My name is Zhang Bing. My best friend Li Qiang and I both made it out of the mountains of Yunnan to attend college. In the city, we worked for a salary of 3,000 yuan a month, so poor we had to count every penny just to pay rent. At twenty-nine, I was still unmarried, and my younger siblings back home were waiting for money. The pressure of everyday life was suffocating.
Our boss, Mr. Qian, said there was a high-paying opportunity overseas. We believed him.
The moment we set foot in Myanmar, we learned it was hell. Barbed wire, electric batons, water dungeons, live burials... In the scam compounds, human lives were worth less than grass. Brother Bao was a demon. Beatings, abuse, forced scamming, organ trafficking: it all happened every day.
Li Qiang and I were separated and tortured. I watched them break my friend’s leg and drag away people who never came back. They treated us like human livestock. If we failed to meet our targets, we died.
To make it home alive, I endured the pain and hid my fury, carving out a way to survive in hell.
This isn’t a novel. It’s the true story of how I fought for my life to escape
There is no heaven in northern Myanmar. To make it home alive is a blessing.
This book is well written, very real, and makes people immersed in it, as if they are experiencing it themselves. I hope everyone will not believe in high-paying foreign employment and pie-in-the-sky. Free things are often the most expensive, and sometimes they even cost a lifetime.