She announced at the time that the cancer had progressed and spread to her bones.
“Jiazhu, mom will never see you again. I’m sorry,” she wrote.
The boy was kidnapped at the age of five along with his friend while playing in a field near his rural home the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2015.
Li worked in another city in Guangdong to support her family financially and pay for the treatment of her younger daughter, who was diagnosed with autism in 2016.
She called her husband to ask if the boy had eaten mooncakes, a traditional snack to celebrate the reunification festival, and learned the heartbreaking news that her son was missing.
From that day on, Li and her husband Liu Dongping never stopped searching for him.
Liu said they had distributed hundreds of thousands of “missing person” posters during the search, which stretched into northeast China.
To increase the chances of finding their son, they also registered their DNA data with the police.
In 2009, Chinese police set up a DNA system to prevent kidnappings.
In 2021, they launched a reunification campaign to provide more resources to help find lost children.
In addition, people who have doubts about their identity can enter their DNA information into the database and conduct a nationwide search for a possible match.
The system has helped many long-missing Chinese children find their biological parents.
People like Sun Zhuo, who was kidnapped in 2007 and reunited with his parents Sun Haiyang and Peng Siying in 2021, and Guo Zhen, who was kidnapped in 1997 and reunited with his father Guo Gangtang in 2021.
Liu said her hopes grow each time other parents are reunited with their children.
Then it became a race against time for Li after she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2022.
After the diagnosis, Li divorced Liu, fearing that she would be an additional burden on him as he was already caring for his paralyzed father and hearing-impaired mother.
However, Liu continued to care for Li and funded her daughter’s special education, which cost 2,500 yuan (US$350) a month and which he paid for with his monthly salary of 4,000 yuan from his job at the supermarket.
After Li’s death, Liu said he would continue to search for her son to fulfill her final wish.
