Wu Shengming. Photo: CFP

She was sentenced to life, and then she got her life back. After being imprisoned for 18 years for commercial fraud, then 70-year-old Wu Shengming, once a millionaire, came out a broken old lady in 2003. But today she has found new purpose by trying to fulfill her daughter's last wish.

The final hope of her daughter, Zhang Yan, who killed herself on her 16th birthday in despair that her mother would never be released, was that her mother could build a nursing home and look after other elderly people.

"Her wish was like a light that shone on me through the darkness in prison," Wu told the Global Times.

A decade later, the 80-year-old Wu is the director of a nursing home in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, which is home to 100 elderly people. She also jointly runs two other agricultural investment companies. It is reported that she has again become a millionaire. And again, money brings her trouble. She said she receives endless phone calls every day from strangers asking her for money.

"I told these people, no one can save you but yourself," she said. "Go and start your own business. If an old lady like me can do it, so can you."

Childhood on the run

Wu remembers her childhood as always running, from one family to another, and from one city to another. She was born in a rich family in Zhejiang Province in 1933. Her father, a businessman who "loved many women," divorced her mother when she was 2. Her mother later remarried and moved to Taiwan, leaving Wu with her grandmother.

At the age of 16, she ran away from an arranged marriage and escaped to Shanghai alone. After spending all the money she had, she moved to her uncle's place in Xi'an, where she met her first love, who was 12 years older than her. However, the couple was separated by her uncle as he thought the young man unsuitable.

Wu left Xi'an with a broken heart at 19 and started her own business in Shanghai in 1952. By the 1980s, she had become very successful in business, moving from a little store to a trade company set up with her husband, and from 2,000 yuan to 20 million yuan. Back in the 1980s, that amount of money was roughly the equivalent of 200 million ($33 million) now.

When China opened its doors to the world and allowed some people to "get rich" first in the 1980s, Wu was well positioned to take advantage, having survived as a businesswoman even during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

She definitely had money to burn. She spent 200,000 yuan on her daughter's 10th birthday party, inviting all the students and teachers from the school. Each of the 300 students got a "red envelope" from her, which contained 20 yuan in cash a piece.

"At that time in Shanghai, everyone called me 'big sister,'" Wu said.

However, her glory days did not last long. In 1986, the 52-year-old Wu was arrested for illegally importing 48 luxury cars, still considered a serious crime in those days. She was sentenced at first to death, then to life in prison. Because of good behavior, her sentence was reduced to 18 years.

But that was too long for her family. Her husband had an affair with their nanny and moved to another province. Her daughter killed herself as she thought her mother would never come out from prison.

Wu was so desperate that she tried to kill herself with a razor blade that she stole from a sawing machine. She waited until her cellmate fell asleep and cut her wrists. But she was saved by the prison guard.

"I had let my daughter down once, I couldn't do it again. So I decided to live harder," she said.

Wu Shengming. Photo: Courtesy of Wu Shengming

Released with nothing

When she was out of prison in 2003, she had no money and no family. A police officer helped her to find a job in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, cleaning public toilets for a monthly income of 400 yuan.

She took the job. However, she was afraid that people might recognize her so most of the time she kept her head down. For two years she lived in a small attic above the public toilet until her story was reported by the media.

The news report changed her life. She started getting calls from young people who saw her as a mentor and called her "mother." One in particular, now 42-year-old Yang Zhengyou, a furniture salesman, began to take care of her. She began to rebuild her savings and to invest again.

One day in 2005, she got a call from a man who invited her to come back to Xi'an to invest in orchards. The man said with the money they earn, they could run a nursing home together. Wu trusted him and invested over 200,000 yuan. Then he disappeared.

"It was a heavy lesson to learn, how can someone trick an old lady who just got out from the jail?" she asked.

But soon another businessman who read her story invited her to run a nursing home in Xi'an. This time, it was for real.

The new job has given her new life. She was invited to give advices to young people on local TV. Always appearing well-dressed and energetic, she uses her experience to lecture young people how to "eat bitterness" and endure hard times, and she also sets an example for the residents of the nursing home on how to be youthful through makeup and fashion.

"People can't tell how old I am, I tell them I was born after 1980," she said. At the age of 80, Wu attracts many admirers who is younger than her. But she said she still misses her first love.

"If he is still alive and single, I'd love to marry him," she said.