To Raise a Soul 46.1

DNA had been extracted from the corpse powder in the snacks. No one in the Qiu family had expected that, so they were caught off guard.

Qiu Xiehua remained unconscious in the hospital, so Qiu Feixiong, as one of the suspects present on that day, was taken to the police station for their investigation.

The police had a reasonably good attitude towards him last time, but they were more severe this time. They relentlessly interrogated him. Worse yet, the people that he had bribed the previous time were also brought in for questioning. 

What a pit.

His jaws clenched tightly and he appeared fearful.

It’s Qiu Feiqian! It must be Qiu Feiqian!

They had accepted that it was from an animal’s corpse, but the evidence was suddenly overthrown! Qiu Feiqian must have used her connections to do this! And something happened to the old man just as the police knocked on our door. This is too much of a coincidence! 

“I suspect that the fire in my house this morning was intentionally caused by someone! By Qiu Feiqian! You guys must go catch her!” he shouted. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

The two policemen who were interrogating him looked at each other. They didn’t say anything but they stood up and left.

“I want to see a lawyer!” Qiu Feixiong roared.

Bang.

The door of the interrogation room was shut, leaving him alone in there.

From the old man’s muddled belief in “old superstitions”, to his use of nauseating materials to harm his grandsons, to the involvement of a human life which had ended, changes in the Qiu family’s case were as dramatic as the heaven and earth flipping upside down.

Outsiders speculated on whether the Qiu father and daughter were playing a kind of game after they had become enemies. In reality, Qiu Feiqian herself was shocked by the extraction of DNA from the corpse powder.

“Really? It’s really human DNA? There’s a parent-child relationship with my father?”

Weng Xiping nodded in confirmation. “It was lucky that the DNA could be extracted. When the housekeeper was adding the stuff to the snacks, her being watched closely by Qiu Xiehua caused her to drop some onto the plate. She forgot to wipe it off before serving it up. Later, when you’d moved all of the snacks together, some of the corpse powder and corpse oil mixture stuck to the surface of a few pieces of the snacks. The police were then able to detect it.” 

The amount of dropped corpse powder was practically negligible, and the DNA of the corpse powder within the snacks had been destroyed by the high heat. The police had expended great effort to obtain the DNA.

Qiu Feiqian was alarmed into silence. After a while, she asked, “Who does the DNA belong to? Did they find that out?”

“There’s a lead. The police found that after Qiu Xiehua’s first wife had passed away, he went to a different province and had stayed there for two years. He had an amorous relationship with a bank employee who worked within a department store. This information was provided by a retired staff member from that department store. Three months after the staff member retired, she had bumped into Qiu Xiehua at the hospital. At that time, the bank employee had become pregnant.”

Qiu Feiqian held her forehead in her hand. Her emotions were in a messy state.

The corpse powder came from his child. Father might’ve had an illegitimate child. But before anyone knew of the child’s existence, it had become corpse powder. He wanted to use that child’s remains and put it in some snacks so my own children would eat it…

She suddenly felt cold all over her body. The image of her father within her heart had become twisted beyond recognition. Only a cold and merciless look remained on her face.

“He… Which hospital is he in?”

She heard her voice float in the air. It sounded weak as if it had echoed from a different world. 

Weng Xiping looked at her, sighed, and gave her the address of a hospital.

Although she had asked for the hospital’s address, Qiu Feiqian did not visit Qiu Xiehua. Instead, she went to the police station to see Qiu Feixiong.

In this meeting between brother and sister, Qiu Feixiong’s expression was filled with hate, whereas Qiu Feiqian was expressionless and the tone of her voice was indifferent.

“Did you know that father had an illegitimate child?”

Qiu Feixiong continued to scold her for being unfilial.

“How did that child die?”

Qiu Feixiong was so worked up, he wanted to strangle her.

“Did father cause his death?”

“You’re talking bullshit!” Qiu Feixiong roared. The veins on his neck bulged and he stared at her with a hate-filled and murderous look.

Qiu Feiqian looked at him quietly, then she stood up and left without any remaining sentimental feelings.

Throughout the whole of spring, the business circle in B City swapped gossip about the Qiu family. It wasn’t that they were bored and liked to talk about the same subject over and over again, but the gossip surrounding the Qiu family was simply too exciting! It was like a serialized drama. There was a new plot point every week. The plot evolved into a bizarre roller coaster ride as it moved through great highs and lows. Its thrill and horror levels could be compared to that of a blockbuster horror movie, making it impossible for it to not be discussed.

At first, the gossip was about a rich family’s father-daughter pair falling out like something from a dog-blooded drama. The exciting, additional “seasoning” was merely the issue of some “superstitious beliefs”. But gradually, the boring radish was removed from the mud^[1], and the seasoning became the main ingredient. Then, in another twist, a whole soup of five poisons^[2] was made.  

