One Child

Adopted as a baby from China, Mei has had a contented upbringing in the UK. She has grown up knowing little about her beginnings, but is the love of her parents' life. One day out of the blue, Mei gets a message from a journalist in China, Pan Qianyi, saying that Mei's birth mother wants to meet her. She is desperate for Mei's help. Her son, and the brother Mei has never met, is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Suddenly questions of abandonment and identity overwhelm Mei. Qianyi asks her to come to Guangzhou immediately. Telling her adoptive parents only that her mother wants to meet her, Mei is relieved when they agree she should go and that she must take this journey alone.

Ignoring warnings from her parents and the British Consulate, Mei and Qianyi set about finding one witness who is willing to tell the truth about the night Ajun was wrongfully arrested. When Mei turns to her parents for help they have an agonising decision to make - give Mei the money or risk losing her forever. The shared desire to free Ajun and expose this miscarriage of justice brings Mei and Ying closer, allowing her mother to share with her the difficulties of their past. As she assimilates to China, its cultures and her family, Mei's life back in England grows ever more distant.

Summoned for a final visit with Ajun, Mei and Ying have a heart-breaking last meeting in which he begs them to find someone who can save him. Now they face a race against time to reach Beijing and a lawyer who can help them petition the Supreme Court to stop his execution. With her adoptive parents arriving in China, Mei feels the walls closing in as her two worlds collide and she realises she's willing to risk everything for the sake of her brother's freedom.