Zhou Yiying had never faced a state organ like the People's Internal Affairs Commission, nor did she know the responsibilities of the People's Internal Affairs Commission. If she knew now, she would probably be too scared to speak. Perhaps thanks to "ignorance," Zhou Yiying could at least conduct a relatively smooth conversation with these comrades from the People's Internal Affairs Commission. In these conversations, she could feel that these people were extremely difficult to deal with.

No coercion or intimidation, no loud voices; the members of the People's Internal Affairs Commission just asked questions one by one according to the pre-formulated questions, and then recorded the answers. Besides this, they had no questions out of their own feelings at all, let alone any expressions out of their own emotions. These few people were cold as if dealing with things completely unrelated to themselves: questions, answers, recording.

The questions asked did not involve any personal subjective thoughts, only about the various existences of reality. Nothing more than time, place, people, events.

In this counter-revolutionary rebellion incident of Liu Yongyi, Zhou Yiying's role and experience were not complicated. As the Director of the Women's Federation of Liujiapu District, Wuhe County, one of the tasks Zhou Yiying received was to be a model of women's liberation and become a labor model in the district. To become a labor model among the masses, one must show first-class practical achievements in agricultural work. Liujiapu District was the first base area officially pioneered by the People's Party outside the Fengtai County Base Area. With the help and leadership of the troops, thousands of mu of winter wheat were finally planted in time at the end of last year. This part of the land was temporarily considered public fields. According to the plan, the comprehensive land reform in Wuhe County would be carried out after the wheat harvest. At this stage, the land distributed to each family was for temporary planting.

After receiving the task, Zhou Yiying began to work with new farm tools. The shiny new farm tools attracted the attention of the common people very much. Zhou Yiying, a woman, could actually reclaim land alone relying on this farm tool; as farmers, the common people naturally couldn't help but pay attention. A few days ago, after Zhou Yiying finished farm work, she visited the common people in the fort as usual. A family surnamed Liu finally asked about the new farm tools. According to the training, Zhou Yiying immediately began to describe the latest "Peasant Association Loan Scheme." As long as the common people who joined the Peasant Association cultivated the distributed "temporary planting land," they could borrow new farm tools from the Peasant Association for free.

Farmers have always been extremely interested in free things, let alone these very excellent farm tools. In order to penetrate the grassroots as soon as possible, the People's Party could be said to have exhausted all its abilities. Free lending of farm tools was one of the killer moves. Sure enough, this peasant household immediately showed great interest. The hostess was very interested in this, but the host of the family couldn't help saying a word of opposition: "What's the rush? Wait until Liu Yongyi and the others come back; who knows what will happen."

Zhou Yiying cared about this sentence very much; she reported this matter when reporting work. Then, the host of this family was suddenly taken away. A few days later, when Liu Yongyi launched an attack on the fort, he was caught in one net by the troops ambushed in advance. Zhou Yiying knew absolutely nothing about what happened in between.

The inquiry lasted for quite a while. Zhou Yiying was baffled by those almost identical questions. The comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission asked extremely detailed questions; every small matter had to correspond to time, place, people, and events. Except for no coercion, it was almost exactly the same as interrogating prisoners. Zhou Yiying tried several times to ask the comrades opposite what exactly this was for. But the comrades opposite only told Zhou Yiying that this was a routine inquiry. Zhou Yiying just needed to answer questions by seeking truth from facts.

When hearing the order that she could leave the office at the end of the inquiry, Zhou Yiying only felt a burst of relief in her heart, and the feeling of exhaustion immediately surged into her heart. Compared with being questioned, working in the fields all day was not so tired.

Leaving the office, Zhou Yiying went to the County Party Secretary's office first. She saw Secretary Wu Liao also working on official business with a tired face. Seeing Zhou Yiying come in, Wu Liao stopped the work in his hands and asked with concern: "Director Zhou, these people didn't make things difficult for you, right?"

How did organizational questioning become making things difficult? Zhou Yiying didn't quite understand, but being asked by Wu Liao like this, Zhou Yiying suddenly felt she indeed seemed to have been made difficult. While thinking about this, Wu Liao had already pulled a stool for Zhou Yiying to sit down. "What did they ask?"

Zhou Yiying found this question hard to answer. The comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission asked so many questions, so fragmentary and specific. Really asking her to say what was asked, she couldn't give a definition instead. Zhou Yiying had to answer: "They just asked me what exactly happened, and nothing else."

Hearing Zhou Yiying's answer, Wu Liao said slightly depressingly: "I already wrote a report and submitted it. After they came, they didn't listen to what I said, just asked about the matter again. They questioned all personnel related to this matter once. And asked so much, so detailed. That bunch of people clearly don't trust us."

Zhou Yiying listened to Wu Liao complaining, but didn't know what to say. She was just a Women's Federation Director in the district, far from Wu Liao's status. Wu Liao could only complain but dared not confront the comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission directly; what could she, a sesame-sized small cadre, say?

"Forget it, let's not talk about it." Wu Liao gave up the plan to continue complaining after saying a few words of complaint. "Since you are here anyway, let's just talk about work. What do the masses in Liujiapu think about the Peasant Association? Are there many new people joining the Peasant Association?"

When Liujiapu was just conquered and the new regime established, the attitudes of local people in Liujiapu towards the People's Party presented two almost opposite attitudes. The common people inside the fort naturally didn't like the People's Party; their temporary silence was merely out of fear of the local troops. While the common people who had besieged the fort firmly supported the new regime.

