Huayu 1999: Starting with nothing but getting something for nothing

Xu Tao then interviewed Li Xiangdong and Zhou Liren separately.

The two brothers were initially reluctant, but Yang Che said, "You two should tell us. Old Li, our meeting is quite an interesting story. Telling us can help increase the impact and exposure on veterans' benefits. You, Xiao Zhou, came all the way from Nanjing to Beijing, isn't it also for a living? Tell us your stories."

Okay, now the news content has been elevated to a whole new level.

Xu Tao fell silent. At that moment, she thought of many veterans who had become gangsters, as well as many disabled veterans who were destitute and discriminated against.

For example, in Kaili, Guizhou a couple of years ago, a veteran of the Laoshan Revolution who lost both legs in an explosion retired and started working as a motorcycle taxi driver with cheap prosthetics. One day at noon, he wanted to catch his breath under the shade of a tree in front of a local government office, but was driven away by the office's security guards. When they saw that he was moving slowly, the guards took out their batons and beat him repeatedly, knocking him to the ground with his face covered in blood.

The bystanders couldn't stand it and called the police. When the police arrived and investigated, they found out that the disabled motorcycle driver was a first-class meritorious soldier from the Laoshan front, a national special-class disabled hero, and a retired veteran of the 40th Division of the 14th Army!

The government provides a subsidy for this hero, 120 yuan a month...

That's why Xu Tao fell silent after hearing Yang Che's words.

However, she still interviewed Li Xiangdong and Zhou Liren.

The two of them are alright, not that bitter or vengeful, after all, they are living quite well now.

After recounting what had just happened, Li Xiangdong then recounted his encounter with Yang Che.

He was selling donkey burgers at a street stall when he encountered the police. Che Ge came to his rescue, and then Che Ge asked him to supply boxed lunches to the crew of "My Sassy Girl". After that, he worked in administration at Doubao Media.

"You call Yang Cheche 'brother'? You're older than him, right?"

"Uh... it's a respectful title. Everyone in the crew calls him Brother Che. He always takes care of and looks after everyone in the crew."

Like Zhou Liren, who had just arrived in Beijing from Nanjing, General Manager Yang personally came to pick him up. Then, when they passed the parking lot, General Manager Yang said he heard someone shouting for help.

"Mr. Yang told Li Xiangdong to stop the car, and before the car had even come to a complete stop, he jumped out. He was the first one to run over there; he wasn't following behind the two of us."

"How did you meet?"

"We met in Nanjing. I was a driver on the set of a TV series he invested in, which was called 'Spring Bright Pigsy.' He came to visit the set, and I picked him up from the airport. That's how we met. Then he asked me to work with him as a producer, so I came."

After the interview, Guo Xiaoyue still didn't show up, which was good; they weren't the same kind of people, nor from the same world. Besides, he could tell that this Guo Kun was definitely not simple.

After saying goodbye to Xu Tao, the police, and Guo Kun and his wife, he walked to the side of the road to wait for the red light, but then he heard someone call his name from behind.

"Yang Che, wait a moment."

Turning around, I saw Guo Xiaoyue.

Seeing that she had changed into looser clothes, I could smell the scent of Yunnan Baiyao as I got closer, which made sense.

After Guo Xiaoyue stopped, she looked directly at him and said breathlessly, "Yang Che, do you like me?"

Yang Che shook his head: "You misunderstood. I just think you have a unique temperament and wanted to get to know you. You know, I'm a film producer."

Guo Xiaoyue's eyes remained fixed, her chest heaving: "I can sleep with you, I'm a virgin."

Li Xiangdong and Zhou Liren had somehow managed to distance themselves by several meters, one looking up at the sky and the other looking down at the ground.

Yang Che's lips twitched. This woman was truly extraordinary. He paused, then extended his hand: "Let's be friends."

Guo Xiaoyue ignored his hand and calmly asked, "Do you want to sleep with me?"

The tone was as if asking: Are you thirsty?

Yang Che withdrew his hand, his face serious: "I don't want to. Several of my girlfriends are prettier than you."

At this moment, her parents also caught up. Guo Xiaoyue nodded to indicate that she would not say anything more about the sexually explicit topics, but simply said goodbye and turned to leave.

Yang Che smiled and shook his head, then, taking advantage of the few seconds left on the red light, rushed towards the zebra crossing.

I don't know who started laughing, but anyway, the three grown men were running and laughing on the zebra crossing.

You know what, doing good deeds really brings a sense of joy.

The three of them chatted and laughed all the way, and instead of taking another bath, they went back to the vicinity of Courtyard No. 8 and had hot pot and some drinks.

After the meal, Li Xiangdong and Zhou Liren returned to Tazhai.

Yang Che returned to Courtyard No. 8 alone. He was very restless when he sat on the sofa, wanting to share what happened that day with others, but it was already almost 11 o'clock.

His parents and his women were all good comrades who went to bed early and got up early.

As for friends... he seems to have no friends, classmates, colleagues, just no friends. Even with close friends like Liu Chang and Song Xiaofei, he doesn't want to talk about these things with them.

Yang Che let out a long sigh; he felt lonely.

Lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling, the effects of the alcohol were rising. It was as if the ceiling had become a screen, and Guo Xiaoyue's cold tone as she lay on the cement slab, her arrogant and self-centered eyes, and the words she said to him after chasing him out of the police station flashed back like scenes from a movie.

"Only 19 years old, what an extraordinary young woman!"

What no one, including Yang Che, knew was that this extraordinary woman, Guo Xiaoyue, was raped and murdered in another timeline.

The specific date was October 6, 1999, but the timeline was slightly different.

The case was not confirmed until 2006, seven years after the incident, when a female mummy was found in the fan room of the Lianfa Building. Before that, it had been a missing person case.

After a brief investigation, the police confirmed that the perpetrator was Yang Guanghua, a migrant worker from Sichuan Province working in Beijing.

Yang Guanghua readily recounted what happened: One day in 1999, he, along with his fellow villagers Zhao Deqiang and Wang Fuming, encountered Guo Xiaoyue, who was returning to her company for a night shift, on the north side of the Lianfa Building near Beijing West Railway Station. Seeing that the girl was pretty, they harbored evil intentions and dragged her to the second basement level of the parking garage. The three of them took turns playing with her several times until they were exhausted, and the girl on the ground was no longer recognizable as a human.

To prevent their shameful act from being exposed, the three of them conspired and beat her to death with a steel pipe. They then moved her body to the fan room, a place rarely visited by anyone, locked the door, and pretended that nothing had ever happened.

In 2007, the procuratorate filed a public prosecution against three suspects. However, because Wang Fuming died of a cerebral infarction, the court terminated the trial against him. Yang Guanghua and Zhao Deqiang, on the other hand, recanted their confessions in court.

Therefore, the court acquitted Yang Guanghua and Zhao Deqiang on the grounds that most of the current evidence came from their initial confessions, lacked objective evidence to support them, and the chain of evidence was incomplete, thus failing to prove their guilt.

The prosecution appealed, but in 2009, the Beijing High Court upheld the original verdict after a second trial.

Because at this point, it is no longer "presumption of guilt" but "presumption of innocence".