Rotten Mango - #303: Parents Paid For Their Teens To Be Kidnapped From Bed & Taken To Elite Torture Academy

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

They were all taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Four men standing over them, ready to hogtie them, and throw them into vans. The teenagers were being kidnapped, and their parents had paid the kidnappers. They were going to be taken to an elite academy where all the bad traits of being a kid were going to be tortured out of them.  They would be thrown into isolation cells for 2 weeks, beaten, assaulted, and mentally manipulated till they became blank slates. The perfect obedient children for the parents to show off to their friends and family. Who wouldn’t want that? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bramble. Barabing barbu. May woke up naturally in the middle of the night. She starts adjusting her eyes to the dark, and for a brief moment, she's thinking, yeah, no, I'm sleeping. I'm having a nightmare. Because there are four strange men standing on either side of her bed. She's got two men on her left, two men on her right, and they're staring down at her

sleeping. It was so dark at first all she saw were their eyes. Just imagine four pairs of eyes watching you sleep from above. She panics, tries to set up, but they start reaching for her. They're grabbing her. They each pin down an arm and a leg. They must have done this before or at least come prepared because they flipped her upside down in this one swift motion.

Now she's on her stomach, on her bed. They start hogtying her with the rope. Her arms are getting tied together, her legs are getting tied together, and then her legs and her arms are getting tied together behind her. Have you seen a hog tie? Yeah, yeah, you've seen it.

It's like the most uncomfortable tie ever. I mean, not only is it uncomfortable, but there is literally nothing that she could do, but maybe roll around. And may always say, you know, what if something like this happens to me? She never thought that it would happen in her own family home, while her siblings are asleep right next door, while her parents are in their room asleep. This is technically where she's the safest.

She thought about it in public. What does someone try to kidnap me or do something at the grocery store? What am I going to do? She always said, my fight or flight will kick in. But now when it really mattered, all May did was freeze. They start picking her up, moving her off the bed. She briefly tries to kick them, but the four men are really strong. They carry her like a hog out of her room, out of the house, and into their van.

They throw her in the back, and for the next 36 hours, she would be stuck in that van. And they were driving the whole time too. So it's not like she was being held captive in the van. She had no idea where the hell they were going. She didn't know if they were driving in circles to purposely confuse her, and her or if they're driving across the country, the longer they're in the van, the more she feels like, my chances of ever seeing my family again, down the drain. She wasn't even allowed to get out and use the restroom for 37 hours straight, which of course she tried, she tried begging the kidnappers like like I'm gonna pee back here. They didn't care. She thought if I can't get into a rest break restroom I can try and escape, alert someone that I'm being kidnapped, but she was not allowed out of the van. She didn't even

stand a single chance. When May was finally let out, the four men stripped her down, so she's completely unclothed and they threw her in a cell. No windows, no light, not even a mattress on the floor. Just two buckets, one with dirty water for her to drink and one for her to relieve herself in. They slammed the door shut, everything goes black and she's locked in. During the first few days, May is pounding on the door, demanding to be let out, or at least let me know what you're planning for me. Like, why would you do this to me? Then she went into the anger phase. She threw

herself up against the wall. She's cursing through the door. She's promising these four men when she gets out of here. She's going to rip their heads open on the floor. But eventually, just like all the other people that were in this cell before her, she gives up. She lays down naked on the floor, and she didn't even know if two minutes had passed, or two days had passed, she just laid there, and she thought about her parents. And she kept replaying over and over again in her mind the last time that she saw them. They had been helping hold the door open for the four kidnappers to drag May out of the house.

That was the last time she saw her parents. As always, full show notes are available at rottonminglepodcast.com. Quickly a few things to note. Today's case does include a lot of mentions of attempts to cut one's life short. And if that's something that you think will be hard for you to listen to or will evoke very strong emotions. Oh, also, today's case is a little stomach churning. There's a lot of gross details which we have to address.

So if that's also something that's difficult to hear, this might be the best one to skip and we can see each other again on Sunday for the mini-sode. Also, today's case takes place in China. We worked with our wonderful Chinese translators on this one, but as always, with any foreign case, or really just like any case in general, let us know if there was something lost in translation or if there's anything that we left out.

So with that being said, let's get into it. May was in what the others called the silent room. The silent room has no windows, no lights, no vents. I mean, it's a box, it's a cell. With one door in and one door out, that's it, just one door. And this door is always triple locked, quadruple locked. I mean, you would think that they're imprisoning some of the world's most dangerous criminals

in a cell like this. But most of the people held in the silent room were between the ages of nine and seventeen years old. Almost always they were naked. You would not be able to leave for any reason for close to two weeks. On average people were kept in there eight to nine days. You wouldn't be allowed to brush your teeth, your hair, even shower. You wouldn't even be able to look into a mirror. And like, okay, that sounds dumb. Stephanie, if I'm being held captive, the last thing on my mind is looking in a mirror

and plucking my eyebrows. And I agree. But a lot of people said, it's so dark in there. And you're left with nothing but your thoughts and you're being treated like this animal, you start to lose your sense of identity really quickly. You start to feel like you are not even in your own body. Your identity becomes avoid. There are some arguments on whether or not

the silent room is worse during winter or during summer. But I think most of the victims would say summer. There are no vents. The temperatures inside can easily get up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. And the rooms are smeared with human feces that has dried. It's dank, it's musty, it's moldy, and all you get are two buckets, one with dirty brown water, so it's probably safe enough to drink but not clean enough, if that makes sense. And then another bucket to relieve yourself.

Every day at random times, so you never fall into a routine. You don't even know if it's nighttime daytime, like time loses its concept. A man in a white robe opens the door, throws you a boiled egg and some rice that tastes straight up like glue. That's all you eat the whole day, a tiny little bowl of rice and one boiled egg. The captives would actually try and listen for footsteps when the captors were

coming to give them food, not because they dared to try and escape. At that point you're probably five days in and you know that's dumb, but they just wanted to be near the door for at least a moment when it opened so that they could get a little bit of air that wasn't human feces. The only place for you to sleep is on the ground. So you just lay there naked on the ground, but clearly this place is not sanitary. The room is filled with cockroaches, rats, and millipedes, so the one's with a thousand legs. A lot of captives remember feeling fear that they're unclood, they're vulnerable on the ground, and then these insects and animals, they're scared that they're gonna crawl into them or start nipping at them or

eating them. Shao Yang was in the silent room, so we're gonna call him Yang for the rest of this episode, but he had been in that silent room just like May. He wanted to escape every second that he was in there, but he also had a lot of time to think about it. And there was just no way to escape. These men were smart. They confused him. Before bringing him into the silent room, they disoriented him. They walked him through a bunch of random hallways. He's just being pushed and shoved by these scary men in these white cloaks. They look like white floor length robes from ancient tongue dynasty times. It's just unsettling.

