The little boy, whose twin sister is suffering from acute leukemia, was photographed standing next to his mother on a public street in eastern Shandong Province, Eastern China,.
According to the words scrawled on the cardboard sign she is holding, 29-year-old Meng Xiangyen has offered to sell her son to the highest bidder.
The little boy is dressed warmly, and is seen clutching a skewer of food, although it remains unclear if he has any idea about what is going on.
According to CEN, the mother has revealed that, unless she finds the money she needs for her daughter's chemotherapy, the little girl will die.
Meng explained: "Up until a year ago we had a wonderful family and we thought we had everything we could need with a wonderful little boy and a wonderful little girl who are twins.
"But all that changed when my daughter was diagnosed as suffering from leukaemia in August of last year and we spent all of our savings and borrowed everything we could from friends and relatives.
“It still wasn't enough, and now we are hoping to raise cash from the sale of our son."
The family have sold up their apartment and everything in it and are now living in a tiny 10 square metre flat close to where the therapies are being carried out.
The parents are also struggling to heat the tiny apartment which is vital to prevent the child, weakened by chemotherapy, from suffering in the cold which could be fatal.
While nobody offered to buy the little boy, several people did offer the woman money in a bid to help her raise the cash needed to save her little girl.