Outside the highly anticipated trial, parents seeking their missing children gathered, and their more important goal was to hold up signs in the news live broadcast rooms of media reporters, hoping that their information about finding their children would be spread wider and further.
By Luo Yan, a reporter from the Beijing News
On December 19, a flowing “red” surged around the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court. Hundreds of parents of abducted children held red signs seeking their children, either strolling or stopping there.
Xia Xueping was one of them. She wore a white T-shirt printed with a childhood photo of her son Li Zhengkuan, holding a red sign with the personal information and disappearance information of Li Zhengkuan in yellow, white, and black fonts.
That morning, the case of Yu Huaying’s abduction of children (hereinafter referred to as the Yu Huaying case) was retried and the second instance was held in the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court. Outside the highly anticipated trial, parents seeking their missing children gathered, and their more important goal was to hold up signs in the news live broadcast rooms of media reporters, hoping that their information about finding their children would be spread wider and further.
On December 19, 2024, outside the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court, many parents gathered to hold up signs to find their children. Screenshot from the Beijing News We Video
01 Mothers holding up signs to find their children
At around 9 a.m. on December 19, Xia Xueping’s husband drove a minivan for half an hour to take her to the gate of the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court. At this time, there were already many people there who, like her, came to find their children.
Another mother, Xiao Yingmei, who held up a sign to find her child, came to Guiyang from Zhijin County, Bijie City, her hometown, the night before. At more than 5 a.m. on the 19th, she and her sister set off by subway, and at 7:03 a.m., the wet and cold air outside the court made her shiver.
Xia Xueping did not know the other people seeking their children present, but the same experience made everyone always have something to say. The parents’ eyes were wet, denouncing the traffickers’ crimes and sharing their concerns for their children. Xia Xueping was heartbroken and sad, “We talked about how many years our children have been lost, why others can find them, and why we are so unlucky and haven’t found them yet.”
Xia Xueping and her husband are both from Anshun and run a grocery store in Jiaxiu Xincun (Jiaxiu Building), Nanming District, Guiyang City. Around 10 a.m. on July 31, 1998, her 4-year-old son Li Zhengkuan was lost at the door of the store.
After the child disappeared, she went from street to street to distribute flyers and post notices, and participated in child-seeking meetings and recognition meetings inside and outside Guizhou Province with materials. In the past two or three years, she learned from other child-seeking people that she could hold up signs to find her child in the live broadcast room.
A few days ago, Xia Xueping saw a Douyin video posted by Yang Niuhua and learned that the Yu Huaying case would be tried again, “We must quickly disseminate (child-seeking) information.”
Outside the court, some media reporters who came to report aimed their microphones and cameras at the people holding up signs to find their children and interviewed them one by one. Xia Xueping is illiterate, she doesn’t know which media are coming, nor does she understand what a news live broadcast room is, but she can be sure that the reporter’s lens can let others see herself, “I just want to go there (the lens) to disseminate information and find my son who has been missing for 26 years as soon as possible.”
Xiao Yingmei, who works as a farmer, is also illiterate. She can’t tell which are volunteers and which are media reporters. When she sees the camera, she walks over and holds up the sign to find her child.
This is the first time Xiao Yingmei has held up a sign to find her child in the news live broadcast room outside the court. Limited by economic conditions and cultural level, her steps to find her son have not stepped out of Guizhou, but she has been to child-seeking meetings in various parts of Guizhou more than ten times, following the local child-seeking volunteer team, and has traveled to Zunyi, Xingyi, Kaili…
On December 19, she held the sign “Seeking Son Wang Taolong for 26 Years”, and she went to whichever lens had more people, lined up for interviews, and did not leave until after 12 noon.
Xiao Yingmei’s sign to find her child. Provided by the interviewee
According to Xiao Yingmei’s observation, there were at least a hundred people holding up signs to find their children at the gate of the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court that day. Some stood beside the reporters, and some opened their mobile phones to live stream.
Xia Xueping wandered for 6 hours. She quietly held the sign, sometimes staring at the reporters and interviewees who were speaking, and sometimes staring blankly at other places. After 2 p.m., as the crowd gradually dispersed and left, Xia Xueping found a male reporter who was live streaming alone. She walked behind the male reporter and got a “exclusive exposure” opportunity for about ten minutes.
02 26 years of searching for a son
Xia Xueping’s ability to express herself is a bit difficult, but when she talks about the situation before her son was lost, she can always describe it accurately and fluently.
On July 31, 1998, she went out. Around 10 a.m. that day, her husband said to his 4-year-old son Li Zhengkuan: “Xiao Kuan, you watch the store, I’ll go get something.” A few minutes later, the son was gone.
Xia Xueping and her husband immediately called the police. Relatives, friends, and neighbors who knew the situation all helped to find the child. Dozens of people searched almost every corner of the village and the train station, but still did not find Li Zhengkuan’s trace.
Xia Xueping once told her son not to leave with strangers, but the child was still lost. In the process of seeking her child, she heard that “traffickers would drive minibuses and directly take the children onto the bus, and some parents would turn around when buying fruit and not see their children.”
Xia Xueping’s information about finding her son. Provided by the interviewee
Also in 1998, Xiao Yingmei’s family lived in Zhongcaosi Jianshan Village, Huaxi, Guiyang City. On the morning of May 7 of that year, 5-year-old Wang Taolong and three of his friends went to play under the Zhongcaosi Bridge. Around 11 a.m., the friends went home one after another, but Wang Taolong did not appear. A friend mentioned that it was Yang, a relative of his family, who took Wang Taolong away.
Xiao Yingmei said that the police investigation showed that there was no evidence to prove that Yang had abducted the child. Later, Yang moved away, and her son has been missing ever since.
