A woman's body is on display at the famous Body Worlds traveling exhibit, where body parts combine with plastic to make modern simulacra. This woman is unnamed, being a representation of pregnancy, but perhaps she actually represents something else, and something sinister.
[N]etizens suspect the pregnant woman's body in the current display might belong to Zhang Weijie, a former mistress of the disgraced politician Bo Xilai and a well-known anchor of Dalian Television who went missing...

How could this be? Modern China Gothic:
The skull shape and other features of the pregnant woman’s body at the Body World’s exhibit is said to resemble those of Zhang. Also, the nearly mature fetus inside the pregnant woman suggests the woman had been been the victim of an officially sanctioned execution.
Sounds like urban legend territory, but what Gothic goodness! It draws on the old wax museum story, not to mention the larger themes of human simulacra and our fears of dead bodies. It connects with the British Gothic's obsession with powerful state systems - was Zhang Weijie executed? How much time did she spend in torment? The story also summons up the classic Western ability to come up with weird stories about China (Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu). And there's simple body horror, from the fetus to the open-ended question of just how much flesh is there with the plastic.
Speaking of Bo Xilai, here's another story about a potential doppelganger at his trial.
(thanks to Steven Kaye; photo by Alanna Ralph)
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