This is happening in like 2017. Why are they wearing that? Why are they all in uniform? Why are they all walking in sync? It was as if they were forming this human bubble around him, just keeping him going. They would turn left, right, left, left, left again, and then they opened a hidden door. At this point, he doesn't even know where he is in the building. It looks

like he's outside now because he can see this guy, but is this the second floor courtyard? Is this the backyard? He doesn't even know. There's just walls that go up at least 12 feet. There's no ledges. He can't crawl out of there, and in front of him there's three doors. It's creepy. It's like one of those hypothetical questions. You have to open one door, one room has a raging fire, the other one a starving lion, and another one there's a monster. Which door do you choose?

That's what this feels like. Young said he was so terrified, his whole body tensed for for a minute and then finally his instincts kicked in. He remembered these evil men and cloaks hadn't taken his phone. So in this swift motion he reaches into his pocket trying to catch them off guard, pulls out his phone and starts recording the men and white. He's pointing the camera out their faces, trying to get all of their faces in there and he's like, I'm gonna call the cops on you. One of them knocks his phone to the ground. And in that moment, his fear slips away,

and he's just angry. They shattered his $900 phone. That he saved up months to buy this phone. And then slowly it dawned. Any possible way out of here, like calling the authorities, it shattered with that phone. 17 year old young absolutely lost it. I mean, he went feral. He's thinking, this is my only chance before, I don't know, I get sacrifice, like these men are creepy, why the hell are they wearing cloaks? This feels like they're gonna perform some sort of ritual on me and I'm the sacrifice.

He starts physically fighting to try and escape from the door that they just came through, but he's outnumbered. The group of men, they hold him down, so there's about three of them that hold him down. One of them is just watching, walks over to one of the three doors in front of him, swings open the door, they throw him in and pin him up against the wall. He's now in the silent room. He's still thrashing around, but he's kind of taking in his environment, and it's bad. All he sees are two buckets, and the entire room was so, the smell made his eyes water.

It's like stinging his nose. It wreaks of human waste that's been sitting for decades. After understanding, oh my god, I could be trapped in here because that's what it feels like. I feel like they're going to walk out of here and lock the door. Young starts freaking out even more. He's trying everything. So at first he's screaming like trying to get their sympathy.

Like, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I did wrong, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. And then he gets angry and he's like, you know what? When I get out, you're going to get arrested. You can't just do this to people. And then eventually out of sheer desperation

and honestly some truth behind it, he starts begging. Please, just, can I just use the restroom for a second? Please, like, I need to go to the restroom. Please, just let me out. Young tries one last time to physically push back against the men that are holding him up against the wall. And they're not even just holding him. They're like slamming him back, slamming his head, the back of his head onto the hard surface.

And then he goes numb. He stops fighting and his eyes go blank. The men must have noticed because they let go of him and they just watch him slump down to the ground. In his extreme fear, young had defecated himself. Which is more common than you think when someone is in a life or death situation, In his extreme fear, Young had defecated himself. Which is more common than you think, when someone is in a life or death situation, the nerves and the digestive tract, they start contracting rapidly and you might lose control of your bowels.

So, he pooped himself. And he slumped on the ground, just defeated, because he's never done that before. And he watches all the men file out of the room, slam the door shut, and he hears all of these metal locks clinking. Eventually, he crawls over to the door and starts pounding. Please, hello? Is anyone there? I just need to use the restroom real quick.

Nobody responded. And they would not respond for a while, because this is how they're going to break him. Whoever these people were, they wanted to turn teenagers into tabula rassa, which are blank slates that they can start from scratch with. They wanted to be able to be the ones that program these kids. But how do you do that? You got to break the kids first. You have to make them blank in the mind. The first step is to penetrate the psyche. The only way to

destroy a person's mind was to find your way inside first. You have to get into their heads, but not in the way that it's like, Oh, put yourself in someone else's shoes. No, you make them vulnerable. You make them weak so their minds aren't heavily guarded. And once you get in their head, you see what they value. Maybe they value dignity. Maybe it's privacy. Like what do they like about themselves? And then you start breaking it apart piece by piece until you're left with nothing. You strip them of their will. You break them psychologically, physically everything. These people are never half-assed about this part. They think this is the most important part in their goals and plans.

You can't just assume, oh well, I'm sure this person is broken enough. These people make sure you're broken in that silent room. No matter how long it takes, they've got the patience. They will wait to exhaust every last ounce of willpower and fight that you've got left in you and then and then only then Tabula Rasa Blink slate Stripped of humanity individuality you are moldable into whatever these men have in store for you And the first thing that they program into your mind once it's new is fear.

Young had no idea how much time had passed in the silent room, but he definitely felt like he was breaking. I mean, he's sitting there, marinating in his own feces. He said eventually, even his tears dried up and all that rage, you know, because in the beginning, he's like, I'm going to kill these people when I get out. Just they wait, the cops aren't going to be okay with this. All of that was just gone. He didn't even feel alive. He wanted to turn into one of the rats that he spotted in the corner. Maybe their life is better than his. And then finally there's a noise on the other side. He scrambles back into his feet and rushes towards the door. Hello, is anyone there?

Get me out of here, please, please. Give me your clothes, then you can come out and clean yourself. Young is thinking about it for a brief moment. And he decides, OK, yeah, I have no fight left in me. He takes off all of his clothes, balls it up, hands it to the arm that's now reaching through the small open crack in the door. And he's standing there but naked, not even underwear. And he's expecting the hand to bring him some uniform or some set of clothes or something,

right? Is it a prison uniform? Is this prison? Feels like it. But the man just swings up in the door, letting the light in. And young turns away because his eyes had adjusted to the dark rather faster now. It feels like it's burning his retinas. The bathroom is this way. The guard nods his head toward

the door that he had been initially dragged through and young looks down. He didn't even have his underwear on. So now he has a choice. Stay in this room for God knows how long or get out and get cleaned up. He starts moving his feet forward and he feels like he's some sort of zombie. He follows the guards towards the showers and he's thinking, what the hell is this place? Is this some sort of cult? There's a bunch of adults walking around in white robes and they're clearly the ones in charge and then there's a bunch of young kids between nine to maybe early twenties all in these deep red robes and none of them are talking to each other.

