As soon as the knocking began, Christopher’s heart started to race and he called out, “Who is it?”
He was not expecting visitors, especially not at this hour.
Without waiting for a response, the door was pushed open and several police officers entered the room.
One of the officers looked at Christopher and Harold and asked, “Are you the family of Hannah?”
Christopher answered instinctively, “I am… Her husband.”
Harold added, “And I am her son…”
The police officer nodded in response and said, “Yes, that’s right. We need you to come with us to assist in a video investigation.”
Christopher’s mind was racing and he asked the officer in disbelief, “Is this about Hannah? Are you sure?”
Harold’s eyes widened in surprise, “A video? What video? We have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The police officer looked at him incredulously, “Your video was leaked on the internet. You haven’t seen it yet?”
“Leaked?” Christopher’s voice trembled with anxiety, “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
The officer spoke in a calm tone, “It’s alright if you don’t know. We’re here to fill you in. Please, get up and come with us.”
Christopher’s face turned pale “Officer, my son and I are both paralyzed. We haven’t recovered yet, so we can’t get up.”
The police officer’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the group of people in front of him, “You think acting is addictive, huh? You can’t fool me. You’re just putting on a show for your online audience, hoping they’ll buy your products and shower you with attention. But let me tell you something, I know when someone’s fake and you’re not fooling me.”
Harold’s heart raced as he tried to come up with a plausible explanation, “Officer, you’ve got it all wrong. My father and I were in a terrible accident not long ago and we’ve been bedridden ever since. If you don’t believe us, you can check our medical records at the hospital.”
The police officer’s expression softened slightly as he thought back to when he first arrived at the scene.
The two men had been lying on the bed the whole time, hardly moving a muscle. Maybe there was some truth to what Harold was saying after all.
So, he said, “If you really have mobility problems, then I’ll ask two people to help you into the car. First, go to the police station to cooperate with us in an investigation. After the investigation is over, we will send you two back.”
Christopher asked nervously, “Officer, what is going on? You just said that someone exposed what we exposed? Is my wife’s live streaming exposed?”
“Yes.” The police officer nodded, took out his mobile phone and opened the video, handed it to Christopher and said lightly, “Look for yourself, after all, you said it yourself and there is no other person falsely accusing you or pouring dirty water on you.”
Christopher stared at the video, watching it play automatically and Hannah’s first sentence in the video almost scared his soul away!
Although Harold, who was lying on the next bed, couldn’t see the picture, he knew what was going on from the sound and he was so scared that he got goosebumps all over his body.
The police officer took back the phone before the video was finished and asked in a cold voice, “Now, do you know why you were asked to the police station to cooperate with the investigation?”
Christopher’s forehead was already covered with cold sweat and he stammered, “But… But my wife can’t be considered a liar when she was broadcasting live, because we are indeed paralyzed and we really don’t have much money for medical treatment…”
The policeman asked him, “Your wife already drives a Mercedes-Benz big G, you tell me you don’t have money for medical treatment, do you think I’ll believe it?”
Christopher quickly explained, “Officer, you misunderstood, I’m not talking about now… I’m talking about when she just started live streaming… At that time we were really poor and couldn’t afford food and medicines, so she thought of earning some rewards through live broadcasting. Unexpectedly, more and more people followed her, so she started live streaming to sell goods and the money she earned was from live broadcasting.”
The police officer asked in a cold voice, “Since you have earned so much money, why are you still selling misery? Your wife’s Mercedes-Benz G should be enough for the living expenses and medical expenses of both of you, right?”
“Kind people helped you to solve the problem, after your problem was solved, why didn’t you hurry up and let it go, why did you continue to consume the sympathy of people for your family? You already have money that you can’t spend, but you still talk about how miserable your family is in front of the camera, do you think this is right?”
Christopher was speechless for a moment.
He knew that this matter was outrageous and his family didn’t care about it. It was like a water drop chip. It was clear that 3,000 yuan was enough to cure the disease, but he insisted on raising 3,000 yuan on the water drop chip, there must be something wrong with it.
The police came to the door, which was also a situation he had imagined earlier.
In desperation, he and his son could only be carried out of the room with the assistance of several police officers.
The one who was taken out of the house with them was the Lady Wilson who had just fallen asleep but was awakened by knocking on the door.
At this moment, the Lady didn’t know what happened.
Seeing that the police officers carried her son and grandson out, she hurriedly asked, “Christopher, Harold, what’s the matter with you two? What are the police arresting you for?”
The police officer quickly explained, “Grandma, please don’t get me wrong. We are not going to arrest the three of you, but because the three of you are suspected of fraud, so we want the three of you to go to the police station to cooperate with us in our investigation.”
Suddenly startled, she quickly waved her hands and said, “Officer, my daughter-in-law did all the deceitful things, I have never done it, you must not take my old bone into prison.”
Lady Wilson, who had been in prison, had no nostalgia for that place but was full of fear. She knew that what her daughter-in-law had done was disgraceful and she might even be suspected of committing a crime, so she wanted to get rid of the relationship immediately, so as not to implicate herself.
However, the police officer said patiently, “Grandma, don’t panic too much. We just ask you to assist in the investigation. If there is no problem, we will send you back.”
The Lady Wilson had no choice but to follow the police car.
Soon, several police cars left Thompson’s and headed for the city bureau.
After arriving at the Bureau, the four members of Hannah’s family were interrogated in isolation. Due to their poor psychological endurance, the four of them confessed the whole story within a short period of time.
What the police officers didn’t expect was that Christopher and Harold were actually paralyzed.
Originally, they thought that the paralysis of the two people should be fake, but now through the hospital’s case and the visual judgment of the two of them, they could confirm that the two were indeed paralyzed.
This time, it made the police a little tricky. If these two people’s diseases were forged, then the family must have been convicted of fraud, but the cases of these two people were true, which proved that Hannah did not forge documents to deceive the public. Therefore, the crime of fraud was really not enough.
However, there was a precedent for this kind of live broadcast of selling miserable stories and administrative punishment was generally imposed, depending on the severity of the circumstances and administrative detention for seven to fifteen days.
So the police quickly made a decision to detain Hannah for 10 days and at the same time permanently banned her account on TikTok.
Although Christopher, Harold and Lady Wilson were accomplices, it seemed that the father and son are indeed paralyzed in bed.
Lady Wilson was also old and had to take care of a pair of two people, so she would be lenient to the three to avoid punishment.
Ten days of administrative detention was already a blessing in misfortune for Hannah.
She thought to herself, “It doesn’t matter if you are detained for ten days, as long as they don’t confiscate my money…”
The taxation person approached her immediately and said, “Hannah, after our verification, your bank account transactions exceeded 10 million during this period, but you haven’t paid a penny in tax. What’s going on?”
