The boy spent the money while he was using his father’s phone to play online games when the dad was undergoing treatment. The father was the family’s sole income source after the mother died 10 years earlier.
A 12-year-old boy in China spent money donated by relatives to pay for his critically ill father’s cancer treatment on mobile games, local media has reported.
The boy, surnamed Huang, from Fushun county in Sichuan province, southwestern China, spent 3,800 yuan (US$560) in July at the Xiaomi Game Centre, a mobile phone game platform.
The theft occurred when the boy was with his father during a hospital visit and used his father’s mobile phone, the Chengdu Business News reported.
His father, Huang Zhengxiang, has late-stage brain cancer. Due to his family’s modest income, doctors decided to adopt a conservative and less costly treatment method, the report said.
The senior Huang was the family’s sole breadwinner after his wife died in an accident 10 years ago. Before falling ill in June, the father worked in construction in different mainland cities, leaving his sons, aged 15 and 12, at home.
His relatives all pitched in and donated money for his treatment after his diagnosis. They only realised the money was stolen by the junior Huang when a relative went to pay the medical fees after his father died at the end of July.
Huang Zhengyuan, brother of the father, found that the money donated by the family had been spent by his nephew. He and other relatives had to raise more money to pay the hospital fees.
The uncle said he asked the game centre operator Xiaomi to refund the money, but the company at first did not believe him.
After a journalist made inquiries and Xiaomi conducted background checks, the company agreed to return the money to the family. The uncle said this amount of money will be put away to support his two nephews in the future.
The local government said the two boys were placed in an orphanage after their father’s death, the newspaper reported.
Boy in China blows money donated for dying father’s brain cancer treatment on mobile phone games
The 12-year-old Huang said he felt remorseful and guilty for his actions.
“I feel sorry for my father and sorry for those relatives who helped my father,” he said.
It’s not uncommon for children to steal from their parents to pay for mobile games on the mainland.
Last month, an 11-year-old boy in Inner Mongolia logged onto his father’s WeChat account to play games on a Tencent game platform and spent 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) on prepaid game credit cards.
The company later returned half of the money to the father after the case was reported by Inner Mongolia TV.
