On October 4th, 65438/kloc-0, late at night, 32 years later, Yu Changhua met his mother again on the way from his hometown 1600 km to Chengdu.

When Yu Changhua was 3 years old, his mother left home. Since then, the mother's name has become a taboo for the whole family. Yu Changhua can only get a little information about her from the rumors of the villagers: she was abducted from other places, because leukemia left Shandong and may have died long ago.

After the death of his father and grandmother, Yu Changhua fell in love with cycling. But "mother" has always been an obstacle that she can't cross, although Yu Changhua can't even remember her appearance for a long time.

In September 2022, 35-year-old Yu Changhua decided to start her last long-distance ride with the goal of "finding her mother".

Yu Changhua rode his motorcycle from Luquan Town, Dongming County, Heze City, Shandong Province, and traveled all the way to Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan and other provinces and cities, with a journey of thousands of kilometers. As she walked, she inquired about the information left by her mother and sent the video of finding her mother to the video platform. Unexpectedly, she became an "online celebrity".

"Like a gift of fate", a month later, Yu Changhua found her mother in Chengdu as she wished. The moment I saw my mother again, I was surprised and happy, bitter and at a loss ... all the emotions came to my mind instantly.

Mom took a long vacation and went back to Shandong with Yu Changhua. For more than ten days, mother and daughter learned to get along, as if they had never been apart.

The following is Yu Changhua's self-report:

June 5438 +2022 10, after finding his mother, Yu Changhua sent a banner to the police station in Wuhou District, Chengdu. Photo courtesy of respondents

32 years of "life without a mother"

10 June 14, I tried to stew fish soup for my mother, which was the first time I cooked fish in 35 years.

The result can be imagined. I followed the recipe step by step, but as soon as the fish entered the pot, the skin fell off and the soup was not white. I think it tastes terrible, but my mother says it's delicious. I told her casually, "You are lying with your eyes open." The video was posted online, and some netizens criticized me for "being rude to my elders like this".

Netizens may be right. In the 32 years that my mother and I were separated, no one taught me how to talk to my mother.

1987, I was born in a village in Heze, Shandong. My father is a man of few words. He lives by making coffins in the village. I was raised by my grandmother. In my childhood memory, there is no mother.

For many years, they have hardly said anything about their mother, and I dare not ask. I pieced together a lot of information about my mother in the after-dinner chat of the villagers.

The villagers said that the mother was abducted by traffickers and did not know her real name and origin. Before being taken to Shandong, my mother had married from Sichuan to Shaanxi and had two children. When I was three years old, my mother gave birth to a younger brother, but she only lived for four months and then died. Mother was badly hit and sick again, and wanted to go back to Sichuan. Her father took her on a trip and her mother never came back.

People in the village also said that my mother had leukemia and probably died long ago. Later, I found a hospitalization form of the county hospital, which showed that my mother had been hospitalized for eight days. But I thought, maybe it was a misdiagnosis?

After my mother left, my father farmed during the day and burned bricks in the brick kiln at night. Father is a very traditional person, and his mouth is always muttering. Without my son, people in the village would look down on him, but in fact he is very kind to me.

I only received primary school education. Not long after junior high school, I had a car accident and hurt my leg. There is no hospital nearby and there is no money at home. After a long treatment, I stopped going to school and had to work outside.

In 2008, I went to Beijing and worked three jobs a day. Get up at four o'clock every morning to deliver the morning paper, deliver food at noon and deliver an evening paper at night, and work for more than ten hours every day. Now I can still remember the scene of delivering pizza by bike on a snowy day. I was knocked down by a car on the way and often fell asleep in the elevator.

Later, in order to ride a motorcycle to deliver food in the store, I took a motorcycle driver's license and learned to ride a motorcycle. But the boss only let the male take-out ride, so I quit.

At the age of 20, my grandmother died, and at the age of 26, my father died.

Losing them is more real than losing my mother, because I really have only one person left. Over the years, except for going out to work, I have been living in the small yard left by my father. Sometimes if you don't go home for three or four months, the grass in the yard can be one person tall.

I always miss my mother when I was a child, wondering what she looks like, whether she can sew buttons, and whether she will pick me up from school if she doesn't leave in rainy days. After reading the martial arts novels, I thought, will my mother get the help of experts to cure the disease? But if she is sick and lying in the mountains every day, as written in the novel, is it very hard?

Growing up, I have been used to life without my mother. The rural areas in Shandong pay great attention to the sense of ceremony during the New Year, and they have to reunite with their families after all kinds of hardships. Every year, Chinese New Year has become a time when I miss my mother, sometimes in my hometown, and more often I work outside. If there is no New Year's Eve, I'll eat steamed bread.

I think, if my mother were here, I would go home and cook a pot of jiaozi with her anyway.

