Blood In the Streets

After her regular Thursday-night game of mah-jongg, Wang Guiyu headed on foot for her home in the polluted industrial city of Wuhan in the eastern-central province of Hubei. The 41-year-old cut through a busy night market, then turned down a long, narrow road called Jinshui Alley. It was midnight, the street was dark, and safety was on Wang's mind. Six months earlier she had stopped wearing gold jewelry whenever she had to take this walk. As Wang opened the metal gate to her new, middle-class apartment block, an attacker struck from behind, smashing her head with a brick. Wang stumbled, screamed...