"You foreigners you are ruining Taishi," they screamed. "You write write write so much about what's happened here that all these businesses have fled the new industrial zone."
My head was spinning. I was in a mixed state of shock at what has happened to Lu and utter fear for my life. I shamelessly begged. I prayed. I offered them money. I tried to smile at them.
Random people came up to Lu and kicked him in the head, clearing their nose of snot on his body, spitting on him, peeing on him, showing off for each other. I had no idea what to do. I stood there, sweating, my hands ripping my hair out, just staring at the blood all over the man who had risked his life to help me.
An ambulance came. The medic got out, checked his pulse and left. Then it hit me: I'd done absolutely nothing to save Lu Banglie. I stood there watching. I'm trained as a medic, and I did nothing to save Lu Banglie. Absolutely nothing.
They put us in a car, told us we were being taken for interrogation. On the way the men joke, laugh and we shake.
Lu spent his adult life working to empower villagers and to get the attention of Beijing and the world. He was beaten up many times, had scars all over his body. This was part of his work.
They put us at a conference table with flowers and spring water. About 15 officials sat round it and politely questioned us, videotaping the interaction as if it were a TV show.
"Why did you come to Taishi? Why did you meet Lu Banglie? How did you meet him?" they asked.
"We are not interested in the reception of media interviews of any kind at this juncture in time," one official explains. His superior arrives: Qi Hong, associate director of the government news office in Guangzhou.
"China is open to foreigners," she said.
"We welcome any journalists in Guangzhou, but if you don't follow the proper procedures how can we guarantee your safety?" she added.
The orchestrater of Lu's beating sits at the table, eyes bloodshot, arms crossed at an angle, his elbow jutting into the air as if to show his extreme disinterest in us.
They said we had broken the law by coming here without permission. We apologized. That is all, that is how the night ended.
We walked out of the government building, still being filmed, across the lawn, past the Chinese flag at high mast, and into the car. They waved and smiled, filming us as we drove off.
The last words of Lu Banglie I wrote down were: "The police cover their asses. They employ all these thugs whose lives mean nothing to them to kill you. That's why once we are in this we can't go out."
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