The death of Wang Linming, and the sorry state of backwater officialdom

Wang Linming (王林明), a 27-year old junior official in Hengtang township (横塘镇) in Hunan province, drowned in what appears to have been a fishing accident a year ago. His funeral service took place a few weeks past. A Southern Weekend (南方周末) journalist (they still exist), Zheng Dan (郑丹), put together the story of his short, sad life in grassroots officialdom, which, of course, soon got deleted from Mainland social media. I’ve posted a translation below.

It’s a heart-rending tale, and revealing for Chinese politics watchers, as it suggests that Xi Jinping’s efforts to transform the bureaucracy are flailing, at least in the state’s backwaters.

Wang passed the bureaucrats’ exam (公考) and got allocated to backwater Hengtang in 2022, where he threw himself into getting promoted from the most junior ‘first-level staff (一级科员)’ rank (more on ranks here), hoping in the future for a posting under the big city lights of Changsha. That involved working tedious hours taking meeting notes, drafting reports, doing all the miscellaneous jobs that no one above (or beside) him wanted to do. He herniated a disk, which made sitting difficult, but still had to sit note-taking for hours on end.

The biggest time-sink, though, was accompanying his local seniors. Wang quickly put on weight and evolved a beer belly with all the banqueting, often three or four times a day. (Wang, writing to a friend: “I drank more alcohol in a month at work than in the previous twenty years.”) He also quickly ran up a debt of RMB 370,000 (USD 54,000), while on annual salary of RMB 48,000, which could have funded share-trading losses, but which was more probably the result of buying drinks for his leaders, and “losing” at card and mahjong games with them. Even with all these efforts, Wang failed to win a quota allocation for Party membership in 2024. He tried to buy (for RMB 10,000) an undergraduate degree to plump the CV, but that didn’t work out.

After all these efforts to get ahead failed, he became depressed, and began avoiding his close, supportive family, even failing to show up for New Year dinner (he had to accompany his leaders, he wrote). When he did see them, they noticed that his character had begun to turn; a warm, hopeful young man was becoming bitter, angry about his lack of prospects, and depressed.

In early 2025, Wang was caught up in an ‘Eight Rule’ investigation from above (more on that here). He had been forced, it seems, to sign for payments for all those banquets by his leaders. Left holding the bag, he got given a six-month suspension of consideration for promotion (which, of course, would have remained on his file).

Soon after he died while ‘accompanying a leader’ fishing in a fast-moving river.

Wang’s story is one of a million small tragedies that have become too common these days. The civil service is as involuted as any other industry in China; the back-breaking long hours put in by the minority who do all the work, the endless struggle to win your boss’s favour, the crushing of all your youthful hopes, its everywhere. You hear stories like his, without the final denouement, across internet platform companies, state-owned enterprises, schools, etc.

The bureaucracy these days, though, is supposed to be a little different. Xi Jingping’s (习近平) reforms are designed to make the bureaucracy work ‘for the people’, to end the bribery, all the banqueting and drunkenness. He wants everyone to remember the ‘original mission’ (初心) of the Party.

And perhaps in the big cities of the east coast that is happening. But my bet is that what Wang Linming experienced in small-town Hengtang is more representative of what's still happening everywhere else, a bureaucracy who’s unspoken rules remain unaltered since the day when Xi took up the throne. “I’ve already stopped adhering to the original mission”, he wrote to a friend, “I’ll do anything as long as it doesn’t cross the line. (我已经没有坚持初心了, 只要不触及底线我就做了).”

As the Southern Weekend notes, Wang was still stuck at the lowest bureaucratic rank the day he died.

Here is a Google translation of Zheng Dan’s (郑丹) article. A copy of the original can be found at China Digital Times.

The funeral was held on May 27, 2026, nearly a year after Wang Linming’s passing.

He was 27 years old when he died. Before his death, he was a comprehensive management specialist and a political consultative conference specialist at the Hengtang Town Government in Dong’an County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, holding the rank of first-level staff member. The day of the incident was June 30, 2025. Hengtang Town had just experienced a rainstorm; the river water was muddy and flowing rapidly. A deputy secretary of the Hengtang Town Party Committee called him to go fishing.

