A young man born in the 1990s escaped death and carved out a road to wealth

Today, Ai Liyan is taking us into the mountains to buy a type of mountain produce. Because his legs and feet are inconvenient, walking up slopes like this is extremely strenuous for Ai Liyan.

Ai Liyan: Of course I'm tired. This part is the last stretch of concrete road that was laid; ahead it's all mud roads. Your foot can lift up and step down, but I can only step down, I can't lift it up. Look how thin my leg is, it's inconvenient for walking these mountain roads. Sometimes I need to lift my foot, but I can't lift it.

After walking only a short while, Ai Liyan was drenched in sweat and could only walk a bit, then stop.

Ai Liyan: Fan myself a bit, fan a bit and it cools down. Today's weather still isn't hot; if the sun were out it would be hotter. Climbing up here, my whole body is covered in sweat.

After more than half an hour, we finally arrived deep in the mountains, and on steep mountain paths like this, Ai Liyan kept slipping.

Reporter Bi Yue: Did you just lose your footing?

Ai Liyan: I lost my footing.

Reporter Bi Yue: Slow down a bit.

To avoid slipping and falling, Ai Liyan has to grab trees or grass with his hands as he walks, which is painful to watch.

Reporter Bi Yue: What's wrong?

Ai Liyan: I got my hand pricked.

In search of wealth deep in the mountains, Ai Liyan has lost count of how many times he has slipped and fallen.

Ai Liyan: At the time it was cut right here, I got stuck on that tree fork and it cut to here. No hair, see, the hair got scraped off.

Reporter Bi Yue: Your whole body is covered in injuries?

Ai Liyan: My whole body is covered in injuries. The more I fall, the stronger I get. Only by persevering like this will you succeed in the end. If I had given up because I fell here, or because a bug bit me, or because I didn't do it, there wouldn't be the me of today.

Ai Liyan, who cannot lift his feet the way a normal person can, not only struggles to walk, but the process of creating wealth is as laborious as climbing a slope. But what is unimaginable is that by buying the most ordinary mountain produce from deep in the mountains, Ai Liyan, now 24 years old, has actually reached annual sales of more than 20 million yuan.

Ai Liyan's mother Zhu Zhaoli: He took 600,000 yuan and bought a BMW. In our village they said about my husband, look, your son has been in business just a few years and bought a BMW, and you haven't bought a BMW in half a lifetime. Look at your son bringing in money, he's married a wife and has a grandson too.

Shang Wen'an, deputy secretary of the Party branch of Jiuli Village, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province: I just feel that this person's life force is too tenacious, and he has a striving, struggling spirit. He is doing these things for himself. For a rural kid to get to where he is today and achieve this, it is definitely a miracle. For a disabled person to do this so well is also a role model worth learning from for us.

People all say that Ai Liyan's entrepreneurship has not been easy, but Ai Liyan smiles in the face of every difficulty.

Ai Liyan: Well said. When there's one person, we clap like this. When there are few people and our clapping isn't enough, we clap like this. This is called applause, got it? This is called applause.

Reporter Bi Yue: It's fine to jump a bit.

Ai Liyan: Normally jumping like this is still okay. If I jump badly I could get a fracture. This is flat ground, see. That foot can't lift up. I lift only my heel. If you feel happy, clap your hands, one, two. A pair of powerless feet and the big fleshy hollow in front of his neck are the marks Ai Liyan has left from escaping death.

Ai Liyan: Is it ugly?

Reporter: It's not ugly.

Ai Liyan: I think it's pretty good, because many people tell me to go get this filled in, you know. But I won't get it filled in. Why won't I get it filled in? I hope that every morning when I get up, when I brush my teeth or comb my hair, I see the mirror and think of what I once went through. I could get through even something that hard and that bitter, so now I must, must live more wonderfully than before. And now no matter how hard or difficult it gets, I must keep going, I must keep going. People who haven't had a past like that won't be able to understand. If my dad had given up back then, the grass on my grave would be this deep now. It's so good to be alive.

How exactly did Ai Liyan, who once had trouble even staying alive, walk out a road to wealth with a pair of powerless feet? What kind of mountain produce is on the mountain that is worth him risking his life to find?

At age 14, one event sent Ai Liyan right to the gate of death.

In the photo is Ai Liyan at 14. In 2005, Ai Liyan contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome. Overnight his limbs were paralyzed and he lost the ability to breathe, and he had to rely on a ventilator like this to barely stay alive.

Ai Liyan's third uncle Ai Shixin: Without the ventilator he was like a dead person. As soon as the ventilator was pulled off, he'd be gone in an instant.

Ai Liyan's mother Zhu Zhaoli: His pupils stayed in the middle and didn't move. His pupils wouldn't turn, his whole body wouldn't move. He worried us to death. We didn't know whether he was dead or alive.

The cure rate for Guillain-Barre syndrome is extremely low, and the hope of surviving is very slim. Unexpectedly, three months later Ai Liyan actually regained the ability to breathe. And when he opened his eyes and saw his parents, who had been watching over him and who in merely three months had aged 10 years, Ai Liyan said these words.

Ai Liyan: I said I have no way to choose whether I live or die. I said if you could choose, you'd choose for me to die, and then just donate all my organs and everything.

Ai Liyan's father Ai Shixi: Hearing that at the time, my heart ached. What he meant was that even if he got better he'd be a vegetative person, and that back then he'd still have become a burden to us.

His family's never giving up made Ai Liyan determined to live well. After 2 years and more than 400 sessions of acupuncture and rehabilitation training, Ai Liyan could actually walk.

Shang Wen'an, deputy secretary of the Party branch of Jiuli Village, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province: From getting sick to finally being discharged from the hospital, this was all a miracle.

And early in the morning on the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2008, his family discovered that Ai Liyan, who had just learned to walk, had gone missing. No matter how they searched, they could not find him.

Ai Liyan's mother Zhu Zhaoli: On the first day of the New Year I got up and the child was gone. He couldn't even walk, where could he have run off to? I was both angry and crying. After spending so much money, you ran off again. I was angry and resentful and crying. I cried on the first day, and I cried on the second and third days too.

On Lunar New Year's Eve, why did Ai Liyan run away from home, and where exactly did he go? Ai Liyan's parents mobilized relatives and friends to search for Ai Liyan day and night. Ai Liyan's mother rode more than a dozen buses a day and cycled dozens of li, but still there was no sign of Ai Liyan.

Twelve days later, Ai Liyan's parents finally found Ai Liyan. It turned out that in order to treat Ai Liyan's illness, the family had gone tens of thousands of yuan into debt. On Lunar New Year's Eve, with firecrackers sounding outside, while other families were happily celebrating the New Year, Ai Liyan's parents kept the door tightly shut to avoid debt collectors.

Ai Liyan: I felt that when they turned around they were crying. There are no words to describe that kind of pain.

To help his parents pay off their debts, on Lunar New Year's Eve Ai Liyan traveled alone to Ankang City, and after searching for eight days, only on the ninth day of the New Year did he find this skewer-grilling job.