Wang Taolong is the third child in the family, with two older sisters and a younger sister. For 26 years, the whole family has been looking for Wang Taolong. However, apart from taking blood samples at the public security organs and participating in recognition meetings in Guizhou Province with volunteers or other child-seeking people, this rural family has no other way. Later, with the help of her younger generation, Xiao Yingmei opened a Douyin account and posted information about finding her son.
After Li Zhengkuan was lost, Xia Xueping gave birth to a pair of twins, but she never gave up looking for Li Zhengkuan. She often received calls from other parents seeking their children, “Do you want to disseminate information?” For more than twenty years, they have been to Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and other places to find their children.
Li Zhengkuan’s younger brother and sister will also post messages online to support their mother in finding their son, while Xia Xueping herself can only rely on her own legs, “Wherever I go, I take a sign and walk around. Sometimes I go into the alley and distribute some flyers, hoping that the child will remember and contact us.” She always vaguely feels that she is about to find Li Zhengkuan, but the reality is that she has never found him.
Once, Xia Xueping received a call from a young man who said he came from the information on the news live broadcast room, but after verifying the date of birth, she found that he was not Li Zhengkuan. Xia Xueping was disappointed, but reminded the other party to quickly collect information, hoping that he could find his biological parents as soon as possible.
Whenever she sees other people successfully finding their children, Xia Xueping will choose to cry alone at night at home. When she is busy with business, she will briefly forget about her son being abducted, but once she stops, Li Zhengkuan will jump out of her heart again. She is afraid that her family will worry about her, and rarely reveals her longing for Li Zhengkuan, “I am sad for a while, and then I slowly suppress it.”
Wang Taolong (left) and his sister in childhood. Provided by the interviewee
03 “I am satisfied to know that he is still alive”
“I’m not very comfortable competing with others.” Usually, Xia Xueping will go to the front of the lens with fewer people and hold up the sign to find her child. Before, when she held up the sign, she couldn’t help but shed tears. Now, after a long time, she slowly gets used to chasing the lens. But the night before the retrial and second instance of the Yu Huaying case, she still cried, “I feel sad when I think about this, the traffickers are so bad.”
If Li Zhengkuan had not been abducted, Xia Xueping and her husband would not have had another child. After giving birth to twins, the family’s financial pressure increased. At the same time, in the first few years of searching for Li Zhengkuan, the business was put on hold, and the couple had to borrow tens of thousands of yuan to maintain their living and support the expenses of finding their son.
“Sometimes my mind goes blank.” Xia Xueping said that she can’t get angry anymore, otherwise her body will feel uncomfortable.
After Wang Taolong was abducted, Xiao Yingmei described herself as washing her face with tears every day. Three years ago, Xiao Yingmei’s husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia because he could not find his son. Although medical staff regularly came to his home to give him medicine and injections, he could no longer embark on the journey of finding his son.
Knowing that the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court upheld the death sentence of Yu Huaying, Xia Xueping was a little excited, “This is the punishment that should be given. I can’t wait to kick (the traffickers) a few times. The traffickers broke our family. We don’t know if the child is doing well outside.”
29 years ago, Yu Huaying abducted 5-year-old Yang Niuhua from Guizhou and sold her to Handan, Hebei. Two years ago, Yang Niuhua, who had successfully found her child, reported the case, and Yu Huaying was arrested.
According to Xinhua News Agency, after investigation, it was found that the appellant Yu Huaying, from 1993 to 2003, in collusion with Gong Xianliang and Wang Jiawen, in order to seek illegal benefits, had long been in Guizhou Province, Chongqing City, Yunnan Province and other places to commit crimes, looking for children to abduct, and after succeeding, took the abducted children to Handan City, Hebei Province, and through others, introduced them to buyers for trading, thereby profiting. During this period, a total of 17 children were abducted.
On October 25, 2024, the Guiyang Intermediate People’s Court in Guizhou Province publicly pronounced the first instance of the retrial of the case, finding that the defendant Yu Huaying was guilty of the crime of child trafficking, sentenced to death, deprived of political rights for life, and confiscated all personal property. After the sentence, Yu Huaying and some plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit were dissatisfied and appealed.
On December 19, the Guizhou Provincial High People’s Court publicly heard the appeal of the Yu Huaying child trafficking case in the second instance and pronounced the judgment on the same day. The ruling rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment, and the death sentence of Yu Huaying was reported to the Supreme People’s Court for approval.
The day before the retrial and second instance of the case, Wang Wenguang, the lawyer for Yang Niuhua, released a short video through Douyin. In the video, Yang Niuhua was surrounded by media reporters and parents holding signs who were still desperately seeking their children. During the interview, she pushed the sign to find her child to the front of the camera. Wang Wenguang wrote: Yang Niuhua used her own popularity to help the parents seeking their children spread the information of the abducted children, and hopes that there will be no more abduction in the world.
Parents seeking their children hope to find their children through the huge impact and widespread attention of the Yu Huaying case. During the trial, Xiao Yingmei and others shouted “Yang Niuhua, come on” to cheer for her and encourage themselves.
Xia Xueping said that she will always hold the hope of finding Li Zhengkuan and hold up signs to find her child in the news live broadcast room, looking forward to the day when Li Zhengkuan sees it. “It doesn’t matter if he comes back or not. It’s definitely the best if he comes back. If he doesn’t come back, we won’t force him. If he has difficulties, we will help a little. We are relieved if he lives well. We just need to know that he is still alive.”
In a conversation with a reporter from the Beijing News, Xiao Yingmei sometimes lamented “can’t find it”, and then firmly said, “I will continue to look for it.” She expressed many times that finding her son is not to provide for her old age, “I am satisfied to know that he is still alive.”
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