(Clearwisom.net) Before July 1999, at a mountain village of Pinjiang County, Hunan Province, China, people were talking about a miraculous story: A book brought back to life a dying patient who had been ill with pericarditis and had been given up on by doctors at a reputable hospital.

By the autumn of 1998, Mr. Liu was seriously ill and suffered from edema caused by pericarditis. His whole body was swollen. His legs were as large as those of an elephant, his chest and abdomen as round as a drum, and his face was dark with pale lips. To help save his life, his family borrowed money and rushed him to a large hospital in Wuhan City, Hunan Province. But, it was in vain as his illness worsened. He then was transferred to Hunan Medical University No. 2 Hospital. There, they told him that nothing could be done and this 30 year-old man could only wait for his final days on a sickbed at home.

One night in October of 1998, Mr. Liu heard about Falun Gong and its powerful healing effects from an engineer from the country who was in Liu's neighborhood at the time. The engineer was talking about the fact that those who practice Falun Gong become better people; also their health improves and even some difficult illnesses are cured. After hearing this, Mr. Liu borrowed the book Zhuan Falun and read it. The profound principles of Falun Dafa were very moving to him and he started to understand the purpose of life. Continuing with his reading, he forgot about his own sickness and enjoyed the teachings from the book. Then, after a few days, he was miraculously able to sit up and eat food. In one month or so, he was free from edema and back to a normal life.

When I saw Mr. Liu at the County's Falun Dafa Practice Conference in March 1999, he was a totally healthy man, able to do the lotus meditation for one hour. In June, I met him at a construction site working hard and happily with a rosy complexion. People in the village commented that due to his practice of Falun Dafa, Mr. Liu became a different person; he became kind and had a good temper. He would not argue for a higher salary and was even willing to take on work that required heavy labor.

Unfortunately after the vicious persecution of Falun Gong began on July 22, 1999, Mr. Liu and millions of other Falun Gong practitioners were harassed and persecuted every day by the local public security personnel or police. They forced practitioners to hand over Dafa books, threatened practitioners to fill out forms to "draw a line," "abandon," and "guarantee" to quit practicing Falun Gong, and even forced practitioners to sign a "repentance letter" and deposit a "bond" for not going to appeal in Beijing.

In March 2000, the town officers were directed by their provincial superiors to set up a brainwashing class. The person in charge of the class announced, "We are told not to care about ordinary crimes but to pay attention to Falun Gong. You practitioners should repent and become new persons." Actually, we practitioners have already been trying to become better persons. I ask, what kind of persons do they want us to be?