The latest case of child abuse to emerge in Guangdong is not easy to write about.
Seven-year-old Lin Qiurong is lying in a Guangzhou hospital bed, swathed in bandages from the neck down after her father poured boiling water on her three times this month. She suffered second-degree burns to most of her body and has just undergone her first skin graft operation. Doctors at the Guangzhou Red Cross Hospital also found dozens of small stab wounds on her fingertips and between her eyes, probably caused by a nail-like object. They also found evidence of beating, with soft tissue damage around her abdomen.
Doctors said she was malnourished, weighing just 17kg. She is likely to suffer complications such as shock, infection and multiple organ problems in the days ahead.
Qiurong has been shaved bald because doctors will need to perform five to seven skin grafts using the skin on her skull - the only part of her body that was not burned. The operations will cost at least 500,000 yuan (HK$610,000).
She loves eating grapes but nurses now have to break them apart and feed her. Nurses said Qiurong was a very strong girl in her first two days in hospital, not crying despite the extreme physical pain. Everyone, however, has a breaking point.
'Nanny, please don't go. I promise I'll be studious,' she said, breaking down in tears when she finally saw her grandmother, who has been her guardian since she was just a year old, at the hospital.