Chapter 26 Mediation
Ignoring the old man's persistent nagging about marriage, the mediation officially begins.
Zhang Mo's group of three and Zheng's group of three sat on two distinct sides in the mediation room, with Officer Zhao in the middle. The first thing he wanted to confirm was where Zheng Hongliang was.
This situation is rather awkward, since they had previously made it very clear that their son had caught his former daughter-in-law cheating on him a few days ago.
If this is true, then the son has fled back to China, and they are harboring a criminal.
If this is false, then they are talking nonsense and it constitutes insult and defamation.
After much hesitation and back and forth, the two old folks finally admitted that they were talking nonsense and were getting senile.
Officer Zhao breathed a sigh of relief. In fact, she had been handling cases for many years and was experienced enough to see at a glance that the two elderly people were lying. So she immediately asked them to apologize to Ye Fangyu in person.
Brother Ye immediately made his demands, asking them to record an apology video.
Upon hearing this, Zheng Hongming immediately roared, "Why should I!"
Then came another long and drawn-out struggle.
Zhang Mo took a quick look at the data from the live stream—
First, the total number of viewers for the live stream of 【Dugu Sanpilang】 is 130,000, the number of new fans is 10,000, the total number of fans is 20,000, the average viewing time is 29 minutes, and the total amount of donations is 10,000.
Strictly speaking, this live stream was a public service live stream focusing on people's livelihood mediation, so although there were many viewers, there was little attention and donations, which is a reasonable phenomenon.
Then there's the platform's data: 30,000 new users, bringing the total number of users to 340,000. That's a growth rate of nearly 9%.
Zhang Mo nodded in satisfaction; it was not bad.
The scuffle lasted for about half an hour. In the end, the police sided with the victims and got the Zheng family to agree to record the video, but emphasized that it could not be circulated, otherwise they would bear legal responsibility.
Brother Ye readily agreed.
Then he immediately had his assistant transfer another 1 million yuan to Yuan Shui, telling him to start pushing the apology video all over the country starting tonight!
As for legal responsibility? Heh, let them have a good talk with the Ye family's legal team then.
After the issue of spreading rumors was resolved, the next step was to address the children's problems.
As the person who reported the crime, Zhang Mo directly presented video evidence to prove that the Zheng family abused the child.
The video was naturally taken from a clip of the live stream.
Officer Zhao frowned more and more as he watched the video of two scantily clad children locked on a rooftop in the snow.
The Zheng family changed their strategy this time. They knew that the two elderly people had just apologized for spreading rumors and their words were no longer convincing, so Zheng Hongming spoke instead.
Zheng Hongming, looking deeply distressed, claimed the video was completely taken out of context and that his parents had never abused their children. He explained that the elderly couple had heart problems and only let the children play in the snow during their afternoon nap. The rooftop door was chained for the children's safety, to prevent them from getting lost. He added that the dirty clothes were simply due to the children being too naughty.
In short—they are just a pair of pure, kind, and innocent elderly people who have done nothing wrong, care about their grandson, and love their granddaughter dearly!
Officer Zhao: "......"
The old man's ghost uttered a curse word that a police officer would never have said in life, roughly translated into English as "funny mud pee," which can be seen as him voicing his daughter's feelings.
Zheng Hongming continued to ramble on, trying to justify himself: "Besides, the child didn't suffer any actual harm..."
Officer Zhao sighed inwardly. Although the man in front of him didn't look like a good person, he was right. Based on the evidence at hand, it was completely insufficient to convict them of child abuse.
"Who said there was no actual harm?" Zhang Mo suddenly interrupted him, lying out of the blue, "Xiao Hao has already suffered obvious brain damage and mental problems because of their abuse. Isn't that enough?"
Xiao Hao is currently in a state of spiritual separation from his body, which looks like he has suffered brain damage and mental problems.
Upon hearing this, everyone present widened their eyes.
Even Ye Fangyu and her brother looked at Zhang Mo in disbelief. They had briefly interacted with Xiao Hao earlier and had indeed noticed that the once very lively child had become silent and withdrawn, with a blank stare, but they hadn't considered this possibility. They simply assumed the child was frightened and would recover in a few days.
Old Man Zheng and Old Man Zheng exchanged a guilty glance. They had actually noticed something was wrong with the child after he arrived. He hardly spoke and didn't even cry when they scolded or hit him, as if he had gone mad.
However, they only intended to use the child to extort money from Ye Fangyu, so they didn't care about the child's health at all and never thought of taking him to see a doctor.
Zheng Hongming's eyes darted around, and he found another way to smear the child: "You have the nerve to say that! Isn't it because you raised the child like this that my brother had to take the child back?!"
Zhang Mo looked at him coldly: "Your brain isn't even the size of a melon seed, so stop making up lies here. The video of your trashy brother snatching the child has gone viral all over the internet. Everyone can see that the child was normal before that."
Zheng Hongming slammed his fist on the table and stood up: "Who the hell are you? Who gave you the right to speak here?"
"Sit down!" Officer Zhao snapped, then looked at Zhang Mo with a complicated expression. "Who is this lady?"
Ye Fangyu was still in shock at the possibility that Xiao Hao had suffered brain damage when her older brother, Ye, held her trembling hand tightly under the table and answered quickly, "My distant cousin."
Officer Zhao had heard this kind of talk many times, and she immediately understood that it didn't matter.
She asked Zhang Mo, "Are you a doctor?"
Zhang Mo: "No. But I'm sick and go to the hospital frequently. I've become quite knowledgeable about medicine from my long illness."
Officer Zhao: ""
Fortunately, Officer Zhao was indeed a responsible person. She asked everyone to wait there while she personally went to another room to check on Xiao Hao's condition.
Ten minutes later, she returned to the mediation room with a gloomy expression: "It seems that I really need to go to the hospital for a check-up."
And so, Officer Zhao led the group toward the police station gate.
The Zheng family walked in front, and the Ye family walked behind, the two groups ten meters apart, neither wanting to get close to the other.
The two children were being led by Officer Zhao.
Everyone had a gloomy expression, each harboring their own secrets.
At that moment, Ye Fangyu's phone suddenly received a text message. She stopped and showed it to Zhang Mo.
The sender was identified as "Wei Qing," and the message read: "Don't come out yet."
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