They're not talking to the people wearing white, they're not talking to each other. It was weird. And now young is walking past them, around them, with them to get to the restroom and he's fully naked. It's like one of those stereotypical high schooler nightmares where you're like, I'm gonna give a speech and then I'm gonna wake up naked and it's a whole nightmare, but it's not a nightmare. He could feel every single person's eye staring at him. Because this was the final step. Young would lose all sense of dignity and privacy. When he was done washing up, he was grown

back into the silent room, still unclothed, but on the way back, he passed a sign on the wall. Welcome to Yujang Academy. Yujang Academy didn't often have these open houses where the gates would open and excited parents would take these guided tours with teachers to see you know where are my kids living? It's a boarding school. What are they eating? Who are they hanging out with? Who are their friends? But when Yujang did have these open houses once every blue moon, it was a spectacle. Parents would shuffle in in their best clothes for a tour through the gates. They would come in through the courtyard

before the main building. And the courtyard had these stone paved pathways leading up to the main door. And there was moss and trees. It kind of almost had a European vibe to it, you know? There were these tall white cement walls that were at least 12 feet tall. And it's interesting because it's all perspective. To some people, it could very well feel like a prison, but if you're feeling optimistic

like these parents, it's like a sanctuary. It keeps the chaos of the city out. It keeps our kids safe and all this greenery, it's so zen. It's more like a castle than anything. It keeps our kids safe and all these greenery, it's so zen. It's more like a castle than anything. And they're sniffing around. It's just me, it's the air even feel fresher here. And the place is so tranquil.

That's the word, you know? They might as well have been playing spa music. It just feels so nice. The parents are getting a guided tour of room by room, and each of them are thinking, well, yeah, okay, no wonder our kids don't even call us that often. It's so nice here. They're really having way too much fun. This part feels a little weird.

Some of them kind of raise their eyebrows. It's kind of like they're at Hogwarts. It's strange. This is in 2017. This is a private academy. You have to pay to get in. And I would imagine that if the academy requires uniforms It would be the standard pleated skirts trousers dress shirts smart blazer or sweaters with the school emblem

Now the kids are walking around in red robes deep red wine colored robes The parents think it's interesting. Like imagine going to a Korean private school and everyone is dressed in humbukes instead of regular school uniforms. The parents didn't feel that creeped out about it though. They actually really liked it. And every single student that was in this building, perfect posture. The teachers who were similar cloaks but in white, perfect posture. Girls had their hair pulled back in a sleek low bun and all the boys,

they had their hairs parted, combed down, and they just look so so obedient. When a group of the students passed the parents on tour, they would pass in a single file line to not take up space in the hallway. They never made eye contact with the parents, either they're looking straight ahead or on the ground. It's kind of like a military drill. Their shoulders are square. Their backs are straight. I mean, some of the parents. It's kind of like a military drill. Their shoulders are square, their backs are straight. I mean, some of the parents even felt self-conscious,

like, oh my God. What does this tenure all have better posture than me? And they start straightening their posture. How is it that our own children, they're like my kid, before they came to this Academy, they had TechNec. They had hunchback posture from being on the computer all day. And now these kids are graceful like Bala Rida's.

And they're all silent. Not a single sound is coming from any of them. Even if they saw their own parents in the hallways, never made eye contact. They didn't even acknowledge their mom or dad in the same space, like five feet away from them. They just continued walking a class in a single file line. Wow. Everyone here is so disciplined. The smartly dressed teacher turns around.

Yes, we use the marida method. It's a Japanese technique. We teach the students to accept things as they are, and only then will they be truly free. The parents all glance at each other. They're like, okay, Japanese method, Chinese method, Western method, who cares, as long as our children are being taught well.

At the end of the tour, as the parents are walking towards the door, they're thanking the teachers, the guides. I mean, would a lovely job you guys have done? I mean, truly, we can't thank you enough. Thank you for taking care of our children. The parents continue to walk out and bliss. They would kind of glance at each other as if to say,

I mean, can you believe how amazing this is? A lot of them had been on this wait list for this academy for months, if not almost a year, and to finally get in, it's like a dream come true. And it's not even a cheap dream either. But look at the way they teach the kids. I mean, the parents kind of wait to go home and brag to their friends about the fancy academy that their children are in.

I mean, it's amazing to tell their colleagues about how elite and classy the boarding school is. You should have seen the gates. You would think that the school is guarding the Queen of England and they're... They were just so excited. So excited. That they ignored the blatant red flags. Some of them could have sworn later that they heard the faint sounds of children screaming for help. But you know, they didn't wait all these months on the wait list for nothing.

This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. I feel like sometimes I'm just floating around in my day. This was more of a common feeling like a year ago. I knew that I needed to do a lot of things. Like I should exercise every day. I should eat lots of veggies and go to bed at a reasonable time. These are all things that I should do.

But for some reason, every time I tried to do it, I would freeze up and eventually I thought, okay, I think this is a mind block. Or I thought, you know, maybe I'm just lazy. So for example, for the longest time, I didn't exercise not because I didn't want to or I didn't have the motivation. I just didn't know how to start

and I was afraid of looking dumb or embarrassing myself. And I thought, maybe I need a personal trainer. But honestly, I just needed my therapist. What I was experiencing was a mental block and my brain was getting in the way of me doing what I know is good for me because I was afraid of failing. So in therapy, I learned how to walk through my excuses to find the root of the problem.

And for me, I just had to find exercises that I liked doing and I felt confident doing. I just needed something to look forward to. For others, maybe the mental block could be studying or having that tough conversation with another party or honestly anything. If there's one thing that I could tell you to try, to help you, I would tell you to try therapy. Therapy helps you figure out what's holding you back so you can work for yourself, instead of working against yourself.

Better help is here to help you. They're designed to fit into your schedule whenever you have time. It's completely online, so skip the traffic time and awkward therapy office waiting room. They offer a quick survey to match you with a licensed therapist, and just like that, you can get started. And if for some reason you want to switch therapist, you can do that easily with no extra fees. Make your brain

your friend with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash rotten today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash rotten. Each student is given a red cloak to wear. Their uniform, that's it. No phones, no personal belongings, their sense of identity is gone. They're just another person in a red cloak. They're part of the bigger picture. They would be given some basic human necessities, like a dorm room to share with other students, and still no AC, so it's like 100 degrees in that dorm room.

They get a flushable toilet, a bit more food, but that's about it. They were essentially prisoners in a torture academy. They would have to wake up at 5 a.m. every single morning. First thing that they do is pray to the Confucius statue outside, it's like this massive statue of Confucius. They would have to attend classes where the teachers would just hand out pages upon pages of old Chinese literature, and they would have to memorize

the pages word for word, not even soak in the knowledge from it, but memorize it word for word, and then rewrite it. They're not even learning. It's nothing at this point. It's just memorization that they forget. But if they don't even do that perfectly, they would be hidden beaten. At the front of the classrooms, there were typically two things on display for the students.