When I was a child, I always thought that when I grew up, I would make money and be promising, so I took my mother back. But I've been alone too long these years. I miss my mother so much that I can't help it. I want my mother back.

10 On June 5438+02, Yu Changhua received the Affinity Identity Confirmation Notice at the police station. Photo courtesy of respondents

Riding thousands of miles to "find mom"

In fact, I never thought I could really find my mother, and this is not my first attempt.

I made several phone calls to the TV station's family-seeking program, and went to Chengdu twice on 20 12 and 20 18 respectively, but there was no clue.

This summer vacation, I didn't go out to work and sold melons in town. Later, because of the epidemic, I couldn't go to the market and couldn't sell melons. The original riding plan was also cancelled.

At the end of August, I decided to take the money from selling melons and ride a motorcycle to find my mother. I think this should be the last long-distance ride in my life, even if I can't find my mother, if I can find my grandmother or my brother and sister over there. After all, we all have the same blood, and meeting them can be regarded as solving my heart knot for more than 30 years.

Because I don't know where my mother's hometown is, there are no clues about her memory, photos, names, etc. , so I can only ask while walking. The biggest advantage of riding a motorcycle is that it is convenient to search in a small area.

September 1, riding from the village. Zhengzhou couldn't get through because of the epidemic. I rode to Changsha first, and then bypassed Wuhan a few days later. I'm flying around like a headless fly without a clue.

The most difficult section is Chongqing Panshan Highway, which is steep and steep, and it keeps raining, and the whole body is soaked, and the rain keeps patting on the helmet baffle. In Henan, I was hit by a car once. If I hadn't turned around quickly, I might have died.

Riding all the way, I met an injured old lady and took her to the hospital. Found pig feed, driver's license, trolley, lost camera and a mobile phone.

In order to retrieve the camera, I posted the first video of this ride on the video platform, hoping that the person who found it could help me send it back.

In order to find clues about her mother, Yu Changhua (nicknamed Cui Hua) posted videos on social platforms while riding. Image source: Network screenshot

I have been struggling, do you want to talk about finding my mother in the video, for fear that others will laugh at me when they see it. But then I thought, what if someone can help me find my mother? Finally, bite the bullet and throw caution to the wind. Let's laugh at the joke.

On September 25th, when I went to Hubei, I recorded a video. The general content was "I am Yu Changhua, born in 1987, and came out to find my mother by bike". The video mentioned Sichuan police and relevant units, hoping to help me find my mother.

I didn't expect the video to get thousands of comments at once. The next day, Sichuan police contacted our town police station to understand the situation. Our village director also saw it. He told me that he could help me contact an aunt who might know my mother.

This aunt is also from Sichuan and returned to Sichuan from our village twenty years ago. Perhaps because she is a fellow countryman, her mother once told her where she came from. Unexpectedly, this aunt didn't answer the phone from Shandong at all.

I asked her son's phone number again and begged him to put in a good word for me. Aunt finally answered the phone. She told me that my mother's name is Song Yumei, and she comes from Lezhi County, Sichuan Province.

It's incredible. I have been looking for such a simple answer for 30 years.

I looked it up online and found it was not a great pleasure, so I planned to print hundreds of "Looking for You" when I got to the local area. If it's a big deal, I'll ride a motorcycle over mountains and ask from house to house, and it won't take long to ask all the questions.

But only one day later, I received a message from my hometown that Mianyang, Sichuan is my mother's hometown. I was stunned at once, so I had to send another video saying that my mother might also be from Mianyang. It was also from that time that some netizens began to suspect that I was cheating.

After Yu Changhua found her mother, she took her first photo. Photo courtesy of respondents

Mother-daughter reunion

But I think, since I am sure I am in Sichuan, I will go to Chengdu by bike first.

On September 29th, I finally arrived in Chengdu. As big as Sichuan, the only clue is hard to tell. I can only send videos online over and over again, hoping for a miracle.

On October 4th, 65438/KLOC-0, I received a private letter which read: "Your mother is in Chengdu, in Wuhou District."

Since the video became a hit, I have received messages from all kinds of cheaters, and until now, some people continue to believe me privately. I am equally dubious about this information and ask the other party if there is any evidence. But the other party just kept talking privately and meeting. I took it for granted that this might be another liar, so I blacked him out directly.

That evening, I received a phone call from Luquan Town Police Station. Only then did I know that my hacked person said it was my brother, because my grandmother's relatives brushed my video and thought we looked alike, so they told my mother. After mom saw the video, she asked her brother to contact me. After being blacked out by me, he turned around and contacted the Luquan Town Police Station.

Get in touch with my brother and make an appointment to meet at a roadside in Chengdu that evening 10.

On the way to ride a motorcycle, my heart jumped into my throat. I can't believe it completely, but I can't help looking forward to it.

At 0: 30 in the evening 10, I came to the agreed roadside and found two people standing not far away. One of the old ladies, who looks thin and small, has long hair and can't see her face clearly in the night.

