When I Woke Up, I Had Three Romantic Partners - Chapter 70

Thinking of the current situation, Chi Jinqing forced herself to calm down. If she also collapsed, the people hiding behind these events would be happy.

She couldn’t collapse. It wasn’t the time to collapse. She still had to work hard to save Qin Song.

There must still be room for redemption.

She firmly believed that all of this was false. It must all be false. How could a person as gentle and strong as Qin Song do such a thing?

She must have been forced.

Yes, forced!

Chi Jinqing forced herself to face the news headline, clicked on it, and found a recording of an interrogation inside.

Police: “Why did you turn yourself in?”

Qin Song’s voice was the same as in the past, only with a hint of ease and fatigue: “I killed someone.”

The police officer’s tone was serious and earnest: “You can’t just say that. I’ve heard you’re a well-known agent. This is a serious matter, not something for publicity stunts.”

Qin Song: “It’s not a publicity stunt.”

“I killed someone, eleven years ago.”

Police: “Then why are you turning yourself in now?”

Qin Song: “Because I also took someone else’s place to attend university.”

At this point, the police became completely serious and stern. Both murder and substituting for someone else in school were very serious matters.

The interrogation continued.

The police beckoned, and two more officers came over to watch her: “Tell us about your situation. Don’t leave out a single word. Your circumstances are quite dire.”

Qin Song’s voice remained calm: “Okay.”

Next, she recounted everything she had done.

But the things she spoke of made everyone present involuntarily tear up.

Qin Song: “I killed my biological father.”

“When I was sixteen.”

“I lived in a very remote little village that many people probably don’t know, and it’s not even marked on the map. There are no major roads to get in, only rugged and long desolate mountain paths.”

Qin Song’s voice gradually deepened: “In our village, girls are not allowed to be free. We are just items for exchange.”

“We worked every day. We had to work since we could remember, or we wouldn’t eat.

Many women in our village were bought, but my mother wasn’t. She was exchanged through a marriage trade. She never stepped out of the mountain range her entire life, nor did she ever see freedom. She only knew that her children needed to have more knowledge.”

“Mother secretly saved money to support my sister and me to attend school, and she was willing to do the hardest work for us, being beaten so young that she couldn’t straighten her back.”

“That year, my sister, the real Qin Song, was admitted to the university.

She wasn’t originally favored. The money for her schooling was also secretly earned by my mother and ourselves through part-time work, which was very little.

She also signed a student loan agreement, which the school secured for her after knowing her situation.”

“She was originally planning to run away after going to university, but she was caught. Father wanted to use her university admission status to marry her off for a sum of money.

He wanted to use this money to buy a new house and for drinking.

Mother, who had been timid all her life, rebelled for the first and only time. She stood up for my sister and me.”

“But it was useless. She was beaten to death.”

These words were bloody and made people shiver.

Everyone who heard this couldn’t believe it was true. The legal system had been established for many years, and these backward places should have long disappeared, yet such examples appeared before them.

Listening to this, Chi Jinqing felt a choked pain in her heart. Had Qin Song been enduring all of this alone all these years?

“Sister Chi, don’t listen anymore…”

Xiao He grabbed Chi Jinqing’s hand, trying to make her stop. She was afraid Chi Jinqing might do something drastic.

Chi Jinqing disagreed. She sniffled her sore nose and said in a hoarse voice: “We have to finish listening. Only by doing this can we feel her pain.”

Police: “After your mother died, you chose to kill your father. But what about your sister? You used your sister’s identity, so where did your sister go?”

This time, Qin Song was silent for a long time. Just when everyone was growing anxious, she finally spoke in a husky voice: “She also died.”

“After Mother’s death, she went crazy and wanted to fight Father, but she was no match for him. Finally, under Father’s beating, she was pushed onto an axe and died on the spot.”

Police: “Since you saw it, why didn’t you intervene?”

Qin Song: “Because I had to ensure I could kill him in one go.”

“I was hiding outside the door. On the day my sister came back, we were already planning to leave together, so I went and bought rat poison.”

What happened next was almost what everyone had imagined. She pretended not to know anything and watched her father sell the bodies of her sister and mother to other families.

Especially her sister’s body, which he even took to sell for a ghost marriage to another dead person who was short-lived and unmarried.

She returned home pretending not to know anything, and didn’t ask where her mother and sister had gone. After her father cursed and stumbled in after drinking, she put the rat poison in his liquor and watched him get poisoned with her own eyes.

Qin Song: “Actually, those drugs wouldn’t have killed him instantly. He could have survived if he was treated promptly. So I smothered him with a quilt and pushed his body into the well behind the house.”

Then, she started living with her sister’s identity. No one knew what had happened. She left everything in the past behind. She and her sister looked very similar, about seventy to eighty percent alike. Since her sister was very thin and constantly exhausted from labor, after she tidied herself up, others didn’t recognize that she wasn’t Qin Song.

She also didn’t go back to the place where she had lived. As long as those people didn’t see her, they wouldn’t recognize that she wasn’t Qin Song.

