Child trafficking is rampant in China, with especially boys being kidnapped and sold to families desperate for an heir.
One man who was kidnapped as a kid was adopted by billionaires, but still yearned to find out who his birth parents were.
It turned out that they were multi-millionaires.
Despite the disparity in wealth, he chose to return to them.
In a video interview with Jiupai News (九派新闻) posted on Weibo, 27-year-old Mei Zhiqiang shared his remarkable story of being torn between two rich families.
He was reportedly kidnapped in 1997 while he was playing outside his home, in a case that made headlines at the time. He was just two years and four months old.
His parents searched like crazy for him every day, and his mother didn’t eat for 20 days, said his birth father.
This was when their business was just taking off.
Meanwhile, after being kidnapped, Mr Mei said “nobody wanted him” as he was skinny and sickly.
He was bought by a family, but refused to eat, he added.
Later, he was finally adopted — not sold, he stressed — by a family who fed him till his health improved.
He also had three adoptive siblings: two older sisters and a younger brother born after he was adopted.
However, his life wasn’t totally smooth sailing with his adoptive family.
Since was in primary school, he could sense that he was adopted, unlike his siblings.
He declined to elaborate further when probed.
One thing about life with his adoptive family stood out, though.
As they were running a business, they didn’t regard education as strictly necessary, Mr Mei said.
Thus, after graduating from high school, he went straight to work at a job arranged by the family.
While they did tell him that they would support him if he wanted to go to university, they wouldn’t make him study if he didn’t want to.
When asked whether his adoptive parents planned to have him take over their business, he replied that he decided it would be better to depend on himself.
So he started a business related to gaming and e-commerce.
Through it all, Mr Mei still yearned to find his birth parents.
He thus sent a DNA sample to Putian, Fujian province and managed to find them in less than a month.
They finally met in June 2022 in a tearful reunion after a separation of 25 years.
They brought him back to Jiangxi province to see the rest of his biological family, including his grandparents.
Now that he’s back, Mr Mei’s birth father is teaching him how to run his business and wants to pass it on to him one day.
Better still, they also bought a house for him, believing that he would return one day.
As for his adoptive parents, they’ve accepted that he’s gone back to his birth parents, though it was bittersweet as he was with them for more than 20 years.
Moving forward, he said that he’ll just have to attend to both families.
Netizens have reacted with interest to Mr Mei’s story, mainly because of the wealth of both his families.
They pointed out that he was wearing a Rolex watch when he went back to meet his birth family.
He was also seen driving a Porsche in a video on social media.
They were incredulous that he’d gone from one rich family to another, with some remarking that he was “born to be rich”.
Mr Mei, on the other hand, believes that money can’t buy happiness.
Rich people also have their problems, he said, and everybody has a different destination in their pursuit of happiness.
However, he also admitted that he didn’t have much idea of the value of money when he was younger.
Only when he came out into the real world did he realise that money isn’t that easy to earn, he added.
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Featured image adapted from Jiupai News on Weibo.
The residents were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Four people sustained minor injuries.
The two burglars are reportedly still on the run.
The pair face rude behaviour almost daily, he says.
She told the man to earn his own money.
An autopsy confirmed that he died from cardiorespiratory arrest.