Life Stories

A mother in Xinyu, Jiangxi says a Laofengxiang gold shop bought two necklaces from her 13-year-old daughter and melted them before she could object. The shop says it asked whether to call the parents; the girl said no need. The dispute has made the store the test case for a rule most Chinese parents have never thought about.

A Shanghai only child inherited 200 million yuan when her parents died without a will naming the money as hers alone. One year into her marriage, her husband filed for divorce and claimed half; the court agreed, making the case a national argument about wills, marriage and the only-child generation.

Henry C. Lee — the forensic scientist who examined evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial and thousands of other cases — was buried in his ancestral Yangzhou on Thursday, with nearly 100 metres of flower baskets and no funeral money accepted. His widow's farewell, and the split of his ashes between two countries, turned the service into a story about homecoming.