Bank clerks assemble pieces of bank notes torn up by a mentally-ill woman in Sichuan Province.

A man in the southwest Sichuan Province has been offered 50,000 yuan (US$7,950) for a bag of bank notes his wife tore up.

Lin Zhaoqiang, 31, withdrew 50,000 yuan from his bank account to pay for treatment for his wife, who has mental health problems.

However, he returned from work last month to discover that she had ripped up the notes into tiny pieces.

"Doctors have said if medical treatment continues she could be cured. But now the money is destroyed," said Lin.

Lin, who quit his job to take care of his wife, hopes he can somehow get the money back and help his wife.

Now he may do so, after an offer to pay the face value for the notes was made by a person surnamed Xie from Zigong City in Sichuan. No further details were revealed.

Lin took the fragments to banks but was told almost all were too badly damaged to be exchanged. Only one 100-yuan note could be pieced together, and only after 12 bank workers spent six hours assembling it.

Lin received many suggestions from across the country after the story of his plight was posted online by a stranger.

A computer science student offered to help put together the pieces using computer technology. But an IT engineer said this would take at least a month.

Other ideas were discounted on grounds of costs.

And an artist's suggestion that the torn pieces could be made into a work of art was discarded when a lawyer warned that it is illegal to use Chinese currency to make commercial products.

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