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At the end of 2010, a video went viral on the Internet. In the video, a young boy under the age of 10 is holding a kitchen knife at his fish stall, skillfully opening the intestines of one fish after another. From helping guests pick fish, killing fish, to settling accounts, a set of actions in one go. The guest who bought the fish found it interesting and took a video and posted it online.
The little boy's stubborn and sharp eyes, which did not match his age, made a deep impression. He quickly became popular, netizens jokingly called him "fish killing brother", he is Meng Fansen. If you want to shoot a documentary for Meng Fansen similar to "Seven Years of Life", at the age of 10, his actions of killing fish, weighing, scraping, digging up biles, and bagging at a fish stall may be the first shot.
However, 7 years later, the camera came to the Department of Poisoning and Occupational Diseases of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University in Jinan. The 17-year-old fish killer drank the highly toxic pesticide paraquat. From becoming popular in childhood to trying to take poison and commit suicide at a young age, what happened to Meng Fansen? Today we will talk about his story.
Meng Fansen, born in March 2001 in Lanling Town, Cangshan County, Shandong Province, has a family of 6 brothers and sisters, he is the eldest. When he was born, the family's economic conditions were very bad, and his parents gave him a nickname "Dafa", saying that this name had a good meaning. Meng Fansen's father, Meng Changqing, and his mother Wang Fan were junior high school classmates, and the two belonged to free love. Wang Fan's father died early, his mother remarried, and a sister committed suicide by drinking pesticides. On Meng Changqing's side, his father was smashed to death by a tree when he was 15 years old, and his brother died of gas poisoning shortly after. After that, her mother also remarried, after which Meng Changqing began to drop out of school to work. At the age of 17, Meng Changqing began to fall in love with Wang Fan, but was strongly opposed by Wang Fan's mother. The two simply eloped and wandered outside for a year. The following year, within a few months of the 18-year-old Meng Changqing returning to the village with the pregnant Wang Fan, the eldest son, Meng Fansen, was born. Later, the couple gave birth to 5 children in succession.
In 2004, Meng Changqing and Wang Fan came to Suzhou from Shandong to work with their second infant daughter, and the eldest son, Meng Fansen, was left to Meng Changqing's grandfather, that is, Meng Fansen's old wife. The couple picked up garbage, worked as a small worker, sold vegetables, fished, and after several years of hard work, finally opened their own aquatic product shop in 2008.
In Meng Fansen's childhood memories, the impression of his parents is very vague. When I was 7 years old, when my uncle got married, my mother, who had not returned home for many years, returned to her hometown. As soon as they saw him, they took him into their arms. Meng Fansen said that feeling was particularly warm at that time. At the beginning of 2010, Meng Fansen was picked up from his hometown in Shandong to Suzhou, because his relatives in his hometown often called Meng Changqing and said that this child often went down to the river to touch fish, which was too dangerous, and you should pick him up early. Young Meng Fansen returned to his parents, but it was difficult to integrate into the city. He didn't like to talk to strangers and followed his parents every day, watching them sell fish and kill fish. Meng Changqing and Wang Fan once found a school for Meng Fansen near the farmers' market, but Meng Fansen always skipped school for three days and ran home to help kill fish, so he did not suffer from his parents' lessons.
At that time, the family rented a small bungalow on the outskirts of Suzhou, and at night, her mother Wang Fan slept in the house with her daughters, and Meng Changqing sometimes took her sons to sleep on a tricycle pulling fish. For a long time, exhausted, the couple did not have time to take care of their children, except for Meng Fansen, who grew up in his hometown, the rest of the children grew up in fish pots. Meng Fansen even felt that he was the happiest of the six children. He said that my five younger siblings could not eat milk powder, so they all squeezed a spoonful of milk powder and put a spoonful of glucose. When I was a child, I was put in a bucket, played by myself, and grew up on my own, until I was more than two years old, when I was able to walk on my own.
