Free God's Double Agent by Bob Fu Page B

walked into an auditorium filled with studying students, I got so frustrated that I made a rather rash decision. I reached for the light switch and turned it off.
    The lights flickered, then went completely dark. I heard a few gasps coming from the now dark room.
    “Do I have your attention?” I yelled into the dark auditorium. “Why are you so numb?”
    “Turn the lights back on,” a guy in the back of the room yelled. “Unless you’re going to take my exam for me.”
    Some students giggled.
    “I’ll turn them back on, after you hear me out,” I said. “Don’t you know the Beijing students are already acting for our country’s future? And yet, you sit here? You, who still have the luxury of studying. But how can you just sit, with your books open on your desks like nothing is going on in the world?”
    No one spoke, but I could tell by the silence that the students began listening. I flicked the lights back on. “You’re so concerned about your grades and your future, but you aren’t willing to fight for it. Come on, everyone. Let’s go!”
    Amazingly, a student in the back of the auditorium got up. Then, another. And another. Pretty soon, a large number of students followed me right out of the room and out into the campus. This time, I didn’t care about a permit. We were advocating for the right things, and I wasn’t going to be stopped because I didn’t have the right piece of paper.
    “Anti-corruption!” we yelled as we walked down the streets. As we marched, our numbers swelled.

    “Xiqiu!” I heard from a side street. When I turned around and saw the man from the propaganda department running toward me, I was ready to defend myself. After all, he had previously admonished me in an ominous tone, threatening me. Dread filled me, but I tried to push it out of my mind. They couldn’t make me disappear like they had Bruce. After all, there were even professors walking alongside us!
    “You can’t stop me,” I said, preemptively. “What we’re saying is good and right.”
    “We don’t want to stop you,” he said, a little out of breath. Behind him, a guy carrying two portable speakers emerged. “We want to join you!” The student protest in Beijing seemed to have softened the whole nation. There was something about the peaceful protest that penetrated the very essence of the nation.
    We took the loudspeakers and continued our march, drawing even more people out of the dorms and classrooms. Students from all levels and disciplines joined me. Even more teachers followed.
    “Look!” someone yelled, pointing to a university car following slowly behind the parade. “It’s President Ming!” The president of the school, my friend and ally, waved out his window at me. It made me walk even faster and shout even louder. After all, I knew he’d be on our side.
    “Higher wages!” we yelled.
    The campus the next morning was electrified by the protests. People began to skip classes in solidarity with the Beijing students. One friend hung a bedsheet from his window with the word freedom written in his own blood.
    It was meaningful and exciting to be a part of something that was larger than us. “There are a lot of people fed up with this system,” I remarked to my fellow student union leaders a few days later as we gathered to plan our next moves. “Our student union really helped enact change.” However, deep down, I was secretly proud of myself, thinking I was the true catalyst behind the movement.

    “What should we do next?” one of the leaders asked. “What’s our next move?”
    “Actually, I think we should disband,” I said.
    “Are you sick?” the union secretary asked. “We just successfully created the first protest at Liaocheng Teacher’s College!”
    “But our group is Communist school–approved,” I explained. “And we’re ushering in a new day! Now we advocate for freedom!”
    “Should we not protest?”
    “No, we should,” I said. “But only after we disassociate