A 16-month-old girl who went missing in the mountains in Guangxi Province was found two days later in perfect health.
Mr. Zhang from Qinzhou City took his little daughter, Mei, to a wedding in Modaoshui Village on Jan. 1. After attending the ceremony at 3 p.m., Zhang remembered to feed Mei, but she was nowhere to be found, according to the Nan’guo Morning Post.
Mei’s aunt reported her missing at 5:30 p.m. The family spent all of the next day looking for her, but without success. At midday on Jan. 3, an old man in Moshuidao Village found a baby shoe on a mountain road. He went home and told his daughter, who later called Mei’s aunt.
The aunt told the police, and the family followed that road in search of Mei. After they went up the mountain, they found her sitting under a bush, and covered in mud. She had apparently walked 1.3 miles from the wedding venue.
The police said the mild weather helped save Mei, because it wasn’t too cold and it didn’t rain.
However, bloggers commenting on the Nan’guo Morning Post story mostly thought it wasn’t a miracle, but rather an attempted kidnapping.
“How could a 1-year-old walk 1.3 miles so fast?” questioned one. “Someone must have kidnapped her, got scared, and then dumped her.”
Another said: “Perhaps someone kidnapped her, later realized they couldn’t carry her out of the mountains, and decided to leave her by the bush. Otherwise there’s no way the child could have escaped the search of that many people and the police.”
A third remarked: “A 16-month-old kid would have been too hungry to walk 1.3 miles. She would have been freezing at night at this time of the year in the mountains. The police would rather believe it was a miracle than investigate the possibility of kidnapping.”
Research by Hsin-Yi Lin.
