In 1988, Chen Shan was born in Jiangshan City, a prefecture-level county under my hometown. We met in a Weibo group on the topic of hometown. She was familiar with herself and would learn a few words of my dialect to amuse me when we chatted, so we got to know each other well and became friends.
Chen Shan has a son and a daughter. She does not have the face of a housewife, short black hair, student head, planted eyelashes eyes flashing, people think she is unmarried. Once someone teased her that she didn’t look like a mother, she gently raised her left hand, the ring with two carats of diamonds waved and waved, and heard the owner of the diamonds say slightly smugly and shyly: I am married with two children.
Some people are born with the path they are destined to take. For example, Chen Shan. Her mother blamed her half-life’s failure on a bad marriage, and since she gave birth to Chen Shan, she has been cultivating her daughter step by step, expecting her to marry into a rich family to make up for her regrets.
“25 years old is a hurdle. If you marry a day later, you have less money. Chen Shan once told me that her mother always told her that since she was a child.
“Youth is a girl’s greatest capital.”
When she was a girl, Chen Shan’s mother had a lot of “capital”. Chen Shan showed me a photo of her mother when she was young. In the photo, she had two thin black eyebrows, watery eyes and shoulder-length black hair, and was a beauty.
Because of the good birth, Chen’s mother thinks highly of herself. After growing up as a big girl she was determined to marry a good family. The men who pursued her were either from the countryside or workshop workers. Chen’s mother could not see these men, and the marriage was not decided for a long time until she met Chen Shan’s father.
Chen Shan’s father was an electrician when he was young. He liked to sing and read poems, and when he met Chen Shan’s mother, he would open his mouth with love poems. Chen Shan’s mother thought he was different from other workers.
After she got married, she realized that her husband was not as capable as she thought he was. When they got married, Chen’s father didn’t have a house, so Chen’s grandfather lent them his extra suite as a wedding house, and they lived there until Chen got married, but the two of them couldn’t afford to buy a house for the three of them. Chen’s father was laid off in his forties and never found a job after that. His siblings discussed and decided to pool some money every month as wages, so that Chen’s father could take care of his parents. After a few years, Chen’s father was disliked, and his siblings disliked him for being incompetent in every word.
Chen Shan’s mother has always been insecure – the house is not her own, and Chen Shan’s grandfather and grandmother did not make a will, so when the two elderly people die and her husband loses his income, the house they live in will be divided as an inheritance and the family will probably lose their place. Chen’s mother always had a twist in her heart. After giving birth to Chen Shan, she secretly vowed that she would raise her daughter well – if she could climb up the ladder, she would be relieved of her grievances for the first half of her life.
In the early 2000s, at a time when small cell phones costing nearly $1,000 were rare and expensive, Chen’s mother spent more than $20,000 on a piano for Chen Shan to learn. Later, when she went to college, Chen Shan came to Beijing and studied flight attendant. Chen’s mother was sure that since Beijing was the capital city, she would have a higher chance of meeting rich people as a flight attendant and her daughter would be able to marry into a rich family.
Unfortunately, Chen Shan was too small to be a flight attendant and had to work in the ground handling department of the airport. She did not make it to the top of the sky, but Chen Shan followed her mother’s teachings and did not relax to create opportunities to meet rich people in her position as a groundskeeper.
Getting Married
Chen Shan and her husband met at a friend’s party. The host of the party was an investment company, and most of the men and women who came to the party did not come purely for fun.
The man is not short, from the face and the wrinkles on the back of the hands to see some age, but very cleanly groomed, well-fitting suit, the body has traces of exercise. Even after drinking, the manner of speech was gentle and introspective. But these are all secondary, what immediately caught Chen Shan is the man’s wrist that piece of Vacheron Constantin watch (now that I think about it, that piece of Vacheron Constantin watch that Chen Shan can not forget, but also do not know whether it is true or not).
After the encounter, Chen Shan began to ask friends she met at the reception about this man. Chen Shan’s mother always told her about the lesson she learned when she “looked away” and cautioned her that whether a man is rich or not depends on what he wears and says, and not just on what he says about himself, but on what the people around him say.
