A female university student in Hunan was deceived and imprisoned for 5 years, during which she was raped and gave birth to a child, eventually leading to mental illness. An accidental opportunity allowed her to escape from the nightmare, but she ended up living a completely different life from before.
Reported by Xin Jing Bao on November 2nd, a 23-year-old female university student named Zhang Ling from Changde City, Hunan, was lured to a male’s house in the same county under the pretext of a job introduction shortly after graduating from university in 2010. She was then detained in a small house on the second floor for nearly 5 years and subjected to multiple rapes, during which she gave birth to a daughter.
Zhang Ling’s parents searched for her for a long time to no avail. In April 2024, the police found Zhang Ling, who had been missing for years, through her identity information.
In May, the man named Zhong, who was involved in illegal detention, was criminally detained but not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had passed. He was arrested on May 28 on charges of rape. On October 15, Zhong was sentenced to 15 years in prison for rape. It was then that Zhang Ling finally reunited with her daughter.
Now 37 years old, Zhang Ling recounted to Xin Jing Bao how she was imprisoned and violated by a man named Zhong Peng, and how she managed to escape and be sheltered by someone, leading to her life in the countryside.
After graduating from university in 2010, Zhang Ling returned to work in Changde according to her family’s arrangements. Dissatisfied with her parents’ control, she wanted to break free from family constraints and went to another place to seek a livelihood, only to be deceived by a 50-year-old man named Zhong Peng and taken to a rural area.
On January 22, 2010, at around 7 a.m., Zhang Ling went to work as usual. But in the afternoon, her mother did not see her return home. After checking the surveillance cameras, the family found that Zhang Ling entered the unit, then left alone in a taxi, keeping her phone off.
That day, Zhong Peng brought Zhang Ling to a courtyard. There were hardly any neighbors around. The iron gate of the courtyard was tightly locked, with a two-story small building inside, all the windows of which were barred with steel. The main door and staircase inside the small building were also locked. Zhong Peng sequentially opened them and took Zhang Ling to a small room on the second floor.
Zhong Peng’s demeanor quickly changed. Before Zhang Ling could react, he pushed her into the room. She instinctively pounded on the door and shouted, but no one responded. Her voice grew hoarse, her hands were swollen, but there was no response. When she raised her voice, Zhong Peng threatened to kill her and bury her in the back mountains where no one would know. That night, she was raped.
During this process, Zhong Peng’s wife and daughter were accomplices, not only failing to stop Zhong Peng’s heinous acts but also insulting Zhang Ling alongside him.
Zhong Peng also attempted to extort money from Zhang Ling’s parents, who brought many people to try to redeem Zhang Ling, but it was unsuccessful as they were not sure about the other party’s background. They moved out, changed their phone numbers, and reported it to the police.
“Since 2010, I was confined for nearly 5 years.” The turning point came one afternoon in 2014 when Zhong Peng’s eldest daughter unusually brought her downstairs to clean the yard. She wanted to escape again, but the long period of confinement made her unable to even walk properly. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, and she had to lean on the wall to go downstairs.
In a few minutes, Zhong Peng’s son-in-law, Lu Ning, saw her. He asked his wife who she was, then reproached her, saying, “It’s illegal to detain people.” This was Zhong Peng’s carefully hidden secret that was revealed to an “outsider” for the first time.
Seeing that things were going wrong, Zhong Peng transferred Zhang Ling to an elderly person named Xue Dan’s house. At that time, she appeared vacant, unable to speak, trembling unsteadily when walking, and avoiding people. Zhang Ling was taken in by the elderly person, and after 3 years of recuperation, her mental state gradually returned to normal. She then married the elderly person’s son and gave birth to another son.
The villagers discovered that this woman who suddenly appeared hadn’t left the village for 10 years, and no one had come to see her.
Zhang Ling contacted her mother, but a stranger answered the phone – Deng Jie had changed her phone number. Zhang Ling also visited the previous breakfast shop to inquire about her family’s whereabouts but received no information.
Her parents searched and reported to the police, but she was listed as a missing person by the police.
It was not until April 15, 2024, when Zhang Ling went to Hunan Changde to register her son’s household registration, that the police in Changde, Hunan, discovered Zhang Ling in the process of matching the information of the “missing persons”. Only then did the public learn about Zhang Ling’s experience.
Meeting again after 14 years, Zhang Ling’s mother, Deng Jie, felt that her daughter had changed completely – she had gained weight, darkened in complexion, wore old clothes and shoes, walked with her head down, couldn’t even distinguish directions, and had completely lost her original charm. Her father cried bitterly, unable to accept this marriage: “Is this still my precious daughter?”
Unable to accept this marriage, her father also asked Zhang Ling to leave the current family. During the five or six days at home, Zhang Ling cried several times, unsure if she could immerse herself in the crowd again and bid farewell to her fears. In her new rural home, she felt a sense of respect and empowerment that she had never experienced before. She missed her daughter and son, but her husband, despite being older, was honest and considerate, saying, “He listens to me in everything.”
A nightmare had completely changed Zhang Ling’s life. Many netizens left comments online, criticizing the authorities for imposing too lenient a punishment on the culprit.
Zhang Ling’s experience of being imprisoned is similar to that of the Iron Chain Woman in Jiangsu several years ago, which had sparked widespread attention. In January 2022, a video of a woman who had given birth to eight children, was mentally ill, and had been imprisoned for more than 20 years in Fengxian Town, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, spread on the internet, causing a huge public controversy. Subsequently, several local officials were punished, the parties involved were sentenced, but what is the fate of the Iron Chain Woman now? Officially, she was sent to a mental hospital for treatment, but many people who visited her were blocked or even arrested.