Half an hour later, Wang Senxun's wife and Sasha walked out of the inner room together. The wife shook her head and said, "There's a scar on the child's arm; Sasha doesn't have it." Upon hearing this, Wang Senxun quickly explained, "The scar from when the child was little should have healed by now; can it still be visible?" Wang Senxun picked up his phone, and after a few minutes of conversation, he said again, "The people who took the child will come immediately. They raised the child for a year, so they should have some impression."
"The child's fate has been too hard. If Sasha is really my daughter, I would feel very guilty because it was my carelessness that caused me to lose Sasha. If it were us, we would definitely welcome her back at any time; the door to our home would always be open for her," Ms. Feng said.
When she arrived home, the reporter had already been there for more than ten minutes. She didn't even greet the reporter but instead kept staring at Sasha intently.
After learning about Sasha's experiences of being abandoned multiple times in Qingdao from the reporter, Ms. Feng began to become emotional. However, when she noticed the camera pointing at her, she immediately wiped away her tears. She said she was worried that Sasha might not be her child, and she didn't want the camera or video recorder to capture these moments.
She said, "In my memory, my daughter loved singing. Even though she was very young, we often heard her sing. Thinking about it now, she sang really well back then."
Wang Senxun's wife met Sasha and took her alone into the inner room. Wang Senxun also started talking about how the child was lost. "Because I already had a girl and wanted a boy, I sent my second child away. Later, when the child grew to one year old, she was sent away again. We've been trying to find out about this child, and we heard she was sent to the northeast. Although we know the child grew up in Qingdao, we still want to see her." Wang Senxun said that due to the influence of feudal thinking, he has suffered from a lifelong regret.
After leaving Sasha, the reporter drove Ms. Feng and her son alone to their relatives' house in Licun. Ms. Feng didn't say a word during the entire journey. As they approached their destination, she asked the reporter in a low voice, "Will the results definitely be out on the 18th? Whether yes or no, please let us know immediately, okay?"
At Sun Zhi'en's house, the reporter's phone kept ringing—it was Wang Senxun from Dongyunmen Village, Wanghu Town, Wulian County: "Come over and take a look; we also want to see if Sasha is our daughter." On one side, Wang Senxun was waiting by the roadside; on the other side, "I feel 90% sure that she is my daughter, just waiting for the DNA test." The reporter bid farewell to Sun Zhi'en.
Recalling everything, she looked at Sasha and said, "I don't know if BeiBei will still stutter when she grows up. I also feel that Sasha is my daughter, and it seems she doesn't stutter anymore."
"You're the smartest, you can go to college."
Ms. Feng, with red eyes, closed the car door. The reporter stood there watching as Ms. Feng and her son walked away...
"In the eyes of the 'mother,' the child used to sing beautifully."
As the vehicle passed through the city and entered a residential area, a thin man greeted them on the fifth floor of a unit in Building No. 2. Close behind him was a boy in his early twenties. The reporter learned that this thin middle-aged man was surnamed Sun and named Sun Zhi'en. "He is my brother-in-law; his second daughter was lost," Mr. Feng, who brought us, told the reporter. The boy closely following behind was Sun Zhi'en's youngest son.
Sasha's suspected younger brother helped shield her from the needle.
Hearing about the child's hardships, she felt very guilty.
"She looks like both children."
There was another detail that could better illustrate her feelings. It was the child's uncle who saw the program on Wulian TV, and it was also the child's uncle who kept in touch between them and Wulian TV. Contacting the reporter from our newspaper was also done by the child's uncle. On the afternoon of March 11, she was still working in the factory. When she heard that the reporter was going to bring Sasha to her house, she hurriedly returned home, forgetting to even bring her mobile phone.
Leaving Sun Zhi'en's house, we drove another 20 kilometers to another family who had lost a child. This family was surnamed Wang. The male head of the household, Wang Senxun, had already been waiting near the village entrance for nearly half an hour. Seeing Sasha, the man paused for a moment and then said, "Not quite, let's go home first and let my wife take a look."
Speaking of his daughter, Sun Zhi'en's wife, Ms. Feng, reacted differently from her husband. She consistently wore a full smile on her face. The reporter didn't know whether it was due to the nervousness from facing the camera and video recorder or for some other reason.
Sun Zhi'en said Sasha was his daughter, but this couldn't yet be concluded. In the eyes of Sun Zhi'en's wife, the reporter similarly saw longing; she hoped the child was hers. Only then could she feel at ease, after all, it was her neglect that caused the child to get lost. Only then could she escape from the shadow of her husband's resentment.
Upon seeing the family unable to make a determination, the second uncle anxiously pulled Sasha into the car, "Let's go meet your parents; just looking at your nose, it must be her, no one else has such a nose." The reporter's car followed closely behind theirs. The car traveled from Wulian to Zhucheng, and then to a residential area, a 30-kilometer journey where everyone's hearts were suspended.
