Beyond that, it tells a story that has been widely and repeatedly debunked - without responding at all to the debunkers.

"We spend our life savings, we borrow money, we will do anything to find our children," said Mr. Peng, who owns a long-distance phone call business in Gongming, not far from Shenzhen.

On the basis of the former critics' research, this thesis attempts to go one step further to explore the roles of the children protagonists in the themes and structures of the two novels.