These signs led Zhang Lei to doubt his relationships with his father and wife, and motivated him to start an investigation.
He thus learned that his parents could not have children and so he was adopted. But his adoptive father Zhang Xuewu had always wanted a child of his own.
Given the prominent social status Zhang Xuewu held back then, he would often visit entertainment venues, where he met Liu Yingjie, while she was a hostess at a karaoke bar. He subsequently made her his mistress in 1994.
Zhang Xuewu used his connections and forged a series of diplomas for Liu to get her hired through special recruitment by the Benxi People’s Procuratorate. She was later transferred to work in the Benxi People’s Court, and has been the office manager there ever since.
This traumatic discovery left Zhang Lei overwhelmed, but he still wanted to obtain support from the Communist Party in dealing with the matter.
He therefore submitted the DNA results to the Benxi City Public Security Bureau, but was left disappointed. He said: “Not only did I not get any support, I was completely ignored. This has driven me to despair!”
On Dec. 24, he posted more information online, this time including all the details of his family’s scandal along with his police ID, the DNA report, and a photo of his ex-wife Liu Yingjie as evidence of his credibility.
It turns out his adoptive father Zhang Xuewu is the legal representative for one of the most well-known pharmaceutical enterprises in Benxi, which is also one of the top 50 companies in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry, according to Xizhi.com, an index website for Chinese enterprises.
Zhang’s story was published without naming him in the Shengyang Evening News, a local Liaoning paper.
China News, a state-run media, defended the local city bureau by denying the validity of Zhang’s post, saying it is fictional because the Shuidong Police Department does not exist on Benxi City’s official website.
But a local netizen Li Tai quickly responded with a screenshot showing an official report by the Shuidong branch, and commented: “Please stop creating such rumors. The Shuidong branch does exist within the Benxi Police Department, and the director there is Zhang Lei as of two months ago. These are absolute facts.”
A post about this story by a film producer, Juxiande Zhilin, had been forwarded more than 48,000 times, when checked at 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Dec. 31.
A number of netizens mocked the story as exemplifying “such a good family of government officials.”
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