Nine-year old Chinese girl carries disabled older brother to school on her shoulders every day

Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet, as the saying goes.

For nine-year-old Zhou Dingshuang from China, she is literally the hands and feet for her disabled brother who has had difficulties using his limbs since birth.

The skinny girl carries her elder sibling to school every day in the rural Yunnan Province - rain or shine, snow or sleet.

She told a reporter from the local Wenshan Television Station: 'I will never leave him behind. I will be his walking stick forever.'

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Dingshuang also carefully looks after 12-year-old Zhou Dingfu, who studies in the same class as her at the Central School of Heizhiguo County.

Every morning, she washes his hands and face for him, helps him get dressed before carrying him on her back to walk to the school, according to the TV report.

The pair has to cross streets and climb up stairs to reach their classroom, but the incredibly determined girl has made sure that she and her brother are never late for any lessons - no matter how bad the weather is.

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After they finish school, Dingshuang also helps her brother with his homework before doing housework for her parents.

Dingshuang has already become the backbone of her family at the tender age of nine.

According to the report, Dingshuang and Dingfu's parents are both disabled. As a result, Dingshuang does most of the housework at home, including washing vegetable, feeding pigs, cooking and hand-washing clothes for the family of four.

After Dingfu reached school age, his parents worried that he couldn't walk to school. Dingshuang didn't want to see her brother being left behind, so she volunteered to carry him on her back every day.

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Liu Yan, a teacher from their school, told the TV reporter that the school had arranged a dorm room for the brother and sister to live after noticing the difficult situation their family are facing.

Teacher Liu said the school had also reduced or canceled some of the fees for the pair in order to help the less-fortunate family.

Dingshuang and Dingfu's dorm room is about 500 metres (1,640 feet) from their classroom.

Dingshuang continues to carrying Dingfu to school every day.

This article originally appeared on Daily Mail