‘Wu Shulong’s lost son is coming home.’ – A nephew of Shulong has been out looking for his uncle over the past 14 years. KTVU
A father’s 14-year quest to find his missing son after the boy was abducted and sold off in China was revived this week after a Taiwanese film starring Jiang Wenxin was released, and it was suggested that Jiang was the boy’s real father.
So Chinese police tracked down the boy’s mother, Leng Xifan, who was captured after flying to Taiwan and trying to reconcile with her ex-husband, Wu Shulong.
Leng has been reunited with her son, Wu Jinbao, who was discovered in 2014. A storm of speculation and rumors have since surrounded Leng and her family’s disappearance since the kidnapping.
A short clip posted by Shulong’s nephew last week caught viewers’ attention and led to the reunion.
It shows several Taiwanese women, one of whom calls the man “father” and wants to be photographed with him, as well as Jiang’s name and phone number posted on a website where Wu’s former wife, Cao Shengmao, was forced to post her personal information after officials broke up the couple.
Reports indicate that the video has been viewed over 6 million times.
The origins of this week’s reunion may be traced back to a popular Taiwanese movie “The Mermaid.” In the film, a villain falsely boasts that he will sell off one of his kids for millions of dollars.
In the film, Jiang, a director and one of Taiwan’s top celebrities, plays a mainland Chinese businessman and has one of his children kidnapped by a woman obsessed with him.
When that son is located in Taiwan, the child’s mother forces the kidnapper’s wife to visit them, where she learned that the boy was actually her son and had been held as a “property” for more than a decade.
Cao Shengmao, the real mother, disappeared after filming the film and was held captive by the couple. She was released in May 2014 with a non-disclosure agreement that didn’t allow her to speak about the incident.
Ricky Yee for YouTube, CNN
In March, Leng Xifan was arrested at a Hong Kong airport on a false return to Taiwan, according to the South China Morning Post. She faces charges for illegally entering the country.
In September, however, Leng denied any knowledge of the incident and told the Post the allegations made against her are lies.
“This has been very, very painful,” she said. “They’ve done an injustice.”
In January, Leng released a statement saying she wanted to set the record straight after she tried unsuccessfully to make contact with Chinese authorities in October 2017. The statement said she feared for her life.
“As for Chinese authorities, they are now trying to invent a version to suit their national needs,” she said. “And we can only pray they’ll find the truth before they use up all their goodwill.”
The New York Times reported Leng said she went to the police in China in 1999 because she wanted them to know her son was missing. Police took her into custody, and she was later released after two weeks.
Authorities had not arrested either her ex-husband, the father of the son, or the mother of the son who was kidnapped by the mainland Chinese businessman.