(Minghui.org) My name is Zhang Yulan and I am 67 years old. I began to practice Falun Gong in 1998. After the persecution started in 1999, I was arrested on March 31, 2002 and was sentenced to eight years in jail. I was released after seven years and two months.
During this huge tribulation, I got through the long days and nights by trying to recall the passages from Zhuan Falun, which I had memorized. With Master Li’s care and protection, I survived and was able to get out of jail alive.
Fed Unknown Drugs Secretly
After the first three years, the prison officials saw that they weren’t able to “transform” me, so they started to secretly put unknown drugs into my food and drink. I found out after I noticed that my body and hands started to shake for no reason.
One day, a criminal inmate named Zhang Yufeng who monitored me was getting me a cup of water, and I saw she used a small piece of paper to pour something into the cup. I shouted, “You are putting drugs in my drink!”
I then walked straight to the office of Li Hong, who was the captain of the jail’s fourth section. I angrily asked her, “Why did you tell Zhang Yufeng to put drugs in my drink?”
She saw that I had found out, and just said, “We don’t have a choice. We are forced by our superiors.”
“Why are you all trying to make me die?” I asked. She replied, “You won’t die. You will just suffer.” I said, “From now on you cannot put drugs into my food and drinks!” She said, “We have all kinds of methods!” Since then I watched my food and water very closely. But, after I was released I found out that they had mixed the drugs into the flour that our buns were made from.
I used to sleep really well. But after having been given these drugs, I couldn’t sleep for two days and nights. Then I started to lose my vision, experienced paralysis of my legs, and needed help even to walk. During the daytime I couldn’t eat, and at night my body ached so much that I couldn’t sleep. I lost a lot of weight. Another strange symptom was that I constantly sweat, and my face was often soaking wet. However, I felt really cold and even though it was summer, I wore cotton insulated shoes and two layers of cotton insulated pants.
After three months, my breathing was becoming weak and I felt as if I would stop breathing at any time. But even with me dying like that, they still tortured me. In the end I gave up and said I wouldn’t practice anymore. Then, they finally allowed me to lay down on a bed for a little bit. But after saying that I wouldn’t practice anymore, I mentally crashed, and my condition worsened.
My husband visited me and then told the rest of my family, “She only has a few days left to live.” He sold my apartment and took away all my stuff except a piano.
Just as I was lying there dying and as everything was falling apart, I vaguely felt that the book Zhuan Falun was sitting on top of my chest. I realized that Master was hinting. There were no Falun Gong books in jail. In the first three years, I studied the Fa by trying to recall Zhuan Falun, which I had read many times in the past.
But since the time they started to use drugs on me, I was in too much physical pain to recall it. So I had stopped for three months. Those three months were the days that I preferred to die.
Returning to Falun Gong: Master Helps Me Recall Zhuan Falun
I again began to recall the Fa despite the severe pain. I tried my hardest and couldn’t stop recalling no matter what the evil people were saying to me. Even when I only remembered a couple of sentences, I would repeatedly go through them in my mind.
Every day, I started recalling from 1 a.m. to dawn, and then from dawn to 9 p.m. Zhuan Falun has nine lectures and 60 subtopics. Every day I went through the entire book once. Master helped me by putting more and more of the Fa into my mind, so slowly I was able to remember more and more. Day after day, month after month, I wouldn’t stop, no matter what. My body was gradually recovering and I felt that I wouldn’t die anymore. Even though my legs and eyes were eventually left with disabilities, I lived.
Two years later, my hands were able to do some work and my legs were able to move me around a little bit. I no longer needed to wear insulated pants. I went to the jail guards and told them that anything I said during those days about not practicing was invalid.
Experiencing the Power of Falun Gong
They then surrounded me with about seven people to “transform” me. These people were once practitioners who gave up Falun Gong. One of them had last name Sun. She was over 30 years old and was a teacher.
After about two months, on the same day, she and I received notices from the places we worked before we were arrested. The notice I received was for getting me the retirement pension, and was asking for my personal ID. Hers was notifying her that she had been fired.
She cried very loudly. She used to think that since she agreed to be “transformed” and also agreed to try to “transform” others, she would receive a reduced sentence, being able to get out of the jail earlier and return to work. She never thought that she would be fired instead. This obvious contrast between her outcome and mine shocked all the others and they all stopped trying to “transform” me.
During those seven years, other than putting drugs into my food and drinks, the evil guards had also used all sorts of cruel torture methods to try to destroy my will. These included the iron chair, cages, iron chains, and so on. I relied on continuously recalling Falun Gong and I survived. I believe this is the power of Falun Gong.
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