Dangerous minds

Student Li Qilong tore open the envelope and scanned the letter inside. It was the news he'd been dreading - he'd flunked his exams and was being booted out of college.

If he wasn't already at rock bottom, he was soon afterwards when his father heard the news and lay into him with a vengeance.

It was more than he could take. He grabbed a kitchen knife, broke into an office at his college, Beijing University of Technology, and repeatedly stabbed a woman named Xu, who worked in the office that had sent out the notices. She would certainly have died but for other teachers hearing her screams and rushing to her rescue.