In order to support their family, Meng Changqing and Wang Fan get up at two or three o'clock in the morning every day to catch fish. In the suburbs of winter, sometimes it can reach minus ten degrees, the river surface is frozen, the water is deep and chest-deep, the cold wind blows, and after two or three minutes, the gloves taken off by the fish will freeze and tear open. Once in the midst of the chaos, Meng Changqing even chopped off his fingernails, and the blood flowed, but because he wanted to save money, he did not go to the hospital for treatment, and scrawled himself and bandaged himself. Some people may ask, the conditions are already so difficult, how can there be so many children? Wang Fan said that the next few children were accidentally conceived, and they were reluctant to beat them off, and they were born with a tendon in their brains. Wang Fan's mother gave another explanation, saying that in the countryside, she wanted to have more children and have more children so that she could help the family work.
● Unexpected popularity
In the winter of 2010, Meng Fansen, who was on winter vacation, helped in the aquatic product shop. A familiar customer took a picture of him picking fish, killing fish, and settling accounts, and said: Little friend, you kill fish is really sharp, like I am so old, even a fish can't get it. Meng Fansen glanced at him with stubborn, disgusted and cute eyes, and the video and this photo later swept the internet. In the picture, Meng Fansen sits in an environment full of sewage, fish scales and plasma, takes a fish more than ten centimeters long from the customer's hand, throws his backhand, skillfully and powerfully, scrapes the two fish scales in more than ten seconds, opens the stomach, and then uses a black plastic bag to pack it, saying "7 pieces and 1 hair" In a crisp and sharp tone. The sudden popularity made Meng Fansen have the title of "Fish Killing Brother". He was less than 10 years old that year.
However, mixed voices poured in from all directions, once pushing the Meng Fansen family to the center of online public opinion, some people praised Meng Fansen's diligence and understanding, but more of a questioning voice: "Don't such children have to go to school?" "His hands are cold red, he's going to hurt, right?" As the heat continues to rise, some media reporters also intervened, they found Meng Changqing, asked why they did not let the fish killer go to school, and even further asked: Do you want the fish brother to grow up to become a fishmonger like him? Meng Changqing replied impatiently, "I want him to kill people!" ”
A spray-painted printing shop in the farmers' market volunteered to make a billboard for the Mengjia Fish Stall, and the red bottom cloth was impressively written with the words "Kill the Fish Brother" aquatic products, accompanied by a frontal photo of Meng Fansen. The seafood shop has become a landmark of the farmers' market, and the business is much better than before.
In 2011, Meng Fansen's father and son participated in a parent-child program "Come on! Daddy". In the show, the guest children dressed in white rabbit costumes frequently asked the father and son, "Are you using your son to make money?" "Do you want your son to be a professional fish killer like you?" Meng Changqing seemed a little cramped, but Meng Fansen on the side quickly explained: It was I who saw that my parents were too hard, and the scars on their hands were all scars, so I took the initiative to share some and help kill the fish.
At the end of the show, Meng Fansen cried and said that in fact, he did not want to go to school, nor did he deliberately skip class, but he did not want to see his father work so hard. He also said that from today onwards, he must study well and let his parents live a good life.
However, in the fast-paced Internet era, there has never been a shortage of new Internet celebrities. Soon, the popularity of killing fish brothers dropped sharply, and the Meng Fansen family gradually faded from the public eye. The signboard of "Killing Fish Brother" was also damaged in a strong wind two years later, and was replaced by the later "Shandong Lanling Dafa Aquatic Products". Meng Fansen, whose aura has faded, still stands on the fish stall, with a knife in his hand, killing the fish sharply, and he no longer mentions the vow of "studying well" in the neutrality of the show. According to Meng Fansen's sister, his brother's culture class has always been bad, he can't keep up with the rhythm of the teacher, and he often stops in the corridor. As the children of migrant workers, going to school in Suzhou, each child needs to pay about 1200 yuan in borrowing fees, parents have advised Meng Fansen many times, let him not waste their hard-earned hard-earned money, but Meng Fansen's results are still hovering in the bottom, there is no improvement. Meng Changqing and his wife felt that it might be more appropriate to send him back to the boarding school in his hometown, but after returning to his hometown, Meng Fansen was not only warned many times for skipping school and absenteeism, but also often went to the Internet café to play games, and Meng Changqing and Wang Fan had no choice but to take him back to his side.
