‘Don’t want to see me anymore? See you in court’: Chinese teenager sold at birth by parents sues them for deserting him again after reunion
- Liu asked his parents to help him financially but they quickly had a falling-out over money
- His parents say they are not well-off and his father even claimed it was his adoptive family’s responsibility to provide for Liu
Liu Xuezhou, a 17-year-old college student in Hebei province, northern China, said on Thursday that he is suing his birth parents for abandoning him twice after reuniting with them a few weeks ago with the help of police.
The teenager, who tracked down his parents last month, said on his social media account that it was a happy reunion at first, but they started quarrelling after talking about things related to money.
He claimed his parents, who have divorced and have new families, refused to let him live with them or provide a separate place for him. But the parents argued that he was forcing them to buy him property they couldn’t afford.
His father, Ding Shuangquan, told mainland media that they would consider buying him a place once he finishes college and offered Liu to live with him for now, but Liu said they lied about that, adding that neither his mother nor father has let him visit their home.
“Was it your home where you met me? Funny …” he wrote on Weibo.
“I planned to let it go because I am your child anyway. But you are turning ‘white into black’ and don’t feel you’re wrong at all by selling me. See you in court then,” he wrote.
Previously, his mother, surnamed Zhang, told Shangyou News that she blocked Liu after a brief reunion because she wanted to have her peaceful life back.
“Wouldn’t you stay away if he were your child and being so defensive that he even recorded your conversation? His father has remarried, and so have I. He tried to force us to buy him a home, but we are not well-off enough for that,” she said.
Liu’s father, Ding, echoed his mother’s claims and said he was in a poor financial situation and that Liu’s adoptive family “should be better off”.
Liu argued that he only asked his birth parents to: “either rent or buy a place for me because I have been homeless”.
Neither Ding nor Zhang have made comment about their son’s decision to sue them.
03:45
Chinese parents reunite with long-lost son after 14 years
Liu was orphaned at age four when his adoptive parents, two farmers from Hebei’s Xingtai, who bought him through a middleman from his birth parents, were killed in an accident.
He has been looked after by his adoptive grandparents after an explosion killed his adoptive parents and destroyed their house, and was moved around between various relatives.
Ding used the money from the sale of Liu to pay the bride price to Zhang’s family and married her, before having more children with her.
Liu has four siblings and half-siblings after this parents broke up and started new families.
