"As for Ma Jingjing, I've never heard Wang Peng talk about her before, and this time I only knew about this person after reading the news online." Wang Jianhua told the reporter that she had no idea about any enmity between Wang and Ma. In Wang Jianhua's eyes, apart from being academically excellent, Wang Peng was also very righteous. Every time he saw news on the Internet about corrupt officials, cheating, or the privileged rich second generation oppressing the poor, he would express strong disgust. Sometimes, he would joke sarcastically: "Who can compete with people whose parents are wealthy and powerful?"
"The accused" remained silent throughout.
"What attracted me about him was his maturity and righteousness," Wang Jianhua said, "Wang Peng, as an outstanding graduate teacher at Wuhan University, was teaching us freshmen study skills, and this opportunity wasn't easily obtained by just any student."
On November 23, Wang Peng was criminally detained by the Wuzhong Public Security Bureau in Ningxia for allegedly slandering his university classmate Ma Jingjing and her family, which drew nationwide media attention. On December 2, after being detained for 9 days, Wang Peng was released. Throughout the entire process, the other party involved - Ma Jingjing and her parents - never made an appearance regarding the matter. It wasn't until the evening of December 2 that Ma Jingjing first appeared on CCTV's "News 1+1".
Before Wang Peng was released, on the morning of December 1, when the reporter went to interview at the Wuzhong Public Security Branch, a police officer there stated that Ma Jingjing had rushed from Yinchuan to Wuzhong to accept a media interview and explain the truth of the matter, but Ma Jingjing never showed up that day. The reporter had repeatedly called the office of the Youth League Committee of Yinchuan Municipal Party Committee, and Ma Jingjing's colleagues who answered the phone all claimed she wasn't in the office, and they were not in a position to comment on Ma Jingjing or the matter at hand. When the reporter interviewed at the Wuzhong Municipal Government Office Building on the 7th floor, a staff member informed the reporter that CPPCC Vice Chairman Ding Lanyu "wasn't available these two days due to certain matters."
On the afternoon of December 2, the reporter went to Ma Jingjing's home in the Yin塔 residential area in Wuzhong to attempt an interview. Upon knocking on the door, a middle-aged man asked through the security door about the reporter's identity and purpose. He eventually replied that neither Ma Jingjing nor her father was at home, and Ding Lanyu had gone to a rural home 11 kilometers away from the urban area. The middle-aged man, claiming to be a distant relative of Ma Jingjing's family, refused to open the door or reveal his specific identity. A resident of the Yin塔 residential area told the reporter that the two-story independent courtyard where Ding Lanyu lived was part of the public-funded housing in the Yin塔 residential area. They rarely interacted with Ding Lanyu's family and weren't familiar with their situation, but they often saw a black Volkswagen Touareg picking up and dropping off Ding Lanyu.
As for whether Wang Peng lost his eligibility for a postgraduate recommendation due to Ma Jingjing's report, Wang Jianhua expressed that she had absolutely no knowledge of it. However, a few days ago, she saw someone post on Lanzhou University's website, saying that "Ma Jingjing reported Wang Peng, causing him to lose his qualification for postgraduate recommendation, and now Wang Peng is reporting Ma Jingjing for cheating in the civil service exam." Regarding this statement, Wang Jianhua indicated that perhaps some classmates of Wang Peng might know more about the situation.
Subsequently, the reporter attempted to contact Ding Lanyu through the Publicity Department of the Wuzhong Municipal Committee but failed. The reporter also tried telephoning the Poverty Alleviation and Development Office of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, but the staff there claimed Ma Chonglin was out of the office these two days and couldn't be reached.
What surprised Wang Jianhua was that since last September, after Wang Peng came to work in Lanzhou, except for going to work, he was mostly with her, yet she had no idea that Wang Peng had been continuously reporting Ma Jingjing. "According to the police, Wang Peng had repeatedly reported her multiple times, but I really found it hard to understand because I thought he was satisfied with his current job, got along well with his colleagues, and spent his free time reading books at home. I felt he simply didn't have the time or interest to do these things!"
The most important characteristic of Wang Peng's personality was that he was extremely principled and very persistent, Wang Jianhua told the reporter. Wang Peng considered issues very comprehensively, and once he made a decision, it was rarely changed by others' opinions.
However, around midnight on the 23rd, when Wang Jianhua called Wang Peng's mobile phone, it suddenly turned off. Wang Jianhua worried greatly about this abnormal situation, "We talk on the phone at least once a day, and he wouldn't turn it off without reason!"
"Never heard him talk about Ma Jingjing"
"In the events that followed, I already knew everything. During the 8 days Wang Peng was detained, I called his mobile phone at intervals, hoping to hear his voice, wanting to know if he was still okay, but the receiver always transmitted the message that the other party had turned off their phone." Wang Jianhua recalled, "On the evening of December 1, I called him again, and it was still off, but at around 3 am on the morning of December 2, I suddenly woke up and tried dialing again, unexpectedly, the phone actually connected. Wang Peng told me he had already been released, and assured me he was fine, comforting me not to worry about him! Although he sounded somewhat nervous, I could still sense his excitement."
First hearing about Ma Jingjing
Wang Jianhua recalled that on November 22, she was still with Wang Peng, and Wang Peng was completely normal, talking enthusiastically about work-related matters, showing no signs of distress, and certainly not mentioning anything about possibly facing arrest.
Always very persistent
Wang Jianhua recounted that the admission notice for Wang Peng's postgraduate program at Renmin University was issued in July 2007, but in August, Wang Peng suddenly told her he couldn't pursue the graduate studies. "This hit him hard, because if it weren't for the recommendation, based on Wang Peng's later academic performance, he could have definitely taken the entrance exam himself and gotten into a graduate program. Even if he hadn't taken the entrance exam, he could have started looking for a job during the second semester of his senior year! In August, all his classmates either continued their studies or started working, but Wang Peng had nowhere to go."
Wang Jianhua said that she and Wang Peng met in 2007, when Wang Peng was in his senior year of undergraduate studies, and she was a freshman. Wang Peng liked sports, and their relationship began at the table tennis hall.
Wang Jianhua disclosed to the reporter the current occupation of Wang Peng's mother in Lanzhou but declined the interview request citing that the elderly woman had become somewhat mentally confused due to excessive shock.
Thus, she anxiously and worriedly spent the whole day. On the morning of the 24th, Wang Jianhua returned to the library to inquire about Wang Peng's situation and was informed that Wang Peng had been taken away by the Wuzhong police on suspicion of defamation the previous afternoon. "I was completely stunned at the time, not knowing what happened, how could he get involved with the police?!" In a panic, Wang Jianhua quickly dialed Wang Peng's father's phone number and learned that her son was already on his way back to Lanzhou.
But on the evening of December 2, during CCTV's "News 1+1" segment correcting the report on the "cross-provincial criminal detention" case, Ma Jingjing made a brief appearance lasting over ten seconds. In the program, he said that Wang Peng's more than 30 letters of accusation had arrived at his workplace first, "seriously disrupting the work order of various levels of government agencies in Ningxia and the nation." At the end of the program, Bai Yansong also mentioned that Ma Jingjing had said in the interview that upon seeing the accusation letter, he "immediately recognized Wang Peng's handwriting," Bai Yansong questioned how anonymous accusation letters could allow the accused to see them?