Page 12

"A bunch of liars! Ungrateful wolves! You said you were giving us a big house, but you were really trying to trick us into coming here so you could send us to jail!"

When the six members of the Ye family arrived at the police station, they saw Chu Jianguo and his wife making an ugly scene in the lobby.

Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan immediately spotted Chu Hengyi, who stood a head taller than the crowd.

"You ungrateful wolf!" Zhao Meijuan's hair was disheveled and her eyes were bloodshot. She charged forward like a madwoman, grabbing Chu Hengyi's arm. Her long nails dug viciously into his bronze skin, and thin streams of blood trickled down through her fingers. "Your father and I raised you for eighteen years! Now that you've found your biological parents, you don't recognize your adoptive parents anymore? You heartless little bastard! Aren't you afraid Heaven will open its eyes and strike you dead with lightning?"

"You heartless little bastard! If I'd known this would happen, I should've thrown you into the mountains and watched wolves eat you alive." Chu Jianguo glared at Chu Hengyi with bloodshot eyes, gritting his teeth. "Now that you've found your biological parents, your wings have hardened. You think us old folks are poor and powerless, that we embarrass you? So you joined forces with your biological parents to deceive and torment us, even trying to frame us as being connected to human traffickers. The Ye family is so ruthless—aren't you afraid people will point fingers at you?"

"Everyone, come look! The Ye family is using their wealth and power to bully honest people! Our Chu family raised Chu Hengyi for eighteen years, after all. Now that they've found their son, not only are they refusing to repay us for raising him, they're trying to bite the hand that fed them and frame us as bad people..."

Lawyer Liu walked over and handed Chairman Ye an appraisal report.

Chairman Ye glanced at the results and sneered. "The trafficker who abducted Mingyi back then was your biological younger brother. The evidence is conclusive, and you say we're falsely accusing you?"

Zhao Meijuan's crying stopped abruptly. Chu Jianguo glared at Chairman Ye. "Chu Jianye left home over twenty years ago. We brothers haven't had any contact for ages. Who knows where he went or what he did? Isn't it just whatever you say it is?"

"Even if Chu Jianye really was a trafficker, then go after him for his crimes! Why are you coming after us? Since when are a criminal's family members punished along with him?"

Chu Jianguo was still aggressive, pointing at Chairman Ye's nose as he cursed. "Stop trying to scare people here! We've done nothing wrong, and we're not afraid of anything!"

"A criminal's family members naturally won't be punished along with him. But if they knowingly provide the suspect with shelter or hide his property despite knowing he committed a crime, then they're guilty of harboring a criminal." Ye Mingzhao reached out and took the appraisal report from Chairman Ye's hand. "Although Chu Hengyi isn't property, he was the victim of that abduction case. Rather than saying your Chu family raised him for eighteen years, it would be more accurate to say you concealed evidence for eighteen years. I wonder whether that counts as serious circumstances. If not, the sentence is up to three years in prison. If it does, then it's three to ten years in prison~"

"Not to mention that while concealing evidence, you deliberately abused a child. Making a child who had just graduated middle school and was still under eighteen work to support the family is also against the law."

Ye Mingzhao paused slightly, his gaze falling on Zhao Meijuan's nails deeply embedded in Chu Hengyi's arm. His tone was leisurely. "Ah~ Now we can add intentional injury to the list..."

Upon hearing that, Zhao Meijuan let go as though she had been electrocuted.

"Lawyer Liu." Ye Mingzhao turned toward Lawyer Liu, who had been waiting in readiness, and asked curiously, "If our Ye family insists on not settling, what's the maximum sentence the two of them could receive?"

Chapter 10

Though Ye Mingzhao had spoken firmly, anyone with even a basic understanding of the law knew it would be difficult to convict Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan over this matter.

First of all, eighteen years had passed, and much of the evidence no longer existed. Even if the blood sample in the police DNA database could prove the identity of the trafficker, Chu Jianye, it could not prove that Chu Jianguo had known about his younger brother Chu Jianye's criminal activities.

Just as Chu Jianguo had said, Chu Jianye had left home over twenty years ago, and the brothers had long since lost contact. That was a well-known fact. Even if someone had truly seen Chu Jianye carrying a child back to the Chu family home late at night eighteen years ago, they likely could not produce conclusive evidence. Chu Jianguo could simply claim that they had seen wrong.

