In 1998, 22-month-old Feng Lulu was kidnapped from her family while playing outside her home in Xinxing, a village in Qian county China’s Shaanxi province.

Even though her parents reported the incident to the police and an investigation was performed, due to the lack of eyewitnesses and police resources, Lulu was never found. But the Feng’s never lost hope that one day they would be reunited with their daughter,

“I always knew I was adopted because the neighbors would say so, but I never dared ask my foster parents about it until a few years ago,” NEWSWEEK reported that Lulu told Chinese news outlet Ersanli.

But the story Lulu received about why her parents supposedly put her up for adoption left her angry and resentful of them.

“They told me my [biological] family had three daughters and I was the youngest. They couldn’t afford to raise me, so they sold me,” she said.

Lulu is now married with two children of her own, and resigned that she would never know anything about her biological family. Little did she know that her life would soon be turned upside down in a way she’d only sometimes dreamed about.

A local NGO called the All-China Women’s Federation would be the key that brought an end to this 32-year-old mystery. When the NGO learned about the Feng family’s story, they set about investigating the matter themselves.

Exactly how the NGO came to identify Zhang Qianqian as a possible match with the missing Feng Lulu is somewhat shrouded in mystery, but on March 11 of this year, Zhang Qiangian was ordered to take a DNA test to see whether she was related to the Feng family.

On March 30, a positive match was reported, and the All-China Women’s Federation began making arrangements for Lulu–whose name had been changed to Zhang Qiangian by her adopted family–to go travel 310 miles back to her hometown and meet her biological family.

After hearing the truth about her adoption, Lulu was finally able to let go of the hurt she had carried her entire life. “Then I felt a wave of relief knowing that my birth parents had been looking for me for over 30 years,” she said.

The reunion occurred on April 2, 2021, and was an emotional one, with Lulu meeting her birth parents and siblings for the first time. The event was celebrated by the entire village, with droves of neighbors coming out to welcome their lost daughter home.

Lulu is looking forward to many trips back to visit with her birth parents and siblings, and making up for the lost years.