Sampling complete, the three were about to part ways. Sasha laughed and talked with them happily, showing no signs of unfamiliarity. Ms. Feng held onto the staircase with one hand while placing the other gently on Sasha's back, softly speaking something to Sasha. The reporter did not approach them closely, only watching from afar as Sasha smiled happily upon seeing Ms. Feng. The reporter sincerely wished for the results to come out sooner, hoping this time it was true.
Just as the reporter was taking Sasha down the stairs, Ms. Feng ran up from behind, "Here, take these apples for the road." In her hands, she held a bag of apples, "These are local apples, not big, but they taste really good."
Seeing Sasha, Sun Zhi'en couldn't help but stare without saying a word to the reporter, constantly repeating, "She looks the same as before, no change." While saying this, Sun Zhi'en, whose eyes were filled with bloodshot veins, became moist. Sun Zhi'en sat next to Sasha, continuously asking, "Do you remember what your parents look like? Do you remember where your home is? What was your nickname...?"
DNA testing again
Ms. Feng's words turned out to be prophetic; neither her older daughter nor her son went to university. "If Sasha is my daughter, then what I said was even more correct, because Sasha went to university," although Ms. Feng didn't appear tense or overly excited, the reporter knew that losing a child weighed just as heavily on her heart as it did on Sun Zhi'en's.
"Could you tell them that we want to do the test earlier and get the results sooner?" Sun Zhi'en's mood was fully understood by the reporter, who called Zhang Yanhua, the person in charge of the Qingdao office of the Beijing Huada Forensic Science Center, "We can temporarily add extra hours and strive to release this result along with the ones from the last few days."
Because Sun Zhi'en lived in Zhucheng, considering that it would take nearly three hours to travel from Zhucheng to Rizhao, the reporter and the paternity testing department set the paternity testing time for 1 p.m. Unexpectedly, at 8 a.m., the reporter's mobile phone rang—it was Ms. Feng calling, "We are almost there."
This call surprised the reporter somewhat, as they had arrived so early. "Originally, I planned to take the 5 a.m. train, but unexpectedly, I missed it and ended up taking the earliest bus at 6 a.m., arriving around 8:30," Ms. Feng said.
During the sampling process, Sasha stayed close to Ms. Feng, helping her fill out forms and other tasks. After alcohol disinfection, the staff member took out the blood collection needle. Before the needle even touched down, Sasha turned away, furrowing her brows, standing nearby. Ms. Feng's younger son, seeing Sasha's fear, stepped forward and used his body to shield Sasha's eyes. The silence spoke volumes as the "mother and daughter" hugged each other affectionately—a scene deeply etched in the reporter's mind.
At this moment, Sasha appeared extremely nervous, once again clasping her hands together, repeatedly drawing deep breaths and slowly exhaling.
Since Sun Zhi'en lived in Zhucheng, considering that it would take nearly three hours to travel from Zhucheng to Rizhao, the reporter and the parentage identification department scheduled the parentage identification time for 1 p.m. Unexpectedly, at 8 a.m., the reporter's mobile phone rang—it was Ms. Feng calling, "We're almost there."
This call surprised the reporter somewhat, as they had arrived so early. "Originally, I planned to take the 5 a.m. train, but unexpectedly, I missed it and ended up taking the earliest bus at 6 a.m., arriving around 8:30," Ms. Feng said.
Parental identification made them cling closer together.
Facing the offered apple, Sasha didn't hesitate, reaching out to take it, just as if her birth mother had given her something.
The reporter arrived at Sun Zhi'en's house on a Friday. Because Sun Zhi'en and his wife were eager to identify their kin, they wanted to conduct the parental identification the next day, which happened to be Saturday. However, the Beijing Huada Forensic Identification Center, responsible for Sasha's parental identification, was closed.
"Can you tell them that we want to do the identification earlier and get the results sooner?" Sun Zhi'en's mood was fully understood by the reporter, who called Zhang Yanhua, the person in charge of the Qingdao office of the center, "We can temporarily add extra hours and strive to release this result along with the ones from the last few days."
Forty minutes passed, and a middle-aged woman rushed in. She was the person Wang Senxun mentioned who had adopted Sasha for a year. After meeting Sasha, the woman shook her head repeatedly, "Doesn't look like it, doesn't look like it." Then, the woman took Sasha back into the inner room again. Another half-hour passed, and the woman came out, shaking her head at Wang Senxun.
"He is definitely our family member; he looks like both of our children." Leaving Sun Zhi'en's house, this man in his fifties kept repeating to the reporter, "We need to do the identification, this one is definitely ours, ninety percent sure. Thanks for your help with this matter."
Editor: SN021
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