life was to return to one's true primordial self, so he started to practice Dafa cultivation diligently. Mr. Xu's elder sister was one year older than he was, and was at that time a student at his university, and she began to practice Dafa as well. As a team the brother and sister became actively involved in educating people about Dafa and teaching them the practice in the Southern Suburban Park, along the Bingjiang Road of Chendu City, and also in some suburban counties. Many people came to know and adore this brother and sister pair for their enthusiasm and kindness.

The brother and sister then decided to tell their parents, who lived in Jianyang City, about Falun Dafa since they themselves had already experienced the profoundness of it. Both parents were schoolteachers, and their mother, Mrs. Chen Shubin, who was over 60 years old, had been teaching at the Laolong town elementary school for more than 40 years. She had received honors such as "Excellent Instructor" from the county, "Excellent Teacher" and "3.8 Red Flag Raiser" from the town (March 8^th is the International Women's Day. In China, 3.8 Red Flag Raiser is an honor addressed particularly to women by Chinese Communist government--Translator). After Mrs. Chen Shubin started to practice Falun Dafa, she received honors every year, especially during 1997, when she received five awards. Mrs. Chen underwent surgery at the Eastern China Medical University in Sichuan Province many years before to remove some ossein proliferation from her vertebra. Ever since the operation, she has kept falling ill and has had to take medicine. After reading through the Falun Dafa books that her son sent to her, Mrs. Chen decided to practice cultivation. From then till now, for a period of almost ten years, Chen Shubin has never even smelled any medicine. Their father, Mr. Xu Yizhong, had been teaching for more than 30 years, he was also honored as an "Outstanding Worker" from the city administration. Mr. Xu had many friends and students. When he first came across the Dafa books, he agreed with the principles of "Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance," however, he said that the words inside the books lacked artistic value.

Sometime in June 1995 of the Chinese lunar calendar, it was Mr. Xu's birthday. The weather was extremely hot that day, so after dinner, Mr. Xu suggested that the family go to the playground behind the school to cool down. The four of them went over and sat on the grass, and the son started to practice the meditation exercise. Suddenly, the son shouted, "Look!" Everyone raised their head to see some very mysterious and wonderful formations in the sky above, the four of them stared at the scene for a long time before the formations gradually disappeared. Mr. Xu said that he had never seen such a scene before in his whole life. Starting that very night, Mr. Xu seriously and wholeheartedly began to practice Falun Gong. Mr. Xu's third eye was opened soon afterwards, and he saw a beam of golden light rise from his lower abdomen and shoot out from the top of his head, reaching a very high level. In this way the whole family found themselves on the bright path of practicing the exercises, studying, spreading and validating the Fa.

At that time, there was still no practice or instruction site in Jianyang City. In the summer of 1996, while the schools were closed for the summer break, the family started to spread the Fa to the people in Jianyang City. They brought with them their own hand-copied versions of "Introduction to Falun Gong," "A Brief Biography of Mr. Li Hongzhi," and left their remote small village (Laolong Village) without being encouraged or asked to do so by anyone. At first, they would bring food with them while staying at some friends or relatives' homes. Later, they stayed at the cheapest hotels and ate their own corn cakes. When school resumed after the summer, the parents would leave their village for the city, while the brother and sister would take a bus from Chendu City and go to the city every weekend. The family would meet with 5 or 6 practitioners in the city and study the Fa, practice the exercises and share experiences together. Such a situation lasted for several months. In order to better spread the Fa, the family later rented a house from a farmer in the suburbs of the city and would stay there at night. As time went by, those who had learned the exercises began to more deeply feel the wonders of Dafa, and more and more people came to learn the exercises.