The recording cut off here, but this was already enough to sentence Qin Song to severe punishment.

The police went to investigate the incidents Qin Song spoke of. Following Qin Song’s account, they took a winding path and traveled for a long time before arriving at the small village where Qin Song had lived as a child.

They subsequently found the highly decomposed body of a man in the well—too rotten to be pulled out—which was confirmed through testing to be Qin Song’s father. They shared a blood relationship.

They then investigated the bodies of Qin Song’s sister and mother. After comparing the DNA, it directly proved that everything Qin Song said was true.

The consequences of this revelation were more severe than Chi Jinqing had imagined. It quickly became the biggest public controversy. Many people, disregarding everything else, requested the death penalty for Qin Song.

People called her cold-blooded and inhumane.

Where there was condemnation, there was naturally compassion, and the situation instantly became two-sided.

The news about Chi Jinqing being kept as a mistress was instantly pushed down, and with some work by the studio, it completely disappeared.

At the peak of this public outrage, Chi Jinqing came to the police station. She wanted to see Qin Song.

The police relayed the message: “I’m sorry, the person does not wish to see anyone.”

Chi Jinqing: “Please convey that I really want to see her. I must see her. I won’t give up until I do.”

The police officer was somewhat troubled but conveyed the message again.

This time, Qin Song agreed.

Looking at Qin Song, who had visibly lost weight in a short time and kept her head bowed, refusing to look at her, Chi Jinqing clenched her fists, her nails digging into her flesh, drawing blood.

“Coming to see me now is not a smart decision. After all these years, do you still have no ability to avoid danger?”

Qin Song’s voice was indifferent. In the short time they hadn’t seen each other, a few white hairs had emerged among her originally dark and glossy hair.

Chi Jinqing’s voice was sorrowful: “Why…”

Given Qin Song’s capabilities, she could have continued…

Qin Song looked down at her hands, stained with the blood of her closest relatives. She had coldly watched her mother and sister die in front of her. If she had been a little faster then, her mother and sister wouldn’t have died.

They had clearly agreed back then that if they escaped, they could be together forever. They were so close.

She closed her eyes: “There is no why. I killed someone, and I should accept the punishment.”

“I have used my sister’s identity for so many years; now it’s time to return it to her.”

“I am an out-and-out villain.”

Chi Jinqing’s eyes welled up again: “That’s not true. You’re not.”

Qin Song didn’t want to continue: “You should go back and don’t come again.”

“Wait, I have something to tell you.”

Chi Jinqing quickly stopped her: “I haven’t asked you yet, what was your original name?”

Qin Song’s eyes were downcast, her voice clear and cool: “It doesn’t matter.”

Chi Jinqing: “It matters. It matters a lot to me.”

Under Chi Jinqing’s pleading, she stood up to leave. As she stepped through the doorway, she quietly uttered the name she had almost forgotten.

“Qin Zhan (xian), the zhan with the wood radical and the character zhan.”

Her father believed that her birth had taken the place of a younger brother and planned to call her Zhan Di (Occupied/Took Brother). But her sister, who had received an education, was unwilling. Her sister gave her this name, hoping she would live well, growing strong like a tree.

Everyone else called her Zhao Di Attract Brother, only her sister called her Qin Zhan.

She only recognized the name Qin Zhan.

“Qin Zhan!”

Chi Jinqing called her name firmly. Looking at the door that was about to close, she shouted loudly: “I will always remember your name, Qin Zhan.”

Having been Qin Song for so many years, she had almost forgotten her own name. But now, as her name was loudly called out by Chi Jinqing, the eyes she thought had long run out of tears became moist again.

Qin Song… no, starting today, she was Qin Zhan again.

“Mhm.”

Qin Zhan lifted the corners of her mouth. Someone would remember her name. A sense of relief washed over her.

With this, even if she were to die now, she would have no regrets.

Chi Jinqing watched Qin Zhan’s figure gradually disappear behind the door before being escorted away by the police. Before leaving, she asked the young officer who had attended to her: “Given Qin Zhan’s situation, what kind of sentence is she likely to receive?”

“In her case, it’s hard to say.”

The young officer was a little troubled: “It depends on the court’s judgment.”

“Thank you.”

Chi Jinqing was helped into the car by Xiao He, feeling lost, her mind slow to react.

“Sister Chi, Sister Qin, she…”

Xiao He was hesitant, wanting to ask but not daring to.

“I don’t know…”

Chi Jinqing covered her face with the back of her hand and said dully, “I don’t know.”

In this situation, what could she do to help the other person?

The evidence was conclusive, and Qin Zhan herself had confessed.

Xiao He’s eyes were red, and he slammed his fist on the steering wheel: “So, is that all Sister Qin Song can do?!”

“Qin Zhan.”

“Huh?”

Chi Jinqing’s voice was hoarse: “Her name is Qin Zhan. Qin Song… is her sister’s name.”

At least at this moment, let her be herself.

Her name shouldn’t be forgotten.

At least, those close to her must remember.