In 1991, Zhou Xiu Zhen, the students’ favourite teacher at a school in Yilong County, Sichuan Province suddenly resigned. Her husband Chen Jia Guo, also a teacher, was shocked. Without bothering to explain, she brought her son to live in her parents’ home, rented a place and started her own nursery school. She felt that she was wasting her talent teaching in a public school and that was a time in China when everyone was sick and tired of being poor.
Within months, Zhou Xiu Zhen exhausted all her savings and her former colleagues urged her to return to the school. She was too ashamed to go back and she refused to admit failure. Alone, she moved to Shenzhen where she found a job in sales and promotion. She did very well. Her company tried to make her stay but she refused and moved to a bigger company where her sterling performance earned her the post of sales manager. Ambition got the better of her again. She quit and started own company which also folded in months.
Zhou Xiu Zhen returned to her home in Sichuan where she gathered her thoughts and wrote a book entitled Understanding Life 生命之悟 . Undeterred by failure, she faced strong objection from her husband and son when she started borrowing money to start another school. Her book was published but the earnings were barely enough to pay for expenses at her school.
One day, she saw the passing of the Olympic torch on TV and decided to promote her school by travelling around China on a motorbike. Not surprisingly, she faced objection from her family members who were concerned about her safety. Even some of the parents of students at her school felt that she was just trying to show off. In 2003, Zhou Xiu Zhen employed someone to take care of her school while she rode a motorbike to give talks at public schools all over China. This time, she got the attention of the media which followed her and dubbed her project “Journey of Love”. She rode from Sichuan to Tibet, Beijing to Xinjiang. Chinese audiences called her the female version of the legendary Ming Dynasty adventurer Xu Xia Ke. She even made it into the Guiness Book of Records as the woman who had ridden the longest distance on a motorbike. She covered 20 provinces in China over a distance of 20,000km. Sales of her books soared and she was nominated Nanchong City’s representative of the People’s Congress in 2005.
Brimming with confidence from her fame and influence, Zhou expanded her school and even provided a free bus service. Once again, she had miscalculated. Debt from the school rose to over 1 million yuan. While her public image was impeccable, creditors were pounding on her door behind the scenes. To make matters worse, her husband fell ill and was unable to work. Zhou divorced him so that he would not be tied down by debts she incurred.
In 2006, Zhou Xiu Zhen met 3 unemployed youths on QQ. They were two men, Jun, Qiang and a young lady Nana. Restless and immature, they had joked to her about robbing a bank. Then, she came across an advertisement online. A company in Chengdu that was owed a sum of money by an individual was offering 20% of the amount owed to anyone who could get the debtor to pay up. A debtor herself, Zhou audaciously offered to recover the amount owed for the company. The company released the debtor’s particulars.
Zhou found the debtor on QQ and started chatting with him. At first, she planned to get him to meet up and then have the 3 young people beat him up until he paid up. But as they chatted, the debtor wanted to meet up for sex. He also wanted to see her face before agreeing to meet up. At 42, Zhou did not see any hope of baiting him on her own. She instructed 20-year-old Nana to take her place in front of the webcam. The debtor was pleased and arranged to meet up at a hotel.
Once Nana and the debtor had gone into the room, Zhou and the two men burst in and took numerous photos.
“Pay up or the photos will be seen by everyone in China.” Zhou threatened.
He paid up. Zhou and her gang celebrated. She developed feelings for one of the men, Jun and they moved into an apartment in Chengdu together, planning for the next job. Jun also had other friends interested in the business. In 2007, Zhou got in touch with a party cadre by the name of Mr Wang. He was a lonely man and true enough, he asked to meet Zhou for dinner and sex. Once again, she put Nana in front of the webcam and Mr Wang took the bait. They went through the same drill. Mr Wang paid them 50,000 yuan.
Spurred by another successful catch, Zhou went on to chat up more men on QQ. The gang did not realise that they could not be lucky forever. Their fifth and final victim would be one Mr Gan. As in the other cases, Nana was used as a bait. As in the other cases, they burst into the room and took numerous photos. But unlike the other victims, Mr Gan screamed for help. He didn’t stop screaming even when a knife was pointed to his throat. The gang fled when the hotel staff were alerted.
The police was soon on the scene. Her mobile phone number with which she had booked the hotel room gave her away. After her arrest, Zhou revealed her status as a representative at the People’s Congress. The police released her! After her release, she contacted Mr Gan and threatened him not to appear in court. The authorities were soon given the green light to prosecute Zhou whose membership in the People’s Congress was suspended.
When her case was finally heard, Zhou denied the charges, saying that she was only acting as a debt collector. Nevertheless, she was convicted of extortion and robbery and sentenced to 20 years in prison. A fellow prisoner who was released before her quoted something Zhou said in prison: “There are two kinds of people being locked up here. One – geniuses with too much energy. Two, simple minded fools. If a genius is unable to accomplish anything, he is no different from a fool.”
Was she talking about herself?