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The woman, surnamed Sun, from Henan Province, said her mother, Zhao Fang, died from illness in 2008 when Sun was nine years old, according to the South China Morning Post.

Because her parents had already divorced, Sun said she was adopted by her maternal aunt after her mother’s death. Around that time, relatives also notarized Zhao’s assets.

According to Sun, the family signed an agreement one day before her mother died stating that three properties would be sold to pay off debts, while the aunt would adopt her and manage the remaining assets on her behalf until she reached adulthood.

Sun said she had lived with her mother in Hebei before moving between her aunt’s and uncle’s homes in Henan after the death, until she left for college in 2018.

Medical records showed Zhao had been diagnosed with sepsis, a condition that can rapidly lead to organ failure and death. Sun said she learned of her mother’s passing from her aunt and did not attend the funeral.

When she reached the legal age to claim her mother’s inheritance, Sun attempted to begin the inheritance process but found that only a shop remained under her mother’s name.

Other assets, including residential and commercial properties as well as jewellery, had already been transferred to different owners.

A notary later informed her that her mother had remarried in 2009, despite records showing Zhao had died in 2008.

Because of the registered marriage, Sun was no longer considered the sole heir and could not complete the inheritance process on her own.

Sun later obtained a document from 2009 announcing her mother’s marriage registration.

She said she was shocked to find that the person listed as her mother’s husband shared the same name as her maternal uncle. She also learned that the identity photo for her mother in the marriage registration document was actually that of her aunt-in-law.

She said her mother’s identity card had been altered to display her aunt-in-law’s photograph and address while keeping the original identification number.

Sun claimed her uncle remarried his own wife, who assumed Zhao’s identity, so he could legally inherit her assets.

After another failed attempt in 2025 to notarise the inheritance of her mother’s assets, Sun decided to share the case online.

Local authorities said on March 3 that they would investigate the allegations.

“Such malicious relatives, so desperately trying to occupy the money a mother left to her daughter,” one comment on Sun’s online post read.

“What is more horrible is that such illegal moves worked. Government personnel should have arrested them when they first tried to replace the dead person’s identity and register the marriage,” said another.