[1] In June 1979, she suffered an injury in an Asian Club Championship game against Japan's Hitachi Team and fractured the radial bone in her left arm.

Two months later, she played for the Bayi team in the Fourth National Games of China with her left arm wrapped in bandage, henceforth earning the nickname "One-armed General".

[4] In 1981, the team won the FIVB World Cup for the first time, and Chen played a key role in that victory,[1] together with her teammate and close friend Lang Ping.

[1][6] In 1993, Chen joined the Culture and Sports Bureau of the People's Liberation Army General Political Department (GPD).

She was later promoted to director of the bureau and deputy chief of the GPD's publicity department, and was awarded the rank of major general in July 2006.

Wang, a former player of the military's Bayi Rockets team, had reneged on his promise to join the Chinese national team in order to play in the National Basketball Association in the United States, and many had wanted to punish him by forbidding him to play again in China after the end of his NBA career.