During the Chinese civil war between the communist and nationalist forces, 60 soldiers from Liuyang in Hunan province were deployed and fought in the Battle of Dongshan Island in Fujian in July 1950.

Among the Liuyang troops who lost their lives was the then newly married 20-year-old Zhang Zhixin. No remains of Zhang were returned to his wife, Zhao Cuifen, or to his family. A cemetery for the fallen soldiers was built in Dongshan, 895 kilometers from Liuyang, but the poor families could not travel there to pay tribute, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

The names of the martyrs carved into stone in Liuyang were Zhao’s only memorial to Zhang.

In May, a volunteer portrait team from Nanjing University of Industry Technology, supported by Hunan authorities, began restoring the faces of the fallen soldiers, according to the SCMP.

Based on relatives’ facial features, family memories, and historical records, the team recreated the images of four Liuyang martyrs, including Zhang, through sketching and digital restoration.

When the portraits were handed to the martyrs’ families on 24 June, Zhao, now 93, tearfully received the image of her late husband. The handover turned into a reunion as the relatives saw the faces of their loved ones 73 years after their deaths.

Another emotional reunion happened to a family from Henan province, China.

Lei Zeqing’s parents and siblings went to Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province on 11 June to meet him for the first time since he went missing 35 years ago.

The reunion ended Lei’s and his family’s decades-long search for each other.

Lei got separated from his family in 1991 when the deaf and non-speaking boy was playing hide-and-seek with his friends. He hid in a train, where he fell asleep under a seat, and woke up in Shenzhen.

With his disability preventing him from finding his way home, he was first adopted by a woman who taught him to write and later by a retired soldier who helped him get a job as a security guard.

Lei searched for his family through train trips to different provinces, social media, and online chat groups, where his older brother, Lei Zehu, who is also deaf and non-speaking, found him.

Days after the reunion, the result of a DNA test taken by Lei and his siblings came out, confirming that they were related.