When Old Zhou was beaten, there were no bystanders who stepped forward to stop it, which made him feel very disheartened. This photo was taken by our reporter Guoliang Dong. For the 47-year-old Old Zhou, shouting out against injustice is a principle and habit of life. This time, seeing a taxi driver being beaten, he still stood up for justice but ended up with an 8-centimeter wound on his head and a fractured nasal bone.
The scene: trying to mediate with kind words but was kicked down
Yesterday afternoon, when we walked into Old Zhou's home in the Kunlun Factory Family Compound in the eastern suburbs, the blood-stained clothes on the ground were quite shocking. "Look at this, this is the result of the old man's act of righteousness," said his wife Ms. Zhang, holding the unwashed clothes, speaking with a face full of pain and blame. Old Zhou's real name is Zhou Xin'an, 47 years old. He was lying in bed with his head wrapped in gauze and then forced himself to sit up to tell us about that night's ordeal.
On the evening of the 25th, taking advantage of the Christmas celebration, Old Zhou and his wife went downtown to celebrate the western holiday. They returned home around 10:40 PM. When they reached the door of the Wannian Hotel, a commotion could be heard. The onlookers said, "There's a fight inside!" Old Zhou quickly pushed through the crowd and saw several burly men beating a thin young man. The young man was writhing in pain on the ground, covered in blood, with a taxi door wide open nearby.
Old Zhou hurriedly stepped forward and said, "You can't have so many people beat one person..." However, Old Zhou's good advice angered the other side. Several people left the young man on the ground and directly charged towards Old Zhou. Before his wife Zhang could finish her sentence, she watched as he was kicked down and was immediately frightened speechless. She rushed forward but found herself unable to pull them apart, so she ran out to call the police first.
The wife calling the police couldn't borrow a mobile phone three times
Her husband was being surrounded and beaten while the panicked Zhang realized she had forgotten her mobile phone. So, she ran to the sidewalk to seek help from passersby. "Maybe my appearance scared everyone," Zhang said. At the time, she was crying loudly and pulled three passersby aside, saying her husband was being beaten and needed the police called, but all three refused her either because they didn't have a phone or their phones were out of power.
Then, like a madwoman, she searched for a public phone on the road. After finding one IC card-operated public phone which turned out to be broken, she finally managed to call the police under the guidance of a security guard at the Northern Hospital. Subsequently, Old Zhou was sent to Xijing Hospital by police car. After diagnosis, he suffered from mild concussion, with a wound on the right side of his scalp measuring 8 centimeters, requiring more than 20 stitches. The assailants were taken back to the police station by officers.
At the police station, Zhang learned that the young man who was beaten was actually a taxi driver. Because five people insisted on getting into his taxi, the driver refused due to overloading reasons, which led to his beating. "I hope he gets better soon," said Wang Feng, the taxi driver helped by Old Zhou yesterday afternoon, noting that his facial injuries were beginning to scab. At the time, those few individuals were quite tall and large, so he said there wasn't enough room for them. One of them suddenly opened the door and dragged him out before starting to beat him. Wang Feng said that those individuals seemed to have been drinking and he felt very grateful for Master Zhou's assistance.
Afterward, he will not lose his warm-hearted nature because of this
At 3 PM yesterday afternoon, Old Zhou's son Xiao Zhou and mother went to Changlezong Road Police Station again to learn about the progress of the case.
When talking about how his father lost 1600 yuan and a mobile phone during the beating, the son blurted out, "My dad is like a dinosaur."
Recalling the incident, the mother and son remembered that in May this year, Old Zhou near the northern gate's moat saw several young men surrounding a girl. The girl was in tears and couldn't break free. Old Zhou took out his phone and called the police, watching from afar until the police arrived and resolved the situation before leaving.
One morning in July this year, Old Zhou encountered a lost elderly man carrying fried dough sticks at the North Gate bus station. The old man was mumbling incoherently. After calling the police, he waited half an hour with the elderly man. Talking about her husband's various acts of "meddling", Ms. Zhang felt both proud and painful.
"Sometimes just adding one more word may immediately change another person's situation." Although severely beaten, Old Zhou has not "learned his lesson". He said this time his heart feels a bit cold, but he will still intervene in matters. He cannot lose his warm-hearted nature because of encountering too much indifference. Our reporter Yimo Wang