The Miraculous Power of 500 Letters

　In Taiwan, he was once a "powerful" figure. From fighting and brawling to joining the triad, he stole, robbed, extorted, blackmailed, opened casinos and call-girl stations, and did everything. He alone had six brand-name pistols made in the United States and Italy, and even, there are few sniper rifles even in the mafia. He was wanted by the police with a reward of 300,000 NTD and was in jail from the age of 19 until he was 26. There are more than 30 prisons in Taiwan, and he has stayed in 14 of them, including the famous Green Island Prison on the East China Sea of Taiwan. Due to his many escapes and recaptures, the prison authorities had to take special measures against him. For a long period, he was always shackled and immobilized. Sometimes, the prison authorities nailed three pairs of shackles weighing 12 kilograms each to his ankles at the same time.

　　Around Christmas 1975, he was serving his sentence at Green Island when he suddenly received a letter from a college girl. After reading the letter, he realized that the person who wrote to him was the sister of a high school classmate. It is undoubtedly a happy thing for a prisoner to receive a letter because at least it shows that there are people in this world who care about him. And letters from a girl's hand will give people more imagination, at least, will also meet some of the recipient's vanity. He wrote back to her as he was idle in jail anyway. To his surprise at first, this became the beginning of a great deal of correspondence between them.

　　The girl because her brother had received some kind of benefit from him, to repay him, but also to try to save a heart has been rotten, she has insisted on writing to him. But he was "an uncarved piece of rotten wood" and escaped from prison once again after receiving more than ten letters from the girl. Of course, the result was nothing but to be recaptured once again. He thought that the girl would not care about him anymore, but he was wrong. From that time on, the girl's letters were more than constant, at most, almost one a day. In the letter, she had this to say, "I'm in heaven on earth, and you are the big bad guy who does nothing but evil and even the world is disgusted. If you do not see your sins as dirt, we will be enemies of different worlds." She also set up the question, "When clothes are dirty, wash them with soap; when a man's soul is defiled, what is needed to cleanse it?" Slowly, an unruly heart was touched. When he received the 250th letter from the girl, he finally called it "a letter from heaven" from his heart. At that moment, he saw the sunshine of his own heart.

　　So, he was enlightened - the body in jail, the mind can not be in jail; in prison, the mind to break the shackles.

　　In her subsequent letters, he took the opportunity to learn spoken English from two American convicts when he was locked up with them; he took the time to recite English words in the confinement room; he asked the prison authorities to help him find various books to satisfy his thirst for reading; he took the initiative to help the prison authorities to ease the minds of other prisoners, so much so that there was a new and unprecedented order inside the prison. On November 19, 1979, he changed into clean clothes and stepped out of the prison gates for the first time in a dignified manner. He carried with him a canvas bag containing only the 500 letters she had written to him. On the plane to Taipei, between the clear blue sky and the white puffy clouds, he cried out in tears.

　　The only person who greeted him at the airport in Taipei was her. Soon after, he and she got married.

　　After that, he went to the United States to study. In 2004, he set his sights on the mainland, on his long-cherished Peking University, and set his sights on his third degree, a doctorate in philosophy from Peking University. His autobiography "Sheathing the Knife", a complete record of his legendary life from prisoner to doctor, has been published. The rights to adapt the book for film and television have been bought by a Hollywood movie company. He wrote in the book, "I put away the knife to kill, but I manipulated another knife - hopefully a scalpel to children who have committed a crime." He also said, "It doesn't matter if you don't play well in the first half of life, there's still the second half. Just work hard!" I want to tell people who read my story that people can be transformed."

　　Perhaps you have already guessed, he is the famous triad leader Lu Daihao; she is Lu Daihao's current wife, Chen Shiao-ling. When I saw the gentle, bookish Lü Daihao on CCTV 4's "Fate", I couldn't connect him on the screen with the evil-doer he was back then. When I saw the "family photo" of Lv Daihao, Chen Xiaoling, and their two lovely daughters, I couldn't relate it to the road they had traveled together. However, this is a living fact.

　　Of course, other specific factors contributed to Lu Daihao's transformation in prison. But there is no doubt that the 500 letters written to him by Chen Xiaoling were the most important reason. Even if these 500 letters are gathered together, they are just a pile of paper that is not very heavy. However, it is a pile of paper with magical power. In a sense, it is more powerful than a cage, more powerful than shackles. Because, it can enter a person's mind, and enough to make the person's mind break through all the shackles.

*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***