The others told Chen Shan that the man claimed to have studied, spent time in a state-owned bank, and came out to start his own business. The parents started out in the transportation business, which is also considered a well-off family. In the eyes of Chen Shan, who is from a small county, what is it if not a rich family?
The man became Chen Shan’s perfect target. Chen Shan regular phone calls with her mother, Chen’s mother also think men are good, tirelessly teach her daughter to take every step to make good use of. The company’s mother’s admonition, Chen Shan and her boyfriend never had premarital sex, which would have been a big drop in value.
After dating for a while, the two were ready to get married in 2013. The wedding was held in Beijing. The in-laws invited all the seven aunts and uncles of Chen Shan’s family, and the wine was all inclusive, and took those relatives around Beijing. The mother-in-law told Chen Shan that when her son was young, she and her husband were too busy with their careers to foster him at his grandmother’s house and only picked him up when he was very big, so the child was independent and basically did not interfere too much with the life of the young couple after the wedding.
The man did not give a bride price, only to Chen Shan bought the two-carat diamond ring and a car, promising to receive Chen’s parents to live in their own villa after the wedding. The mother and daughter did not find much fault, the man himself can make money, the family is also excellent, in-laws do not do much, Chen Shan think her husband is very close to himself. When she heard that she could live in the villa, Chen’s mother was very satisfied with her future son-in-law. When some relatives thought that Chen Shan’s boyfriend was too old, Chen Shan’s mother even asked them back: “Marriage is to improve your life. If you don’t want to improve your life, why not be like me?”
Soon after the marriage, Chen Shan gave birth to her eldest daughter and brought her parents to Beijing. Chen’s mother said that such a family values incense more than anything else. So, not long after giving birth to her oldest daughter, Chen Shan gave birth to a boy afterwards. The never-ending “good wife” and “good daughter-in-law” persona fills her every day.
In order to show her virtuousness, every time her husband came back from outside, she would promptly pack his suitcase, which clothes to wash, which clothes to iron, are well classified.
Once, she found a sweater in her husband’s suitcase, washed and folded, giving off a strange and gentle scent. The woman’s sixth sense has always been accurate, Chen Shan began to pay attention.
Slowly, there were clues to the man’s cheating – Chen Shan always received an unknown delivery from the neighborhood security guard. The recipient is the husband, but because the specific door number is not written, the courier can not be sent to the security guard first.
Chen Shan vaguely felt that there was something fishy, but did not dare to ask questions, because she had worked for years to get it. “It’s not easy to be a daughter-in-law of a rich family,” Chen Shan’s mother advised her, “patience is the most important thing.”
The disaster
The last time Chen Shan contacted me was in 2018, when she messaged me, “My husband seems to have someone outside.” At that time, she had just given birth to her second child, and I suspected that she had some postpartum depression. As an outsider, it was not good to judge her family affairs, so I just advised her, “You may be too sensitive, don’t think too much about it.” After that, she didn’t look for me again, and I didn’t pay much attention.
It wasn’t until the fall of 2019 that a mutual friend of mine and Chen Shan, Xiao Dai, told me that she had taken Chen Shan’s case and became her defense attorney.
Xiao Dai told me that later, the girl came to my door anyway. Chen Shan’s husband kept his hand in and did not tell her the exact door number. The girl was stopped by the security guard at the door and cried when she learned that the man had a family. The security guard knew that there were indeed always packages without door numbers being delivered to the Chen family, so after asking Chen Shan, he brought the person to her.
As soon as they met, the girl began to complain that Chen Shan’s husband had cheated her. The young girl looked like she was in her early twenties, with long curly hair of a sultry green color, and good looks, like a plane model.
The husband and the girl are living together outside. The girl said that her husband told her that her father was a vice-ministerial cadre, her mother was a state-owned enterprise executive, her family had several suites in the city, there are villas in the suburbs, they studied abroad, studying finance, there are many projects in hand to earn money. The girl is convinced of her husband’s background, to do a small investment in the way of shares, one after another to her husband transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars. The result was told that the money hit the water, can not come back. Finally the girl was blacked out by her husband.
