For the past two years, people in Pingyuan village, Sichuan province, have become used to seeing a 27-year-old woman staggering through the village day and night, with the help of a walking stick. Lang Meilin, who lost her right leg in a car accident 17 years ago, came back to her hometown in 2007 to assist the village chief. She is one of thousands of university graduates who answered the government's call to start their careers in the countryside.