According to Zheng Yu's introduction, on that afternoon, when she came to Zhou Ting's home to prepare for doing homework together, she found that Zhou Ting was not at home. Later, she learned from her mother that Zhou Ting had gone to another classmate's home to play, so she found Zhou Ting at that classmate's home. At Zhou Ting's suggestion, the five of them (three fifth graders and two first graders) went to the riverside to pick river mussels. After picking more than ten river mussels, the five of them came to a deep pond. Zhou Ting squatted by the edge of the deep pond holding the river mussels, preparing to wash them. As she was washing the mussels, 8-year-old boy Xu Xinbao, who was standing behind her, accidentally slipped into the deep pond. Zheng Yu told the reporter that fortunately, Xu Xinbao was wearing thicker clothes that day, so after falling into the deep pond, his entire body floated on the water surface. At this moment, Zhou Ting immediately stretched out her hands trying to pull him to the shore, but unfortunately, she couldn't reach him. Then Zhou Ting asked Chen Qi, who was standing on the shore, to find a stick, allowing Xu Xinbao floating in the water to grab the stick and be pulled to the shore.
The reporter discovered a list of class officers on the wall of the fourth-grade classroom where Zhou Ting used to study; she was the class organization commissioner.
At Zhou Ting's home, the reporter met her mother Xu Xiufang. When talking about her daughter Zhou Ting, she kept flipping through her daughter's photos and "Three Good Students" certificates, muttering, "I have no more tears to shed." She told the reporter that although Zhou Ting was adopted, everyone in the family treated her as a close relative. After adopting her, based on her age, they set her birthday on the 16th day of the eighth lunar month because the previous day was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and all the family members were at home to celebrate her birthday. When Zhou Ting was three years old, fearing that she would be looked down upon by classmates due to her cleft lip when she started school in the future, the family took her to the hospital for cleft lip repair surgery.
To save an 8-year-old boy, Zhou Ting sacrificed her 13-year-old life.
What should a 13-year-old rural girl be doing? Sitting in a spacious and bright classroom to read books; occasionally lying in her mother's arms to act cute; playing carefree with little friends... But all of this is something that 13-year-old Zhou Ting from Yan Zhuang Primary School in Maduo Town, Lianshui County, Huai'an City, can no longer enjoy. On the afternoon of April 23, while playing with her companions, she sacrificed her own life to save an 8-year-old drowning boy. During yesterday's interview, the reporter admired her bravery at such a young age, but also lamented her unfortunate fate: before being adopted by her current adoptive parents, she had stayed briefly in three different families as a "pledge child" (a local feudal custom, believing that couples who haven't conceived for a long time after marriage will quickly become pregnant and give birth to their own biological children if they adopt someone else's child).
Tragic Adoptive Parents
Just as the reporter was about to leave the pond, a passing Xu surname woman's words caught the reporter's attention: "The girl had a hard life, many families didn't want her when she was little, now she has a good family, but she didn't have the chance to enjoy it." When the reporter asked Zhou Ting's father Zhou Zhengqin about the meaning of these words, this honest man who makes a living collecting scrap burst into tears again while squatting on the ground. He later told the reporter that he has three children, his eldest son is 29 years old, his second son is 26 years old, and his daughter Zhou Ting is 13 years old, but Zhou Ting is not his biological child.
This matter dates back 12 years ago. At that time, while Zhou Zhengqin was traveling around villages in the neighboring town collecting counterfeit goods, he learned that a family had been married for a long time without conceiving. In order to continue the family line, this family had adopted a baby girl with a cleft lip as a "pledge" child. Now that the woman is pregnant, they no longer want the baby girl, and this baby girl has already been a "pledge child" three times. That night, after he returned home and told his wife about this matter, both of them felt that this baby girl had a hard life, so they decided to adopt her. Zhou Zhengqin told the reporter that he adopted Zhou Ting from that family on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, when she was 15 months old. At that time, he gave the family 200 yuan as Zhou Ting's upbringing fee. After bringing Zhou Ting home, hoping that she would grow up to be tall and graceful, they named her Zhou Ting.
Our reporter Zhu Dingzhao Text/Photography (Editor: SN047)
Missing Daughter Every Night Waking Up From Dreams
In Zhou Ting's classroom, the reporter noticed that other desks all had books on them, but her desk was already empty. "This student was very excellent and very sensible, such an incident happening is very regrettable," Yan Zhuang Primary School principal Xu Sen told the reporter that Zhou Ting was an annual "Three Good Students" at school, very sensible. Among the kindergarten friends at the school, if any parents couldn't come to pick up their children due to affairs, the kindergarten teacher would ask Zhou Ting to send the children home. Principal Xu pointed to the blackboard report at the back of the classroom and told the reporter that just last Friday, Zhou Ting had put up a bulletin board about Labor Day according to the school's requirements, which was her last gift to the school.
"Zhou Ting was fished out by adults when she sank to the bottom of the water, and she was already foaming at the mouth." Yesterday morning, at Yan Zhuang Primary School, Zhou Ting's classmates Zheng Yu and Chen Qi, while recounting the events of that day to the reporter, still couldn't believe that the usually lively and outgoing Zhou Ting had left them forever.
Fateful Girl
Under the guidance of Zhou Ting's father, the reporter came to the deep pond that swallowed Zhou Ting's young life. The reporter noticed that this was a deep pond formed by seepage after excavation by an excavator. Testing the center with a long bamboo pole, it was approximately two meters deep, and the entire water surface was less than 20 square meters.
Accident Caused By Picking River Mussels
Chen Qi told the reporter that at that time, Zhou Ting stood by the edge of the pond, using both hands to hold Xu Xinbao's legs, slowly lifting him up, then letting him lie on the ground, taking advantage of the momentum to pull Xu Xinbao to safety. Just as Xu Xinbao was saved, Zhou Ting suddenly fell backward into the deep pond. Chen Qi and the others quickly ran to a nearby village not far from the deep pond to seek help from adults. By the time the villagers arrived at the deep pond and fished Zhou Ting out, she had already lost signs of life. Everything that Chen Qi and Zheng Yu said was later confirmed by the rescued boy Xu Xinbao.
And Zhou Ting was also very close to everyone in the family, helping her brother and sister-in-law take care of the children when she returned home from school. After the meal was ready, she would always serve her grandfather first... Xu Xiufang told the reporter that after her daughter's death, her grandfather cried continuously, and she and her husband would wake up every night from dreams, with their daughter crying in the dream telling them that she was cold in the water.
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