The girl cried and sat on the floor, and took out her phone to show Chen Shan her and her husband’s photos, chats and transfer records, saying that they were all her hard-earned money from shooting short videos and answering ads.
Chen Shan half a day did not respond, took the girl’s phone to repeatedly confirm that the things inside is not from the hands of her husband.
“He fell in love with me and said he would marry me, but he cheated me out of my money! And blacked me out!” The girl cried louder and louder, from the beginning of the suppression to completely let go of crying, “I want to call the police!” Chen Shan listened to what she said, and felt that her husband and herself were a family after all, on the same side, so she made up her mind to put things right. She gave the girl transferred several million yuan, want to first appease each other: “this money you take first, you write down my cell phone number, something to call me, do not call the police first ……” she requested the girl. The girl cried and cried and took the money and left.
In order not to worry about parents, Chen Shan did not mention the girl came to the door. But she couldn’t stop the hairs in her heart —
When she was pregnant with her first child, she heard that her husband had an investment project in his hands, and Chen Shan’s mother’s family followed and invested some. The returns were so good that Chen Shan’s mother even paid to buy the house the family had been living in for 30 years from Chen Shan’s grandfather’s name. Then, her husband proposed additional investments to Chen Shan’s parents. Chen’s mother was so convinced that she persuaded Chen’s father to mortgage the house he had just gotten and borrowed more than 2 million yuan to invest in her son-in-law’s project.
A few days later, Chen Shan’s husband returned home. “When a man has money, he can’t stop young girls from sticking it to him.” The husband replied to Chen Shan’s questioning in this way, and his tone was derisive along with Chen Shan. Chen Shan was unhappy and continued to ask about the investment project and the money. Her husband got impatient and slapped Chen Shan across the face, yelling, “You’re so annoying! If you are so unsure, don’t mortgage your house in the first place, don’t ask me to watch your investment, investment is inherently risky.”
The next day, the man’s husband disappeared again with his simple luggage.
Chen Shan can only tell the original story to the two old people, as it concerns the assets of her parents. Chen Shan’s mother was restless and asked her daughter every day: what happened to the money. Chen Shan didn’t know what was going on, so she had to put it off every time.
Things were not as simple as Chen Shan thought.
The girl finally reported to the police, and soon the police came to the door, but brought a more unacceptable fact to Chen Shan: her husband had three loan disputes outside, each involving millions of dollars. When asked again, the husband’s glamorous background is false, he has a wife in his hometown who did not pull the card, and the two have a ten-year-old son. The villa where Chen Shan and her husband live is actually rented by her husband.
After all these years of marriage, it seems that the husband is taking care of everything. Usually, she just asks her husband to take money to spend and take care of the children. Sometimes she also tentatively asked her husband some business matters, the man dotingly back to her, you know very well, unlike some girls, body and face together are not worth a few bottles of wine, but always thinking about me.
That’s a hint. Chen Shan is conscious of avoiding suspicion, afraid that her husband will think she is greedy for her husband’s property, Chen Shan has never seen the villa’s real estate license, she does not dare to ask to see the real estate license. Even her mother thought she was doing the right thing: rich people don’t like girls who are too purposeful and often ask questions, “He gives you money happily, you spend it happily.
broken dreams
Chen Shan forced herself to calm down and said to her parents, “The money should be gone. He is a liar, the house is rented, the identity is false, he has long been married, has a wife and children, there is a mistress outside, and cheated the mistress of the money ……”
Chen Shan parents who did not speak, and do not know how to react. After a long time, Chen’s father sat on his buttocks, unable to get up, aside of Chen’s mother suddenly issued a muffled wail, unstable standing down. Immediately afterwards, her face was crooked and her mouth was slanted, and half of her body was stiffened.
Chen Shan stumbled and crawled to get the phone to call 120, and the ambulance arrived and the two old men were carried to the car.
Compared with Chen Shan’s mother, Chen Shan’s father was lucky, only suffering from hypertension. Chen Shan’s mother had a stroke and was taken to the hospital for resuscitation, but it seemed that she also had heart problems.
Everyone found out that something was wrong with Chen Shan at Chen’s mother’s funeral banquet. At that time, everyone was eating when Chen Shan stood up and shouted: Stop talking!
