Qian and Xu were in a desperate and dangerous situation. They, along with their young child and now their newborn baby, were floating around at sea trying to evade the authorities in China. But the couple knew they couldn’t continue to live that way, and they had to make the hardest decision of their young lives.
When Jingzhi was just five days old, they wrapped her up in her little blankets and took her to the most populated market they could think of in their area – somewhere where they knew someone would find her and help her almost instantly once the market opened. With eyes flooding with tears, they pinned the note to her blankets and left their baby girl at the market.
Six Weeks at Sea
At first, everything seemed to be working out for the young family. The couple took their young child, loaded up the boat and headed out to sea to try and escape the government’s prying eyes. They managed to fly under the radar even up until the point that Qian went into labor. Xu sort of panicked at that moment, because he knew that taking her to a hospital would mean someone finding out about the baby.
So, he helped her give birth to the child right there on the boat. Luckily, everything went smoothly during the birth and Qian delivered Jingzhi in the middle of the sea. But the family’s troubles were just beginning.
Hiding Jingzhi
Hiding a pregnant woman is no easy task, which is why they decided to head out to sea during the remainder of Qian’s pregnancy. But now that Jingzhi had been born, a whole new array of difficulties presented themselves. The couple knew that hiding a newborn baby would be near, if not entirely impossible.
But admitting to giving birth to the second child wouldn’t just mean turning the baby over to the authorities, it would mean paying some hefty fines that they just couldn’t afford. They found themselves getting more desperate by the hour. They had to think of something, and they had to do it quickly.
Words of Sorrow
The young parents wanted anything but to relinquish their daughter to the arms of strangers, but the policy forced their hand. They just didn’t have the resources to care for Jingzhi while also trying to stay under the radar. The note that authorities would find attached to her blankets would reveal how brokenhearted they were about the entire situation.
The words on the note revealed the exact date and time of the child’s birth, along with the name they’d given her, and how terrible they felt about not being able to keep her. When Qian and Xu left the five-day-old at the market, they never expected to lay eyes on her again. Little did they know what fate had in store for them…or maybe they did.
The Broken Bridge
Perhaps the most important factor in the note was what came after the feelings of regret. The couple had hope in their hearts that someday they would be reunited with their daughter under better circumstances. They jotted down that “if fate should have it,” for whoever found their daughter and the note to meet them again in 10-20 years at the Broken Bridge in Hangzhou on the day of the Qixi Festival, which is basically the Chinese version of Valentine’s Day.
They may not have expected anything to actually come from it, but they clung to that hope and prayed that fate would take their side in the future. And someday, they truly would be reunited with that little girl they were forced to leave behind all those years ago.