Honesty paid off for the father of an ailing two-year-old boy from eastern Shandong province after he returned a lost wallet to its owner, who offered him 200 tonnes of turnips to help fund a bone-marrow transplant for the child.

Tang Shaolong, a farmer from Jining, had taken his son to Jinan, the provincial capital, to treat a blood condition called hemophagocytic syndrome, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Tuesday.

Doctors said Tang Yixuan needed a marrow transplant, but while his father was a match he did not have 400,000 yuan (US$60,000) for the operation.

The family had already paid 200,000 yuan for care at a hospital in Jinan, 120,000 yuan of which was borrowed from relatives.

Fate took a hand at lunchtime on Friday as Tang left the hospital to buy food for his son. He found a wallet on the road containing 20,000 yuan in cash, bank cards, a business card and a driving licence.

“To be honest, seeing so much money, I felt very glad,” Tang was quoted as saying. “I guessed it was God, knowing I was anxious about money to save my kid’s life [and] that might be a help to me.

“But on second thoughts, I guessed that because the money was found near a hospital it must be life-saving cash for someone else.”

Tang returned the wallet to its owner, vegetable grower Ding Yilong, but declined a reward. “If it was my salary for my hard work, I would take it,” he said. “But I just picked up other people’s belongings and returned it. I could not accept it.”

The two men agreed to keep in touch on social media, and it was then Ding learned that Tang was looking for help funding his son’s transplant.

Ding said his start-up business was not cash rich, but that he had “around 200 tonnes of turnips in my warehouse and I need to clear them out of stock before May”.

“I decided to donate the turnips to Tang Shaolong, and we can sell them together to raise money for the boy,” Ding said.

Their story appeared in the Shandong newspaper Qilu Evening News on Sunday, and by Tuesday the vegetables had all been sold.

The turnips brought in about 500,000 yuan (US$75,000), enough to cover the cost of the bone marrow transplant, Tang was quoted by Beijing Youth Daily as saying.

He said the hospital sterile ward where he and his son must be isolated in the days before the transplant would be available in about a month.

Source and images: scmp.com