Starting in May 2025, Wang Linming and the deputy secretary frequently went fishing together. The latter even created a group chat specifically for this, organizing several fishing trips.

In chat logs between Wang Linming and a university friend, he described the activity as “accompanying the leader fishing.” Because the deputy secretary planned to return to Changsha for work later, Wang Linming said, “I hope he’ll remember me when he returns to Changsha in three years.”

The day before the incident, the group went fishing together. That day, Wang Linming sent a video to his friend Zhang Hao: himself wearing rain boots, smoking, and fishing on a dam in the water. This was something Zhang Hao had never seen before, as Wang Linming couldn’t swim and never went into the water to fish.

Wang Lingheng learned that her younger brother waded across the dam, and around 6:40 PM, when his colleagues looked back, Wang Linming had disappeared. The following afternoon, his body was found in the riverbed 5 kilometers downstream.

The unexpected death of this grassroots township official did not cause a stir at the time. The family didn’t pursue the cause of death too much, only delaying the burial due to a disagreement over compensation.

However, in January 2026, Wang Lingheng received an anonymous email claiming that Wang Linming, during his tenure, had been taking on the workload of several people, leading to immense pressure and a negative change in his mindset.

Furthermore, a colleague of her brother secretly contacted Wang Lingheng, providing materials to report misconduct by officials in Hengtang Town. “This isn’t just about Wang Linming; what if we’re the ones in trouble tomorrow?” Wang Lingheng said.

Wang Lingheng unlocked her brother’s phone. A chat log showed that two weeks before his drowning, Wang Linming had been investigated for falsifying expense reports. The phone also contained evidence of colleagues and superiors engaging in unethical dining, gambling, and other illegal activities. The family exposed these activities to the news.

“If I hadn’t opened his phone, I wouldn’t have known he went through so much,” Wang Lingheng said. On May 8, 2026, the joint investigation team of Dong’an County issued a notice stating that Wang Linming’s death was an accidental drowning while fishing, ruling out the possibility of a criminal case; a full joint investigation has been launched into the family’s report of irregularities and disciplinary violations by officials in Hengtang Town.

1. The Third Generation “Only Son” of the Wang Family

In mid-May 2026, a reporter from Southern Weekly visited the rented apartment where Wang Linming’s parents lived in Lingling District, Yongzhou City. When Wang Linming was in his senior year of high school, the couple moved from their rural hometown to the city to accompany him, and they have continued to live there ever since, paying 200 yuan per month in rent. Today, his parents still keep the furnishings in his room; a thick stack of civil service exam preparation questions is piled on the bookshelf beside his bed.

Being able to raise their son to be a civil servant makes Wang Xiaoshun, the father, feel proud and able to “hold his head high” when he goes out. In the eyes of their generation, a civil servant is the best job because it’s a stable, secure position; “even if he only earns 2,000 yuan a month, we still have face.”

Wang Xiaoshun is 62 years old. Over the years, he has endured much hardship to support his two children’s education. He ran a small restaurant and a shop in his hometown, sold beans and fertilizer, and worked tirelessly at various construction sites and real estate developments, demolishing and building walls with renovation companies. He often went to the crossroads before dawn to wait for the work trucks.

Wang Xiaoshun has two brothers. His eldest and second eldest brothers had five children, all girls. When Wang Xiaoshun had his first child, it was also a girl. The inability to have a son led to the Wang family being looked down upon in the village, and Wang Xiaoshun was so indignant that he even got into a fight over it.

“In the countryside, a family can’t do without a son,” Wang Xiaoshun said. After his wife became pregnant for the second time, the couple went to several hospitals and had seven ultrasounds. Because the ultrasounds weren’t clear, the doctors said it was a girl the first five times. Just as they were preparing for an abortion, the sixth ultrasound revealed it was a boy.

Counting from Wang Xiaoshun’s parents’ generation, Wang Linming is the third-generation only son in the Wang family. Wang Lingheng also dotes on her younger brother, treating him “like her own child.”

