昨天
Beijing woman returns home after 26 years of trafficking, left unrecognizable by years of abuse (2026.09.08) On September 8, Sun Meihua, a Beijing woman who had lived for more than two decades in Cao County, Heze, Shandong, finally located her family with the help of local netizen "Chuxin" and others, and her relatives brought her back to Beijing. After 26 years apart, however, little remains of the life she left: her parents have both died, and only her brother, now in his seventies, and a sister living in the United States are left. Once young and beautiful, Meihua has been so broken in body and mind by years of abuse that she bears little resemblance to her former self. Now 58, Meihua was born and raised in Beijing. In her youth she danced ballroom and ballet and spoke fluent English. Twenty-six years ago, at age 32, she lost contact with her family and later surfaced in Cao County, living with an elderly man known as "Uncle Long." During that time she suffered a mental breakdown and lost much of her ability to care for herself. According to one netizen: "When she first arrived she was very fair-skinned and very beautiful. The old man abused her himself, then used her to make money. He tormented her until she became incontinent, and then she lost her mind. If she hadn't, she probably couldn't have survived." The more one thinks about it, the more disturbing it becomes: Meihua was not the only woman living with "Uncle Long" who developed a mental disorder. Another, known as "Xia," was also reunited with her family not long ago with Chuxin's help. How Meihua and Xia came to Cao County, how "Uncle Long" supposedly "picked them up," and what they endured in the years since remain unanswered questions.