Per reporter: Yan Yinchan Per editor: Wen Duo
On the evening of January 19, The Paper reported that the two defendants in the "Chongqing Sister and Brother Fall Case" appealed. That night, Chen Meilin, the mother of the siblings, posted a blurry photo of herself looking into the distance, bluntly saying, "I am not surprised at all, this is just within my prediction."
Image source: Screenshot of the circle of friends of the respondent
10 days ago, she was still hoping that all this would be "settled".
On January 8, Chen Meilin posted a group photo of a party with friends in the circle of friends, looking peaceful. Her last circle of friends stayed on December 28 last year. On that day, the "Chongqing Sister and Brother Falling From a Building Case," which shocked the world, was pronounced in the first instance at the Fifth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing Municipality, and the defendants Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen were sentenced to death for intentional homicide and deprived of their political rights for life. That day, Chen Meilin wrote in the circle of friends: "I am so tired, let me take a break." ”
But how can she really rest? Although the first-instance judgment has fallen, the anxiety in my heart has not been reduced by half a point, "They (Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen) appealed, there will be a second-instance trial, what if the judgment is changed?" ”
The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the time limit for appeals and counter-appeals against judgments is 10 days, counting from the second day after receiving the judgment and ruling. Since January 6, Chen Meilin has called the court almost every day, "I heard from the side that they (Zhang Bo, Ye Chengchen) appealed, but the court has always replied that I have not received the appeal documents, and I thought that it would not change again", but the reality still arranged for her to have the next hard battle.
Since November 2, 2020, "giving back the child a fair way" has become the only driving force for Chen Meilin to live, pushing her body around. But her heart was trapped on the day of November 2, assuming countless impossible images, thinking of a pair of children suddenly returning to her.
Life, for her, has no future, only the present.
"As I wish" mother: Will I be happy if I am executed?
30-year-old Chen Meilin has a pair of sparkling eyes, a round face, fair skin, and a well-behaved demeanor. She did not have a dirty face, and when talking to people, she would even bend a sweet smile from time to time, so that the other party's original caution was also relaxed.
After the first instance judgment, it is the New Year. In those days, there was a lot of laughter around her, but Chen Meilin put herself in the room. Originally, I agreed to interviews with many media, but in the end I refused one by one. "I've been so emotionally broken these past two days, let me slow down." She sent a voice message to reporters explaining that she was afraid she would get out of control.
Loss of control has been the norm in Chen Meilin's life for more than a year.
On November 2, 2020, a son and a daughter of Chen Meilin fell from the 15th floor, and the 2-year-old daughter died on the spot, and the 1-year-old son died after the rescue was ineffective.
A week after the incident, Chen Meilin's ex-husband, Zhang Bo, the biological father of a pair of children, and his girlfriend Ye Chengchen were controlled by the police. On July 26, 2021, the case was heard at the Fifth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing Municipality. "He admitted in court that he threw the child downstairs and confessed that he was forced by the woman after many conspiracies with Ye Chengchen."
According to the indictment of the Fifth Branch of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate, Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen met through the Internet and then began to fall in love, and Ye Chengchen repeatedly told Zhang Bo that he and his parents could not accept the fact that Zhang Bo had children.
Around February 2020, the two conspired to kill Zhang Bo's child when they met in the Longevity District. Subsequently, the two conspired to kill the two children through interviews, WeChat chats and other means, and agreed to use an accidental high fall. In June of the same year, Ye Chengchen also urged Zhang Bo to commit crimes through WeChat several times.
At about 3:30 p.m. on November 2, 2020, Zhang Bo took advantage of the lack of other guardians at home to hold the two children who were playing in the second bedroom with their legs and threw them downstairs from the bay window of the second bedroom.
At the first-instance trial on December 28, 2021, the court held that the acts of defendant Zhang Bo and defendant Ye Chengchen had constituted intentional homicide, that the conduct had broken through the legal bottom line, the moral bottom line, and the bottom line of human morality, that the motive for committing the crime was particularly despicable, that the subjective malignancy was extremely deep, that the method of committing the crime was particularly cruel, that the circumstances, consequences, and crimes were extremely serious, and that the social impact was extremely bad, and that the two were sentenced to death in accordance with the law and deprived of their political rights for life.