A metal ruler. This metal ruler was as thick as your phone is thick, solid metal almost two feet long. They would hit your palms with this. After about five hits, you could no longer write. You couldn't even close your fingers halfway because of how swollen and inflamed your hands would be. The minimum punishment was five strikes to the hand, but there was no maximum punishment.

It would depend on the teacher's mood. Sometimes it's tense, sometimes it's 30. And there was no reasoning on why you would be hit. Even if you used the wrong word or didn't respond fast enough, or genuinely just breathed a little too loud for the teacher's liking, you could get beaten up. To give you an example of how random these punishments were, every single night, the Academy

held moral exams. They would call out all the students into the courtyard and the teachers would line up with their weapons, everyone is holding their breath. Hopefully, we're not going to get called today. Every night, a few random students would be called to the front and the teacher would ask, do you know why I called you up today? Most of the time, they don't even wait for you to respond

before they start beating you. Obviously, if you try to fight back, they lose their marbles. But even if you instinctively like shield yourself, like anyone with good reflexes would, the teachers get more upset, they beat you harder. Even if you weren't the one that's unlucky getting beat, if you looked away, because you don't want to witness the pain of other students, you don't want to see it, they would beat you and tell you to watch.

But sometimes the teachers would get creative. Now there were two female students and one of the teachers just despised them for no apparent reason. It's not like they were particularly unruly or disobedient. He just hated them. One day in class, he points at the two girls. You, you, follow me. He leads them to the restrooms and points at one of the stalls.

Unclogged the toilet. He watches as they hesitantly opened the stall door, and was um, I mean it wasn't even clogged. It was like overflowing with feces. Well, what are you two doing? They look around. They're so nervous. They don't even want to say it, but sir, there's no plunger. Do you have any tools? He just scoffs in response. Do you have any tools? He just scoffs in response. Will you have hands, don't you?

Use them. They were forced to get on their knees and unclog the toilet using their bare hands. The girls said they had to try the whole time to not think about the feeling against their skin, but even today, they can smell it still. They can feel the texture and even the visual of everything that was in there.

Other bits of random torture included, a teacher that hated seeing things on the bedside tables in the dorms. Okay, so I don't know why. This teacher just had a crazy phobia of it or something. This teacher would go around all the dorm rooms, don't put anything on your nightstand. Absolutely hated it. So one night, this teacher would go around all the dorm rooms, don't put anything on your night stand. Absolutely hated it.

So one night this teacher is making their arbitrary rounds and they see that young had a pencil case on his bed stand table, probably doing his homework, and they freak out. And young knew that he was going to get hit on the hands with the metal stick. The teacher says, young, grab your pencil case, open it. Count. I'm sorry? Count how many pens are in your pencil case? There's 15, sir.

Young was hit on the hand 15 times. He could not use his hands for days. But the teacher wasn't even done. Young is looking down at his hands and they look like they've been run over by a car. And the teacher says, now what do you say? Thank you. Students were forced to say thank you

after their punishments, otherwise they would be beaten again. But worse than that metal ruler was the student's enemy, the dragon cane. It was even bigger, even heavier, even more painful. I mean, it was really bad. They typically hit students on the butt with this because anywhere else, I mean, it could potentially be fatal or break a bone. It was that dangerous.

And even the bottom, a lot of the students after being hit, they could not walk, they could not lay down for weeks. They couldn't even sit down. Their whole butt looked like it was painted in these deep purple colors. When the dragon came, Kane came out, all the other students they instinctively wanted to cover their ears because whoever gets hit with that cane, it said they released such primal screams. It's too much to listen to. It's visceral. And then worse than the dragon cane, probably the worst is some of the students were easily harassed or assaulted at the hands of the teachers. One teacher would force young to sleep in the same bed as them and caress his thighs.

Reportedly he never went further than that, but young remembered how traumatized he was, how scared he was when the teacher would whisper in his ear. I will track you down if you ever get out of here. A young situation was bad, but it wasn't even the worst. It speculated because a lot of the social stigma, a lot of the essay or the harassment didn't even come out. But we do know that there was a 20-year-old girl that was stuck in this academy and the instructors would rip out her hair as punishment and stick pens into her private areas.

It just was a never ending cycle of, okay, classes, being on the edge of saying the wrong thing, being breathing the wrong way, getting beaten, getting beaten anyway, even if you did nothing wrong, then going back to your dorms and facing harassment only to start the miserable cycle again. But sometimes the teachers would have you skipped class altogether and just participate in

hard labor. At one point, the academy is getting so popular amongst parents that they're outgrowing their current building. So instead of hiring a legitimate construction company, the students were forced to move bricks by stairs from like the first floor to the fifth floor. All day, seven days a week, if they didn't do it fast enough, they would get beat. Young who was on brick duty, he said there were so many times he wished someone would just drop a stack of bricks on his head and kill him. Yeah.

In the irony was not lost on any of them. They're not getting paid to do this hard labor. They were getting punished while they're doing it. And not only that, but their parents were paying the academy for them to be living like this. Young said, our parents paid them. They didn't even treat us like human beings. This boarding school does kind of remind me of the Stanford Prison Experiment. In the sense that the mind games are so strong.

So technically, the red cloaks, the students that the mind games are so strong. So technically the red cloaks, the students, the captives, they outnumber the adults. They could easily try and overpower them. A lot of them have better stamina, their teenagers, right? They've got more energy. But because of how deprived they are and how broken they were from the silent room, these kids became enforcers of the rules. Now it's not just the white cloaks looking to see if some of the students messed up.

The students started ratting each other out. All for what? For a piece of sugar. Not even a piece of candy. Like a little piece of cane sugar. These students barely got enough food. And not just taste wise but these students were heavily malnourished. I mean they were fed disgusting molding food

at the time. The students mainly ate scrambled eggs but it was as if someone wanted to put as little egg as possible. Like they're leaving half the egg liquid out to save and then throwing in the whole egg shell. They said the scrambled eggs were just 90% egg shell. Rotten vegetables would be turned into rotten soups, and the headmasterers specifically told them, we make you eat this food to train you to be better. One time a student picked up his chopsticks, pulled something out of his soup.

It was an old wash cloth cooked into the veggie soup. A piece of table cloth. Yeah. It was common for students to have ulcers in and around their mouth, which is caused by insufficient intake of certain vitamins and minerals. Like these kids, they have no reason to keep going. They had no reason to want to stick around. This piece of sugar was their reason.

