The “Madness” of Brother Xun

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This is a work of narrative nonfiction based on real events.

Everyone had left.

Chantelle and Jason left first. Liza quietly gathered her shawl and slowly disappeared into the night. Gorey’s wife, Angie, collected the leftover tea from the table and turned back into the house. The courtyard, which had been lively only moments before, quickly returned to silence.

The tea on the table had gone cold. The bamboo chairs creaked softly in the night breeze. Gorey did not seem to be in a hurry to leave. He sat there, head lowered, absently tapping at his phone. The faint glow of the screen illuminated a face whose expression was impossible to read.

He tapped the screen for a while, as if hesitating over something.

I looked at him. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”

He did not answer immediately. After a while, he slowly put away his phone and said, “Let me tell you something about Brother Xun.”

I had no idea that the story he was about to tell me would make me understand some things I had never been able to figure out before. The earliest crack between Brother Xun and Liza may not have been caused by anything dramatic at all. It may have been nothing more than a hospital duty roster.

At the time, Liza was still working in obstetrics and gynecology. It was one of the busiest departments in the hospital. Babies never came according to the hospital’s schedule. There were outpatient clinics during the day, emergency cases at night, and women in labor could arrive at any hour. During that period, the hospital’s duty schedule for the OB/GYN department was extremely demanding. Doctors were assigned a major overnight shift roughly every three days. A doctor could finish one shift exhausted, barely have time to recover, and soon find herself facing the next one.

One time, after finishing a shift, Liza was exhausted as she rode her motorcycle home. She had barely reached the hospital gate when she fell and fractured her ankle.

Gorey knew the situation very well because he was an orthopedic doctor. He later took Liza back for another X-ray himself. Not just one simple image — they changed the angle, then changed it again, until they finally found an angle that clearly captured the displacement of the bone. That image fixed the extent of the injury beyond dispute.

For a doctor, a fracture was not merely an injury. It was also a matter of labor rights. Whether it qualified as a workplace injury, how long she should be allowed to rest, and how her benefits should be calculated during recovery — all of it required evidence. What Gorey did was actually very simple: he made sure the evidence was locked down first.

But before the injury had fully healed, the OB/GYN duty schedule remained unchanged.

Eventually, Brother Xun found out.

During working hours, he went to the hospital’s Human Resources Department. He did not know the head of HR personally. He made no appointment and brought no one with him. According to Gorey’s later account, Brother Xun initially kept his posture extremely low. He introduced himself and said:

“I’m Liza’s husband from the OB/GYN department. I’m here today just to ask for a favor.”

His request was not complicated: She had just been injured. Her ankle fracture had not healed. Could they stop assigning her such demanding shifts? Could they give her some time to recover? That was all — just a husband asking his wife’s workplace for a favor.

But the reaction of the head of HR was completely unexpected. The man suddenly slammed his hand on the table:

“Who are you? This is a public institution, not a place for you to come asking for personal favors!”

Brother Xun did not get angry. He simply asked, “So you mean that talking to you about personal feelings or friendship between colleagues would be inappropriate?”

The man replied, “The hospital is extremely busy right now! Everyone has to follow the arrangements!”

Brother Xun asked again, “So you mean we should not talk about personal favors?”

The man answered, “Our Party does not deal in personal favors.”

Gorey paused at this point and looked at me. “Do you know what Brother Xun said?”

I shook my head.

Gorey said: “He said, ‘Fine. Since you don’t deal in personal favors, then let’s talk official business.’”

Brother Xun said nothing more. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his prosecutor’s identification card, and slapped it heavily onto the table. In that instant, the identity of the husband who had just come to ask for a favor suddenly changed.

Brother Xun looked at the head of HR and said, word by word:

“I am the Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Municipal Procuratorate. I am formally notifying you that Article 36 of the Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that workers shall work no more than eight hours per day, with an average weekly working time of no more than forty-four hours; Article 58 explicitly provides special labor protection for female workers.”

Brother Xun pointed at the credentials on the table. His voice was cold as iron:

“This duty schedule in your OB/GYN department — one major shift every three days, forcing an injured female employee to work excessive hours — is a serious violation of the Labor Law and the Regulations on Labor Protection of Female Employees. What specific basis do you have for this? Which rule or regulation authorizes you to do this? Explain it to me. Today.”

The head of HR suddenly became flustered. “Our hospital has its own special circumstances! You see…”

Brother Xun did not argue any further. He simply said, “If you do not correct this illegal situation, at three o’clock this afternoon, I will return with my team in formal uniform to officially interrogate you.”

He picked up his credentials and walked out. No explanation. Not another word. Just moments earlier, he had been there asking for a favor. Now, he was conducting official business.

Brother Xun never came back at three — because by noon, the duty schedule had already been changed. The director of the OB/GYN department stepped in to coordinate, and the matter was quietly swept under the rug. In terms of the outcome, Brother Xun seemed to have achieved his goal: an injured doctor had finally been given some breathing room.

But that was exactly where the real trouble began.

When Liza returned home that day and learned what had happened, she did not thank Brother Xun. Instead, she tore into him:

“What were you thinking? Why did you go to my workplace and throw your weight around? This is my unit! What am I supposed to do in my department after you pull something like that?”

When I heard this, I was speechless. Gorey said nothing either. The only sound left in the courtyard was the faint rattling of the kettle as the water came to a boil.