Double death penalty! The torment of the past year finally paid off for the time being, and Chen Meilin sighed and lost.
"You said that Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen were executed, and I would be happy?" On the evening of January 6, in a café in Chongqing, Chen Meilin asked reporters because of choking, with a thick nasal sound; in the light and shadow, the tears that snatched out of her eyes were unspeakable helplessness. Without expecting an answer, she said to herself: "I still won't be happy, I just give an account to my brother and sister (referring to my children), and my pain will not be reduced by half a point." ”
In the past waiting, Chen Meilin has rehearsed thousands of times in her heart, and she tried to convince herself that "sentencing Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen to death" can write a full end to this matter, and she should look forward. But her daughter's favorite hug pig and the two childish faces posted in the WeChat circle of friends constantly reminded her that this pair of children had come.
"What can I do? My younger siblings will never come back. ”
For a period of time after the incident, this sentence was played in Chen Meilin's mind like a repeating machine, she couldn't think of anything else, she couldn't see the meaning of life. The high-rise buildings everywhere made her afraid, afraid to think about how high the 15th floor really was. She was also afraid of children, and she could only shut herself in the room, like a hedgehog, refusing the care of her parents and friends.
One day, Chen Meilin rushed to the kitchen, picked up the scissors and poked at her wrist. "My parents and little aunt were frightened, my mother began to cry, she asked me, you just went like this, did you let Xuexue and Rui ruibai die?"
A word stings. "Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen must be responsible for the child's death." She forced herself out of the room with a sigh of relief, justice for her children, and gave up high civil compensation just to win a "death sentence."
Fragmented mother: On the day of the incident, I had doubts about Zhang Bo's words
Chen Meilin became stubborn, and she often searched for cases related to "homicide", analyzed criminal psychology, and tried to explain Zhang Bo's actions with a reasonable thinking.
That day, she ran a red light all the way, rushed to the rescue scene of the two children with her hands and feet, and when she saw Zhang Bo, who was pounding his chest and howling and crying, she did not suspect it. She smashed her handbag on Zhang Bo's back and asked him, "Are you a baby you look at?" Zhang Bo said that he fell asleep after taking cold medicine, and the two children played in the bedroom and fell down.
When she first arrived at the scene, both children were in the rescue room, and she prayed for a glimmer of hope from heaven. But within 10 minutes, the doctor in the rescue room came out and told her that her daughter Xuexue was no longer able to die, and her son needed to be transferred to Chongqing Children's Hospital immediately to continue rescue. "I was so weak that my legs couldn't stand up, and I kept hitting my head against the wall but it didn't hurt."
She walked into the rescue room trembling and saw that her daughter's small face was covered with blood, and a large piece of her originally high forehead was sunken in. Her mother trembled her hands trying to close the child's eyes, and she pushed her mother away like crazy, growling and screaming at all those who wanted to get close to her daughter.
"I don't want anyone to touch her again, I'm afraid she'll hurt."
At that moment, she wanted to stay with her daughter for a little longer, but there was still her brother who was still rescuing her, and procedural matters such as going to the police station to make a record were waiting for her. At the police station, a friend called her brother to tell her that her life was not in danger for the time being, and her hanging heart eased slightly.
After recording the confession, I just rushed to the door of the Children's Hospital, and my friend called again, saying that my brother had sent an ICU, and the murder was more than ji. She only felt her brain buzzing, spinning for a while, and her legs were soft. Two friends ran towards the ICU with her, she mechanically changed into her isolation suit, saw her brother's small body full of tubes, rescued a circle of doctors around the bed, and continued to press. The crying was no longer strong, and she screamed hoarsely to make Rey wake up and say take him home!
"I didn't protect them!" A year later, in front of the reporters she first met, she still cried uncontrollably.