When the People's Party troops began to plant winter wheat, the attitude of the common people inside the fort changed. No matter what, the common people had to eat. Although the People's Party taking over the granary inside the fort made these common people dissatisfied, these common people were not the owners of the granary after all; the granaries were managed by landlords and clans like Liu Eighth Master. Instead, the winter wheat planted by the People's Party in the name of public fields was the key. Since it was "public fields," it meant the grain was to be taken out and shared with everyone. The disaster year didn't just affect one year's harvest; life in the one or two years after the great disaster would be very miserable. Being able to restore basic field planting so quickly meant that as long as there were no continued natural disasters, the harvest of the second year was still basically guaranteed.

A charter was set at the local meeting convened by the People's Party. Thirty percent of the harvested winter wheat planted belonged to the People's Party government. The remaining harvest was distributed per capita, distributing one year's grain at one jin of ration per person per day. If there was a surplus, this part of the grain would be placed in the county for unified allocation as reserve grain. What the common people of Liujiapu had to do was to provide labor to take care of the crops.

In these years, the cost of hiring able-bodied laborers was not low. Thousands of elite laborers of the troops played a huge role in this planting. Plus the seeds were also provided by the People's Party; the common people actually took advantage of quite a bit. So this charter was passed. Consequently, the masses' resistance to the People's Party also decreased a lot. On this basis, the People's Party began to organize local Peasant Associations and provide new-style iron farm tools to the common people for free.

These works were all preparations for the large-scale implementation of comprehensive land reform after the summer harvest. Wu Liao was very anxious about this work. If land reform could not be completed by taking advantage of the natural disaster opportunity to establish the foundation of the new system, future work would be extremely difficult. So although the comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission brought him considerable unhappiness, compared with the immediate work, this bit of unhappiness was nothing at all.

Wu Liao began to discuss his own work, and the comrades of the People's Internal Affairs Commission were also discussing work. The leader this time was Qi Huishen. Although he looked calm when talking, when only the comrades of the committee remained, everyone also showed tired expressions. The questioned comrades had other work to do, but Qi Huishen and the others could only ask constantly, inquire constantly. This was also a severe test for their spirit and physical strength.

"Secretary Qi, is it a bit too harsh for us to do this to the comrades?" The one asking was Bi Qingshan. He was a new comrade brought by Qi Huishen from Shanghai. Bi Qingshan was from Taiyuan, Shanxi. During the Gengzi Incident, Shanxi destroyed churches very severely. As a result, foreigners demanded Shanxi not only restore churches but also build church schools vigorously. As a result, Bi Qingshan studied in a church school, accepted new ideas, and could speak fluent English with a Shanxi accent. After graduating from high school, Bi Qingshan went to Shanxi University. Reading Chen Ke's work *The Rise of Materialism and Chinese Cultural Inheritance* in the school, he and several classmates felt they found the leader in their hearts. They simply ran to Shanghai together to visit Chen Ke. But Chen Ke had already arrived in Anhui at that time; these young people only met Qi Huishen. After chatting with Qi Huishen, these people simply chose to enter Shanghai Renxin Medical College to study medicine. When Qi Huishen went to the base area, Bi Qingshan firmly requested to come along. After receiving training at the Party School, Bi Qingshan became a staff member of the newly formed People's Internal Affairs Commission.

Hearing Bi Qingshan's question, other comrades also had some similar thoughts. Everyone looked at Qi Huishen, wanting to hear how this secretary who began to gradually undertake the party and government work of the People's Party would answer.

"Qingshan, if without our investigation, someone suddenly says after a period of time that this Comrade Zhou Yiying had connections with bandits like Liu Yongyi. She reported these bandits only because she wanted to protect herself and had to betray her accomplices. Tell me, what should we do then?"

"It would still be in time to investigate then, right?" Bi Qingshan replied.

"Investigate then? Look at this Comrade Zhou Yiying's answer." Qi Huishen pointed to the inquiry record. "These places are obviously contradictory."

Several young comrades gathered around to look. Sure enough, Zhou Yiying said in the front that she just heard about Liu Yongyi's problem, and later said she specially asked about Liu Yongyi's matter. And regarding the question of time, there were also discrepancies before and after. Some mentioned morning, some mentioned afternoon. After reading these, the young comrades all frowned.

Looking at the vigilant expressions of the comrades, Qi Huishen couldn't help laughing: "I'm not saying there is any problem with this Comrade Zhou Yiying. Comrade Zhou Yiying has no problem; she has sufficient vigilance. But, from these answers, one can see the changes in Comrade Zhou Yiying's emotions. If she only answered questions by seeking truth from facts, there would only be erroneous memories of time, not differences between active inquiry and passive inquiry. Erroneous memory of time is because everyone is busy and didn't remember clearly. This kind of omission is very normal. But this contradiction between active inquiry and passive hearing is a problem of mentality."

Hearing Qi Huishen's words, Bi Qingshan thought for a while before asking: "Secretary Qi means, active inquiry appears very meritorious, while passive hearing is just duty work?"

"About like this." Qi Huishen expressed agreement with Bi Qingshan's analysis.

Bi Qingshan frowned slightly. "From our overall inquiry situation, Comrade Zhou Yiying only heard passively; she went to the masses' homes only for Peasant Association work matters. It had nothing to do with Liu Yongyi's matter. Isn't this telling lies?"

"Qingshan, you don't need to raise it to the level of principle like this. For Comrade Zhou Yiying, this is not telling lies, but a problem of mentality. According to what Chairman Chen said during our training, this is also human nature." Qi Huishen laughed. After laughing, his expression became serious again. "However, if this matter hasn't passed for a few days, and everyone hasn't had time to have so many thoughts, the emotion of claiming credit in this mentality has already changed the stated content somewhat. Without our current investigation, investigating again later, how much of this personal emotional stuff do you think will be in the intelligence obtained then?"