On Friday, at Lanzhou, the intermediate court closed the nursery file. Li Huifang, the de facto operator of Heshi Peixin, Tianshui, Maiji district, Gansu: life in prison, political rights for life, confiscation of 500,000 yuan. The offence, in the court’s wording: producing and selling toxic and harmful food, particularly serious circumstances. Zhi Jinglin, the executive principal: 15 years and a 300,000 yuan fine. Four people from the kitchen, Niu Aiyuan, Wen Yafang, He Xuxia, An Chunling: between six and eight years, plus fines. These are first-instance convictions, given in public. They are not open charges.

In July 2025, 247 of 251 children and 28 of 34 staff had blood lead above the normal range, China Daily writes, after Xinhua. 235 children were treated. NOS: lead paint, marked as inedible, put on steamed date cakes and corn bread with sausage, so the food would look better. The samples: 1,052 mg/kg and 1,340 mg/kg. The national limit: 0.5 mg/kg. Two thousand times over. The court: Li and Zhi told the kitchen staff to add toxic, non-food substances.

Lead accumulates. Brain, nerves, kidneys, circulation. WHO: particularly harmful to young children. After treatment, Xinhua said levels had fallen, on average, by 40.21%. One child was still in hospital in the July 2025 report. The private nursery, opened in August 2022, in a residential compound. The stake, in the court’s mouth, was appearance. It was not a recipe ingredient. It was a colour.

BBC: dozens of provincial officials and hospital staff tried to cover it up. Blood tests tampered with. Bribes from a nursery investor. Whether they will be prosecuted is an open inquiry. Until a sentence, the posts remain, not the names. Anyone who mixes them with the six convictions turns one file into two.

China has since published national guidelines for campus meals. Every new batch, tested. Flour, rice, oil, from centralised procurement points. The guideline does not erase the cake. It puts a rule after a colour.

Li’s life is a sentence. The lead in the children’s blood is a measurement. Between them sits a nursery that painted food to attract pupils and a court that named that a crime, not a kitchen error.

Image: muuving, Maiji, Tianshui, Gansu, 30 January 2009, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons / Panoramio. The photograph is of the district, not Heshi Peixin kindergarten.

Sources consulted: Life sentence for Chinese nursery owner over painted meals — NOS; Nursery owner in China jailed for life after hundreds of children poisoned — BBC.