“I want to become a teacher in the future” “I wish I could own a piano when I grow up” ……

Sitting in front of a cake marking their 10th birthday, four little girls looking almost identical made their wishes to the candlelight.

The story began on a September morning in 2010, when Deng Dinglan, a farmer from Shangbao Village, Chongyi County in east China’s Jiangxi Province, gave birth to the quadruplets at a county hospital.

“It was like a dream, having four baby girls in my life all of a sudden,” said Wu Nianyou, the girls’ father, who named them Mengting, Mengling, Mengyun and Mengqin respectively. But back to the reality, the new father had many other things to worry about.

“My wife and I used to find work opportunities in Guangdong Province and we couldn’t just go away and leave the kids behind. We had no other sources of income except a fifth hectare of farm field. We scrimped and saved to the kids’ milk powder.”

All four daughters in the Wu family were born prematurely and Mengting, the eldest, was suspected of having spina bifida, which might cause paralysis if she missed a timely surgery that was usually costly. “That period of time was such a nightmare that we even thought of giving away two of the kids,” said Wu, who eventually gave up the idea at the sight of the kids happily taking a bath.

The first two years were especially hard for Wu and Deng, but the family managed to get through it under government poverty-relief programs and social sponsorship. Wu’s family was registered as an impoverished household by the local government and the couple were provided with jobs. The quadruplets benefited from a rural minimum living standard guarantee scheme and were living a smooth life. To Wu and Deng’s relief, Mengting’s spina bifida was found not serious after a series of further medical examinations.

The Wu family had been living in a dilapidated adobe house with walls full of cracks that barely withstood bad weathers. In 2016, under a government-funded house renovation plan, Wu Nianyou built a three-storey house on his own. Next to his courtyard, Wu also put up chicken and duck pens as well as a fish pond to start a farm product business.

Over time, life at the Wu family improved. In 2017, the quadruplets went to school as first-graders and got their own rooms with study desks. In 2019, the family shed poverty with an annual income exceeding 70,000 yuan (10,708 U.S. dollars); an honorary certificate was presented to the family in praise of their anti-poverty efforts. In 2020, Wu Nianyou began to look for part-time jobs at nearby construction sites after he learned how to drive an excavator.

“All I can do is to work hard, improve our life and provide the kids with better education,” said Wu Nianyou. “I hope my girls will grow up as promising young people and I believe life in the future will not fail us for all we’ve done.”