Her name is Li Suyan, but she is also known as Yang Niuhua. These two names represent two parts of her life, much like the reflections in a mirror seen in her WeChat profile picture. It took her 29 years to reclaim the name Yang Niuhua.
Yang Niuhua is the name given to her by her parents. What she seeks to recover is not just a name, but a home—“a home where I can see the mountains from the pig pen, a home filled with laughter, with my parents and sister inside.” She remembers her father’s and sister’s names but has a hazy recollection of her mother’s. These fragments are among the few memories left from her life before it was altered at the age of five. She also recalls a woman named Yu Huaying.
In 1995, at just five years old, Yang Niuhua was abducted by Yu Huaying from Guizhou. By 1996, she was sold to a rural area in Handan, Hebei—nearly three thousand miles away. From that moment on, Li Suyan replaced Yang Niuhua. With the loss of her name, she also lost the life she was meant to have. She describes this experience as feeling “wronged”: she was often beaten, villagers gossiped that she was an adopted daughter, and she dropped out of school before finishing elementary, going out to work in her teens.
The details of her suffering from being trafficked remain unasked and unsaid, but to this day, as a mother of three, she still struggles to be alone in enclosed spaces. She describes a feeling of “suffocation, like someone is tightening a belt around my neck,” and even when showering, she faces the fear that overtakes her when she looks down, a fear she cannot articulate.
Home is the place she longs for the most. As an adult, she found a sense of home through marriage. She met her husband through a blind date—the first one she ever attended. Her conditions for marriage were simple and perhaps even “humble”: no matter the man’s background, all she wanted was for him not to hit her after marriage. She even joked, “Occasionally, a little hit would be fine.”
Having endured so much pain, she openly admits that her marriage is happy, and she cherishes her family. After getting married, she would scrub the living room floor repeatedly, wet and dry mops alike, ensuring every corner sparkled. Thanks to the joint efforts with her husband, they bought a new home, a car, and have three lovely, caring children together.
Her WeChat name is “Homeward Bound.” For years, she has never stopped searching for her biological family. While working in Jiangsu years ago, she registered in the police’s DNA database. After starting her own family, the desire to find her roots intensified. She has imagined countless times the scene of reuniting with her parents, sharing the grievances and hardships she endured over the years.
In her dreams, her parents frequently urge her to come home. Almost every time she mentions them, her throat tightens, and she becomes choked up. Her husband has always encouraged her in her quest. In 2021, spurred on by volunteers, she shared a video online seeking to find her family, which gained significant attention. With the help of volunteers and netizens, she eventually located her sister but was met with devastating news—her parents had both passed away.
On May 15, 2021, she returned to her hometown in Zhi Jin County, Guizhou, after 26 long years of separation. She counted twenty vehicles waiting for her—three more than at her wedding. That night, she and her sister slept in the same bed as they did in their childhood, holding onto each other tightly yet feeling somewhat out of place.
At her father’s gravesite, she wept uncontrollably, pouring out years of pent-up sorrow and longing. The next day, she honored her mother, who lay in another mountain. Coincidentally, that day was also her birthday, and her aunts and uncles bought seven cakes to celebrate. It marked the first time in her life she truly celebrated her birthday after being trafficked.
Her unique experiences have led her to celebrate multiple birthdays. Initially, it was celebrated in the family of her adoptive father based on a name derived from a temple. Later, she adopted a birthdate from information provided by human traffickers until the moment she found her biological family, finally learning her true birthdate. Noticing that her mute adoptive father had no birthday at all, she decided to gift her previous birthdays to him.
The life she wishes for the most is one where her parents could have watched her grow up, married, and had children of her own—old folks who could help care for the young ones. This longing comes from what she never experienced. Rather than bitterness over her past grievances, her greater sorrow stems from the premature loss of her parents. This fueled her determination to pursue justice. She vowed to find the person who trafficked her—not just for herself but for her parents and other families who share similar experiences.
Since then, she has actively assisted law enforcement in gathering evidence. Ultimately, the person who harmed her was taken into custody and brought to trial. Perhaps this is the most solace she has found regarding her “trafficked life” and a way to convey to her parents in the afterlife that she is seeking justice.
On October 25, 2024, the Intermediate People’s Court of Guiyang, Guizhou, publicly tried Yu Huaying, who had now faced reexamination for her crime of child trafficking. The court sentenced Yu Huaying to death.
When the verdict was announced, tears fell from her eyes. Exiting the courtroom, she was surrounded by numerous reporters and individuals searching for their families. She recounted seeing Yu Huaying, visibly defeated and trembling—an entirely different scene from their previous four encounters.
Today, she has become a volunteer helping others search for lost family members. Recently, she compiled 1,000 search notices, printed them on waterproof materials, sending some to distant areas and affixing others on trucks that travel long distances. She hopes to leverage the trust of netizens to assist more families with similar experiences. Through her media engagements, she hopes to encourage those who have faced hardship to be brave and reach out. She also wishes for parents searching for lost children to take care of themselves: “Don’t end up like me—finding relatives only to realize you have lost everything!”
Now, she frequently travels between Hebei and Guizhou, expressing the mixed emotions she feels each time she returns home to Guizhou: happiness at being surrounded by relatives but sadness over her parents’ absence. “No matter how lively the day is, at night, when everyone goes home, my house remains empty,” she admits. She even requests reporters not to ask sensitive questions upon her return home, emphasizing that after her parents’ passing, that place feels no longer like home. In a place that isn’t home, she finds it difficult to cry.
Despite the absence of her parents, she feels she is not alone. She has a loving husband, three delightful children, an understanding sister with whom she can share jokes and frustrations, kind adoptive parents, and a community of concerned netizens and journalists.
On the evening of the 26th, exhausted, she returned to her home in Handan, Hebei. This is the place where she grew up, where she has met many kind-hearted people. Now, she enjoys this area and has even invited her sister’s family to celebrate the New Year together. On the wall of her living room hangs a family portrait featuring nine members—her family and her sister’s family, representing their first New Year celebration together since reuniting.
On the 27th, she told reporters that once Yu Huaying’s case concludes, she hopes to let go of the past and return to a normal life. Just as she describes on her WeChat profile—“Reset, Update, Restart, Ascend, Let Go.” She reflects that finding her family has allowed her to move on from many things, but she always sought to let her parents know that she was searching for them, wishing to share that she has been doing well—a regret of never meeting them again that she will never overcome.
This June, she chose to change her name. Seeing her new name on her ID card brought her joy. From now on, after returning home, she wishes to be called Yang Niuhua. “I want to keep this name forever.”
