Chu Jingqiu took the photo from Li Nianbei and immediately began to draw the portrait. Xiao Yihan took the two families to the public security bureau in a hurry to report the case.
Zeng Xuyang immediately launched an investigation after receiving the report. They went to the hospital to investigate the files of all pregnant women who were hospitalized for about a week around August 20, 1950.
Fortunately, the hospital's archives were well preserved, and although more than 20 years had passed, the handwriting was still clearly legible.
Zeng Xuyang led his team to carefully look through these files. He first excluded pregnant women who gave birth to baby boys, and then focused on pregnant women who gave birth to baby girls.
Afterwards, they visited every household with the portrait carefully drawn by Chu Jingqiu.
However, after visiting dozens of stores without any results, they couldn't help but feel a little frustrated.
They met the mothers who had given birth back then and the daughters they gave birth to. Many of these children have married and had children, and some have changed a lot in their figures.
But even so, it can be seen that these children have obvious similarities with their parents.
Policewoman Xiao Cui, who was investigating the case with Zeng Xuyang, said dejectedly, "Section Chief, do you think there's something wrong with the portrait that Teacher Chu drew?
Have you noticed that even adopted children seem to look more and more like their family members over time?
Even if the portrait is inaccurate, we can't seem to tell with the naked eye which child is the one we're looking for."
Zeng Xuyang frowned and patiently explained: "Xiao Cui, I understand your concerns. Indeed, after living together for a long time, children will imitate their adoptive parents in their behavior and conduct.
This is why we often say adopted children are "like" their adoptive parents. However, this does not necessarily mean that they look alike.
Teacher Chu has helped us draw portraits so many times and has never made a mistake, so I don’t think there will be too much deviation.”
He paused and continued, "Of course, we can't rely solely on the portrait. During the investigation, we also need to combine other clues for comprehensive analysis."
They can only place their hopes on the remaining few mothers.
The remaining women had special circumstances. They had sent someone to come once before, but they were either away from home or couldn't find anyone at home.
What made them even more desperate was that there was a family of three who were burned to death in a fire in their home more than ten years ago.
After the two families of women who had given birth returned from their long journey, the daughter of one of them really looked a bit like the person in the portrait, but not too much like her own parents.
When the woman in labor heard that her daughter was being investigated, she was so nervous that she stammered and spoke incoherently.
Zeng Xuyang was unsure, so he invited Chu Jingqiu over.
When Chu Jingqiu saw the daughter of that family, she immediately shook her head. She felt that this person looked like a southerner, but was not the child of Li Tinglin and his wife at all.
She carefully analyzed the girl's appearance, removed her mother's genetic characteristics, and discovered that the girl's father was someone else.
The reason why this woman was nervous was that she was raped on the way to her relatives when she fled from your province.
After arriving in Beijing, she concealed the matter and hastily married an older man. She became pregnant shortly after the marriage.
She didn't want her husband and neighbors to know the child's background, so she seemed a little nervous.
Zeng Xuyang also investigated the family that died in the fire and visited several neighbors. After looking at the portrait, the neighbors all felt that the woman in the portrait did not look like this family.
Now they can only place their hopes on this last family. This family's situation is rather special. When they arrived, there was only an old lady in her seventies at home. She was deaf and could only interrupt no matter what they asked.
There was no other way, they could only go to the neighborhood committee to investigate the basic situation of this family.
They learned that this family was indeed the home of Qin Yanmei, the woman who had just given birth, but she was still serving her sentence in prison and was not at home at all.
The man of the house was Zhang Zengqun, whose ancestors had been running a restaurant in Beijing. However, with the frequent outbreaks of war, the family business gradually declined.
By the time of Zhang Zengqun's father's generation, they could only run a small restaurant to barely make a living.
Zhang Zengqun is an honest man with an unattractive appearance. He broke his leg when he was a child and is a cripple, but he married a beautiful wife, Qin Yanmei.
Qin Yanmei's father was a gambler before liberation. He was addicted to eating, drinking, gambling, smoking, cheating, and stealing. He lost all the family money.
In order to pay off his debts, he sold his twelve-year-old daughter Qin Yanmei to the Zhang family as a child bride at a high price.
After becoming an adult, Zhang Zengqun naturally married Qin Yanmei, and they gave birth to a son, Zhang Zongshun, and a daughter, Zhang Hongxia.
Qin Yanmei is a hot-tempered person. She often flirts with some old customers in the store. After a while, she hooked up with a man.
This man was called Zhu Dafu. Before liberation, he was a thug in a brothel. He was not only idle but also had bad behavior. He had only a widowed mother at home.
Zhu Dafu's mother is a well-known shrew, and Zhu Dafu has been unable to find a wife no matter how old he is.
Later he married a prostitute. Zhu Dafu's mother was sharp-tongued and often bullied her daughter-in-law. In the cold winter, she even asked her daughter-in-law to help her wash clothes when she was pregnant.
On the day of the birth, Zhu Dafu was still out gambling. His wife had a difficult labor, and his mother was reluctant to hire a doctor for her. As a result, his wife died of heavy bleeding during labor.
He left behind a son to be raised by Zhu Dafu's mother, and Zhu Dafu never remarried.
After liberation, all brothels were closed down, but Zhu Dafu's lazy and gluttonous habits could not be changed. He stole things and did not work properly. He often engaged in speculation and profiteering in the black market to make a living.
Although Zhu Dafu was not doing his job properly, he had a good appearance and a smooth tongue, so he quickly hooked up with Qin Yanmei.
Zhang Zengqun soon discovered their affair. Although he was angry, he looked at his disabled leg and gritted his teeth to endure it.
Qin Yanmei became more and more unscrupulous, and she even began to openly challenge Zhang Zengqun's bottom line.
Until one day, Qin Yanmei found out that she was pregnant, and the child was Zhu Dafu's.
When Zhu Dafu saw that Qin Yanmei was pregnant with his child, he became greedy. He coveted Qin Yanmei's beauty and also coveted Zhang's restaurant.
So, the adulterous couple conspired to kill Zhang Zengqun. When Zhang Zengqun was out buying goods, they disguised themselves as robbers and brutally killed him on the way.
Later, the Public Security Bureau solved the case and sentenced Zhu Dafu to death. Qin Yanmei was sentenced to life imprisonment because she was pregnant.
Because Qin Yanmei was pregnant, she was serving her sentence outside of prison. She would only return to prison to serve her sentence after she gave birth and finished the breastfeeding period.
Because Qin Yanmei conspired with her adulterer to murder Zhang Zengqun, she was also kicked out of the Zhang family.
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