A Chinese Woman Who Was Missing For A Decade Is Found Alive
When Xiao Yun left her family home in eastern China at age 14 after an argument, they presumed she was dead. But a decade later, police discovered the 24-year-old was alive — and immersed in online video games.
After a period of reluctance, she allowed the police to contact her parents so they could be reunited. But she faces deteriorating health conditions that threaten her long-term wellbeing.
Xiao Yun
For 10 years, her parents thought she was dead. Now, Xiao Yun (a pseudonym) has been found alive—and immersed in video games. The 24-year-old woman from Zhejiang, China, was arrested after police officers discovered she was using a fake ID at an internet cafe. They questioned her and discovered she had run away from home after an argument with her mom at age 14, and had spent the last decade sleeping in internet cafes and bath houses, spending most of her time playing online game Crossfire.
Xiao Yun told the cops she was so absorbed in the first-person shooter that she would spend hours on end playing it, ignoring food and drink. She had been surviving by working as a cashier in the internet cafes she frequented, and by receiving donations from fellow patrons.
The woman’s dedication to the game earned her attention from other customers at the internet cafes, and she started coaching them on how to improve their gaming skills. In return, she would receive donations and cashier work at the cafes.
Despite her devotion to the game, Xiao Yun also took part in piano recitals and competitions. She has achieved great success in a number of performances.
Xiao Yun is an award-winning pianist who is also passionate about teaching. She has been a music teacher for the NAFA School of Young Talent and she has helped many students achieve great results in their ABRSM Grade 8, Diploma and LRSM examinations. She has also performed in various concerts alongside world-class flautists and pianists at Singapore Conference Hall. In addition, she has also won numerous awards in various competitions and recitals. She has also written several books on piano technique and performance.
Li Jingyuan
A woman who was chained up in a dilapidated outbuilding near Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province triggered a wave of sympathy and discussion on mainland Chinese social media after a video of her went viral in late January 2022. It showed a woman identified as Yang Qingxia, 52, sitting in the squalid building with a chain around her neck and surrounded by rubbish. She was reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia after a series of psychiatric consultations and is receiving medication.
The case also sparked debate on social media about how the authorities handled the matter. Some questioned why the woman was kept in such a state and how her family was treated. Others suggested that local officials and the psychiatric clinic treating her may have had some role to play in her ordeal.
Li Jingyuan, an activist and blogger who has campaigned for women’s rights, was among those to raise public awareness of the case. She had previously been detained for four months under China’s RDSL system on suspicion of subverting state power. In an online article, she argued that the police had failed to take a reasonable approach to the case and had acted with cruelty.
Although Li does not self-identify as a feminist, her writings and thoughts on gender issues have resonated with many feminist ideas and ideals. She has also written a number of articles in support of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
The story of Li Jingyuan has also been used as the basis for a number of Chinese folklore and novels. For example, the Tang dynasty short novel Biography of the Dragon-Beard Man (Qiu Ran Ke Chuan
Li Siqi
After graduation, Li moved to Beijing, where she began working as a freelance writer. She focused on topics like gender, subculture, and mental health. She also participated in community events and film-watching sessions at independent bookstores and community spaces. These activities were meant to give young people a chance to talk about their concerns without fear of being detained or accused of causing social unrest.
Her writings grew in popularity and gained her a following on the Chinese internet. She also began participating in discussions on Twitter and WeChat, where she shared her personal stories with fans. Her down-to-earth personality and warm demeanor earned her a loyal fan base. She was particularly popular during the pandemic, when her pastoral fantasies provided comfort and inspiration to quarantined citizens.
In 2021, she started a legal battle with Weinian, an influencer management company that ran her social media and food business. The dispute was reportedly caused by disagreements over how to monetize her brand. The two parties sued and counter-sued for about two years, until a settlement was reached.
Although she hasn’t returned to content creation yet, Li’s return to the limelight has generated a lot of enthusiasm among her legions of followers. Her fans are hoping she will make a full return to her old career and continue to inspire people through her work. However, she must be careful not to get sucked back into the influencer world without ensuring that her creative freedom is protected. Otherwise, she may lose her following again. She must find a way to create content that is both relevant and palatable for the new generation of Chinese viewers. This will be challenging, but she has the resources and support of her loyal followers to do so.
Zhai Dengrui
Zhai Dengrui (
In November 2022, she was among many Beijing residents who attended a vigil for the victims of the deadly fire in an apartment building in the Uyghur Autonomous Region that had occurred a day earlier. The vigil soon morphed into a protest against the Chinese government’s stringent zero-COVID measures, and police summoned everyone there for questioning.
The women, who were all in their mid-20s, were adamant that their rights had been violated. They were also aware of many other human rights violations that they believed were being committed by the Chinese government, and some wanted to draw attention to those issues through news reporting.
As a result, they were all arrested under the pretext of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Xu Zhiyong was released in April 2023 after four years behind bars, but Ding Jiaxi still has more than two years left to serve on her sentence.
According to Ah Tian, the four women were not politically active before their arrests. However, he believes that they were “good Samaritans” who would take action to counter injustice. “They were very sensitive to social problems,” he says, and they did not have any qualms about getting involved in activism. He adds that the four were also well-versed in the law and willing to help others in need.
Cao Zhixin
Cao Zhixin lived in a small room in a traditional hutong neighborhood in Beijing, where she worked as an editor for a publishing company. She was one of the many young people to join a demonstration against China’s zero-Covid policy in November 2022, known as the “Blank Paper Movement” because participants waved white sheets.
Two days after she joined her friends at a vigil on Liangma Bridge, several individuals who identified themselves as police officers visited her home. They asked if she had been to the vigil, which she said she had. Then they told her she was being detained.
It was a shock to Cao, who had assumed she had escaped arrest because her family members and colleagues didn’t hear about it on social media. The news also brought crushing blows to her boyfriend, who had spent the last few years trying to support his girlfriend and raise his three children while she worked abroad for long stretches at a time.
“It was very, very emotional,” Cao remembers. “I didn’t expect this would happen.”
She had been studying for her master’s degree in history at the time and was working as an editorial assistant for Peking University Press. She was part of a group of young women who had recently graduated from college and were determined to make a difference in their country.
But the protests triggered a crackdown, and soon people were disappearing from their homes, sometimes in groups of five or more, like clockwork. Cao and a handful of her friends were formally charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which has become a catch-all charge for people involved in dissent and activism in China.