Chronicle of the 70s-Chapter 410 - 383: Death

With the testimony from the health bureau leader, Qin Shouren was released that same evening, while the police, in order to appease the public, met with several reporters and answered questions about the progress of the case.

Suddenly there was a breakthrough, as someone delivered a recorded conversation to the police.

In the conversation, one voice belonged to a high-ranking leader, while the other voice was unfamiliar. However, the content was captivating—a heated argument.

The unfamiliar voice complained about spending so much money, yet the leader had failed to handle things properly, urging him to exert pressure on the police.

Though simple, it caused a huge uproar. For the mid-1980s, corruption and bribery were common, but not as overt or exaggerated as in later times, and evidence like recordings was rare, especially to appear in this case, which shocked the leadership.

Many fell silent, originally planning to use this case as a special example to pacify the public, but now many were reconsidering.

Politics has always involved factions, everyone is more or less in the same circle with various entanglements, and handling this poorly could not only involve that one person but might lead to more people being implicated.

Thus, the person who made the payment to Qin Shouren claiming to have arranged a bribery self-surrender became the breakthrough point.

In the face of the state’s power, no one can truly hold out, so this person confessed, exposing Qin Shouhan.

This made the situation much clearer and seemed to revolve around personal grievances. With two high-ranking leaders already taken down, many aspects of the case were resolved.

Due to Qin Shouhan’s personal grievances, someone secretly swapped approved medical devices, leading to patient deaths, thereby wrongly implicating Qin Shouren.

The progress of the case advanced rapidly, and a month later, Qin Shouhan was arrested, and the investigation of the medical equipment factory was ordered to halt.

However, the case was far from over. When the police went to arrest Qin Shouhan, they discovered he had been stabbed to death in his room, and a disheveled woman holding a bloody pair of scissors was at the scene, unclear of her surroundings.

The police found that Qin Shouhan’s wounds were not severe, but he was injured in a particular spot—the spleen.

The spleen is a delicate organ, and although a stab wound there is considered a minor injury if treated promptly, Qin Shouhan had bled excessively for two hours and died painfully from blood loss.

This disheveled woman was the long-missing Qin Miao, though she looked quite different from before but kept insisting she was Qin Miao.

When Li Xianglu learned of this series of events, she was stunned for a long while. At that moment, Xu Wu was voraciously eating noodles, having not eaten properly for days.

Li Xianglu wanted to ask how exactly Qin Shouhan died but after thinking it over, she closed her mouth, picked up a piece of beef with her chopsticks, and placed it into Xu Wu’s bowl. Watching him devour it, she smiled.

Li Xianglu couldn’t bring herself to ask Xu Wu, but she felt she could ask Qin Xi. Somehow, she always felt that Qin Shouhan’s death was too sudden, almost as if it had been orchestrated.

At night, Qin Xi placed the sleeping child in the crib, covered the child with a blanket, and got into bed. She hugged Li Xianglu, who seemed hesitant to speak, and sighed, "Alright, go ahead. What do you want to know?"

Li Xianglu felt a bit embarrassed but still asked the question that was on her mind, "Your uncle—oh, that Qin Shouhan, how did he die? Was it really due to excessive bleeding from being stabbed by Qin Miao?"

Qin Xi tapped Li Xianglu’s head gently, chuckled, rested his chin on her head, and then slowly began to explain.

Originally, they had planned to send Qin Miao to Africa to be overseen, but as soon as she arrived in Shanghai and was waiting for the oil tanker, Mr. Qin had an incident.

Therefore, Xu Wu immediately made a phone call to have Qin Miao brought back and then started to find out by various means whether Qin Miao knew about this matter.

But Qin Miao knew very little, it seemed that the plan had begun only after she had left.

However, the high-ranking leader who was helping them, Qin Miao did know of him, and so Xu Wu had someone follow him, and by good fortune, recorded that conversation.

The leader at the health bureau liked to hide things in his office, which Qin Miao knew about by chance. Once when accompanying her father on a visit to that leader’s office to deliver something, she saw a precious item on a curio shelf. She hadn’t gone to the United States for two years just for fun; she had indeed learned some skills, including appraisal, so Qin Xi and the others sent someone to check, which confirmed the matter.

So there came a report from a thief about the leader possessing a large amount of unexplained wealth, leading to the unearthing of the person who initially pressured Shouren into buying medical equipment.

After confessing these, Xu Wu locked Qin Miao up in a sealed, lightless room, where he had a psychologist perform psychological suggestions on her.

First asking about her usual conversations with her father, in many exchanges, Qin Miao revealed that her father despised her as useless. During that time, Qin Miao’s emotions were especially volatile; her eyes fierce, almost demonic.

Thus, the psychologist reported this to Xu Wu, who saw it as a breakthrough, and had the psychologist continue with the suggestions, pushing her into a state of emergency reaction.

After a month of continuous treatment, Qin Miao’s emotions reached a tipping point, and Xu Wu’s men then moved Qin Miao to a small courtyard and notified the yet unarrested Shouren.

Initially, Qin Shouhan didn’t believe that his daughter had appeared, but the incoming letters, the handwriting and the secret signals were hers. He first had someone check the place out; indeed, there was just one woman inside, albeit seemingly a bit off, constantly calling herself useless.

Then, Qin Shouhan went over himself. As soon as he saw Qin Miao, he asked her where she had been and why she had disappeared for so long.

At this point, Qin Miao was already somewhat unstable, her speech incoherent, and she even showed a fear of light and loud voices.

When Qin Shouhan couldn’t get anything clear from her after a long inquiry, coupled with the recent complications of the situation and the camping incident, he became extremely agitated and lost his temper.

Qin Miao, having been psychologically pushed to the brink, reacted explosively when Qin Shouhan angrily called her useless.

In rage, she grabbed scissors nearby and stabbed at Qin Shouhan, who was caught off guard and seriously wounded. The guards who were originally outside had been dealt with by Xu Wu’s men, leaving no one to help.

Thus, the room was left with a half-mad Qin Miao and a Qin Shouhan lying on the floor covered in blood, eyes wide open in rage, unable to comprehend why his daughter, whom he had carefully nurtured for so many years, would kill him.