It started out as a family reunion story but soon took a darker turn. A 45-year-old woman, identified only by her surname Bu, had lost contact with her family for more than a decade. She was found in late 2024 in a rural area in Heshun county in the central Chinese province of Shanxi, more than 100km (62 miles) from her home. Bu had an advanced university education but she also had a history of mental illness, and the discovery that she had given birth to several children with a villager raised...