The number of practitioners increased from only a few to more than one thousand by 1997. Every month, these practitioners would hold a "City and Country Group Fa-Study and Exercise Event in Jianyang." The benevolent and calm atmosphere out of the righteousness of the Fa at the event deeply moved many people. People today still vividly remember those days. That was truly orderly without exception, and Fa flags gently wavered in the breeze, beautiful heavenly music filled in the air, and people's hearts were full of joy. Practitioners from the city always rented vans both large and small to drive to the villages to spread the Fa with the relatively rich practitioners paying for the rentals. In this way, most of the towns and villages around Jianyang city had a chance to learn Falun Dafa before July 20, 1999. In 1998, in order to support the "people's movement to improve physical health," some practitioners applied applied and then setup the "Falun Gong Teaching Center" in Jianyang city. The center would be treated as a branch of the governmental bureau of education and sports. (See Jianyang Bureau of Education and Sports Document No.98, Item No. 67 "On the establishment of Jianyang Falun Gong Teaching Center") Later on, these practitioners collected and made a cultivation experience-sharing book "Falun Dafa in Jianyang," this book genuinely recorded the Dafa cultivation situations around Jianyang at that time. In 1999, after April 25th, the public security department collected the statistics on Dafa practitioners that showed that there were more than 6,000 practitioners. As of now, most of these practitioners are still firmly practicing Dafa. A very few of them are doing it privately in their homes while the number of new practitioners is increasing every day. Good-hearted citizens, let's think about it. How can the evil persecution of Falun Gong last any longer?

On April 26, 1999, some public security staff visited Mr. Xu's rented house. Ever since then, this family of four has been firmly validating Dafa under the evil persecution. At midnight on July 19, 1999, dozens of public security staff rushed into Mr. Xu's rented house again, They took away the Falun Dafa books and ransacked the house. Officials from the City Committee, People's Delegation Committee, Municipal Administration, Law and Judicial Committee, Public Security Department, the Education Department, Bureau of Culture and Sports, etc, stayed in a house right in front of Mr. Xu's. They monitored the family 24 hours a day. Every day, officials from various departments would take turns holding "group discussion sessions" with the family. These people didn't know the truth about Falun Gong. Sometimes they would threaten the family with hostility while at other times they would appear very friendly in the talks. Some depraved staff even brought a TV set to Mr. Xu's rented house and forced the family to watch false news. A certain TV reporter came over to report on the family, and the family told the reporter, "Falun Gong has nothing harmful. Everything of it is beneficial to the nation and the people. We will keep on practicing it no matter what. It will take time for our government to learn about Falun Gong, however, the facts should not be compromised!" Later, in separate sessions, each family member was asked to change their minds. When sitting alongside some official who had been sent down from the provincial government specifically to persuade them, Mr. Xu said even before the official opened his mouth, "You don't need to give me your long and disgusting lectures, I am determined to practice Falun Gong." The son, Mr. Xu Changzheng, was illegally detained in a room at the Jianyang Hotel. City Secretary Mr. Wang from Ziyang City came to talk to Xu Changzheng. The talk failed to change Mr. Xu's mind. The mother, Mrs. Chen Shubin, was taken to the family's hometown--of Laolong village. There, officials from the Law and Judicial Committee and Education Department came to talk to Mrs. Chen. They said, "As long as you quit the practice, we will immediately give you the application forms to raise your position; if you keep practicing it, we will fire you and stop your salary. The consequences are unimaginable." The sister, Ms. Xu Yongmei, returned home from Liuzhou City, Guangxi Province. This family of four never changed their minds under either threats or promises. Eventually, the government issued an order to fire both of the parents, and stopped their salaries. In September of 1999, the parents were sent back to Laolong elementary school.

At the year-end of 1999, Xu Changzheng went to Beijing to validate Dafa, and later went to Guangxi Province, there he was arrested along with another practitioner named Bi Yanzhen from Qinhuangdao City. When he was being sent back to his hometown, Mr. Xu escaped. He then joined another practitioner named Song Weizhong who was a military officer from Penglai City, Shandong Province and went together to Guizhou Province, Yunnan Province. In April of 2000, Mr. Xu, along with another practitioner called Tao Changquan from Jianyang, was arrested in Kunming City, Yunnan Province.

Mr. Xu's front teeth were knocked out at the Number 2 Detention Center of Kunming City. 'Mr. Xu and Mr. Tao then went on a hunger strike that lasted for 9 days. Later, both of them were sent back to Jianyang and detained there. Eleven months after their detention in Jianyang, the Tiananmen Square self immolation incident happened. Mr. Xu and Mr. Tao knew that it was yet another slanderous attack on Falun Gong by Jiang's wicked regime, so they decided to go on a hunger strike to demand fair treatment. In the end, Mr. Xu was sentenced to 4 years in prison (Mr. Tao was sentenced to 3 years) and was then sent to the Deyang Prison, Sichuan Province.

