Chapter 453 The Progress of the Case
The acceleration of the trial progress was the result of the pressure from the pharmaceutical giants in Mi Country. After Mecab Pharmaceutical Group announced to refuse to renew its contracts with all pharmaceutical companies in Shenzhou, two more pharmaceutical giants in Mi Country announced that the pharmaceutical agency fees for Shenzhou would be increased tenfold; otherwise, they would cancel all the agency rights of all pharmaceutical companies in Shenzhou. The truth was that they wanted to use antibiotics to force Shenzhou Country to bend its back to Mi Country in some way. This was extremely despicable.
If the Shenzhou government had not gathered all medical experts to study antibiotics in advance and had also developed the Rice Bean Oral Solution in time, the Shenzhou government would probably have swallowed the insult silently to compromise with Mi Country for the sake of national safety.
Superficially, this was just a commercial act, but in fact, this was a confrontation on the national level. Once the Shenzhou government compromised with Mi Country, the whole nation would lose face and would be laughed at by all the countries watching the fun. This would also mean that Shenzhou was in a disadvantageous position in economic sanctions and counter-sanctions with Mi Country.
So, the R&D and appearance of the Rice Bean Oral Solution had become a magic weapon, which, as a life-saving straw, was of great significance at this critical moment.
From an economic point of view, Shenzhou Country had since shaken off its dependence on the antibiotics of Western medicine. After the Rice Bean antibiotic appeared, the Western pharmaceutical giants could no longer use antibiotics to earn the wealth of astronomical figures from Shenzhou. Instead, they could only humbly beg Shenzhou Country to grant them the right to buy the Rice Bean Antibiotic. After all, the Rice Bean Oral Solution did not have all kinds of toxic and side effects that ordinary antibiotics had, so no one would ignore its role.
From a political perspective, Shenzhou Country had fought wonderfully in the anti-trade sanctions war, making those countries that wanted to watch the fun obediently shut their mouths and have to proactively move closer to Shenzhou Country by swallowing the humiliation. Anyway, the Rice Bean Antibiotic was Shenzhou people’s. If they did not behave themselves, Shenzhou Country could certainly refuse to provide it for them because the country had the absolute initiative.
In this case, it was easy to understand why the clinical trial process of the Rice Bean Oral Solution must be sped up. The Shenzhou government was now striving for success and watching the Western pharmaceutical giants playing tricks because it was waiting for the clinical trial of the Rice Bean Oral Solution to succeed and appear on the market, with which it would slap these pharmaceutical giants hard in the face. By then, the situation would change completely: They would come to beg Shenzhou Country with crying tones to sign agency contracts with them.
After hearing the importance of it, Ding Ning got a good mood. What he cared about was not that how much profit the Rice Bean Oral Solution could bring to him, but that he could do something for the country. That was why he was happy.
Mayor Du and the others were drinking tea and chatting about anything that came to their mind, but they did not mention leaving now, making Li Guodong puzzled. “If they came for Ding Ning, they should go back now when the matter is settled, but if they came for work inspection, they haven’t read any of the files in the Bailong Town Police Station.”
He wanted to ask, but finding that Yang Zhiyong did not say a word about leaving, he did not have a suitable excuse to ask and had to chat with them perfunctorily.
Director Sun was like sitting on pins and needles. For several times, he wished to make a call in the name of going to the washroom, but he failed because Xu Minglu followed him smilingly all the way.
What they did not know was that according to the confessions of Erw.a.n.g and Gouwa, a large number of police and law enforcement officers of the Food and Drug Administration were sealing up the 30 gluten factories in the entire Haidong District and arresting all the people involved for investigation and inquiry.
According to the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Several Issues Concerning the Applicable Laws for Handling the Criminal Cases of Endangering Food Safety, whoever that adulterated toxic and harmful substances into the food produced or sold or knowingly sold the food with toxic and harmful substances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of no more than five years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be sentenced to a fine of more than 50% of the sales amount but less than twice of the amount.
