Chapter 9 Withdrawing the Life Support
In the chaos the doctor decisively called the police.
The piercing siren finally put an end to this tragic family ethics drama.
The final verdict came.
My mother died on the spot. My father survived the rescue but became a vegetative state due to prolonged oxygen deprivation and needed huge medical expenses to maintain life.
Jiang Chen was sentenced to life imprisonment for intentional injury causing death, abuse and abandonment of relatives, and multiple other charges.
During the final statement in the trial, my vegetative father lying on the stretcher had a line of turbid tears slide from the corner of his eye.
And my mother died with her eyes wide open.
At that moment I quickly entrusted a lawyer and formally filed a lawsuit in court.
I demanded the recovery of the total 1.35 million that this family had demanded from me over the past twenty years through fraud and coercion.
The court quickly accepted the case.
Because of the extremely bad social impact of Jiang Chen's criminal case, my civil case received priority handling.
My lawyer immediately submitted a property preservation application to the court and provided exact clues that Jiang Chen's bank account held 580,000 in deposits.
The court quickly ruled to freeze the 580,000 immediately.
This meant that before the case judgment, Jiang Chen could not touch a single cent.
In the trial Jiang Chen shouted hoarsely across the defendant's dock.
"Jiang Yao! You fucking bastard! You harmed me!"
Facing ironclad evidence, the court ultimately supported most of my litigation requests.
After the judgment took effect, the court's execution bureau directly transferred the 580,000 from the frozen account to my name.
After Jiang Chen learned the news in prison, he was almost driven mad with anger yet could do nothing.
This 580,000 was like a loud slap that shattered his last illusion.
He not only lost his freedom but even the house-buying money he had squeezed from the whole family at the cost of crime finally returned to its owner.
As for the remaining money?
That was no longer important.
What mattered was that I had used the money they valued most to deliver the final blow.
And finally I came before my father to send him on his last journey.
In the intensive care unit there was only the regular ticking of the machines.
I stood in front of my father's hospital bed and looked at his life signs maintained by equipment and medicine.
"Dad, can you hear me?"
I spoke calmly and took two documents out of my bag.
"The paternity test report. Actually I did two. One is with you and confirms we are biologically father and daughter. The other... is with my 'mother'."
I opened the first report and read clearly.
"Identification opinion: excludes biological mother-daughter relationship between Jiang Yao and Cao Hongmei."
"Identification opinion: supports biological mother-son relationship between Jiang Chen and Cao Hongmei."
I closed the report and slowly wiped the tears from my chin.
"This woman, Cao Hongmei, she was a mistress who destroyed my family, killed my biological mother, then took over the house and treated me, the daughter of the original wife, as a blood bag to raise her own son."
"Others say that with a stepmother comes a stepfather. Dad, now... I really believe it."
At that moment my lawyer walked in quietly and handed a document to me.
This is the ruling issued by the court based on the medical evaluation report and guardianship application you submitted.
The expert group determined that Jiang Jianguo is in a state of brain death. Continuing treatment has no medical significance. You, Jiang Yao, are now his sole legal guardian with the right to make the final decision.
I took the document and looked at the attending doctor who came in afterward.
"Doctor, as a family member, I request..."
My voice choked for a moment but soon returned to calm.
"I request to withdraw my father's life support system."
The doctor nodded heavily.
"We respect the family's decision."
After a long beep the machine fell silent.
I leaned down and spoke the last words into my father's ear.
"Dad, go find my mom. In this life, what you owed her, go repay it down there."
With that I turned and left.
Behind me was the end of a wrong era and a distorted family relationship.
In front of me was a clean life that finally belonged to me after I broke free from all shackles.