Wang Qifeng was three years old when she wandered off from her parents’ fruit stand in southwestern China — and 24 years later she was finally reunited with her long-lost family.
In January 1994, Wang Mingqing and his wife, Liu Dengying, were selling fruit on the streets of Chengdu and said they briefly took their eyes off their daughter to get change for a customer at a nearby stall. When they returned, Qifeng had vanished.
Wang said they scoured the streets for her, went to the police and visited every orphanage in Chengdu but had no luck, according to local media.
His story started to gain traction and was picked up by local news outlets. A police sketch artist then drew an image of what his daughter might look like as an adult — and that’s when everything changed.
The sketch made its rounds online. Thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the country, a woman named Kang Ying, 27, saw it and said she was shocked at how much it resembled her.
Kang said she was raised by her adoptive parents in a nearby town and had been told she was found on the road. She said she was always curious to find her biological mother and father.
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Kang, who has a husband and two children, contacted Wang. With the help of police, they arranged a DNA test, and it confirmed that she was the missing daughter.
On April 1, Kang hopped on a plane and had a tearful reunion with her family in front of dozens of reporters in Chengdu.
“The whole world told me I didn’t have a mother — but I do!” Kang told reporters during the reunion.
“I can’t tell you how much hope, disappointment and despair we have gone through these past 24 years. Now we can finally meet again,” Wang was quoted as saying in the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper.
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