On the way to the Children's Hospital, Zhang Bo's two conflicting remarks made Chen Meilin begin to wonder. "He told me he was sleeping in another room when it happened, but when he told my friend, it turned out that he was eating in the living room." Despite this, Chen Meilin was not willing to guess in the worst direction, "He is the baby's father!" ”
But after thinking about it, she felt more and more that the death of her children was not an accident. At the height of the window sill, the 2-year-old snow and snow may still turn over, how can 1-year-old Rui Rui turn over? Xuexue has a timid personality, has a sense of safety, and any place that may be dangerous, she is obediently bypassed, "she crosses the road and sees a car, she will always hold my hand."
Chen Meilin's mother questioned Zhang Bo's behavior earlier.
On October 25, 2020, Zhang Bo proposed to buy clothes for his daughter Xuexue and asked to take the child to his parents' house. "My mother thought he was very strange, after Xuexue was born, he never cared about it, and he never bought anything for his child, and she told me that I must not let Zhang Bo and my sister be alone."
That time, there was nothing wrong with each other. Snow snow, who grew up not knowing who her father was, was happy for several days, "When I came home, I asked her if she liked her father or her mother, and she said dad. ”
On November 1, Zhang Bo proposed that the two children needed to spend more time together, took his daughter back to his parents' house, and asked to stay one night and then return. Chen Meilin's first reaction was to refuse, but she thought that Zhang Bo was the child's father after all, and she could not prevent the child from meeting with her father, and she agreed as soon as her heart softened.
The next day, the news of the two children falling from the building swept the screen across Chongqing.
The first-instance trial revealed a detail, and there were Zhang Bo's fingerprints on the curtains of the room where the incident occurred. Children don't want to go down, and I don't dare to think about how scared they were. Chen Meilin said.
On July 26, 2021, the Chongqing sister and brother fell from a building in the first instance trial in Chongqing.
Image source: Chen Chao (Chongqing Branch)/China News Service/Visual China
Why did the "blindfolded" girl choose him in the first place, and why did she divorce him?
In Chen Meilin's heart, Zhang Bo has also "died" with her deceased child. Mentioning the man who aroused the indignation of the whole network, she was a little confused, "It feels like a scam, and we are inexplicably together." ”
In 2016, Chen Meilin and Zhang Bo met at a small loan company. When Chen Meilin joined the company, Zhang Bo had already submitted a resignation application, but because there was still work that had not yet been handed over, the two were in the same group and had some contact. "He was tall and thin, and I rejected him at the time, but my colleagues always joked with us."
After Zhang Bo left the company, he often helped her find business, taught her by hand, and picked her up from work. Chen Meilin felt that Zhang Bo was good to herself, and even if she fought against the whole world, she would have to be with Zhang Bo.
"Less than half a year together, I was pregnant." After Zhang Bo knew, he immediately proposed marriage without hesitation, which made Chen Meilin feel that this man had a responsibility. "My parents were opposed, but my mother saw that he was very good to me at the time, and later helped persuade my father, and finally agreed."
But the marriage seemed "extremely unequal." Zhang Bo did not graduate from junior high school in the society, no house and no car, Chen Meilin's growth environment is quite favorable, since childhood to learn dance, is a college graduate. "The cost of the wedding banquet and the ring are all paid by me, and Zhang Bo has a lot of expenses, and he has no savings at all."
Shortly after her daughter's snow and snow full moon, Chen Meilin became pregnant again. She had planned to have an abortion, but she cried all night, but she still couldn't bear to give up her life in her belly. The estrangement between him and Zhang Bo also widened from this time, he left early and returned late, and when he returned home, he hid in his bedroom to play games, and did not take care of his infant daughter and pregnant wife.
Shortly after the birth of his son, Zhang Bo proposed a divorce to Chen Meilin, "He said that we are not people of the world, I want a plain life, he wants to be rich and noble." However, out of the obsession with the "complete family" and in the face of this long-broken emotional relationship, Chen Meilin has always been looking forward to Zhang Bo's change of heart.
Her marriage to Zhang Bo eventually came to an end. In February 2020, the two divorced. According to the divorce agreement, the daughter Xuexue was raised by Chen Meilin, and the son Ruirui was raised by Zhang Bo before the age of 6 and Chen Meilin after the age of 6.