In 2014, Meng Fansen, who barely finished the first year of junior high school, dropped out of school completely. He was 14 years old that year, had grown to a meter and a half, with broad shoulders and a strong body. The adolescent Meng Fansen was also once fascinated by Gu Qiuzi, secretly took a few hundred yuan, went to the tattoo shop, and tattooed a pattern on the chest. Meng Changqing once asked his son several times whether he really liked to sell fish to kill fish, or whether he was more willing to go out to work and do some decent work. At first, Meng Fansen planned to wait until he had a partner in the future, and after getting married, he would go out to find work, but later he changed his mouth and said, "Dad, I still want to kill fish at home first, it's so messy outside, what if I am deceived?" Meng Changqing finally watched his son get trapped on the fish stall.
● Impulsiveness
On the evening of July 31, 2018, the main street of the farmers' market on the outskirts of Suzhou was bustling with activity. As usual, the honking of passing vehicles mingled with the hawkers' haggling cries. Wearing dark shorts and bare arms, 17-year-old Meng Fansen walked into the seafood stall across the road to collect money for his parents. Due to the shortage of goods in the morning, this aquatic stall asked the Meng Fansen family for more than 100 kilograms of blackfish. The original price of each kilogram of blackfish was 11 yuan and 5 cents, because the two families were fellow villagers in Lanling, Shandong, and often took care of each other's business, and Meng Fansen's father, Meng Changqing, promised to sell the blackfish to each other at a price lower than the original price of 2 cents. However, Meng Fansen did not know it, and he had an argument with the owner of the aquatic stall opposite when collecting money. Meng Changqing rushed to hear the sound, and when he saw his son, he shouted, "What are you here for?" Who made you checkout? I don't know the price and don't know to call me! Meng Fansen also showed no weakness, shouting at his father: It's not my fault, why do you blame me?" Father and son pushed and shoved their hands. Meng Fansen grabbed a blood mark on the inside of his father's arm. The crowd pulled father and son apart.
Meng Fansen returned to his shop angrily, sat on the stall to wipe his tears, and after a while went straight to the warehouse behind. Meng Fansen's second sister followed her to the warehouse, thinking of comforting her brother, but only to see Meng Fansen holding a bottle of iced black tea drink in his hand, but the liquid inside was green, leaving only about a third. The younger sister felt that something was wrong and quickly called her mother, Wang Fan. Wang Fan asked, What kind of water are you drinking? How is this color?
Meng Fansen didn't want to answer at first, but after a while, he silently took out a 100 ml bottle of paraquat, and only half of the solution inside was left. After learning that his son had taken poison, Meng Changqing's brain buzzed, and he immediately arrested his son on the electric car, and even ran several red lights to send Meng Fansen to Suzhou Municipal Hospital. After a series of rescue measures such as gastric lavage, vomiting, and diuresis, Meng Fansen still felt a violent burning in his throat and internal organs. Meng Changqing and Wang Fan stayed by their son's side, and did not dare to close their eyes for three days and three nights.
At noon on August 4, Meng Fansen was transferred to the Department of Poisoning and Occupational Diseases of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University and continued to be treated. Attending doctor Suga Xiangdong recalled that when Meng Fansen sent him, he was already in a critical state of illness, which was severe poisoning, and the phenomenon of kidney and lung failure was still worsening, and he was in the uremia stage. He told Meng Fansen's parents that the next 4 to 5 days are very critical, and Meng Fansen may die suddenly due to organ failure, resulting in multiple complications. However, the uremic phase caused by paraquat poisoning is different from true uremia, which is a stage of impaired kidney function and may also be completely cured. Dr. Suga revealed that data from the past few years show that the treatment rate of paraquat poisoning in Qilu Hospital of Shandong University has reached 61.8%. This made the almost desperate Meng Changqing couple light up hope again, they said that even if they smashed the pot and sold iron, they would actively cooperate with the treatment.
On the morning of August 8, Meng Fansen, who had been tormented by pain for 8 days, finally had some appetite, and he ate two small loaves of bread and drank a cup of soy milk. The corners of Meng Changqing's mouth that had been holding back for several days barely squeezed out a smile, he said that if his son could not be saved, he would not live. Dr Suga said it was Meng Fansen who saved his life at dinner before taking the medicine, because after eating, the absorption of paraquat toxicity was not as strong as on an empty stomach.
But why would Meng Fansen try to kill himself by taking poison for a while? Is it just because I can't stand my father's reprimand? Or is it because of the difference between the 200+ dollars to sell fish?