In Deyang Prison, Mr. Xu was subjected to numerous kinds of inhuman treatment, such as mob violence, physical abuse, being locked inside a tiny cell, both hands and legs being cuffed, etc. It was still impossible to change Mr. Xu's mind, so Mr. Xu and some other practitioners were transferred to another prison in Zigong City, Sichuan Province. Inside Zigong Prison, Mr. Xu and all the other practitioners united together; they always kept righteous thoughts and righteous behavior; they never buckled under any pressure; and they utilized the wisdom from Dafa to gradually mitigate the evil persecution. In the end, even those villains who had committed murder, arson or other wicked deeds started to learn about Dafa. Mr. Xu and his fellow practitioners would never file a secret report on others (In China, one way of getting noticed or promoted is to file a secret report implicating others to upper management). They also never participated in the prison training, never sang the prison songs and never accepted any hard labor assignments. They took every opportunity to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to the people around them. Those inmates who were asked to monitor practitioners' daily activities also began to learn Dafa. When Mr. Xu was practicing the exercises inside his cell, the inmates would go outside and watch out for him. Mr. Xu lived alone in a cell unit, and three other inmates were assigned to accompany him and monitor his activities. Besides studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, Mr. Xu would also play chess, or practice calligraphy and draw. He took every chance to tell people about the truth of Falun Gong, to save sentient beings, and to suppress the evil at the same time.

In the meantime, the parents, Mr. Xu Yizhong and Mrs. Chen Shubin, were also experiencing the persecution to its full extent. In December of 1999, Mr. Xu was detained for the first time. Just when he was walking into the detention room, some 7 or 8 inmates rushed to him, forced him to stand against the wall with his hands held on his head, then the mob beat him for half an hour. At first, Mr. Xu could feel the pain, later on, he lost the sense of pain, he only knew that fists and feet were beating and kicking his chest. As a result, Mr. Xu was not able to lie down to sleep for half a month. After he returned home, somebody had to lift him up so that he could sit down.

In January 2000, Mr. Xu was illegally detained for the second time. At assembly time, an armed police officer in military boots approached him with a gun in his hands, and yelled maliciously, "So you are the one who's still practicing Falun Gong?" "Yes!" "Why?" He replied, "Falun Gong has nothing harmful, everything of it is beneficial to our nation, any group, any people." No sooner had Mr. Xu finished his words than the policeman kicked him in the ribs so forcefully that Mr. Xu was knocked off his feet and fell to the ground several meters away. Every day, Mr. Xu had to do heavy physical labor, he folded cardboard boxes and picked up shredded tobacco leaves. If he could not finish the assigned tasks on time or if the inmate in charge of the labor thought Mr. Xu had slackened, the inmate in charge would thrash Mr. Xu's head with a thick-knotted rope (the knots were as large as the size of eggs). Some of Mr. Xu's fingers got bruised and Mr. Xu often didn't get enough food to eat. The second detention lasted for several months before Mr. Xu was released. Later on, in March of 2001, in the early months of 2002 and in August of 2002, Mr. Xu was again detained and later released. The longest illegal detention period was 8 months.

Mrs. Chen Shubin was illegally detained briefly in the same place with Mr. Xu Yizhong in December of 1999. In the first month of 2000, both Mrs. Chen and Mr. Xu were arrested again and were released on parole by the Laolong elementary school. One week after the release, Mrs. Chen joined with another practitioner named Wang Cuirong from Laolong elementary school and went to Beijing to validate Dafa. She was later arrested and sentenced to one year in prison (custody outside prison) with all public positions being removed. In the early months of 2002 and in August of 2002, Mrs. Chen was again briefly detained. During one such detention, Mrs. Chen came across an inmate from the countryside. This inmate who had a last name of Zhang, had been said to have committed murder by poisoning to death four members of her husband's family and had been sentenced to death, she was about to be executed. She was illiterate and when she heard about Falun Dafa from Mrs. Chen, she strongly believed in it. On the way to be executed, this inmate kept on reading "truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance" and shouted that she had been wrongly convicted, miraculously she was taken back to the detention room and her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Mrs. Chen also met another woman during her detention. That woman had serious gynopathic illnesses and rheumatism pains; she was also illiterate. However, Mrs. Chen taught her to read one poem from "Hongyin" each day. In one week, the gynopathic illnesses were all gone and this woman also saw Master Li Hongzi's fashen on the wall one time. She said she would definitely learn Dafa when her prison term was over.

