Lu Jiang and Feng Qingxue were given a half-day leave by the army. Therefore, after Lu Jiang finished washing up, the couple had time to focus on the follow-up situation.
Many valuable items were taken out of Qi Gang’s house in succession and stored in a dedicated room for confiscated goods after being carefully inventoried. Similarly, many goods were confiscated from Dan Qingming’s dormitory that day.
Dan Qingming’s family did not accompany him in the army, hence he lived alone in a dormitory and rarely allowed others in.
Seeing the goods carried out from Dan Qingming’s place by Lu Shuai and Cui Shaoyuan, Feng Qingxue thought to herself: If this were the 21st century, young netizens would laugh their heads off. What are they even stealing? How much could these items be worth?
They seized about four to five stacks of porcelain pots, stacks of new cloth, bundles of new towels, piles of military uniforms, more than a dozen pairs of new liberation shoes and military leather shoes. They found three sets of leather shoes, lots of paper, pens and ink, numerous military supply tickets, including grain tickets and various supply tickets, military kettles, heating pots, thermos bottles, porcelain jars and other everyday items as well as some over-rationed grains. These were all catalogued as stolen goods.
These items might not be worth a lot of money, but in this era of resource scarcity, it represents a massive amount of corruption and waste!
In spite of Li Shuitian’s attempt to stop her, Cao Hongzhu raised her voice and claimed: "There are a lot of things at Dan Qingming’s ancestral home! This is only a portion that he did not have time to send back home. The major part of the illicit booty is at his home!"
"Hongzhu, shut up!" Li Shuitian was rendered utterly helpless. The judgemental looks from the spectators made him very uncomfortable.
Cao Hongzhu insisted on fulfilling her duties as a socialist soldier, not caring about others’ opinions. She freed herself from Li Shuitian’s grasp, took a few steps forward, and continued, "Dan Qingming’s family and my aunt’s family live in the same production brigade. Who doesn’t know about the Dan Family? I’ve sneaked a peek at their home before; there’s a wooden clock hanging on the wall, Dan Qingming’s son even has a rare alarm clock. They have a radio, sewing machine, bicycle, and military suitcase at home. Everyone has a military coat, and they take turns wearing military cotton-padded jackets and pants, polyester clothes, liberation shoes, leather shoes, and rubber boots. Many people even borrowed military uniforms, military shoes, watches, and bicycles for their weddings from his family. I heard there are about ten to twenty military quilts at their place. Every year they have plenty of food to eat, they have all kinds of scarce resources, it’s a sight to behold because Dan Qingming sends them everything."
If Dan Qingming’s anger could kill, Cao Hongzhu would be dead by now.
Cui Shaoyuan turned to the Deputy Commander and others and said: "Comrade Commander Chen mentioned that at the end of each year there is always a thorough review from top to bottom. Is this the result?"
Zheng Xuefeng helplessly said: "Last year, Comrade Commander Chen and Comrade Ye Jun went to the capital for a meeting. As a result, we did not perform a regular check-up as we usually would. The year before that, we did inspect it, and none of this was found. Perhaps, he moved the stolen goods back to his hometown before we checked, and the stolen goods that we see now were recently embezzled. We are not sure of the specifics; we need Comrade Dan Qingming’s answer."
The downcast Dan Qingming and the three members of the Qi Gang family were all placed under separate confinement and no longer made appearances in front of everyone.
Cui Shaoyuan and his team were still in the process of their work. Every high-ranking officer’s dormitory and the homes of their accompanying family members had to be searched by them, and sure enough, three more corrupt officials were identified, although the amounts they embezzled were relatively smaller.