First, DNA was extracted from the corpse powder. It was confirmed that Qiu Xiehua had a child that died early. With that lead, the police found the mother of the illegitimate child. The mother had unfortunately passed on, leaving a dead-end in the trail of information.

However, the police persisted. They followed up on the cause of the child’s disappearance and found the group which had trafficked the child. After a few more turns of events, they found the mountain where the child had been abandoned. 

After the passing of a few decades, the shape of the desolate mountain had also changed. However, the police had thought about a crucial problem when analyzing the case. 

Why would the corpse of the child be in Qiu Xiehua’s hands if the child had been trafficked away and left to die in the mountains?

The police took a step back and repeated the questioning of the child traffickers. The police looked for items related to the crime and found an account book which had been hidden by one of the traffickers.

According to the account book, a subordinate of Qiu Xiehua’s had contacted the group and given them a large sum of money.

At that time, they were not cautious about the way they were doing business and had used a straightforward bank transfer. That record was quickly found, confirming the authenticity of the account book.

Following the trail of clues, the police concluded that Qiu Xiehua had paid the traffickers and premeditated the murder of his illegitimate son.

After Qiu Xiehua had woken up in the hospital, he was arrested. Although he couldn’t leave the hospital because of his serious illness, there was always a policeman outside his ward. Unnecessary staff were not allowed to take even a single step into the room.

There were rumors about the reason that Qiu Xiehua murdered his son floated around, suggesting that he was raising a little ghost.

Many people who worked with the Qiu family were scared into casting aside their relationship with said family. In secret, they burned incense, worshipped the Buddha, recited Buddhist scripture, and abstained from eating meat. They secretly cursed out the Qiu family for their heartlessness and for causing trouble.

A few days later, just as everyone thought the whole show was drawing to a close, the police went to the Qiu residence for another inspection. They found that the Qiu family’s eldest grandson, Qiu Junwen had hidden and taken drugs so they also arrested him.

Unexpectedly, with that arrest, they came across another homicide case.

Qiu Junwen had just taken drugs when he was arrested. When he arrived at the police station, he was muddle-headed because of the drugs. Then he accidentally revealed that, a few years ago, he had someone cause the death of the model, Xin Xiaoxiao.

Knowing the seriousness of the issue, the police waited for the drugs to pass through his system and then they investigated the matter through the night. They easily broke through his psychological defenses and dug out the truth about his crimes.

The melon-eating members of the business circle were dumbstruck as they looked on. What’s going on with the Qiu family? Do they specialize in having issues with illegitimate children?

The issue was not concluded there. In the following search, a big heap of problems was found at the club opened by Qiu Junwen. It was immediately shut down. A bunch of other people, who were jointly responsible, were also arrested. It also involved Si Ling who had provided the funds for Qiu Junwen to open the club.

Si Ling was also mentally weak. As soon as she had been arrested, she began weeping endlessly and confessed to her crimes. She had been the one to propose to cause the death of Xin Xiaoxiao. At the time, Qiu Junwen had only just met his second wife. She had heard that Xin Xiaoxiao had gotten pregnant. Afraid that Xin Xiaoxiao would stubbornly hang onto Qiu Junwen and ruin his chances for marriage, she thought up the scheme and egged Qiu Junwen on.

Half of the Qiu family’s first branch was arrested, leaving the second branch to hold the family up. However, as the old saying went, once a wall goes down others will attack. Those who had previously been pushed down by the Qiu family suddenly stood up together. They pointed out the offenses which happened in the private lives and business dealings of the Qiu family. 

Qiu Feijun bribed others and he also accepted bribes and Ye Mei embezzled money from projects. Qiu Junhao, one of the couple’s two children, had a messy private life. He had once caused his girlfriend to have a miscarriage and become infertile. Their daughter was a bully in school and had been punished for harming a fellow female student.

All kinds of serious offenses and less serious scandals were exposed. In less than two months, the Qiu family collapsed. Qiu Feixiong was released, as he did not take part in the murder of Qiu Xiehua’s child, but he had many financial-related trials that awaited him.

Inevitably, the Qiu family fell into bankruptcy.

Before their total collapse, Qiu Feixiong and Qiu Feijun went to the Yin family. They wanted to beg Qiu Feiqian for help, but she chose to stay away from them and didn’t even look at them.

In that period of time, Qiu Feiqian was particularly quiet, lost a lot of weight, and was often lost in thought. On a certain day, she made a phone call. Then early that very same day, the only two innocent people in that family, Qiu Junhua and Qiu Ruijie, were secretly sent to the airport and flown out of the country.

After that call, she slowly began to pull herself together and deal with the parts of her company which were affected by the matters of the Qiu family.

Although she wasn’t implicated in those crimes, her surname was Qiu. As such, the Qiu family’s bankruptcy and scandal did affect her a little. On top of that, even though she avoided it, she did have some business with the Qiu family. She had to deal with those issues as quickly as possible.

Without many people’s notice, spring came to a close and the dry heat of summer began to linger in the air.