Liu Yazhen, 56, was a retired worker from the Speed-Regulating Electrical Motor Plant in Zhaoyuan County, Heilongjiang Province. In January 1997, she felt discomfort in her legs. A medical check at the county's People's Hospital confirmed she had contracted neurosis. After two months treatment, her ailment was brought under control and she started to recover. It so happened at the time that someone told her that practicing Falun Gong could not only dispel illness, but also make the practitioners turn into "Buddha." With only a junior secondary school education, she was convinced and started practicing Falun Gong earnestly every day. Soon she became obsessed with it and stopped taking medicine and turned a deaf ear to opposition from her family.
Two months after she started practicing Falun Gong, her illness became more serious. Urged by her family, she again went to hospital. Quietly, a doctor in the hospital told her family, "The patient is suffering serious mental derangement. Be on alert and make sure that she takes her medicine regularly." But when she saw the medicine her husband bought for her, she refused to take it, saying, "Master Li Hongzhi won't allow me to take medicine. He will come to save me when my condition becomes too serious." Unable to convince her, the family gave up. From then on, Liu Yazhen took neither medicine nor had any injections. Instead she continued to practice Falun Gong, hoping to impress the "Master" with her sincerity.
Liu's condition deteriorated with each passing day and she started to suspect the function of Falun Gong. When she spoke her mind to her Falun Gong instructor, the latter told her that the Master was "dispelling" in her, and if she stopped practicing she would be punished and get retribution. Having no other choice, the illness-tormented, extremely irritated Liu Yazhen once again pulled herself together and kept going on. In June 1997, six months after she developed neurosis, Liu collapsed mentally as well as physically. She left her last letter to her family, saying, "Practicing Falun Gong turned me into a vegetable. When I fell ill, the 'Master' didn't come to save me, I cannot bear the torment any more. I will be going and leave all of my beloved behind." At midnight on June 29, when she saw her husband and child were sound in sleep, she ran out of the door and threw herself into the river, several meters deep, near the county meteorological bureau.