The family froze, stopped talking and looked up at her. She pointed her finger at a table of relatives and said, “Liars! All of them are liars!” Then, she picked up her son next to her and threw him to the ground. The crowd was too late to stop her, but she stopped herself, put the child down and ran out. The eldest daughter cried out in fear and ran after her mother.
Chen’s father and several relatives chased after her and managed to catch Chen Shan. Chen Shan went crazy, cursing and biting people on sight, and finally started to smash things. The family realized that she was out of her mind. Chen Shan’s aunt took pity on the child and also felt sorry for Chen’s father, so she moved in with them.
The Chen family told Xiao Dai that Chen Shan became unpredictable after that. She used to run outside in the middle of the night and scream; sometimes she pulled her hair, hit her head against the wall and slit her wrists with a razor blade. She also sat alone in a corner and cried, saying, “Mom, I did this to you.
On another occasion, Chen Shan sat by the windowsill in the middle of the night with her daughter and son in her arms, saying, “Look, Grandma is waving to us. Chen’s father and his own sister rushed up to hug the three. Ignoring Chen Shan’s death grip on his arm, Chen Shan’s father racked his daughter all the way to the hospital.
Xiaodai told me that she learned about the situation on the day of the incident from the case file.
On that day, Chen’s father took his grandson and granddaughter out to the park, and Chen Shan was home alone. Her husband, who had been missing for more than two months, returned home at this juncture. He and Chen Shan said, “I know all about Mom, I’m sorry for your loss.”
The case file shows that the two men had an argument inside the house. After getting rid of Chen Shan, the man packed up his things and left the house. Ten minutes later, he walked to the entrance of the neighborhood. Chen Shan followed in the car the man had bought when he got married.
The car was running towards the man. The course of events was later recorded in the case transcript. In the villa community in Shunyi, the security guard who witnessed the incident said to the staff investigating the case, “The woman’s neck was all bruised up, like she was crazy.” Police arrested Chen Shan, who was driving the car, and her husband was taken to the hospital for treatment.
In 2013, Chen Shan moved into one of the villas in the Shunyi neighborhood of Beijing with the feeling of marrying into a “rich family,” and six years later, she slammed her foot into her husband in front of the neighborhood in an attempted murder.
Last summer, I remembered Chen Shan and went back to ask Xiao Dai. As a lawyer, she was not at liberty to disclose details of the case, but she told me that before the trial, she had consulted some seniors and tried to defend Chen Shan in every way possible. The good thing is that her husband’s life was saved, and Chen Shan’s attempted murder was considered at most. Moreover, Xiaodai had sufficient evidence to prove that Chen Shan had killed during the attack, and it was possible that she would be found not criminally responsible. Accordingly, Chen Shan will also be escorted to a mental hospital for mandatory treatment.
In May of last year, Chen Shan was transported to a psychiatric hospital in Beijing. When she first arrived at the hospital, she needed to change her uniform, wear a bracelet, and have her blood drawn, and when she did not cooperate, she was strapped to the bed.
I visited Chen’s father after I learned about Chen Shan’s case. He told me that he had taken his two children to see Chen Shan. When he saw the children, Chen Shan immediately smiled and asked to be hugged. The son was still young and hid behind the adult in fear. The daughter was braver and went to her mother’s side. Just hugging her older daughter, Chen Shan’s expression was not right. She grabbed her daughter’s arm tightly, as if she was afraid she would suddenly run away.
Chen’s father got nervous, and the nurse on the side gestured for him to relax, smiled at Chen Shan and said, “This is your daughter, she is so cute.” Chen Shan did not answer, but after a while, she held her daughter’s face in her hands, looking like a new person, and said, “In the end, it’s the bastard’s seed, it’s getting more and more alike.”
Chen’s father panicked and went up to hug his granddaughter. Suddenly, Chen Shan rushed out while holding the child and screaming. The nurse and Chen’s father rushed to hold her down, while Chen’s aunt quickly grabbed the baby. In the ward, several more nurses arrived one after another, and Chen Shan, pressed by the crowd, was red in the face, muttering, “Liars, all families are liars.”
- The information about the parties in the text is ambiguous
Recent Comments