Normal service has been resumed. After a month of unprecedented openness, the Chinese authorities are censoring the local media, blocking foreign correspondents and trying to intimidate parents whose children were crushed in shoddy school buildings which crumbled during the 12 May earthquake.
At the Deyang government office, some 30 bereaved parents gathered to petition local officials about the collapse of the Jiandi Middle School, in which 56 children died. "We all have just one child," said Zhao Yuan Zhi, mourning her 15-year-old son Wu Xiao Liang. At 40, she will never have another. "We want the government to give us justice, so our children should not have died in vain. The government officials never came to see us, so we have come to see them."
The parents want to confront retired party officials who, in 1992, allowed an unlicenced builder to construct classrooms which collapsed in less than a minute, leaving no chance for escape. Other, older buildings withstood the quake. They would like to track down the builder, and bring him to account.
You might have thought that the parents of the estimated 9,000 children who died in the earthquake would be treated with respect and caution, but the Jiandi parents say they're being prevented from organising. "The local police and soldiers accuse us of rioting and are trying to crack down on us," said one. "When volunteers came to join us for the children's memorial, they were taken to the police station," added another.
The parents asked us to accompany them as they delivered their petition. For a while, the officials tolerated our presence. A cameraman from the public security bureau filmed us. We filmed him filming us. After a while, an officious woman in a stripy dress said we had to leave because "there are cracks in this building so we don't want too many people inside in case there's another earthquake".
A white four-by-four followed us as we drove to the school. The bricks were so soft they crumbled in my hand. The steel rebar was thin. Concrete blocks were almost hollow. This was what the people here call a "tofu dregs building" - as weak as old bean curd. On the side of a building which remained standing, towering over the pile of rubble, the parents have hung a banner displaying the Chinese character for "truth".
Two policemen approached and ordered us out of the compound. "It's for your own safety," they said. "There may be diseases here." As we left, they put up tape to show that this was now a "temporarily controlled area".
By the afternoon, three police vehicles were following us as we drove around Jiandi. In a neighbourhood where most houses had been reduced to rubble, and people were living under tarpaulins, the police pulled villagers to one side to tell them not to talk to us. But many have run out of patience. While the Chinese military are respected for arriving promptly after the quake, rescuing people and then providing tents and food, local officials and the police are regarded as lazy and self-serving. The people started to shout: "This is the first time we've seen you since the earthquake! You've done nothing to help us! We're going to talk!"
A few miles away, Yang Ting Hui wept at the grave of her 15-year-old son, Wang Bin. She and her husband have made a small mound next to their paddy field, decorated with giant bamboo wheels, adorned with coloured tissue paper now tattered by the wind and rain.
"We had nothing except this one child," she cried. "We can rebuild the house we lost, but now I have lost my child, I don't know what to do. We worked for more than ten years, and put everything into this one child, but now he's gone in a minute."
A police cameraman, who filmed everyone we spoke to, thrust his camera against her cheek from behind, determined not to miss any incriminating word. She was too distressed to care.
Lai Wei Cong, biting back tears, talked of his son, Lai Xubo, who was in the same class. "The tofu projects show they did not take the lives of our children seriously," he said.
After the earthquake, local volunteer groups briefly flourished; Chinese journalists reported without restriction. But now the window is closing. Chinese reporters have been banned from reporting on the collapsed schools. The grief of the parents, who are desperate to tell their stories and get justice for their cause, is turning to anger.
Outside Jiandi Middle School, they have built a shrine. Official school photos, each on a red background, taken for the high school exams the children should have sat last weekend, have been stuck to the wall. Incense sticks and white paper flowers are strewn on a table in front.
One banner reads: "A natural disaster is irreversible, but a man-made disaster is inexcusable."
Another says: "Bring back my son."
Lindsey Hilsum is China correspondent for Channel 4 News