This became the... Forget about getting out of here. Forget about family, life, and friends before all of this. No. This piece of sugar was heaven Which later would be very traumatic. A lot of the victims said they lost so much self-dignity. They lost what it meant to be a human in here Once they got out they were so shocked at how low they were willing to go for a piece of sugar how low they were willing to go for a piece of sugar. Sometimes they would rat out another student, hear them get completely beaten in the room right next door,

or sometimes it would happen right in front of them. They would be hit with the metal stick or sometimes the dragon cane, and the student would be crying out in pain, but they didn't even care. They would be smiling, staring at the peace of sugar in their hand, debating. Should I eat it now or save it for later? It's like Lord of the Rings, my precious. But there would be little moments of hope.

The most recent one was a nine-year-old girl that got out of the silent room, and clearly, it did not break her. She was rebelling non-stop screaming at teachers, refusing to back down. At one point, she was pinned down by multiple adults and personally beaten by the headmaster of the Academy. She was beaten about 30 times in the span of like a week. She still refused to back down. Wow.

And the students and the red cloaks, they all glanced at each other because I mean, this is one of the youngest. Is this the moment? Is this our rebellion? Do we back up this little nine-year-old girl? In front of the whole academy, she was dragged out to the big Confucius statue

in the courtyard. Yeah, the academy was obsessed with Confucius. Neil. No. The nine-year-old girl is like, no, I'm not gonna Neil. Neil, and ask for forgiveness. No. The teachers are now looking at the students.

Because for a split second they see it, the other kids they had pride, hope, excitement in their eyes. And the headmaster saw it too. He knew that a single grain of hope would end his whole career. It could bring down the whole academy. They could rebel. They could all take aside against him. So he brought the dragon cane and beat the back of the nine-year-old girl's knees, till she was forcibly kneeling. And slowly the other kids' shoulders, they all started to slump,

and their very brief symbol of hope was gone. In the end, she would kneel in front of that Confucius statue all day until she passed out from a heatstroke. Some of the kids decided that day that there was no way of escaping. None of the stories of escape from the academy ended well and these students realized that the successful prison escapes they only happened in TV shows. Young decided his only way to try was grab the bottle of laundry detergent left in the laundry room and chug the remainder of it. There was only half a bottle of liquid left, but he hoped,

maybe it'll do the job. Within the hour, he felt like there was lava running through his stomach, running through his brain. It felt like his skull was about to explode. The teachers noticed they rushed him to the local hospital and the doctor said, we have to pump his stomach and the only option to do that is you got to sign these permission forms because he's a minor and we're about to pump his stomach. We can't just do that. The teachers sat back and said, actually, we'd like to take him back then.

We don't want to sign anything. Wow. So they don't want their signature. Oh my God. They don't want any proof that this happened. The teachers bring him back to the academy without helping him at all in this hospital and thought the laundry detergent was not a corrosive chemical. So it's not like he drank a cup of acid and it's eating up his insides and they need

to counteract that acid It's a toxic poison. Yeah, but they just need to get it out of a system Pumping the stomach that's like throwing up, right? How hard is it to pump someone's stomach at home? If you heard of the water cure It's a misleading name Like it sounds like it's gonna cure you and make you feel better But it dates back to the 15th century and it's a misleading name. It sounds like it's going to cure you and make you feel better, but it dates back to the 15th century, and it's a form of torture. Americans actually use this in war before the American army, the military.

It's an old-school waterboarding. They stick a homemade hose into the sink faucet, shove a funnel into your mouth, and force you to drink copious amounts of water until your stomach is so bloated like a balloon, too distended, and the natural reflex would be too constantly vomit. It's like something you cannot control. Yeah, or you could drown, right? You could die. Yeah. You could get water intoxication, you could drown from the water. The water could go down wrong. They strapped him down on the table to make sure he could not not drink the water. They repeated this process over and over so it wasn't a one time thing where it's like,

okay, now you threw it out. They didn't know how much was left in there of the laundry detergent so they forced him to vomit all night long. He was exhausted from vomiting. He was sweating. It was the worst night of his life, but it would stay with him forever. Not even just the memory. Since then, young hasn't been able to eat well.

He often gets sick and throws up his food, and for a full year, blood and foam would also come out every time that he threw up. He lost a severe worrying amount of weight. He suffered from debilitating gastric reflux, so laundry detergent can be very dangerous inside the body. It has the potential to cause holes in the esophagus and sometimes even in the stomach. And if you know anything about laundry detergent,

it's not easy to rub off. Another student swallowed half a tube of toothpaste since that's all she would get her hands on. She immediately started throwing up and feeling the burns in her stomach. Swallowing large amounts of regular toothpaste can cause possible intestinal blockage, and if the toothpaste is fluoride toothpaste, you might even experience convulsions. She was doubled over in the bathroom, throwing up when a teacher came over, not even in a

rush, someone had ratted her out. So he knew what she was trying to do, she was trying to end things. He walks over, grabs the bottle of toothpaste, casually reads the ingredients, looks at her and says, I read the ingredients, it's not going to kill you. And I'm not going to take you to the hospital because pain is a consequence of your actions. You deserve it. Next time maybe don't try stupid things. He left her to throw up all night long. Another student ripped apart plastic water bottles because again that's all he had,

that's all he thought could make a weapon. And he used these rough jagged but very dull edges of the plastic to try and puncture his skin on his wrist area. Teachers found out and they hid him where he had already cut himself. They hit him with a metal ruler that had already hit copious amounts of people that was never cleaned, had dried blood on there, the mix of the plastic, metal, and blood and the unsenitary living conditions caused him to get an infection and his wrist were leaking pus for weeks. And he still has those scars.

The tuition paid by these parents was not cheap, especially not for national standards. It was around $10,000 a year. We don't know how much the headmaster of Yu Zhang was making, but another headmaster from another similar academy was making around $11 million for basically torturing kids. The part that intrigued a lot of netizens though were, if parents are paying this much, right? And they're able to visit the school, see the students, sometimes even interact with their own children, why didn't the children tell them that this was all happening? I mean, surely the parents would be lining up and trying to beat up the abusers, they're

not going to pay the abusers for traumatizing their own kids. When it was parent day, the whole school transformed into this beautiful Hogwarts-style boarding school. Chefs were brought in to cook for the parents, and they said, oh, these are our chefs that were here all year around. Gone was the rotten cloth veggie soup. It was now replaced by healthy organic meals with tons of variety. And the students would just stare at the food and disbelief.