When Wang Linming was in university, Wang Lingheng used money from her business to support his studies. After he started working, whenever he needed money, he would habitually ask his sister for a small red envelope containing a few hundred yuan. Even when Wang Linming bought a house in 2024, Wang Lingheng proactively lent him 120,000 yuan for the down payment.

In Wang Lingheng’s view, the siblings have always had a very good relationship. Her brother likes to stick close to her, always putting his arm around her shoulder and teasing her about her short stature. When she got married, he borrowed over 2,000 yuan from relatives to buy her a necklace as a gift. At any time, Wang Linming’s emergency contact is always Wang Lingheng.

In her brother’s WeChat contact, she is listed as “his older sister.” When Wang Lingheng unlocks her brother’s phone, the password works instantly—it’s the short number from their old-fashioned landline when they were children, a number they’ve both used tacitly for many years.

Wang Linming attended Yongzhou No. 1 High School, the best high school in the area, but failed the college entrance examination and only got into a junior college. After graduation, he worked his way up from clerk to store manager at a convenience store in Changsha.

Wang Linming’s ex-girlfriend was from Changsha. His friend Zhang Hao said that when Wang visited his ex-girlfriend’s family before he became a civil servant, her father disapproved of Wang Linming’s lack of a respectable job.

He took the civil service exam for two years. During that time, Wang Linming rented a room in Changsha and made a living by delivering food. On August 6, 2022, Wang Linming sent a WeChat message to his sister to congratulate her; he ranked 8th in the written exam and made it into the top 7 in the interview. The position he applied for only had 7 openings, and he narrowly won. He said, “These past two years, feeling like I’m neither human nor ghost, are finally over.”

August 28, 2022, was the day Wang Linming reported to the Hengtang Town government. Wang Lingheng drove him there, bought him daily necessities, made his bed, and even posted a celebratory message on WeChat Moments.

2. “The Leaders Are Very Cunning”

“I must strive to be a qualified and excellent civil servant.” At the beginning of his career, Wang Linming wrote his aspiration in his civil servant training notes.

When he first started working, he often boasted to his family, intentionally or unintentionally, about how, as the duty secretary in the Party and Government Office, he was highly regarded by his superiors and was responsible for handling important matters, including recording meeting minutes, compiling accounting materials, and arranging receptions for his superiors.

Chat records show that he was responsible for everything from the renovation of township toilets to changing toilet paper in the government compound, and he participated in activities such as fighting fires in the mountains and visiting villages. This dedication paid off initially: in 2023, Wang Linming received the “Excellent Town Cadre” honorary title from the Hengtang Town government.

On July 22, 2023, Wang Xiaoshun and his family went to a photo studio to take a family portrait. Originally intended to make up for his mother Tang Shunying’s regret at not wearing a wedding dress at her wedding, the photo faithfully captured Wang Linming’s appearance nearly a year into his job as a civil servant—a fair-skinned, round face with a slightly protruding belly. In the photo, compared to his family members’ toothy smiles and natural, affectionate poses, Wang Linming stood with his hands in his pockets, expressionless. Wang Lingheng said that her younger brother always acted this way in photos, liking to look cool.

That year, Wang Linming’s weight jumped from 140 jin (70 catties) to 180 jin (90 catties), developing a beer belly. Friends and relatives remembered him as having a very low alcohol tolerance, surrendering after just two drinks. However, in Hengtang Town, he frequently attended various social events, his eyes often bloodshot. Wang Linming told a friend on WeChat that he “drank more alcohol in a month at work than in the previous twenty years.”

“The Party Secretary wasn’t drunk at all tonight, he’s been well protected.” On August 8, 2023, Wang Linming boasted to a colleague on WeChat, receiving praise in return: “One person from the office is enough, one is worth three.” The “Party Secretary” referred to Yi Nian, the Party Secretary of Hengtang Town. In Wang Linming’s mind, Yi Nian, who had risen to the rank of section chief at just over 30, had a bright future. He wanted to cultivate a good relationship with him, but also felt that Yi was a “difficult person to rely on.”