For a long time, "mother" is more like an abstract concept than a concrete image in my mind. And now, she is standing in front of me, no longer a childhood dream.

She grabbed my hand and held it tightly, saying over and over again, "How can I have such a good daughter, such a good daughter?" Listening to her strange Sichuan dialect, I was more confused than surprised and excited. "Is this really my mother?" In my mind, I just asked a few questions about my hometown mechanically Maybe I'm too old to remember. After answering a few words, she became excited again.

Time flies, and it feels like it's already 1 1 o'clock in the evening without saying a few words. Mom is leaving. She must clean up at six o'clock the next morning. I listened to the difficult dialect, looked at my mother in the dark, and my thin body was slightly bent.

We made an appointment to do DNA identification on the afternoon of 10/0/0, and then we parted. Later, I found that my mother and I look too much alike, especially in the mouth, which is exactly the same.

It costs more than 10 thousand yuan to do DNA identification. We began to think it was a little too expensive, so we decided not to do it. I really appreciate the Sichuan police. They didn't charge us a penny, but expedited it for us, and we got the preliminary appraisal results in four hours.

10 June 12 afternoon, I came to Wuhou district police station with a banner and got the final DNA identification result. Everything is true. From the age of 3 to 35, I finally saw my mother again.

I was fooled by good luck. Despite the appraisal results, I still can't believe that everything is too dramatic, as if I were still dreaming.

I am ready to knock on doors, and I am ready to face my mother's departure. But that video with more than one million likes and 70,000 comments led me to my mother.

It's only been a month since I left Shandong, and even many netizens questioned whether I was acting or speculating. I was a little angry at first, but then I didn't care. I found my mother.

However, I still have some regrets when I think about it. If I had posted the video online a few years earlier, I might have found my mother earlier.

In the yard of his hometown, Yu Changhua washed his mother's hair for the first time in his life. Network screenshot

"Strange sense of reality"

After a few days of getting along, I got out of the trance when I first found my mother and had a "strange sense of reality" of living with my mother.

During my stay in Chengdu, I went to my mother's work and went shopping with her. I found that she can use her smartphone and carry a small bag when she goes out to eat. It's fashionable, and it's completely different from her imaginary illness.

The strangeness between us was quickly washed away. I took my mother to Wuhou Park and ate jiaozi and hot pot. Mother doesn't like to eat jiaozi, but in the tradition of her hometown, she must eat jiaozi for reunion.

While eating, my mother took my hand and cried. She said she felt guilty and gave birth to me but didn't raise me. I told her that you also suffered a lot, and many things were involuntary. After listening to my words, she kept holding me and crying.

After talking to his mother, the policeman of Wuhou District Police Station told me to treat my mother well. "She has suffered too much in her life."

From Sichuan to Shaanxi to Shandong, and then back to Sichuan, my mother gave birth to four children, except my brother who just died for four months. Now I'm over 60 years old, and I'm still doing cleaning work, 2000 yuan a month.

Mom has her own family now, and I don't want to disturb her too much.

I'm going to take my mother back to Shandong for a few days, then send her back to Chengdu, then ride a motorcycle to Shaanxi to see my brother and sister who I've never met before, and then ride back to Shandong after family reunion. The last and most important long-distance ride in my life has come to an end.

After discussion, I bought a plane ticket back to Shandong. 10 June 13, I took my mother by plane for the first time in my life. After returning to Shandong, I realized that I would stay at home for 7 days. I am glad that I can spend more time with my mother.

I've always been careless. I often eat steamed bread and instant noodles when riding. The steamed bread at home is moldy, so peel it before eating. One person can handle it, but it's not like his mother.

My mother is not used to life in Shandong. She doesn't like eating steamed bread and jiaozi, and she doesn't like drinking mutton soup. She said, "Chili is her life." I didn't understand my mother's Sichuan dialect at first. In Chengdu, because the air is too humid, I have a lot of rashes because of allergies. But for these, we all chose to ignore them.

Although there are many questions in this "blank" for more than 30 years, I chose not to ask. We both tacitly never talk about our father and the past. Being displaced for many years, my mother's psychological burden is too heavy I don't want to remind my mother of my sad past.

The weather has turned cold in recent days. I asked my mother to dress me in thick clothes and pick the ripe pomegranate in the yard for her to eat. My mother often gets up early in the morning, weeding in the yard, growing vegetables with me and wrapping jiaozi for me. She doesn't like it.

I cook and wash my mother's hair. Her hair is almost gray, and after being wet by water, it looks as if it has turned black, just like our time has gone back.

At night, we slept together in the only bed at home, and my mother smiled and hugged me. Lying in my mother's arms, I seem to be three years old again. She never left.

Beijing News reporter Hou Editor Yuan Guoli proofreading