In 1943, 17-year-old Gao Shumei was brutally beaten after being violated by Japanese soldiers and hanged from a tree. Just when the soldiers thought she was dead, she suddenly looked up and spat her bitten-off tongue at the leading soldier, the gruesome scene frightened them to their core. This girl from Danzhou, Hainan, wrote a heroic song of resistance in the most fierce manner.

Gao Shumei was born in a poor mountainous area of Danzhou, and her family was struggling; five people were crammed into a leaky thatched house. Her father suffered from lung disease, and her mother was weak and hunchbacked; from a young age, she had to support the family, carrying firewood at eight or nine and fetching water at ten, working more adeptly than adults, hiding an indomitable spirit within.

In 1939, the Japanese army landed in Hainan, and the Qiongya resistance broke out. Gao Shumei's two older brothers joined the fight against Japan, and at the age of 13, she became the pillar of the family. In 1943, during the most difficult times of the resistance, the Japanese conducted sweeping attacks on the base, with more than thirty soldiers invading the village, burning, killing, and looting, even forcing Gao Shumei to cook.

On the surface, Gao Shumei complied, but secretly plotted her counterattack. She remembered that her father had hidden sleeping pills left by her brother next to his bed; it was a three-year supply. Taking advantage of the soldiers' inattention, she poured all the powder into the cooking pot, watching as the soldiers gobbled it down, waiting for the right moment.

Half an hour later, the drug took effect, and the soldiers fell to the ground in a deep sleep. Gao Shumei ran barefoot out of her house, waking up the villagers one by one, organizing more than a hundred people to move to Muruishan overnight. As dawn approached, knowing the soldiers would wake up at any moment, she voluntarily stayed behind to cover the villagers' evacuation.

To divert the soldiers, Gao Shumei deliberately stepped on a dry branch. The soldiers came rushing over, allowing the villagers to escape safely, but she was unfortunately captured. The soldiers hung her under the big banyan tree at the village entrance, beat her with whips and thorny branches, and publicly committed atrocities against her, trying to force her to reveal the whereabouts of the villagers and the guerrilla forces.

Facing inhumane torture, Gao Shumei gritted her teeth and refused to speak. The leading soldier pressed a bayonet against her chest to extract a confession, but she showed no fear in her eyes and suddenly used all her strength to bite off her tongue, spitting half of it on the soldier as a silent declaration of her defiance.

The soldiers were both shocked and angry; the leader, humiliated and enraged, crazily stabbed at Gao Shumei with a bayonet. At the age of 17, she heroically sacrificed herself, and the soldiers did not allow the villagers to collect her body, leaving her corpse exposed for three days and nights, with rainwater mixing with her blood, staining the ground at the village entrance.

On the fourth day, two villagers risked their lives to bury her shallowly. Upon hearing the news of her death, Gao Shumei's parents, after mourning, resolutely joined the anti-Japanese forces, providing intelligence and logistical support for the resistance. The Qiongya column, relying on the intelligence they provided, dealt heavy blows to the Japanese army multiple times, avenging the martyr.

Gao Shumei's deeds spread throughout Hainan, and today the monument at the entrance of Danzhou village bears her name, while her grave at the foot of Muruishan is visited year-round. This young girl used her life to interpret the national spirit; her bravery and courage will forever be engraved on the land of Qiongya.