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chen xiaobo's home is in a village in the city of longhua district, shenzhen, surrounded by industrial parks. trucks roar past on the road, and unfinished buildings are lined up on both sides of the road. looking forward along the road, the view is blocked by hills.

he has lived in this area since he came to shenzhen. the self-built houses in the urban village have narrow stairs that can only accommodate one person. the entrance doors of the neighbors are very close, but the corridors are quiet.

pushing open the wooden entrance door, the living room is very small, with a dining table against the wall, plastic benches surrounding it, and a storage cabinet against the wall filled with the family's clothes. the two bedrooms are also very small. chen xiaobo and li xia live in the master bedroom, where the bed is only 1.3 meters wide, and their two daughters and grandmother live in the other bedroom. at the end of the living room is a balcony, where the kitchen, toilet, and clothes drying are all squeezed into this small space.

summer vacation is not over yet. chen xiaobo's two daughters are playing in the living room. li xia is lying on the bed in long-sleeved pajamas, and the wound after cesarean section is aching. chen xiaobo is even busier. the arrival of quadruplets is both a surprise and a pressure. he has been receiving calls all morning, mostly from kind people who want to visit and offer help.

on august 28, local media reported that li xia gave birth to quadruplets. as the couple already had two daughters, child support became a problem. chen xiaobo asked for help in front of the camera, hoping to get help from the society. the incident spread on the internet and attracted a lot of controversy for a while.

"at first i asked the doctor and thought the cost would be only 50,000 or 60,000 yuan. later i learned that it was only the cost for one child." chen xiaobo said that he was a little caught off guard when faced with medical expenses of nearly 200,000 yuan.

the doctor had told them that li xia was pregnant with "monochorionic tetra-amniotic" quadruplets, and the probability of a fertilized egg splitting into four embryos was about one in 700,000, just like winning a super-jackpot lottery ticket. but for this family, the process of scratching the lottery ticket to claim the prize was somewhat difficult.

the area where chen xiaobo and his family lived. photo by li kai of jiupai news

【1】quadruplets

in january this year, li xia's menstruation was delayed for more than ten days. she bought a pregnancy test stick and it showed two lines. she was pregnant again. just like when she was pregnant with her first child, she was overjoyed. she had already planned to have a third child.

during the first prenatal checkup, the baby was not yet formed, but everyone thought it was a single baby. one morning in march, the couple went to longhua district people's hospital for a routine prenatal checkup. li xia lay in the ultrasound room and did not come out for a long time. the doctor slid the ultrasound probe back and forth on her belly.

"one, no, it's two." the doctor said as he slid, "it's four." li xia asked in surprise, "you didn't see it wrong, did you?" the doctor called his colleague to look at it again, and told li xia that he had never seen an embryo split into four, and suggested that she go to a higher-level hospital for examination.

li xia walked out of the ultrasound room with a nervous look on her face. chen xiaobo was frightened by her expression. "i'm pregnant with quadruplets." li xia said to him, "are you kidding me?" chen xiaobo replied that he didn't believe it until he saw the ultrasound report. at noon, the two drove to shenzhen maternal and child health hospital, 20 kilometers away, for a checkup. the hospital couldn't get an appointment, so they went to a hospital in luohu district.

after a series of examinations, the doctor told them that they were pregnant with quadruplets, and they were rare monochorionic tetraamniotic. the doctor mentioned fetal reduction, but in li xia's case, fetal reduction was very risky and the success rate was only 60%. for a while, the two unfamiliar words "monochorionic tetraamniotic" and "fetal reduction" lingered in the minds of the two people.

li xia searched on the short video platform and joined a group of pregnant women with multiple births. in the group, she was the only mother of quadruplets.

after failing to get any effective advice online, chen xiaobo called his mother, who was worried, "how can i raise so many children? i can't take care of them all by myself." but li xia's mother said, "children are gifts. since they are here, it's fate. you have to think about it carefully."

"the four children are very strong and in good condition." li xia said that they were reluctant to abort the babies, and reducing the number of fetuses would be risky, so the couple decided to keep the sudden quadruplets.

it is not easy to keep the baby. li xia worked in a factory, working two shifts, one month of day shift and one month of night shift, working 12 hours a day. after she became pregnant, she asked her boss to work only the day shift. in the early stage of pregnancy, li xia did not suffer much, and morning sickness was not obvious, but she ate a lot and felt hungry after two or three hours. she always carried bread and milk in her bag when she went to work.

but she didn't last long. in may, she took maternity leave. her belly was getting bigger and bigger, and sleeping became a torture. "i was very tired and often woke up in pain." li xia said, but the baby was very sensible and didn't kick around in her belly. she wanted the baby to stay in her belly for a little longer. she heard that the premature birth rate of multiple births is particularly high, and being able to stay in the belly for a day is better than being in an incubator for a week.

at the end of june, another prenatal checkup revealed that li xia’s cervix was short and prone to premature birth. she stayed in the hospital for a week to preserve her pregnancy, but medication and injections did not work. a month later, li xia was hospitalized again for a week because of a fetal heart rate that was too fast.

chen xiaobo asked his mother to take care of his two daughters, while he ran back and forth between the company and the hospital. "there are not many people in the (work) team, so it's not easy to take leave every few days."

【2】shenzhen cannot be integrated

after li xia became pregnant with quadruplets, chen xiaobo became the sole breadwinner of the family. li xia was ready to become a full-time mother, "if i don't take care of them, my mother-in-law can't do it alone."

after working hard in shenzhen for more than ten years, this period was the most difficult for chen xiaobo. at the age of 20, due to family difficulties, he came to shenzhen to work with his brother. with no skills and no education, chen xiaobo worked on the assembly line, drove a motorcycle taxi, and worked as a temporary worker for two months. he worked in shenzhen for three years before coming to his current company.

chen xiaobo met li xia in this company and they got married in 2014. "at that time, the highest salary was more than 4,000 yuan. i was always living paycheck to paycheck. i only started saving money after i got married."

a corner of the urban village. photo by li kai of jiupai news

after marriage, the couple lived with chen xiaobo's brother and sister-in-law in a self-built house in the urban village with two bedrooms and a living room. after the brother and sister-in-law had a child, chen xiaobo's mother came to shenzhen to take care of the child and could only live in the living room.

a year later, chen xiaobo's eldest daughter was born. the house became more crowded, but also filled with laughter. the sounds of the two children playing and fighting swept away the adults' fatigue.

the first child is always precious. when the eldest daughter was young, chen xiaobo bought the best new clothes, barbie dolls, and milk powder. li xia's parents settled in meizhou. in order to visit relatives conveniently, the two also took out a loan to buy a car.

"at first, we just wanted a baby, no matter if it was a boy or a girl," chen xiaobo said. "but my family said that one baby would be too lonely, and when the child grows up, there would only be two lonely old people left at home, and it wouldn't be that lively."

in 2018, after paying off the car loan, li xia gave birth to her second daughter. chen xiaobo's family separated from his brother and sister-in-law and rented a house to live alone. on the day of the interview by jiupai news, both daughters were at home. the eldest daughter was quiet and sat in a rocking chair drinking yogurt. the second daughter was more lively, sometimes climbing on chen xiaobo's back, and sometimes riding on his knees. when chen xiaobo talked about the barbie doll he bought for his eldest daughter, she looked up and asked, "where can i find a barbie doll? i want one too."

the couple's monthly income is less than 10,000 yuan, and as their children grow up, the financial pressure is increasing. including water and electricity bills, the monthly rent is more than 2,000 yuan, the kindergarten tuition is 7,000 yuan per semester, and the elementary school miscellaneous fees are 4,000 yuan per semester. "we are from other places, and we don't have enough points to go to public schools," said li xia.

chen xiaobo has never thought of settling in shenzhen, "i can't fit into this city." there are many new buildings near the urban village where he rents, with prices around 50,000 yuan per square meter, and the cheapest building unit price is 36,000 yuan per square meter. a few years ago, he and his brother pooled money to build a new house in their hometown in jiangxi, a two-and-a-half-story building, which has not been renovated yet. "there is no one at home, and we only go back once every two or three years."

eventually, we have to go back. chen xiaobo plans to go back to his hometown and find a class to attend after his and her husband’s social security payments are completed, “after all, the cost of living there is much lower.”

【3】uncertain future

in the early morning of august 22, when she was just 33 weeks pregnant, li xia's body started to react. she had stomach pain and vomited continuously, so they went to the hospital. sitting in the ward, li xia drank energy drinks and waited for the doctor's decision. "i don't feel any discomfort and i feel like i can hold on for a few more days." but the doctor refused.

at 9 o'clock the next morning, li xia was pushed into the operating room. it was her first cesarean section, and she was shaking with nervousness. chen xiaobo paced outside the operating room.

after the anesthesia, li xia felt no pain, but was conscious. when her belly was cut open and she heard the first cry, she wanted to see the baby and touch his face. she heard the doctor say that the baby was too small and lacked oxygen, so she had to put it in an incubator immediately. until now, li xia has never seen her four babies in person.

outside the operating room, chen xiaobo watched four incubators being pushed out one after another. he quickly ran forward to take a closer look. the babies looked very small, weighing only 3 pounds. with a quick glance, they were pushed away.

diapers prepared for four babies. photo: ma jieying from jiupai news

the doctor told him that the babies would need to stay in an incubator for about a month, which would cost about 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. "i thought i could scrape together the money myself," chen xiaobo said. "the next day i asked again and found out it was 50,000 to 60,000 yuan per baby."

chen xiaobo was shocked, "200,000 is too much for me." he went to many departments to consult about reimbursement and subsidy policies, but did not get an effective answer. the village cadres in his hometown suggested that if he registered his baby in jiangxi, he might be able to get some reimbursement.

in desperation, he called the tv station for help. on august 28, shenzhen local media published a report. facing the camera, chen xiaobo said: "i am a migrant worker with a meager income. if raising a child requires a lot of expenses, it will be difficult for our family. i hope the society can give me some help. i really have no other choice. the pressure of life is particularly great."

the report quickly spread online and sparked controversy, with topics such as child-rearing costs and preference for sons over daughters becoming the focus of discussion among netizens. chen xiaobo read the comments one by one, feeling comforted by the well-intentioned comments but also troubled by the arguments. he couldn't help himself, so he replied to a malicious message: i sincerely wish you well, i am very grateful, i don't force you to help, but please be kind.

these days, li xia hardly looks at her phone. "did my husband say something wrong?" she asked timidly. her colleagues comforted her, saying that she would be happy after the baby grew up, even if she had to work harder now.

but they hadn't thought that far. they hadn't even started to raise money for the babies' hospitalization fees. one month later, the four babies returned home. the 1.3-meter bed couldn't accommodate so many people, so chen xiaobo could only sleep on the floor in the living room. children don't understand adults' anxiety. the second daughter always shouted excitedly, "i'm going to be a big sister."

jiupai news reporter ma jieying and li kai reported from shenzhen, guangdong