Xu Huaisong, who had scored eighty-two points, spent a week reciting legal provisions under Ruan Yu's watchful eye.
For seven consecutive nights, their pre-bedtime activity involved sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the bed, buried under a mountain of law books, as she quizzed him on each provision one by one.
However, these sessions usually ended with Ruan Yu growing bored and dozing off in his arms.
A week later, Zhang Jie called to ask if he wanted to join an investigation trip to Suzhou regarding Zhou Jun's case.
The case had entered the prosecution phase nearly ten days prior. Zhang Ling and Chen Hui had been interviewing key figures involved in the case, and this trip to Suzhou was for an in-depth background check on the defendant.
As Zhou Jun's childhood classmate and neighbor from the same district, Xu Huaisong's participation could help improve interviewee cooperation and gather more information favorable to the defendant.
Without hesitation, he asked Zhang Ling about the departure time.
Ruan Yu, who had been revising a script beside him, overheard the conversation. After he hung up, she leaned in and asked, "Can I come with you?"
Xu Huaisong glanced at her. "You want to supervise my legal recitation even on a business trip?"
She gave him a look of disdain that said "you don't appreciate my kindness." "I'm familiar with Suzhou too, you know. I want to help."
Xu Huaisong smiled. "No meetings scheduled for the next two days?"
Ruan Yu checked her schedule from Huanshi. "Not until three days later."
Huanshi's meetings had been occurring roughly every ten days. Since that night when she ran into Wei Jin and Sun Miaohan at the apartment, she hadn't been to the company, opting to revise the script remotely instead.
However, after learning the film might be canceled, her motivation had understandably waned, and her productivity had dropped significantly.
Seeing her listlessly revising the script, Xu Huaisong decided to take her along to Suzhou the next day.
Chen Hui drove while Zhang Ling, sitting in the passenger seat, reported to Xu Huaisong in the back: "As previously mentioned, the key reason our client mistakenly believed the victim was retaliating through suicide was a photo of slit wrists she posted on social media a month before her death. I investigated this and confirmed the photo was downloaded from the internet—meaning the victim never actually engaged in such extreme behavior."
"The prosecution might raise two questions about this: First, the client and victim had been in a relationship for fifteen months—he should have recognized her wrists. Second, how could the victim hide her unmarked wrists from him for an entire month afterward?"
"But according to the client, his initial reaction to the photo was panic, leaving no time for careful examination. The photo was quickly deleted, and afterward, the victim wore bandages for a long time before switching to a watch. He never suspected his girlfriend would deceive him, so he never verified it."
Ruan Yu let out a thoughtful "Hmm" at this point.
Xu Huaisong turned to her. "Hmm?"
After a moment's consideration, she said, "I was imagining the psychology of the victim and the client, but it's purely speculative."
Knowing her imagination surpassed anyone else's in the car, Xu Huaisong thought it worth hearing. "Go ahead. Investigation is all about bold hypotheses and careful verification."
"The client cheated while drunk the night of their argument, and the victim posted the wrist-slitting photo the next morning, right?"
"Right.""Then I think perhaps the victim knew about the client's affair before posting those photos. Or more accurately, it was precisely because she found out about the affair that she posted the photos, attempting to bind him with guilt by faking the wrist-cutting incident."
"Afterwards, she reconciled with the client, thinking this method had worked. But that day in the car, she saw his communication records with the one-night stand again, which caused her immediate breakdown."
"And due to his guilt over the affair, the client likely subconsciously avoided confronting the victim about that scar. So he never actively verified it, or even if he did, the victim might have concealed it."
Zhang Ling was silent for a moment before asking, "But what evidence supports these speculations?"
This was beyond Ruan Yu's knowledge. As a romance novelist, she could reasonably deduce this outcome from relationship psychology, but gathering evidence was a lawyer's expertise.
Xu Huaisong thought for a moment and asked, "Did the victim have any close female friends before her death?"
"She had two college roommates."
He nodded. "After we arrive in Suzhou, Zhang Jie will contact these two. Chen Hui and I will proceed as planned to investigate near the client's residence."
Ruan Yu accompanied Xu Huaisong to the vicinity of Zhou Jun's home.
Zhou Jun's original address was in the same neighborhood as Ruan Yu's home and Xu Huaisong's grandmother's house. After the area was demolished, he moved to these temporary relocation housing units.
Since the relocation housing was in a rural area with inconvenient transportation, neither the Ruan nor Xu families chose to take it, opting for compensation instead.
Chen Hui carried a briefcase and bustled ahead with an itinerary, leading the way for the other two.
After a full day, the trio had interviewed five households.
Their sixth interviewee was a mutual friend of Zhou Jun and the victim. The friend's family was of modest means, and he worked at a wet market. When the three arrived at his home in the evening, his wife said he was still selling fish and hadn't returned yet. Several calls went unanswered, likely because the market was too noisy to hear.
Xu Huaisong glanced at his wristwatch.
Since this was their last stop, Ruan Yu guessed he didn't want to delay too long and suggested, "Then let's go to the wet market."
If even she, a young woman, didn't mind the trouble, Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui naturally had no objections. They drove to the market.
