On January 5, 2010, the Luliang County Public Security Bureau in Yunnan Province suddenly received a mysterious phone call. The caller said he was a villager from Baiyanghe Village, Sanchahe Town, Luliang County, and that a 52-year-old villager named Bao Changsheng had not been seen for four or five days. The caller worried that Bao Changsheng had been murdered and hoped the police would investigate. When the police went to the village to investigate, the caller did not reveal his identity, but one thing he reported was true: Bao Changsheng had indeed disappeared during that period.

It was learned that Bao Changsheng was an old resident of the village. He had divorced three years earlier, his daughter had married far away seven years ago, and his two sons were working elsewhere. Bao Changsheng himself had rarely left home for decades. When he had nothing to do, he would wander around the village every day and chat with others. This time, after being missing for many days, the villagers had no idea where he had gone, which inevitably aroused suspicion.

Just as the police were full of doubts, a villager reported that Bao Changsheng’s eldest son, Bao Jiangang, had suddenly returned from out of town.

The police found Bao Jiangang and asked him where his father had gone. Bao Jiangang said his father had gone out to work. But when asked exactly when his father had left and where he had gone, Bao Jiangang was vague.

The son firmly said his father had gone out to work, yet could not explain where his father had gone or what his contact number was. In the eyes of the police, the son’s account was hard to justify. All the signs indicated that the son, Bao Jiangang, was deliberately hiding something, and the police decided to make him a key suspect and place him under surveillance.

At that moment, the son, Bao Jiangang, suddenly turned off his mobile phone and also mysteriously disappeared.

The police immediately set up surveillance at possible places where Bao Jiangang might stay. Bao Jiangang had not gone far. Without much trouble, the police found him near the residence of his biological mother, Wang Zhuying.

After the police captured Bao Jiangang, he looked very dazed and very abnormal. He did not say a word and showed no resistance or questioning toward the actions taken against him by the police.

After being silent for more than two hours and smoking most of a pack of cigarettes, Bao Jiangang finally truthfully confessed to the crime of beating his father to death with his own hands.

After Bao Jiangang was arrested, his mother, Wang Zhuying, who had left home many years earlier, returned to Baiyanghe Village. Facing the empty home, she could only shed tears every day.

It turned out that 34 years earlier, under pressure from her parents, Wang Zhuying had become acquainted with Bao Changsheng from a neighboring village, who was three years older than her. However, from the very first time Wang Zhuying saw Bao Changsheng, she felt an inexplicable aversion to this man.

Two years later, because she could not resist her parents’ orders, Wang Zhuying could only marry Bao Changsheng. But from the very first day of marriage, this family was almost never peaceful. Wang Zhuying said that her husband, Bao Changsheng, was not good to the wife he had forcibly married, and that he would beat her violently at the slightest displeasure. Wang Zhuying also had her own way of coping: whenever conflict arose between the couple, she would immediately return to her parents’ home.

She spent more than half of the year at her parents’ home. This was Wang Zhuying’s first year of married life. After his wife returned to her parents’ home, her husband would also go to find her, but Wang Zhuying generally would not go home with him on the spot. Only after several days, under pressure from her parents, would she return to her husband’s home by herself. The price of doing so was that her husband, Bao Changsheng, beat her even more viciously, beating her as if he wanted to kill her.

Wang Zhuying said that although her husband was not good to her, a woman must follow her husband wherever she goes, and no matter what, life still had to go on. A year later, Wang Zhuying discovered she was pregnant. She hoped the birth of the child would mark the beginning of a happy life, but she soon realized she had been wrong.

On the day Wang Zhuying gave birth to her son Bao Jiangang, Bao Changsheng pulled her to the hospital on a flatbed cart. Wang Zhuying was in so much pain that she kept shouting, “The baby is coming! The baby is coming!” However, Bao Changsheng’s reaction was bizarre. He roared at Wang Zhuying, “If you shout again, I’ll throw you into the Qing River, push you down to drown, and feed you to the dogs.”

In Baiyanghe Village, almost everyone knew that Bao Changsheng beat his wife.

Once, Bao Changsheng beat Wang Zhuying until she lost consciousness. A doctor came and gave her glucose to rescue her, but Wang Zhuying still showed no response. The doctor could only ask a female villager to keep feeding Wang Zhuying glucose. In the end, the villager’s hand was so tired that she could no longer lift it.

However, Bao Changsheng, who was so domineering in his own home, presented a different image in front of other villagers.