And then, in a sudden flash, everything became clear to me. I finally understood Liza’s hysteria back then.

To Brother Xun, it had been nothing more than a righteous defense of his wife’s rights — a crushing, top-down display of authority. He could slap his credentials onto the table and then walk back to the procuratorate that afternoon, continuing his work as Deputy Director. But Liza could not. The next morning, she still had to walk back into that same department alone — to face the head of HR whom her husband had publicly confronted, the department director who had been bypassed, and countless colleagues looking at her sideways.

Brother Xun had used the hardest possible method to “save” his wife from physical overwork, but in doing so, he had pushed her completely into an island of social isolation within the unit. Brother Xun reduced everything to rules, law, and right versus wrong. But Liza had to face the long-term terror of being marginalized in everyday reality. What she felt at that moment was not the warmth of being protected, but the despair and humiliation of being shoved off a cliff.

Gorey slid his finger across his phone screen. His voice grew heavy. “That’s how they gradually broke apart, step by step.”

I asked, “So was this where their divorce really began?”

Gorey nodded. He did not elaborate.

Silence fell over the courtyard once again. Suddenly, I remembered Brother Xun from that night not long before. He had sat there drinking tea and saying he was going to take a Didi all the way to Beijing. Others tried to persuade him to let it go, but he insisted he had to go do what he believed was right.

When he encountered a problem, he seemed never to ask first, “Will this offend someone?” Instead, he asked, “Is this right?” If emotion failed, he used reason. If reason failed, he invoked the rules. And if the rules failed, he really would put his prosecutor’s card on the table.

He took it all so seriously.

But what if the system itself had never been intended to operate by the rules?

The old soldier with syphilis had taught me that a person can be unafraid of death, but cannot afford to live without armor. What Gorey told me tonight was another kind of armor. When you live inside an institution, you need to know when to keep your mouth shut, when to bow your head, and when to leave someone else a way out — a little room for dignity and face.

Brother Xun seemed not to understand any of this. Or perhaps he understood it, but simply refused to play that game. He could easily have approached the head of HR as a prosecutor and asked for a personal favor. Naturally, the head of HR would have obliged. But what if the head of HR later came to the prosecutor asking for a favor in return? Would you grant it?

Everyone pushed the power in their hands to its absolute limit, trading favors to build network leverage. But when everyone does that, everyday life becomes a minefield for everyone.

Many years later, when people began casually summing him up with the words “he’s gone crazy,” I would always think of this detail. A truly out-of-control person would not first lower himself to ask for a favor before pulling out his trump card.

What we call “madness” may simply be a man doing the exact same thing, year after year: Others told him to let it go, while he pulled out his credentials and told them —

“Then let’s talk official business.”

Gorey sat across from me and looked at me in silence for a long time.

“Tell me,” he said with a bitter smile. “Was she supposed to choose her workplace, or choose her husband? Either way, it was a dead end.”

He paused, took a deep breath, and lowered his voice. “Liza was in a dead end. I’m in one now, too. The hospital director is retiring in six months, and suddenly he wants to promote me to deputy department director. He’s held me down for all these years, never even letting me lead an independent team. And now, right before he leaves, he hands me this ‘generous gift.’

“The equipment he bought has always been running in the department. According to the hospital’s long-standing ‘unspoken rule,’ once you become the head of the department, this ‘customary cut’ naturally comes your way. Would you take it?”

As Gorey spoke, his eyes turned cold. “When the old director retires six months from now, that channel will be cut instantly. But once you accept that money for six months, you’re bound to him for life. If you refuse now, you offend him immediately. If you accept, you become his human shield when the music stops.”

Gorey lowered his head. “The sharpest blades in the system are always handed to you wrapped in sugar.”

I asked no more questions. The night breeze swept through the courtyard, dispersing the steam from the tea.

That night, I finally understood why Gorey had told me about Brother Xun. He wasn’t just talking about Brother Xun — he was talking about how much choice any of us really have when backed into a dead end.

I thought for a long time. Gorey wasn’t asking me what to do; he was looking to validate the answer he had already formed in his heart. I slowly said: “Take it. But make sure there’s a paper trail for every cent. If the old director ever gets dragged down, those records will be your escape hatch — proof that we were coerced. Return the money then, and you can land safely on shore.”

Gorey looked at me and let out a long, helpless sigh.

I suddenly remembered something Brother Xun had said to us years ago after a few drinks. At the time, we thought he was being overly radical. But looking back now, every word cut straight to the bone.

Brother Xun had sneered back then:

“You actually think you’re the elite? Keeping doctors’ legitimate incomes low and forcing you into the gray zone — that is precisely the most hidden, most ruthless way the system controls highly skilled professionals. It refuses to let you earn a dignified living, leaving open only a back alley for kickbacks. As long as everyone’s hands are dirty, everyone becomes obedient and easy to control. Doctors taking kickbacks might look greedy, but in reality, they’re nothing more than disposable tools at the bottom of a massive rent-seeking chain. Strip off that white coat — in the eyes of absolute power, how are you any different from a girl at a retail store hustling jeans on commission?”

The night had grown late. Gorey picked up his cup, took a sip of cold tea, and said nothing more. He stood up, bade farewell, and his silhouette soon dissolved into the long darkness of the night.

(To be continued)