So everyone believed that Ye Mingzhao was deliberately asking Lawyer Liu about the possible sentence only to frighten Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan.

At least, that was what Chu Qingyi, who had just rushed over, thought.

"Ye Mingzhao, don't go too far!" Chu Qingyi, panting heavily, stepped in front of the pale-faced Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan and angrily rebuked Ye Mingzhao. "What evidence do you have to accuse my parents of harboring criminals? Is it wrong for my parents to be kind and do good deeds?"

After saying that, he looked with reddened eyes at Chu Hengyi, who stood silently to the side, and choked out in bitter disappointment, "Brother, never mind the others. They don't know what kind of people our parents are, so I don't blame them for thinking this way. But you lived with the Chu family for eighteen years. Have Mom, Dad, or I ever done anything to wrong you? Can you really stand there and watch your biological parents bully them like this?"

"What is your heart even made of? Could eighteen years of raising you not warm it—"

Before he could finish, a recording cut him off.

"The Ye family already knows about Second Uncle. I called you dozens of times. Why didn't you answer..."

Chu Qingyi's face turned livid, and like a cat that had bitten its tongue, he suddenly fell silent.

Ye Mingzhao took Lawyer Liu's phone and pressed pause, then asked with a smile, "Chu Qingyi, right? Since you like talking so much, why don't you explain to everyone what that sentence meant?"

Chu Qingyi: "..."

Ye Mingxi, who had the hottest temper, exploded on the spot. "Looks like the three of you in the Chu family know quite a lot! Now we have both witnesses and material evidence. What else do you have to say?"

The police officer who had been ignored for so long walked over and said patiently, "Student Chu Qingyi, please cooperate with us and give a statement."

Chu Qingyi panicked a little. He had not expected Lawyer Liu to record that conversation, and he hurriedly explained, "I don't know anything. I was only guessing. I study at New Sea University, and I'd heard about the Ye family long ago. I'd also seen members of the Ye family come to school looking for Senior Ye Mingzhao. They looked so much like my eldest brother..."

Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan panicked as well. Zhao Meijuan suddenly plopped down on the floor and began throwing a tantrum. "Oh, there's no justice in this world! The Ye family is using their power to bully people! They're ungrateful and bullying honest folks! We raised their child from nothing but shit and piss, and not only do we get no credit, we've raised an enemy instead! Heaven, open your eyes and take a look! If I'd known this would happen, I never should've agreed to let our Old Chu adopt that child."

"Why doesn't Heaven send down lightning to strike those heartless, ungrateful wolves dead?"

Chu Hengyi quietly watched Zhao Meijuan roll about and throw a tantrum on the floor of the police station lobby. Only after her dry wailing gradually lost steam and fell quiet did he speak indifferently. "Let's go."

He turned to Ye Mingzhao, exhaustion and disillusionment showing between his brows. "There's no evidence anyway, is there?"

Although Lawyer Liu had recorded the call between Chu Qingyi and Chu Jianguo's wife, a recording made under those circumstances could not be used as evidence in the first place. He did not want to listen to Chu Qingyi's excuses any longer.

The moment Chu Hengyi spoke, Chu Jianguo and Zhao Meijuan's faces immediately broke into ecstatic smiles. Chu Qingyi secretly breathed a sigh of relief as well, his tone delighted. "I knew it, Brother. You wouldn't be so heartless."

Chu Jianguo snorted, growing bolder too. "At least you've got a bit of conscience. Our Chu family didn't raise you for eighteen years for nothing."

But after something like this had happened, evidence or not, the house that had been within their grasp was definitely gone. The more Chu Jianguo thought about it, the more his heart ached, and he could not help blaming Chu Hengyi again. Still, with so many members of the Ye family present, he did not dare say anything more.

Only Ye Mingzhao, whom Chu Hengyi had addressed, lightly raised an eyebrow. Evidence? Of course there was evidence. It was simply in someone else's hands.

Back then, Hua Rui had hired traffickers to abduct Ye Mingyi in order to take revenge on Chairman Ye. She had intended to kill Ye Mingyi, letting Chairman Ye experience the pain of losing a loved one. Thus, while Chu Jianye and another accomplice carried out the crime, Hua Rui's people had monitored them the entire time. Naturally, they knew that Chu Jianye had secretly taken the child back to his hometown. It was just that the police had been investigating intensely at the time, making it inconvenient for Hua Rui's people to show themselves.