After Xuexue was born, she has been cared for by Chen Meilin's parents, but her mother is not in good health, and she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer before retirement, and after a major operation of up to 12 hours, one side of the vocal cords was cut off, and she also needed to go to the hospital regularly every month for follow-up treatment. "I have to go to work to earn money, and my mother's taking one is already the limit." She felt helpless not being able to keep her son by her side.
"There are only more than 4 years left, why doesn't he want to wait any longer?" Chen Meilin asked, there was no answer.
She sometimes imagined that if she went to a small loan company two days later, would she not have a bad relationship with this person? Children can be okay too!
On December 28, 2021, Chen Meilin (center), accompanied by her girlfriend, went to pray for the blessing of her deceased children.
Image source: People's Vision/Visual China
Self-helpers looking forward to a normal life: The contact information of everyone in Zhang Bo's family has been deleted
On the day of the first trial, Chen Meilin saw her father in tears at a distance in the courtroom, and she had already bumped into this scene three times after the incident. In her memory, her father was an introverted man who never shed tears, "I felt even more uncomfortable seeing him crying."
She knew in her heart that in the past year, the three people in the family had hidden from each other and had secretly cried. The only way to survive is not to touch and not to think, and some ordinary daily routines are now "taboo". For example, my parents never set foot in a shopping mall next to their home, which was once the "base" for snow and snow.
"Actually, my parents are more miserable than me, and my mother looks a lot older." She mentioned that the old couple loved their granddaughter infinitely, and she was once very sad, as if this scene was right in front of her. "My dad bought dolls for Cher, a doll has many colors, and I bought one for each color, which is really a treasure on the tip of my heart."
There was also a mobile phone on the sideboard of the house that could not be opened, which was filled with photos that his father had taken for his granddaughter, and he took it and asked several times after the mobile phone failed, because he could not guarantee that the data would not be lost, and finally failed to make up his mind to repair it.
After the accident, Chen Meilin and her parents sent all the daily necessities of the two children to the Tiantai Temple to burn, and the daughter's things were stuffed into several cars, but the son's only two bags. Compared with her daughter, she felt more guilty about her son, and she and the reporter carefully analyzed her son's various behaviors before his death and examined whether she had not done enough.
"I'm going to brainwash myself and not let myself think about it." Chen Meilin said lightly. She could still feel the breath of a pair of children, and some things that she had not paid attention to before had become something special.
"After the children left, there were a lot of small animals in our house." The two dragonflies that flew in, one large with a small one; the small bird that flew in by chance, such a high floor, did not know how to crash in; even a small moth seemed very strange to her.
Despite the difficulties, Chen Meilin still felt the care and kindness of this strange society. In order to let her come out and contact the society, the street arranged a logistics management work of the industrial park, "the whole building knows me, everyone is very enthusiastic"; before the first trial, the community where she lives also specially arranged for a psychological teacher to go to the home for guidance, and she no longer resisted.
Everything related to Zhang Bo has been emptied. "After the incident, Zhang Bo's family only looked for me once, without a word of apology", after that meeting, she deleted the contact information of everyone in Zhang Bo's family.
She knew it would take more time to get out completely. She was waiting, waiting for the murderer to be ambushed, and waiting for her to finally survive the most painful days, invincible and indestructible.
She once posted on Weibo that "the first trial is not the end", and at present, she is still facing an uphill battle to be fought. On the evening of January 19, according to the surging news, Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen, the two defendants in the Chongqing sister and brother fall case, submitted materials and filed an appeal within the statutory appeal period, and the defendant Ye Chengchen newly appointed a lawyer. A senior criminal lawyer said that the defendant's appeal meant that the case had entered the second-instance trial procedure and that the Chongqing Municipal High Court would file the case according to law.
On the first day of December last year, Chen Meilin posted 3 photos of herself or funny or smiling in the circle of friends, with the text "Be the coolest of yourself".
Runaway life, looking forward to returning.
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