“I have to socialize, and socializing with colleagues and superiors is really difficult (dialect, meaning troublesome). I’d rather stay in my dorm reading and practicing calligraphy,” Wang Linming complained to a friend on WeChat.

However, his WeChat chat history with colleagues revealed a different side of him: he tried to improve his relationships with colleagues and superiors by actively participating in social events and organizing drinking parties. For example, in August 2023, when his monthly take-home pay was less than 4,000 yuan, he spent nearly 3,000 yuan treating colleagues and superiors to drinks. He was used to such banquets: “Spending money is nothing to me.” According to Wang Linming’s chat history, he often drank until he vomited and had diarrhea, requiring intravenous drips at the hospital the next day. His phone’s photo album contained several blurry nighttime pictures of several men drunk and disheveled, some lying on the ground, others sprawled on stone benches, their white bellies exposed.

One late night, after getting drunk, Wang Linming called his father, saying there was something behind him, and then hung up. The elderly couple, worried about something, asked Wang Linming’s friend Zhang Hao to drive them to Hengtang Town. They arrived there after 11 pm and found Wang Linming simply passed out, so they went home relieved. Zhang Hao said, “I was speechless; Wang Linming didn’t even know we’d been there the next day.”

His job wasn’t just about entertaining guests; arranging meals for them was also part of Wang Linming’s duties. WeChat chat history shows that starting in February 2023, his colleague Liu relayed the supervisor’s meal arrangements to Wang Linming. Wang Linming would book tables in advance based on the number of guests, arrange the dishes, and prepare the liquor for the meals.

It was common to arrange three or four meals a day, with specific standards for each. Some were arranged at the town government canteen, while others were at restaurants in the town or its subordinate villages. Data from four restaurants reported by Wang Linming via WeChat showed that in 2022, the Hengtang Town government’s total spending on meals at these four restaurants exceeded 70,000 yuan, skyrocketing to nearly 200,000 yuan in 2023.

The town government had a designated place to obtain cigarettes; each time cigarettes were taken, a signature was made, and the final settlement was made uniformly. On June 9, 2023, Liu instructed Wang Linming that all party and government leaders needed the approval of the Party Secretary and the Mayor before taking cigarettes. “Our expenses were huge in the first half of the year,” Liu remarked. These meal receipts and chat records later became direct evidence of Wang Linming’s falsified expense reports—as the person in charge, he repeatedly used false reporting of office supplies to cover the town government’s expenses for entertaining guests.

From April 4th to June 30th, 2023, the Second Inspection Team of the Dong’an County Party Committee conducted an inspection of the Hengtang Town Party Committee. The related report mentioned that the Hengtang Town Party Committee lacked its primary responsibility, had blind spots in the supervision of village-level finances, and had instances of illegal drinking at work meals.

At that time, in order to rectify the illegal drinking, all town cadres signed a commitment not to drink alcohol.

On January 3rd, 2024, Liu sent a notice stating that the province was conducting unannounced investigations into violations of the Eight-Point Regulation and work style construction in villages and towns. After Wang Linming replied “received,” the two continued to coordinate information on meals to be hosted.

3. “Not being allowed to play cards is really boring.”

After Wang Linming’s death, Wang Xiaoshun and his wife received a summons from the court—Wang Linming owed Dong’an Rural Commercial Bank Co., Ltd. nearly 370,000 yuan.

Dong’an Rural Commercial Bank stated that between February and June 2025, Wang Linming submitted loan applications to the bank multiple times. Dong’an Rural Commercial Bank disbursed 365,000 yuan to Wang Linming in 12 installments. After Wang Linming’s drowning, his family was obligated to repay the loan, which, including interest, totaled nearly 370,000 yuan. The court ultimately ruled in favor of Dong’an Rural Commercial Bank.

To this day, Wang Linming’s family is unsure of the whereabouts of the 370,000 yuan. Wang Linming’s WeChat account contains over thirty brief chat logs with the head of Dong’an Rural Commercial Bank’s Hengtang branch, revealing nothing suspicious.