Meng Fansen admitted afterwards that the paraquat he had secretly bought a month ago. In the Spring Festival of 2017, when he returned to his hometown for the Chinese New Year, he overheard the villagers say that a couple had died of paraquat drinking paraquat, and since then he remembered that "paraquat is very strong." Meng Fansen said that his parents quarreled every day, in the morning and at night, he really couldn't stand it. On the day of the incident, after he and his father broke out into an argument, people were angry and thought that they would be clean if they drank it.
Busy running a seafood shop all day long, making money to make a living, the Meng family's life is tense, repetitive and boring. Just after 12 o'clock in the morning, Meng Changqing was about to drive the truck and prepare to go out to buy goods. At three or four o'clock in the morning, Wang Fan got up and began to prepare for the stall. In the morning, the 6 children casually ate breakfast, took a 1.5 hour bus to school, and left Meng Fansen to stay at home to help. Every afternoon, after closing the stalls, the few hours before going to bed is the only time that Meng Changqing and Wang Fan can give the children a day, on average, less than 1 hour per child. If the unfortunate couple quarrels, everything will get worse. Perennial hard work, accumulation of disease, Meng Changqing suffered from lumbar disc herniation and arthritis, Wang Fan also found nephritis in 2018, things are more upset, the two often quarrel. Sometimes you can argue five or six times a day, and whether the children have eaten or not, they can't care about it for a lifetime.
Meng Changqing is notoriously violent in the farmers' market, often rubbing against his peers, so he has also offended many people. Meng Fansen has an introverted personality and does not like to talk, but his temper is like that of a father, and quarrels can often be heard inside and outside the house. Living in such a chicken-flying environment for a long time, Meng Fansen's five younger siblings have gradually become rebellious. A sentence that Meng Changqing often said was: Human life is destined by heaven! Can't change that at all! These words were also once hung up by Meng Changqing's dead father, Meng Fansen's grandfather. This mantra, which has been "passed down" for three generations in the Meng family, lingers like a similar fate.
● One fish shop, the fate of two generations
The news that the 17-year-old fish brother drank paraquat once again pushed Meng Fansen to the cusp of public opinion. Netizens almost one-sidedly accused Meng Fansen's parents, some said that superbirth was the original sin, some said that the despair of the original family forced Meng Fansen to drink poison, and even some people pulled out the news that Meng Fansen was abused by his father's domestic violence a few years ago.
In early 2013, Meng Fansen's left eye was injured, his brow bone was swollen, and the bleeding scars were clearly visible. At that time, there were media reports that it was beaten by his father, Meng Changqing. Whenever this matter was mentioned, Wang Fan cried and laughed, she said that this time was a few children returning to their hometown for the New Year to set off cannons, the firecrackers did not explode, the children went closer to see, and as a result, two or three were injured. The boss hurt his eyes, and the fourth brother blew his hand, and there was no less bleeding. However, Wang Fan also admitted that there are many children in the family, and sometimes if they can't discipline them, they will take stick education. After Meng Fansen attempted suicide, Meng Changqing and Wang Fan also began to reflect on their lives over the years, and they found that they really did not care much about what the children were thinking.
In 2011, when invited to participate in the program, the host asked Meng Changqing, "My son's favorite food is the fish head, the fish body, or the fish tail?" Meng Changqing's answer is "fish head", while Meng Fansen's answer is "fish tail". Seven years later, in the hospital ward, a reporter asked Meng Changqing: "Who is your son's idol?" Meng Changqing said that it was the pheasant in gu qizai, but Meng Fansen said that it was Lin Zhengying.
Meng Fansen's original family is undoubtedly problematic, lack of communication, parents endless quarrels, have a great impact on the cultivation of children's personality. The sentence that Meng Changqing hung on his lips, people's fate is destined, and it is invisibly passing on his negative attitude towards life to the children. But you can't say that Meng Fansen grew up in a loveless family. During the rescue after taking poison, the mother Wang Fan and several younger siblings of Meng Fansen cried silently. Father Meng Changqing sat in the corridor of the hospital, the critical illness notice came down, but he refused to sign it, and he could not accept the reality that his son would not come back. When the doctor suggested that he might have a lung transplant, Meng Changqing didn't even think about it, and immediately said that he wanted to change his lungs. Luckily, eventually Meng Fansen woke up. Meng Changqing rushed into the intensive care unit at the first time, blurted out his son: "Is there anything uncomfortable now?" While talking and shedding tears, Meng Fansen was also touched, he said that he had never seen his father like this, and he now knew that his father still cared about him and cared about this family.
