It started with a video blogger passing the village of Dongji in poor Jiangsu, where he came across the woman by chance.
She was thinly clad, despite the low winter temperatures, and locked with a heavy chain around her neck in a shed.
Her husband, who lived in the house next door to the couple's eight children, had chained her to stop her from attacking other villagers.
She managed family life sometimes, but could get violent attacks, he said.
The woman's fate quickly went viral.
The video blogger's clips from the village have already been viewed over 3 billion times.
The picture that emerges is of a seemingly mentally ill person who has not received adequate care and focuses on the poorly developed psychiatric care in China, especially in poor parts of the country.
Recognized kidnapped relative
After the attention on social media, the woman, who is 52 years old and her name is Yang, was eventually taken to a hospital for psychiatric investigation.
And that is where the story could end.
But a family in the Sichuan region, on the other side of China, saw the moving cliffs of the chained Yang and recognized her.
She was, in fact, their niece Li Ying, who was abducted from their home nearly 40 years ago when she was 12, the family said.
Self-appointed online journalists now contacted "Come home little children", a voluntary organization that tracks missing children.
The organization's archives contained images of the missing Li Ying, and the images show unmistakable resemblance to Yang.
Gave up censorship attempts
In China, there is almost no independent media left.
The news about Yang has been pushed forward by online users and former digging journalists.
Articles about her were initially censored, which is normal in China.
Authorities rarely pass on news that hints at criticism - such as articles that China's psychiatric care is lacking.
But the tidal wave of information about the case online is now so great that the authorities seem to have given up.
Authorities say they have no DNA information from the kidnapped Li Ying, and have given a different identity to the woman in the shed.
But online journalists do not believe it, as the authorities have changed their statements and versions too many times.
Arouses more interest than the Olympics
The fate of Yang and Li Ying - or if it is one and the same - points not only to the lack of psychiatric care and the lack of independent media, but also inexorably to the fact that the enormous trade in women and children that took place in China was never really tackled until just 20 -30 years ago.
It can partly be seen as a result of the one-child policy, where boys were rewarded, especially in poor regions.
The policy led to the adoption of girls, which led to an unequal distribution between the sexes that remains even today when there is a surplus of men in adulthood.
The story of Yang and Li Ying, which arouses greater interest than the Chinese Winter Olympics, is perhaps above all a breakthrough for Chinese online activists.
This time they could not keep quiet.
They were too many.
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Watch the clip that created huge reactions throughout China with billions of views.
Photo: Douyin / SVT