Zhang Changshun only had the son Zhang Shiqiu and extremely doted on him, so he was sure to save his son. This was what Mayor Du wanted.
In this silent duel, Zhang Changshun was very likely to be a key figure. Mayor Du was going to make a breakthrough from him and turned his pa.s.sive position into an active position, in order to take the next step of overcoming the impa.s.se.
At this time in the office, Xiao Nuo was thinking hard with her eyes closed to make everything clear in her mind. On the desk, there was a piece of a woman’s personal information, in which a flowery smile was shown in a photo. It was the smile of a beauty, whose name was Gao Meiling.
According to the investigation conducted by the Munic.i.p.al Criminal Team in the morning, the driver who caused the accident was named Hu Quan, a 36-year-old Ninghai local, and his wife died long ago. He raised his only son by delivering goods, and his living condition was extremely harsh.
From the investigation on Hu Quan’s social relations and money transactions, Xiao Nuo found that Hu Quan’s eight-year-old son Hu Xiaobing got leukemia and had to undergo hemodialysis every week. As of last week, he had owed more than 100,000 yuan to the hospital, and the hospital urged him daily to pay for the treatment, ready to drive Hu Xiaobing out of the hospital, but Hu Quan suddenly paid all the arrears yesterday and also transferred the guardianship of Hu Xiaobing to his cousin Gao Meiling.
Who on earth helped him pay the hospital expenses? Xiao Nuo specially asked Gao Meiling who opened a bar about it.
Gao Meiling explained that when she found her cousin Hu Quan had fallen into a desperate situation, she lent him money to pay the medical expenses with a loan certificate as proof.
As for the guardianship, she explained that Hu Quan said he was going to work in other areas to make a lot of money to pay his son’s medical expenses and then entrusted her to temporarily serve as Hu Xiaobing’s guardian. As his relative, she could not refuse him and promised to help him, but she did not expect that Hu Quan’s mood was so low that he was drunk and drove, leading to such a bitter result.
The explanation was very reasonable, and the traffic accident seemed to be normal, but Xiao Nuo noticed something wrong when she found Gao Meiling was extremely concerned about whether Hu Quan was dead or not.
Theoretically, they were cousins and it was normal for a female cousin to care about whether her male cousin was dead or not, but she only cared about that and never cared about his legal responsibility in this accident. This was unreadable.
Back to her office, Xiao Nuo carefully studied the personal information collected by the police officers about Gao Meiling, trying to find some clues.
Gao Meiling was 33 years old, single but beautiful. Like Hu Quan, she was also a local farmer, and both of them were upstarts who got rich through the government’s demolition.
Yet, after his wife died of a disease and his son had leukemia, his rich life rapidly went down, and now he shouldered heavy debts.
In contrast, Gao Meiling took the relocation funds and opened a bar with quite a sharp commercial sense. Now, she had tens of millions of a.s.sets at least, and it was normal for her to lend Hu Quan more than 100,000 to pay the medical expenses of Hu Xiaobing.
This was too normal, and then Xiao Nuo thought this must be fishy because Gao Meiling was a very sn.o.bbish and greedy person. Previously when Hu Quan’s life did not go down, the two families interacted with each other, but after Hu Quan became a poor man, their communication became quite rare although they still kept in touch. Being a woman like Gao Meiling, she would never lend money to Hu Quan so kindly, let alone being Hu Xiaobing’s guardian.
It was unreasonable for a beautiful woman to be single at the age of 33. For a female bar owner, this was even more unreasonable. No one pursued her? That was impossible.
So, how could a woman guard a bar that made lucrative sums every day? And it was a large bar which had been expanded three times.
Unless she had a backer who could guard the place, so she did not get into a relationship and was still single today. This was the only reason to explain it.
“Tock, tock, tock!”
There were knocks on the door, and Xiao Nuo rubbed his temple. “Come in!”
“Captain, found!”
Fang Xiaomu came in excitedly with a file of information.
“Who?”
Refreshed, Xiao Nuo stood up.