They did unspeakable things for a piece of sugar, and now their parents are standing there tasting the food, telling their kids nagging the kids, be more grateful. Other children would kill to eat like this on a daily basis. I don kill to eat like this on a daily basis. I don't even eat like this on a daily basis. They bit their tongues. They never told their parents that this was all fake. The kids were destroyed to the point where they were so scared to do anything. They had been indoctrinated basically brainwashed that if they were to say something, their parents would never believe them. Their life is only going to get harder inside the school. Even when parents demanded

to talk to their kids on the phone to see how they're doing because there are a lot of phones, there are not a lot of much visiting hours, there would always be a teacher next to them holding a dragon cane. The student would have to tell their parents in line, no, no, everything's great, better than great, actually. The students were told, if you ever get out and you say something, we can easily, easily tell your parents that we got to bring you back from mandatory, recalibrating. That's what we'll call it. Just to make sure we're updating the system, you know, like a car that needs an oil change,

your mind needs reminders to be a good kid. So in front of the parents, most of the kids never said a peep. They already felt betrayed. I mean, their parents sent them here. What hope did they have that their parents would care if they told them what's going on? I mean, half the kids probably thought, my parents already know what's going on. I'm sure, because why would they send me here? The headmaster would constantly remind them just how easy it was for him to have control

over them. Their parents had already signed the contracts and he could very easily convince them that the students needed to stay here because they're mentally unstable. It's pretty bad. Even in the US, we have involuntary commitment which can be easily abused. It's this great area where as long as you argue and can convince a judge or anyone really that the person in question is somehow a danger to themselves or others You can take tiny little text messages of young people lingo of like oh my gosh, I'm gonna kill myself That could be used against you and blown into this very serious thing of oh no, you're a danger to yourself

We got it. we got to commit you. And it's probably even easier if you're a parent in voluntary committing your child. The students knew this, and they're living in this hell so they didn't dare say anything to their parents when they visited, or even when they were released back home. They kept quiet. Until October 26th, 2017, an expose went live on social media about the Yu Zhang Academy. A well-known social media personality named Jentol. So he's known for writing articles about social issues and scandals. He worked with Yang, so one of the former students I was telling you about,

and they worked on this piece. Yang's main agenda with this is he knew the academy was still up and running. He knew that they had about 100 students enrolled at a single time and he wanted to help these students. He wanted to get them out. Also another big concern for Young and Gentle was that in 2017, school for online addiction was trending online. A bunch of parents were googling school for online addiction and that is what YDANG Academy marketed themselves as. This was like, you know, in China, online addiction was such a big thing for parents. They think kids are addicted to internet.

They think the kids are like, you know, they're addict. That's how they see it. If any kids are playing video games, or they're like just whatever in front of a computer, especially like I think the last, yeah, 10, 20 years when this whole thing happened, parents are going crazy. They think their kids are ruining their life because of a computer and the internet. This is the flip side of the solution that they came up with.

It's insane. Yeah. I mean, I saw netizens comment like parents think we're obsessed with the internet But they're obsessed with my Zhang like what's the difference? One's a screen. Yeah So these academies, I mean they had a target audience Apparently lots of parents they marketed themselves as treatment centers to fix children who can't live without video games or Can't follow the rules They bought out ads on different platforms to try

and convince parents to send their kids there. They spent over a hundred thousand dollars. UJU Academy sent over a hundred thousand dollars to advertise their academy and their message was in the ads. Through national education methods, we will turn your poorly behaved kids into well-mannered, well-behaved, thoughtful children. And just to give you like a picture of what it usually looks like, it's like kids starting to play video games, or they will spend their off times on the computer. And the parents will try to talk to them, like, why aren't you studying? Why aren't you doing this?

Why aren't you doing that? And the kids just want to escape that, right? So the parents think internet is the issue. A lot of time in these type of situations, it's the reflection of the family, the parenting, the surrounding. The parents are pushing the kids further and further and further. So the kids just completely want to block them out.

And then these parents turn to these online addiction quote, school to train their kids. It's like they don't want to put in the time to train their kids. Yeah, they think this is the solution. Because whenever I'm hanging out with my family, like if I'm genuinely having a good time with my parents, I'm not going to be on my phone.

So maybe you should bond with your children. And because the academy was so evil, the kids, they instantly changed. The first check up for parents was around the 10-day mark, and usually they would be ecstatic to see that their child had done a 180. They were a whole new person. They would go home and talk to all their friends.

Word of mouth was the most effective advertising for the academy though. I would hope that some of these parents had no idea that they had just sent their kids to hell on earth, but it does seem like they were so blinded about having perfect children that they at least ignored a red flag or two. Gentle and young thought, more students would be enrolled since the trending topic list showed that parents are having troubles with their kids and this is what happens.

So after their article was published, more former victims start coming forward about UDANG Academy and start sharing their stories. They said, we're all willing to get our stories fact checks, we've got the proof, and if you need, we will go the legal route with you guys. Like, if you guys want to do a class action something, let's do it. The day after the piece was posted, the police started an official investigation because of social media into the academy as well as its headmaster. Gentle, the account that broke the story, they had two main objectives.

Operation One is Operation Shutdown. Shutdown the academy and save the current students. Their second one was a lot more complicated. Operation Healing. Not many of the students got any real healing or treatment after all that physical, mental, and emotional torture because they didn't even tell their parents what had happened in there. I mean, they were broken still.

Even just the trauma of betrayal these kids felt by their parents, the ones that were supposed to look out for them, it was a mountain to get past. Most of the kids were kidnapped in the middle of the night like May. Just scary men waking them up in the middle of the night, dragging them out of their house, they saw their parents watching. They saw their parents open the door for these kidnappers. Other kids were tricked.

Their parents said, we haven't been bonding recently. Let's go on a road trip. The kids would get so excited the night before they would giggle, gaggle with their parents, pick out snacks, go to the grocery store, make a playlist for the ride. And then after a few hours and a long nap later,

the kids would wake up in front of a creepy looking boarding school. Their parents would drag them out the car, kicking and screaming, get back into their car, just drive away. They wouldn't even look back. Almost always the kid tries to chase them down, but they didn't even have a chance.

And when they finally turned around, there's a group of 10 men in white robes ready to catch them. They would be dragged inside and thrown naked into the silent room. A lot of victims lost all hope and faith in parents, family members. I mean, they had such a violation of trust after this. They didn't even know how to get that back, how to get past

that. And it wasn't even just toward to get that back, how to get past that. And it wasn't even just toward the parents. One victim, Shan Shan, she said she was screaming her head off after an incident of torture in the courtyard. She apparently screamed so loud, someone outside the academy. Someone that doesn't work with the academy, doesn't know the academy, heard her screams and called the police on the academy.