Zhang Hao recalled that Wang Linming once mentioned losing money in the stock market, “I don’t know exactly how much I lost, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking.” Southern Weekend reporters were unable to verify this.

However, Wang Lingheng discovered numerous transfer records on Wang Linming’s phone. The time he signed the loan agreement with the bank coincided with the period when he was most frequently transferring money while playing cards.

Most of these transfers occurred at night, occurring every few minutes. In late November 2023, Wang Linming transferred money out in each transaction exceeding 1,000 yuan, with the largest single transfer reaching 10,000 yuan.

The card game he played was usually “Bullfighting,” primarily with leaders and colleagues. Chatting involved using terms like “town mayor,” “chairman,” and “director.” Once, when a colleague asked if he wanted to play cards, Wang Linming replied, “If I don’t come, the secretary and mayor will skin me alive.”

The card games were played at various locations, sometimes in restaurants, sometimes in the government compound, and even at the police station. On January 10, 2024, Wang Linming advised his colleague, He, to be careful of surprise inspections, saying, “Don’t hold activities at the government; it’s safer at the police station.” Chat records show that staff at the Hengtang Town Police Station had participated in card games multiple times.

Some images show stacks of hundred-yuan bills and playing cards on the table. Internally, this was called “holding activities,” and it happened frequently, sometimes all night long. After playing, they would clock in for work immediately.

One overnight transaction record shows that starting at 3:33 PM on January 3, 2024, Wang Linming made 26 frequent transfers to several individuals, continuing until 9:02 AM the following morning, totaling over 70,000 yuan. During this time, he withdrew 17,000 yuan from a rural commercial bank.

On January 10, 2024, Wang Linming messaged He: “You guys have been playing so big lately, turning over 100,000 yuan in one night. This isn’t how you run a gambling den.” During the chat, He borrowed money from Wang several times for gambling.

Regarding Wang Linming’s losses, Wang Lingheng suspects there was an element of “intentionality.”

From the WeChat chat records, Wang Linming didn’t seem to mind playing cards and would even actively organize games. On the evening of February 20, 2024, when there were no other activities, he told a friend, “It’s so boring not being allowed to play cards at night.”

According to local interviewees, Yongzhou is full of card and mahjong parlors, and playing cards is a major daily pastime for many people, especially around the Lunar New Year, when there are large-scale outdoor card games.

A reporter from Southern Weekly observed four mahjong parlors along a street about 100 meters long in downtown Yongzhou. Despite displaying signs for restaurants or clothing stores, the parlors were filled with rows of green mahjong tables, bustling with people, and fans whirring on the walls. Nearby, near a school gate, elderly people sat playing cards, several rows of tables stacked up nearby, ready to be set up.

In July 2023, Yongzhou launched a comprehensive “Two Leading Roles and Five Rectifications” campaign, with gambling being one of its targets. Two months later, the Yongzhou Municipal Media Center’s “Yongzhou Release” reported on four cases of Party members and cadres involved in gambling in 2022.

Cases of gambling with public officials.

4. “Too eager to ‘promote’”

Wang Linming, raised by his older sister, has a gentle personality and is easy to get along with even strangers. He regularly donates blood. When Wang Lingheng glances at a napkin while eating, her brother immediately hands her one; “He’s very thoughtful and caring.”

His childhood friend Zhang Hao felt that Wang Linming had a naive, youthful spirit. Among their four close friends, Wang was the youngest, had the least experience, and hadn’t suffered much hardship. “He often spoke without thinking, so we treated him like a child.”

But after passing the civil service exam, Wang Linming seemed eager to shed his youthful spirit. In his WeChat collection, there was a mind map called “Interpersonal Relationships,” which recorded social skills for various situations. Yi Nian praised him for “speaking well and having emotional intelligence,” and his colleague Liu said he was “good at socializing.”

“He’s too eager to ‘promote’,” Zhang Hao described Wang Linming. Another friend, Song Ying, jokingly remarked, “You’ve really mastered the art of workplace culture.”

