Teen Who Walks on Two Wooden Stools Clears China's Gaokao for University

Fang Yuxiang, a 17-year-old who lost both legs as a toddler and gets around on two small wooden stools, has scored 586 out of 750 on China's national college entrance exam – three years after a video of him at military training drew hundreds of millions of views.

At around 5am on June 25, he and his parents gathered in the living room of their home to check the result. His mother, Chen Yinlian, photographed the score report and added it to an online album she has kept since her son's accident in 2011.

Fang first drew national attention in the summer of 2023, when a video showed him taking part in freshman military training, leaning on a self-balancing scooter to keep step with his classmates under a scorching sun.

The footage was viewed hundreds of millions of times. The scooter was a concession to the drills; in daily life, and in the exam hall this month, he relies on the wooden stools that gave him his nickname, "stool boy."

In March 2011, when Fang was two and a half, he was struck near his home by a truck carrying more than 30 tons of clay. The accident crushed both his legs, and after more than six hours of surgery, doctors amputated them.

At age 3, he began learning to walk on prosthetic legs weighing about 3 kilograms. They were heavy and painful, chafing his skin in summer and aching in winter. The summer after primary school, he set them aside for a simpler solution: two small wooden stools, each weighing about 1.5 kilograms. Gripping one in each hand, he swings himself forward, the stools serving as his legs. He has since worn out five pairs.

Determined that their son grow up with confidence rather than self-pity, Fang's parents pushed him to be social from an early age, taking him to parks and urging him to make friends before he started kindergarten. In high school, he made his way up to a third-floor classroom each day. When the school offered to move his class to the ground floor, Chen declined.

"My child needs to adapt to society," she told Hubei Daily. "It's not society's job to adapt to him."

This month, Fang sat the gaokao the way he has done everything else – in a standard examination hall, alongside the rest of his class. The pair of stools he carried in was the only thing that set him apart.

Chen's album has grown alongside him. It now holds more than 1,900 images, from a blurry photo taken days after his surgery in 2011 to the grinning 17-year-old holding this year's results.