Police show up and Shan Shan's thinking, okay, this is my chance. We're all gonna be freed. I'll be free. We're all be free She saw the police talking to the headmaster the headmaster explain the situation that Sean Sean's mom had signed away Guardian ship rights and Sean Sean was actually now officially in the care of the academy and in China a bit of tough Parenting isn't necessarily illegal. It's kind of more case-by-case situations The police said that they understood,

and they left without, first of all, freeing Shan Shan, but even so much is asking for her side of the story. These are police. Shan Shan thought, if my parents don't care, if the cops don't care, who the hell cares, she was thrown back into the silent room after that. So gentle and a team of volunteers,

they wanted to help everyone get past things. They decided to create a private WhatsApp group for the survivors. They made sure to vet each one of them to make sure that they weren't some other journalists trying to get in and get their own stories or sickos who just wanted to poke around and ask for pictures. But real students who had been through the torture at UJung, they were the only ones permitted

in. Now side note, one of the main reasons that Jentil didn't want other journalists in the group was not because he's like, no, I'm the only journalist I can talk about this. But a lot of the students were debating whether or not they wanted to bring this case to court. So they actually used this group chat because they're all scattered around the country. That's why some of them were in the van for 36 hours, some of them were in 10 hours, one hour, right? They used this as a way to share their testimonies and maybe even prep getting a lawsuit ready together. Gentle brought in volunteers to help organize

the testimonies and timelines of when everything took place and any crucial pieces of evidence that they had. The group chat had 60 members, and this was just a safe space to share everything and find some healing. A lot of what we know now about this case was actually thanks to the students in the group chat consenting to release many of the stories. So the world could know about what was going on in the academy. It was a place of healing, but also a legal strategy room, if you will.

There were 60 members in that group chat, but only 59 were victims. One was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He got through the vetting process because he knew all the intimate details of the school. He knew the floor plan, he knew the teachers, he knew some of the students, he could describe them. Which meant this person knew the ins and outs of the academy, so it's not a journalist, it's not some sicko. No, he is not, he's not a student though.

So what is he? He is the headmaster of the school. June Bao. Wow. He goes by JB and JB was going to use this group chat to try and break the students one last time. JB was actually unemployed before he was the founder and headmaster of the academy. He started it in 2013 and there's not much about this guy other than he founded and ran this academy I believe he invested a million USD into the academy to get it started But I did find something that I thought was very telling of his character besides all the torture and crimes

He was obsessed with the three obedience and four female virtues of Confucianism So you're like what? Okay, I didn't know any of this. I was confused. The three feminine obedience is our. A woman is obligated not to act on her own initiatives and must submissively obey or follow her father at home if she has not been married yet. Her husband after getting married and her sons after her husband's death. The four feminine virtues are, womanly speech. Do not use sharp words, like, for example.

I'm not gonna f***ing do that. For example, that's an example of something that's not womanly words. Some interpret this as, speak only when the time is right and never utter slanderous words. Choose your words carefully. AKA, don't talk like ever.

Feminine conduct. Basically be ashamed of everything and conduct your life around not burgeoning others and not doing anything that society deems a shameful. Feminine hygiene is basically the other one. It's always look amazing and be free of filth and disgrace. Feminine work is the last which stands for concentrate on your work, keeping home. You know, don't like silly play and don't be so engaged and laughter and gossip. Prepare wine and food neatly and offer that to guests. I mean, I'm sure there's more modern interpretations of that, but I don't think that JB liked the modern interpretations. I feel like he likes the old school interpretations.

He wanted to run his academy off of this, like that was his whole vision. Creating a bunch of submissive blank slates he could control to line his pockets with money. And now all that hard work is at risk with the stories coming out. I mean, the case is getting a lot of attention online. So JB joins the chat to understand what they're thinking, what they're planning. And it's just so shameless and unhinged. JB created a fake account to pretend and be one of the students to read the messages of the victims that were talking about what they went through. He saw the most vulnerable parts of the students trauma, the trauma that he created, and he took thorough notes, like he's some sort of attorney, about every single person so he could find ammunition and figure out what their little motives were.

He knew that there might be a legal case we got to work. He hunted down the addresses to all the former victims, matched them up to the names in the group chat and went full-stalker mode. He would send former students, victims, anonymous messages to scare them into silence and the messages would read, please take responsibility for your words, okay? Justice will be served. You should be clear about your attacks and defamatory words against you, Zhang Academy. If you're willing to be a good person and delete all of your post, we can give you a chance. Or else, we have a lot of forces in your local area.

Smiley face. He ended up tracking one of the more passionate and vocal students down and personally going to visit that victim at his personal residence. The student's name is Leo. And Leo was at his home when the doorbell rang. And he opened it thinking, okay, it's probably a family friend, a family member, or maybe my parents have guests.

He froze. And then he snapped out of it, pulled out his phone and started recording. The headmaster who was at his front doorstep. JB was pissed, but he was also audacious. He starts questioning Leo. You're gonna say things that didn't happen happened, huh? What's this? JB shoves his phone into Leo's face presumably with screenshots of everything Leo had said in the group chat and Leo starts screaming,

Uncle, call the police uncle, but Harry call the police. Then he turns back to JB and says, you know, I almost died in there, right? Did you know that? Oh, there you go with your signature smile. The headmaster is just smiling at him. He says, but after so many years, nobody actually died, did they? JB shoves his way into Leo's house at this point, and they're standing in Leo's living room. Leo picks up his phone to say,

hello, I call the police just now, and someone just broken. I suspect that this person could attack any time. Yes, I think this is a life threatening situation. I'm very scared right now. Eventually JB leaves, but he doesn't stop harassing the other victims and creating new trauma. He would pose as a student and ask the other's personal questions about their lives, wanting to know where they work now, what they do, what school they go to, just so he could try and ruin their lives so that they would take down the post.

At one point he starts trying to befriend the volunteers because these are the ones helping organize the information. They're kind of like the information hubs of the group chat. At one point he befriends one and sends one of them a file. And they open it thinking it was a student sending them proof of abuse that they would add to their files of, you know, all the evidence. Their computer starts glitching. It was a virus.

So as a state, JB hired someone to install a virus on the computer of whoever opened that file and he would be able to look at the files on that person's hard drive. JB wanted to get the full file on the potential lawsuit. Thankfully, it didn't work, but JB didn't stop. He kept harassing the volunteers, finding out where they work, where they go to school. One of the volunteers name is Zee Moe, and we'll call her Moe.

Moe was a college student who just volunteered in her free time. I mean, when she's not doing work, she would help organize set of committees, contact reporters, lawyers. The victims really appreciated her. And she's doing this out of the goodness of her heart. She's not getting any recognition.

She's not getting money out of this. JB found out what school she went to. So it's calling the university, spreading rumors that she's involved in a crime syndicate. The rumors started circulating, and everyone just treated her differently. Her professors didn't want to help. They didn't want to talk to her.