“No matter which leader comes, they all need someone who can drink and get things done. I’ve lost sight of my original aspirations; I’m just taking shortcuts,” he told a colleague in August 2023, adding, “Deep down, I still want to get things done.” The shortcut Wang Linming referred to was drinking and socializing with his superiors. “What can I do if I don’t form cliques?” he asked a colleague on WeChat. In his mind, this wasn’t just a survival rule in Hengtang Town; “It won’t change anywhere; everywhere needs people like this.”

Zhang Hao could tell that Wang Linming had become much more confident, even a bit arrogant, after passing the civil service exam. Previously, Wang Linming never proactively organized dinners; “We were always the ones inviting him out. After starting work, he’s the one who organizes every dinner.”

One day after dinner, while Zhang Hao was waiting at a traffic light, Wang Linming, sitting in the passenger seat, stared blankly at the pedestrians on the zebra crossing and suddenly blurted out, “Now, even the village secretary has to fawn over me when I go to the countryside.”

Over the past two years, Wang Linming’s communication with his sister has noticeably decreased. The last time they went out together was in March 2023, when Wang Lingheng took her two children, while her brother walked his dog, all sunbathing in the park.

Wang Lingheng felt her brother’s words had become increasingly harsh. He frequently complained about the family’s “incompetence,” and when Wang Lingheng tried to ask questions, Wang Linming would become impatient, saying things like, “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

When the family pressured him to get married, Wang Linming also became angry. Wang Lingheng recalled, “He said the family had no money or connections, couldn’t give him anything, so how could he get married? Was he just going to ruin other girls like this?”

In his anger, he retorted to Wang Lingheng, “What right do you have to talk to me like that? Look at what you’ve accomplished yourself!” She was so angry she couldn’t speak and didn’t visit her parents’ home for a while.

Originally, her parents were somewhat disappointed with Wang Lingheng’s business ventures, feeling that she wasn’t as secure as her brother with his stable job. When even her closest brother expressed disdain for her, she struggled to accept it.

Song Ying had analyzed with Wang on WeChat that this path was fraught with temptations, and one could easily go astray, “even forgetting why they took the civil service exam in the first place.” Wang Linming replied, “I’ve lost sight of my original intentions. As long as it doesn’t cross the line, I’ll do it.”

5. “My superiors asked me to sign some contracts”

“I’m having a relatively easy time, at least from your perspective,” Wang Linming once told a colleague.

In reality, this path was far from easy. Wang Linming felt wronged by not being “seen.” In the early morning of September 23, 2023, Wang Linming confided to a colleague why his superiors always felt he wasn’t doing anything. “On Fridays, they tell me not to reply, and I don’t reply; they tell me what to do, and I do it. The phone never stops ringing; I’m practically doing their dirty work.”

Wang Linming applied to join the Party, but the town’s quota wasn’t allocated to him. Meetings came one after another, all requiring him to handwrite notes, often forcing him to work overtime. “Each meeting’s minutes was ten or twenty pages long. In 2023, there were 43 meetings with Party and government leaders.”

During the 2024 Spring Festival, Wang Linming didn’t go home; he had to “have a family reunion with the Party Secretary and the Town Mayor.” Wang Lingheng sent him a photo of the reunion dinner her parents had prepared, to which Wang Linming replied, “Thank you for your hard work, but I had no choice due to my work.”

As if to comfort his sister, he added that among his peers in the Wang family, he had already “brought honor to the family and jumped out of a social class.”

On April 22, 2024, Wang Linming sent his medical record of a herniated lumbar disc to Yi Nian, asking if someone else could take the meeting minutes because “sitting is really painful, and the hospital doesn’t recommend sitting for long periods.” Yi Nian didn’t reply. Wang Linming could only endure the pain with painkillers.

On another occasion, he was simultaneously assigned to control the equipment used at the meeting, marking, taking photos, and taking minutes. Overwhelmed with work, Wang Linming confided to his colleagues, “I’m human, I can’t be in two places at once.”

During that period, he took a mood test on his phone, which showed depression, characterized by persistent low mood and being overwhelmed by negative emotions such as sadness, disappointment, distress, and self-blame.