Meng Fansen's family problems are not unique, and behind these problems are all kinds of helplessness. Perhaps more bitter than paraquat is the dilemma of the people at the bottom. As the saying goes, poor couples mourn. Meng Changqing and his wife, who are so busy with their livelihood all day long, that they have no time to estimate the psychological changes of their adolescent children. In fact, a few months before Meng Fansen drank pesticides, Wang Fan once mentioned to her husband that his son had always been sullen lately, saying nothing but doing his work. Meng Changqing didn't have the psychological meeting at that time, but said, on such a day, who can be happy, am I happy?
When rescued in the hospital in Suzhou, the Meng Fansen family spent nearly 50,000 yuan. Later, it cost another 8,000 yuan to get the ambulance to help transfer to Shandong, and tens of thousands of dollars during the treatment of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University. After waking up, Meng Fansen told his parents that he regretted drinking pesticides because he was worried that he had spent all the family's money in order to treat him.
The living conditions of the 8 members of the Meng family are their more than 50 square meters of aquatic products shop. Two bedrooms are separated by two pink curtains, two boys sleep in one, four girls sleep in one, and Meng Changqing and his wife sleep in the living room. There was no desk at home that could be used to write homework, only a few stools. There is a TV in the living room, the walls have long been soaked by sewage on a large area of peeling skin, and the floor is scattered with toys. The tidying box in the corner was stuffed with dirty clothes and quilts. Meng Fansen and his five younger siblings grew up in such an environment.
Some people blame Meng Fansen's parents for not letting their son drop out of school, but such a situation is not uncommon in the Suzhou Fertilizer New Village Farmers' Market where Meng Fansen lives, and the meng family's economic conditions are not the worst. Most of the children in the farmer's market, like Meng Fansen, come from other towns and villages, and follow their parents to many places to settle in this city known as "paradise", but they rarely have the opportunity to really see the beautiful side of the city. Meng Fansen's aquatic product shop has been working in this farmer's market for more than ten years, the source of customers is stable, and it can have an income of more than 4,000 yuan per month, but the rent plus living expenses, plus the tuition fees of several children, all year round, life is still tight.
After a reporter came out of the ward of Meng Fansen in Qilu Hospital, he sighed that if it were not for the name of "killing fish brothers", Meng Fansen's experience was not worth making a fuss about here. The long-faced teenager on the bed next to him, always looking at everything around him with a cold face, with a tattoo faintly revealed on his chest, had eaten rat poison before being sent. The girl on the opposite bed, from Xinjiang, drank paraquat and had to wear a heavy breathing mask all day long because it touched the skin of her mouth when she took it. Talking to the families of these patients, you may involuntarily ask a question that seems silly but has no answer: Why are they doing it. But for the doctors in the Department of Poisoning and Occupational Diseases of Qilu Hospital, they have to face 400 to 600 patients like Meng Fansen every year, and they are more telling patients not to drink again when they go back than to ask why.
The overwhelming accusations against the parents of the fish brother on the Internet remind me of a sentence in the book "The Great Gatsby": When you want to judge anyone, remember that not everyone in this world has the same favorable conditions as you. Everyone knows that children should grow up in a good family environment, and they should be taken out to meet the world and given enough care. But in real life, not all families have the conditions to do what they should do, after all, for many people, living is already doing their best.
After the fleeting flow of the fish-killing brother faded, life had to go on. There is no doubt that the parents' vision does determine the future of the child to some extent. Not long after the drug incident subsided, in January 2019, Meng Changqing and Meng Fansen's father and son were criminally detained by the Suzhou police on suspicion of intentional injury. The reason is simply because when they unloaded the goods, they found a car parked on the side, which affected the unloading progress. Meng Changqing hurriedly honked the horn and asked the owner to move the car. The two sides quarreled over this, which escalated into a physical conflict, and Meng Fansen also joined the fight until the police arrived. What makes people helpless is that the repeated blows of life have not changed the way they treat people. But fortunately, Meng Fansen is still young, his future life is still very long, whether he can go out of the same way as his parents after escaping death, let it be time to witness.