They didn't want to have connections with anyone they thought had ties underground. She dropped out of school because the harassment got so bad. But it trickled into other parts of her life. Her boyfriend started getting calls, rumors about his girlfriend. Thankfully, he didn't believe them, and he knew that his girlfriend was going up against the school, so he just assumed it was you, Jung. He was worried about her, though.

So one day, she stops responding to messages as quickly as she normally does and he starts feeling panicked with everything going on lately. This is so out of character. I mean, yeah, he could have just been paranoid, but he didn't want to take the chance. He rushes to our house, finds her unconscious in the bathroom. She had gone into the medicine cabinet and taken six different bottles of cold medicine mixed with prescription drugs. She was rushed to the ER, her stomach was pumped, and thankfully she survived. She would have lifelong stomach and intestinal issues and would receive intense mental therapy after her attempt. She also just kind of lost her hope in the world.

You know, she stopped volunteering. She stopped working with victims. I mean, it was just a lot of the victims and even gentle himself said, she was one of the best people you would ever meet. Another volunteer went through a similar harassment situation. They were fired from their job because their boss kept getting calls about this person

stealing and embezzling from the job. They're like, you know, your employee, Kevin is stealing and embezzling from you? He was fired. And Gentles' main way bow, so the guy who leaked the story or exposed the story, it was reported so many times, presumably by JB and his associates, that it was shut down. When gentle reached out to Weibo, they said a Mr. Wu, Wu Jun Bao was the one that reported him. Gentle was also bombarded with some really strange threats. Someone kept threatening to chop off his hands, put them in a box and ship them back to him. Other threats just told him, you just wait, your volunteers have already tried to exit their lives and soon you will try to.

JB was also busy in other ways. He figured the police would investigate the facilities so he fixed up the silent rooms. And because that's a big part of the allegations, all the pictures we're going to see about the silent room are renovated versions. So ignore the AC on top of the wall. And by the way, the room doesn't even look great

after renovations or just imagine how bad it was prior. There's now lights in there. Yeah, no, they never existed. JB would try to argue that he used that room to calm students down. It was like a room for reflection. Meditation. Zen.

Finally, November 8, 2017, the academy was shut down and over 80 students were rescued. JB and the main teachers were arrested, and it just reminded everyone of room 13 and monster gang. Everyone is like, this feels like a repeat, what's going on. So room 13 was a treatment room in another academy, another rehabilitation center for online addiction. It was started by a man that he called himself Dr. Yang,

but everyone calls him monster gang. He claimed to be a psychiatrist and professional mental health advocate. He was neither, okay, but he would electrocute students to get them to change, get them to be obedient. So instead of the silent room, he had room 13. The first thing when a student comes in, they would be admitted into room 13. They would be tied to a bed. There would be a strap holding down their foreheads onto the bed so they can't even wiggle their heads around. There would be an electroshock

therapy device placed on their head, they would have a gag in their mouth. And when they wake up there, their eyes are panicked, they would be staring at Monster Yang, who is now sitting and smiling at the foot of the bed. And he was always in his white doctor's coat. And he'd ask, do you know why you're here? They can't answer because they have a gag in their mouth but it didn't matter because monster yang seemed to get off on this. They're like back and forth asking questions and as these students are panicking to answer he would press a button and electrocute them. Did you admit that what you're doing is wrong before they can answer, not that they can,

electrocuted? Are you willing to be good? Electrocuted. Do you want to get your treatment done? Electrocuted. One victim said it felt like 10 million needles poking into your brain at once. You just had drool, seeping down your face. Monster Yang didn't care if students peed themselves.

If their fingernails were digging into their flesh so hard that they bled, or if they were bleeding from the brain, or their nose, I mean, it didn't matter. He would do it until the patient collapsed and obeyed him like a sheep until they were broken. And parents were paying thousands of dollars a month, about $1,000 a month, for their children to be tortured essentially.

Monster Yang is the one that made eleven million dollars from this He was really really really big at one point like he has so many schools and Yes, he had social media presence. Oh, yeah his famous parents loved him. They thought that he was a child whisper Turns out there is no such thing as a child whisperer just abusers Monster Yang's treatment center was shut down, but no charges were pressed against him and side note when the academy was shut down The thing that made this news blow up even more was there were parents protesting shutting down these types of academies Not all the parents, but some of them protesting Protesting for it to not be shut down. Yeah. These are parents whose children have been in the academy

or were currently enrolled in the academy. I mean, this just goes against primal instincts to protect your child and want to rip apart anyone that hurts them. But these parents, they truly believe that they're doing this so that their kids can succeed. They're putting them in this academy and helping them. They convince themselves that, you know, which is unbelievable and maybe they need to go into the silent room to reflect for a moment,

but they convince themselves, we're not doing this for us. We're doing this for our kid. One parent demanded in front of the academy, if you shut down the academy, where are we going to send our kids? Who is going to save our kids? Another one stated, we parents love our children. If they are getting beaten at this academy, of course we wouldn't want that,

but tell me where is the truth? Where is the proof? Other parents were just screaming, we support the academy, support the academy. Or just, yes, we can accept it. They were tortured, but it was for their own good. Netizens were disgusted by this. I mean, they wrote online.

These parents are accomplices, poor kids. These parents don't actually want the best for their kids. They only want to use them as assets and trophies to show off to their loser friends. The trial was just another crap part of this case. A reporter who attended said JB and the other teachers were smiling giggling as if they weren't nervous. They didn't seem phased. And I guess that cockiness came from somewhere.

July 2020, JB was sentenced to just two years and ten months in prison. His main three accomplices were sentenced anywhere between 11 months to two years and seven months. And as of today they are all free men. Netizens were outraged 2 to 3 years is nothing. This level of trauma, that's why they call it generational trauma. It's going to impact these people and their future families for generations.

Young said, once I got out I felt a lot of confusion and trauma. He just kept wondering, was there something that wrong with me that my parents would pay for me to completely change? Did they hate me so much that they wanted me to be a completely different person? Another victim, Sean, Sean said, when I saw my mom in the courtyard to pick me up finally, I hugged her and I asked while crying, Mom, do you not love me anymore? Is that why you sent me here? Shan Shan said her mother had no clue that she was being abused,

and that was the first step in her journey to healing. Another former student said, After getting out, Sure, she was on her phone less. I guess if that's what her parents wanted so badly fine But she also couldn't leave the house anymore should PTSD she wants to just lay in the bed and stare at the wall It took her four extra years to even just graduate high school. She had no friends no job no ambition no motivation Just trauma just PTSD

And she said I guess you got what you wanted, right? If it wasn't for the academy, my life would have been so different. And that is the story of you don't academy. What are your thoughts? Please leave it in the comments and please be safe. I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye. Please be safe. I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye!