She knew the people who cared for her. She knew the places where she felt comfortable. She knew the small pleasures that could make an ordinary day feel special.
And in her home, she found companionship in unexpected places.
According to the account, Lei often played with the family's puppy, talked to the ducks, or entertained herself in the yard.
To an adult, these details might seem small compared with the seriousness of her illness. Yet they are among the most moving parts of her story because they remind us that she was still a child.
She was not simply a patient, a diagnosis, or a medical expense.
She was a little girl with a world of her own.
A puppy could become a playmate. The movement of ducks could hold her attention. A quiet afternoon in the yard could offer a moment of happiness.
Perhaps she watched the animals curiously, reached toward them, or made little sounds as if they could understand her. Perhaps she found comfort in their familiar presence.
We cannot know exactly what Lei thought or felt during those moments. But it is easy to understand why such ordinary scenes would matter to her parents.
When a child is seriously ill, parents begin to treasure things they once might have taken for granted.
A laugh becomes precious.
A good day becomes a gift.
A moment when the child seems comfortable, curious, or happy can bring relief that is difficult to explain to anyone who has never experienced such fear.
For Liyong, taking his daughter outside to play or going fishing with her during his free time offered a chance to be more than a worried father.
For a little while, he could simply be her father.
He could spend time with her, share the world around them, and give her memories of affection rather than hospitals.
Perhaps those moments did not change her diagnosis. They could not erase the family's debts or guarantee a cure.
But they mattered.
Love is not measured only by the medical treatments a parent can provide. It is also found in the time a parent gives, the hand that reaches out, the patient attention offered to a child who needs comfort.
Liyong could not control every part of his daughter's illness. Yet he could still try to make her days gentler.
The Father Behind the Photographs
When the story spread online, many people focused on the extraordinary image of Liyong lying inside the grave he had dug.
The photograph became a symbol of his despair. But it also raised a more intimate question: what was happening inside the mind of the man who made that decision?
At 24, Liyong was not an old man reflecting on a long life. He was a young father whose daughter had barely reached the age of two.
He had presumably imagined a very different future when Lei was born.
He might have imagined teaching her to walk, watching her learn to speak, carrying her when she became tired, and helping her discover the world as she grew older.
He might have pictured her attending school, making friends, celebrating birthdays, and eventually becoming independent.
These are ordinary hopes, the kind parents often carry without even realizing it. They seem so natural that people rarely consider how fragile they can be.
A serious illness can turn those familiar expectations into uncertain possibilities.
Instead of asking what kind of person their child might become, parents may find themselves asking how to get through the next week. Instead of planning a birthday celebration, they may be calculating the cost of another medical procedure.
Instead of looking toward the future, they may be struggling to understand what a doctor has just told them.
The emotional weight of such circumstances can be overwhelming.
Liyong was reportedly told that his daughter might not survive without further treatment. His family had already spent an enormous amount of money, and her condition continued to deteriorate.
He faced the possibility that he could lose the person he most wanted to protect.
No amount of physical strength could necessarily change that reality. No number of hours spent working could guarantee the outcome he wanted. No promise made to his daughter could ensure that she would recover.
For a father who wanted to solve problems and provide for his family, such powerlessness may have been unbearable.
The decision to dig a grave himself was deeply distressing. It reflected a level of despair that many people could scarcely imagine.
But it would be wrong to see the act as evidence that he did not love his daughter enough.
The account presents it as an attempt to prepare her for a feared outcome, an effort to make something frightening feel less unfamiliar. It was a response to a situation in which he believed he had very few choices left.
That does not make the act medically beneficial or emotionally necessary. A child cannot be expected to understand death in the way an adult does, and exposure to a grave is not a treatment for illness or a reliable way to prepare a child for dying.
Yet understanding the limits of the act does not require us to ignore the desperation behind it.
Sometimes, when people are overwhelmed by grief, they do things that others find difficult to comprehend. They search for a way to make the unbearable feel manageable, even when no action can truly remove the pain.
Liyong's story is a reminder that a person's most desperate actions may emerge from suffering that outsiders can see only in fragments.
Behind the photograph was a father who wanted to save his child and feared that he might not be able to.
Why Did He Dig the Grave?
The question that haunted readers was simple: why would a father dig a grave for his own two-year-old daughter while she was still alive?
According to the account, Liyong believed that allowing Lei to become accustomed to the cold earth might help her feel less overwhelmed if she died.
The idea is heartbreaking because it reveals how far his thoughts had moved toward a future he desperately did not want.
A grave ordinarily belongs to a moment after death. It represents the end of a person's physical life and the beginning of mourning for those left behind.
For Liyong, however, the grave became connected to the possibility of his daughter's death before that moment had arrived.
Perhaps he felt that by preparing the grave, he was preparing himself. Perhaps he believed that facing the reality directly would make it less terrifying. Perhaps he could not bear the uncertainty and wanted, in some small way, to make the unknown seem familiar.
The report does not establish everything that went through his mind. It is important not to invent thoughts or conversations that were never recorded.
What is clear is that his action drew attention to the extraordinary distress experienced by a family who believed they were running out of options.
There is also an important distinction between understanding his motivation and treating his decision as a model for other families.
A living child does not need to be exposed to a grave to receive comfort or support. If a family is facing the possibility of a child's death, appropriate medical guidance, psychological support, and compassionate care can help parents focus on the child's comfort without creating additional fear.
For a very young child, reassurance often comes through familiar voices, gentle touch, play, and the presence of trusted caregivers.
But Liyong's story was not presented as a clinical guide to end-of-life care. It was a glimpse into the emotional world of a father who appeared to feel that the future had become unbearably narrow.
The image of him lying inside the grave was powerful precisely because it seemed to place him physically beside the fate he feared for his daughter.
He was not merely looking at an empty space in the ground.
To those who saw the photograph, he appeared to be confronting the possibility of a world in which his daughter would no longer be beside him.
And that possibility was enough to bring strangers to tears.
A Mother's Hope: The Possibility of a Stem Cell Transplant
While Liyong struggled with his fear, his wife, Deng Min, was also searching for a way to save their daughter.