The two men, dressed in suits and leather shoes, stood out starkly against the backdrop of fish gutting and meat chopping. After getting out of the car, they both paused at the entrance, momentarily unsure how to proceed.
It was Ruan Yu, who frequently shopped and cooked, who knew her way around. She peered inside and pointed toward a row of seafood stalls. "He should be over there," she said, leading the two through a meat section.
Just as they were about to pass the meat stalls, an empty soda bottle rolled to their feet with a clatter.
Xu Huaisong pulled Ruan Yu back, warning her to "be careful." No sooner had he spoken than a middle-aged man in a sweat-stained undershirt approached, bent down, and picked up the bottle, placing it into a plastic bag.
The plastic bag was already stuffed full of empty bottles, likely to be sold for recycling.
In rural areas, such sights weren't unusual. But just as the trio was about to move past him, the middle-aged man looked up and froze at the sight of Xu Huaisong. Squinting with eyes that seemed somewhat dull, he stammered, "L-Lawyer Xu?"
Xu Huaisong blinked twice, as if searching his memory for this person but failing to recall him immediately. After a pause, he replied politely, "Hello."The other man was so excited that he loosened his grip, dropping the bag of beverage bottles with a clatter. He reached out to shake Xu Huaisong's hand but froze when he looked down at his own grimy palm.
Xu Huaisong was puzzled. "Do you know me?"
"Lawyer Xu, don't you remember me? Ten years ago, you helped me with my case..."
Xu Huaisong was taken aback. How could he have handled a case for someone ten years ago? After a moment, he vaguely realized, "Perhaps you're referring to my father?" He frowned slightly, scrutinizing the man's features. "Mr. Jiang?"
Jiang Yi was momentarily stunned. "Oh, so you're Lawyer Xu's son. I must be confused..." He chuckled awkwardly. "Right, no one grows younger with age. But you look so much like your father..."
Ruan Yu was utterly bewildered and glanced at Xu Huaisong.
Xu Huaisong's gaze lingered on Jiang Yi for a long while before he finally asked, "How have you been these years?"
Jiang Yi picked up the plastic bag and replied, "I'm doing well, really well. And your father?"
Xu Huaisong paused before answering, "He's doing fine too."
At this point, someone outside the market tossed an empty bottle into a trash bin, producing a loud clang. Jiang Yi turned his head at the sound, hastily bid Xu Huaisong farewell, and ran off to retrieve it.
Xu Huaisong stood rooted to the spot, lips pressed tightly together in silence.
Neither Ruan Yu nor Chen Hui dared to ask anything until they heard a middle-aged woman at a nearby seafood stall exclaim, "See that! The murderer is living just fine, and the lawyer who defended him is doing well too. What kind of world is this?!"
With that, she scooped up a basin of water from the fish she had just cleaned and flung it toward the trio.
Xu Huaisong swiftly pulled Ruan Yu behind him.
Blood-tinged water splashed onto the tips of his shoes, but he didn't utter a word. Instead, he said to Chen Hui, "Let's go. We still have work to do."
By the time they left the market, it was already dark. Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui had completed their tasks smoothly, but Zhang Ling, who was dealing with the victim's family and friends, faced a more complicated situation. After an entire day's effort, she had only managed to contact one person and hadn't gleaned any useful information yet.
Chen Hui suggested, "I'll drive you and Brother Song back to Hangzhou first and come back tomorrow to pick up Zhang Jie."
Xu Huaisong glanced at Ruan Yu. "How about staying at my place for the night?"
"Is Auntie home?"
"Yes."
It would indeed be troublesome to have Chen Hui shuttle back and forth, but showing up unannounced at the Xu household seemed impolite. After some thought, Ruan Yu said, "Maybe we should just book a hotel?"
Xu Huaisong nodded and instructed Chen Hui to stay with Zhang Jie. He and Ruan Yu picked a place for dinner. After eating, they checked their phones and found a hotel just a few hundred meters away, so they decided to walk there.
On the quiet pedestrian path, finally alone, Ruan Yu couldn't hold back her question. "That man we met at the market—was he the defendant in the murder case ten years ago?"
Xu Huaisong had been in low spirits since encountering Jiang Yi. He gave a quiet "Mm" before adding after a pause, "He's only thirty-three now. When the incident happened, he had just graduated from Suzhou Business University. He probably had a bright future ahead of him."
Ruan Yu was shocked.
Judging by the man's appearance just now, she wouldn't have been surprised if he were forty-three.
Ten years had aged a once-promising young man so drastically.
"Doing well"? Who would believe that?
Frowning, Ruan Yu asked, "What kind of case was it exactly?"
"Rape and murder."
Ruan Yu gasped.
Xu Huaisong patted her head. "Let's not talk about this. It'll scare you."
The two checked into the nearest hotel.Perhaps because he had something on his mind, Xu Huaisong was distracted throughout. Ruan Yu, too, was unsettled by the mention of "rape and murder," following him upstairs in a daze.
Only when they swiped their card and entered did they realize this hotel seemed rather unusual—a bathroom with transparent glass walls, a large ceiling mirror, and various furnishings resembling gym equipment scattered around the room.
It seemed they had... wandered into some peculiar place.
Author's note: Heaven knows this story about a love hotel is based on my personal experience from student days. :)
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