After she became suspicious of Gao Meiling, she asked Fang Xiaomu to investigate Gao Meiling’s social relations, hoping to find out who was behind her. This person was very likely to be the culprit behind the scenes in planning the major traffic accident.
“According to our investigation of Gao Meiling’s friends and the surveillance video of the area near her living place we checked, we found that she and three men maintained improper male and female relations.”
Speaking of this, Fang Xiaomu suddenly realized that Xiao Nuo was a girl, so he became a little embarra.s.sed and shut up.
Xiao Nuo did not mind. After all, she was a police officer and should not avoid anything like this, so she said emphatically, “Who are they?”
“One is Chen Kaiyang, Deputy Director of the Branch Bureau of Haidong District, one is Zhang Changshun, Deputy District Director of Haidong District, and the third one is…”
Fang Xiaomu said shyly, “The third one is Zhang Shiqiu, the son of Zhang Changshun.”
Xiao Nuo’s eyes widened, showing a strong disgust, and then she couldn’t help shouting, “They are father and son!”
“Cough, it’s normal for a son and his father to bed the same woman. Anyway, Gao Meiling is not Zhang Shiqiu’s mother.”
Fang Xiaomu could not often see such an ordinary person’s expression from Xiao Nuo’s face, so he smiled.
“It’s really disgusting. Fang Xiaomu, your mind is so evil because you even take the phenomenon of moral decay as normal. It seems that your mind must be reformed.”
Xiao Nuo remembered that she had drunk a cup of tea made by Gao Meiling herself, and this made her feel a little queasy, but in order to maintain her image in front of her subordinate, she still held her hands together and made a series of clicking sounds, staring at Fang Xiaomu with a bad intention.
“Captain Xiao, Big Sister Xiao, I was wrong, okay? Please spare me, and I will never dare again.”
Wearing a grimace, Fang Xiaomu bowed for mercy again and again, for he knew how miserable the person who went through Xiao Nuo’s “mind reform” would become. Old Li, who had been reformed last time, was still limping.
Since he built a good relationship with Ding Ning, Xiao Nuo had been taking good care of him and putting him in an important position, and he did not disappoint Ding Ning and became Xiao Nuo’s vanguard soldier. Now, he was the squadron leader of team No. 1.
Through their communication, he had understood Xiao Nuo’s character: Cold-faced, warm-hearted, and easy-going. When they talked in informal occasions, they called each other sister and brother.
“Look at your behavior! How could a criminal policeman without a good fighting ability? Small and weak, you have to do more exercise.”
Xiao Nuo said ruthlessly, but she had let Fang Xiaomu off, in fact. Fang Xiaomu was relieved and said with a grin, “I can’t compare with my brother-in-law.”
“Go away, don’t call him like that. What brother-in-law? Nothing has been decided.”
Xiao Nuo blushed and scolded him with a smile, but she thought bitterly, “This guy is really capable of making trouble and will get involved in everything. How could he suddenly go to Haidong District to investigate the so-called gluten factory? He is really a restless guy.”
At that time, when she saw Ding Ning’s Phaeton turn into a pile of sc.r.a.p iron, she almost shed tears. If Secretary Xu did not tell her that Ding Ning was fine in the Bailong Town Police Station, she could not waited to see him immediately.
“By the way, Xiaomu, can that car be repaired?”
“It can be repaired. Hey, sure enough, the car is really strange. Its front and trunk have been turned into sc.r.a.p iron, but its inside is fine, and nothing was broken at all.”
Fang Xiaomu said a little fearfully, “Fortunately, it is like this; otherwise, I’m afraid that brother-in… the consultant might have been in danger this time.”
Xiao Nuo was very confident that Ding Ning was a creature of magic. She pouted with a smile, but did not comment. Ding Ning’s magic attribute was her secret, and she would not share it with anyone. After a groan, she said, “Well, we have these suspects, but you have to continue to work hard, checking the fund transfers of Gao Meiling’s bank account and seeing if there are other clues.”