During that period of time, the municipal administration of Jianyang City came up with a series of propaganda pictures to slander Falun Dafa, and the whole set would cost more than 60 yuan. It was required that each and every town and village purchase the set. Someone brought one such set to the detention room and hung the pictures there. Practitioners immediately decided to get rid of them to stop further evil influence. They ripped them apart and burnt them while at the same time sending righteous thoughts.

A practitioner called Wang Xuefen from Sichuan's Air Compressor Factory had a very negative environment at home and was unable to practice the exercises there. She also didn't want other practitioners to contact her. As a result of her own misguided thoughts, some evil spirits possessed her. At one time when she was passing out flyers, someone reported her and she was arrested and put into the detention center in Jianyang. As one policeman was accompanying Mrs. Wang to the detention room, the policeman ridiculed her, saying, "Just look at you Falun Gong practitioners!" Mrs. Wang seemed to lose control and involuntarily stretched and then pulled back her neck repeatedly just like a snake. Right at that moment, Mrs. Chen and other practitioners who were also being detained there were very surprised to see it. No one wanted to get close to Mrs. Wang. Mrs. Chen started to talk to her and after some discussion, all the practitioners decided that they would collectively send forth righteous thoughts to help Mrs. Wang. They formed a circle and asked Mrs. Wang to sit right in the middle, and then everyone sent forth righteous thoughts to clean up Mrs. Wang's body. The practitioners who had their third eyes opened said that the Teacher's Fa body took out many things from Mrs. Wang's body such as lizards, spiders; even the longevity god that appeared on Chinese lunar New Year's paintings was also among those that had possessed Mrs. Wang's body. Some practitioners saw that Mrs. Wang's body seemed like a cave. It seemed that a big law wheel pulled some unknown stuff out from within the cave, and immediately turned it into a waft of purple smoke as thick as that of a barrel, after which it rushed outside of the detention room. At that time, the spirit that possessed Wang Xuefen was yelling through Mrs. Wang's mouth: "I am going to die, I can't stand it anymore!" Everybody realized that they should not be merciful to the evil beings and so everyone strengthened the righteous thoughts even more with palms held erect. Practitioners kept on sending forth righteous thoughts for 3 days and all the bad stuff was cleaned up from Mrs. Wang's body. Mrs. Wang thus recovered to normal (Mrs. Wang still follows Teacher's requirements to do things at all times). Every inmate at the scene was completely dumbfounded and even the policeman showed signs of awareness. Around the end of December of 2002, Mr. Xu Yizhong and Mrs. Chen Shubin along with many other Dafa practitioners were again illegally detained on no charges whatsoever. Everyone decided to go on a hunger strike to demand freedom. When food was provided, no one would even look at it. The strike lasted for 3 days and some police officers then asked some so-called medical staff to force-feed the practitioners. All the Dafa practitioners held each other and refused to be fed. As a result, all the practitioners were gradually released without any conditions at all.

In the past five years, Mr. Xu's furniture, clothes, drawing models, teaching books, classic books, series of picture storybooks and living tools have all been taken from his home. The public security station in Laolong and the elementary school confiscated it all, even taking the door lock. Mr. Xu Yizhong receives only a portion of his salary. (Previously he received over 900 yuan. After being released from the detention center he got only 200 yuan. After clarifying the truth and demanding full payment many times, Mr. Xu now gets 400 yuan). Mr. Xu's daughter, Ms. Xu Yongmei, is still illegally detained in Longquanyichuanxi Women's Prison in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. She was illegally sentenced to 4 years in prison because of her insistence on practicing Falun Dafa. There is no detailed information about her yet. Mr. Xu's son-in-law, Mr. Weiyong was also sentenced to one year in prison due to his practice of Falun Dafa. The experience that this whole family has undergone is further strong evidence of the persecution against Falun Gong by Jiang's regime. Kind-hearted citizens, when justice and conscience are under vile attack, please extend you hands. For the sake of ourselves as well as the future happiness of those under persecution, let's work together to stop this inhuman and bloody persecution.