In Baiyanghe Village, when the deceased Bao Changsheng was mentioned, the villagers invariably thought of two words: fool. Speaking without any sense of seniority and acting foolishly—this was the villagers’ summary of Bao Changsheng’s personality.

Even when he had a dispute with outsiders and was hit on the head until it bled, Bao Changsheng did not dare to fight back. In the end, his son Bao Jiangang had to step in to mediate with the other party and beg them not to bully his father in the future. This was the “fool” Bao Changsheng in the villagers’ minds.

In Baiyanghe Village, Bao Changsheng’s laziness was even more notorious. He not only never lifted a finger for household chores, but basically did not do farm work outside either. Inside and outside the home, everything depended on his wife, Wang Zhuying, to handle alone. Not working was one thing, but he was also extremely stingy. After decades of marriage, Bao Changsheng’s family was the only household in the village without a television. Their only old, broken rice cooker was also smashed by Bao Changsheng because he thought it wasted electricity.

Sometimes, when his wife Wang Zhuying occasionally bought some tasty food or daily necessities for the elderly and young children, Bao Changsheng would immediately beat and kick her. In the midst of these fights, Wang Zhuying silently endured her husband’s domestic violence while single-handedly supporting this unpeaceful family.

The three children grew up day by day, but her husband Bao Changsheng’s habit of beating people not only did not diminish; sometimes even the children and the elderly became targets of his domestic violence.

Bao Jiangang said that his father Bao Changsheng not only beat him, but also his sister, his younger brother, his mother Wang Zhuying, and even his grandfather and grandmother. One year, Bao Jiangang’s grandfather had a lame foot and was recuperating at their home. But on the night of the New Year, Bao Changsheng drove the whole family, including Bao Jiangang’s grandfather—that is, Bao Changsheng’s own father—outside the house, where they froze all night.

In 2003, Bao Changsheng’s elderly parents died, and his daughter also married far away.

In 2007, Wang Zhuying and Bao Changsheng divorced. A 25-year arranged marriage finally came to an end. The two sons went out to work with their mother, leaving Bao Changsheng alone at home.

In December 2009, the eldest son, Bao Jiangang, caught a severe cold and accidentally injured his ribs while working at a construction site. He had no choice but to return to his home in Baiyanghe Village to recover. But unexpectedly, an even greater tragedy occurred.

Bao Jiangang was receiving an intravenous drip at the village clinic and stayed there for eight or nine days. Because the food did not suit him, Bao Jiangang decided to go home and cook something good for himself.

His son Bao Jiangang knew that given his father’s usual temperament, his father would never bring him tea or food or take care of him. Before returning home, he specially bought an induction cooker, planning to heat his own food. It was this small induction cooker that became the fuse that triggered the tragedy. That night, Bao Jiangang, who had not eaten for a whole day, struggled to get up and use the induction cooker to heat food for himself. When his father saw his son using the induction cooker to heat food, he pulled out the power plug without a word.

Bao Changsheng kept cursing, saying all sorts of nasty things. Bao Jiangang plugged the plug back in, and Bao Changsheng pulled it out, over and over many times. Finally, Bao Changsheng ran to the second floor and shut off the main power switch.

Bao Jiangang ultimately ate cold food. Before going to sleep, his father was still cursing him incessantly. Bao Jiangang’s long-suppressed resentment finally exploded.

New hatred and old grievances surged into his heart together. The son pushed his father down, and the father was not to be outdone. Father and son struggled together. At that moment, the father kicked his son hard from behind. The son lunged forward and happened to touch a large iron hammer on the ground. Bao Jiangang swung the large iron hammer and struck Bao Changsheng on the head.

His father’s blood immediately sprayed onto his son, which made the son even more frenzied. He repeatedly struck his father’s body with the iron hammer and then strangled his father’s neck with an electrical wire. His father finally stopped moving. Bao Jiangang stood blankly beside his father for several hours, then under the cover of night dragged his father’s body to a eucalyptus forest outside the village and quietly buried it.

That night, Bao Jiangang kowtowed three times toward the place where his father was buried, his heart full of remorse.

On July 9, 2010, the Intermediate People’s Court of Qujing City, Yunnan Province, sentenced the defendant Bao Jiangang to life imprisonment for intentional homicide, with deprivation of political rights for life.

The husband was dead, the son was arrested, and Wang Zhuying, the former mistress of the house, returned alone to the home she knew so well. She said this place had once been where she most wanted to escape, but now she wanted to stay here forever. She hoped that one day when her son returned, he would not feel lonely.