Wang Lingheng recalled that the last time she noticed her brother’s unusual mood was during the Dragon Boat Festival before the incident. The family was having a reunion dinner, and Wang Linming took his bowl to the balcony alone. His aunt called him, and Wang Linming, who was squatting on the ground, turned around, revealing a gloomy and fierce look, as if he had become a different person.

Previously, Wang Linming would sit at the table with everyone, and occasionally even have a drink with his brother-in-law. Wang Lingheng later learned that during that time, Wang Linming had been summoned for questioning several times, but he hadn’t mentioned it to any relatives, friends, or colleagues. Instead, he chose to confide in an online friend on the “Momo” app, saying, “I’ve been feeling down for the past few months, and I don’t know who to talk to.”

“Previously in the office, my supervisor asked me to sign some forms, and it turned out to be discovered during an audit,” Wang Linming told netizens. Wang Lingheng later verified that Wang Linming was first summoned for questioning on April 16, 2025.

Ultimately, Wang Linming’s punishment was a reprimand and a six-month ban on transfers or promotions.

On June 11, 2025, Wang Linming took another emotional assessment, scoring 37 points, falling into the “23-63” depression range, a relatively severe level. In his chat with netizens, Wang Linming said this was the first time he had been investigated, and his biggest worry was that it would affect his participation in the civil service selection process two years later.

Originally, Wang Linming planned to perform well in Hengtang Town for the next five years, strive for a Party membership, obtain a bachelor’s degree through a transfer program, and then pass the open selection exam to work in Changsha at age 31.

He had a strong desire to pass the civil service selection exam and return to Changsha, so that his ex-girlfriend’s father could see that he was doing well, thus proving himself. Zhang Hao remembered Wang Linming saying, “I’m doing better now. When she gets married, we’ll drive to her wedding.” Zhang Hao laughed at his naiveté.

Later, Wang Linming had a new crush, but he never confessed. He told his colleagues he planned to propose after passing the selection process. A few months after his death, his phone alarm suddenly went off. Wang Lingheng checked and saw the girl’s birthday was on the contact.

Wang Lingheng also sensed that his brother took the selection process extremely seriously, constantly mentioning it. To make the selection process smoother, he spent over ten thousand yuan, intending to buy a bachelor’s degree through private channels, but the other party couldn’t do it and refunded the money. By the time that person contacted him again via WeChat to inquire about his desire to improve his education, Wang Linming had been gone for over half a year.

Now, Wang Xiaoshun sometimes blames himself, feeling that his desire for his son to become a civil servant was what ultimately harmed him. He can’t explain why this obsession ran so deep. Even after his son’s death, Wang Xiaoshun dreamt that Wang Linming, now in another world, was unemployed and still urging his son to take the civil service exam.

He wrote down his dream: “My son and his grandmother were sitting in a tiled house. I asked, ‘You’re retaking the civil service exam now? Only civil servants have job security.’ He said he hadn’t decided yet. I said, ‘If you don’t work harder, you’ll be thirty soon.’”

On May 14, 2026, Wang Lingheng sent a message to a reporter from Southern Weekly, stating that she had reached a written agreement with the government and received “relatively satisfactory compensation.”

It is also understood that Yi Nian was transferred to the Dong’an County People’s Government Office in April 2026, but there are no relevant appointment or dismissal documents on the official website. On June 15, 2026, a reporter from Southern Weekly called the Dong’an County People’s Government. A staff member on duty said, “He’s still temporarily in the position of deputy director.” On the same day, a deputy mayor of Hengtang Town told a reporter from Southern Weekly over the phone that Yi Nian had been suspended from his duties: “I’m not very clear on the specifics.” Regarding the timing of the announcement of the investigation results of the Wang Linming incident, the other party also said, “I don’t know.” The reporter from Southern Weekly repeatedly called Yi Nian, but no one answered.

Wang Linming had thought that if he failed the selection process, he would simply climb the ranks step by step: “Deputy section chief, then section chief, then deputy director; otherwise, how can it be considered a secure job?” But when he unexpectedly passed away, he was still only a first-level staff member.

(Zhang Hao and Song Ying are pseudonyms in this article)