A Shocking Public Trial

An Astonishing Public Trial

The voice came from somewhere in the crowd. No one knew who had spoken.

The short, fat man could no longer hide the panic on his face. "Y-you, who are you? I'm warning you, don't slander people! I-I'm a senior civil affairs officer of the Civil Affairs Department. My father is an internal affairs executive at the Governor's Office. I-if you slander me, w-watch out or I'll sue you!"

A brief silence fell. Lin Wen glanced at him and said coldly, "People from District Three of the Seventh Resettlement Point, step forward."

He repeated it three times in a row.

Around thirty people gradually squeezed their way out from the crowd to the front.

They were all ragged, emaciated people, little more than skin and bones.

Lin Wen pointed at the short, fat man. "Do you know him?"

A string of uneven replies rose up. "Yes."

"I know him."

"He's the supervisor."

Lin Wen noticed that these people were somewhat timid. They clearly feared the short, fat man, and did not trust him nearly as much.

Clearly, they had only learned about him through hearsay. They still doubted the many stories and legends surrounding him and could not fully trust who he truly was.

To improve efficiency, Lin Wen deliberately activated the Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart and employed an extremely difficult technique—after every few words, he would interrupt the Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart, manually connect it to the next word, then activate it again. He repeated this until he had finished every sentence.

This was the method that best ensured both that the topic would not stray off course and that communication would remain unobstructed.

The drawback was that, in order to avoid sounding like a stutterer who paused more than a dozen times per sentence, or a madman whose words did not connect and whose meaning made no sense, he had to devote his entire focus to it. His mind had to be highly concentrated, his thoughts racing at full speed, so that no mistakes would slip through.

"I am justice incarnate in the Empire. I came here to judge corrupt officials and vile bureaucrats. Fairness, like the sun, will never fade. The evil of this world shall be exposed beneath the blazing sun and vanish like gray snow. The guilty need not fear, for they will surely be called to account. Every grievance shall be voiced here."

The first "I am" had been spoken by the Seven Apertures Exquisite Heart. Lin Wen immediately steered it toward justice, lest it babble on for half the day merely trying to build rapport and miss the point entirely.

Judging from the result, it worked rather well.

The moment his words fell, a middle-aged man among the thirty people leaped up and shouted, "It was him! This liar, this dog-bastard! He only gave us seven bottles of medicine, but we were in a severely infected area—more than half of us had no medicine to take..."

Someone tugged at him, but he shook off the hand and became even more agitated. "Hasn't he harmed you enough? How many people has he killed? I-I-I'll fight him to the death!"

He suddenly charged toward the platform, but in the next instant, a black figure shot out a hand like lightning, seized him by the collar, and with one arm, slammed him down with a bang, pinning him firmly into the dirt.

Lin Wen glanced over and discovered it was the giant man called Uncle Jie. Not far beside him stood that pretty-faced young man and five other hulking men.

When the pretty-faced young man saw Lin Wen's gaze sweep over, he even waved excitedly. "Don't worry, Lord Lin! Uncle Jie will protect you!"

Lin Wen had no time to concern himself with his bizarre form of address or sudden change in attitude. He immediately said to the black-clad giant, "Let him go!"

Uncle Jie slowly rose to his feet and pulled the disaster victim up as well.

Lin Wen spoke kindly to the middle-aged man. "Don't be afraid. Tell me carefully—what did he say at the time? What did he do?"

Fear and anger warred across the poor victim's face, but he still gathered his courage and recounted what had happened in detail.

It was nothing more than the usual business of deceiving those above while concealing the truth from those below, throwing his weight around, and lining his own pockets. After hearing it all, Lin Wen turned to the short, fat man. "What else do you have to say?"

The short, fat man burst into tears. "Governor Lin! I-I, at the time, they—they saw there was so little medicine and got angry. I was afraid the disaster victims would beat me up, that my personal safety would be threatened, so that's why I said those things. I was wrong, I really was wrong! From now on, I'll be careful when riding or walking and won't lose the medicine again, Governor Lin!"

At his words, the thirty-odd disaster victims all showed angry expressions. The middle-aged man on the platform had gone red-eyed, his fists clenched tight, yet no one spoke, and no one moved.

Lin Wen knew this was the negative result of the Empire's deep-rooted abuses, its social climate, and Uncle Jie's earlier use of force. But it did not affect the overall situation.

If the short, fat man had only done this much, the aura around him would not have been so utterly black.

"At 6:51 PM on the 21st, where were you, and what were you doing?"

The short, fat man froze. His face turned pale. He tried to put on an act, but he could not hide the trembling of his legs.

Lin Wen raised his voice. "Huang Mingxiao, what did he do?"

A few seconds of silence passed.

After swiftly searching through his memories, Huang Mingxiao answered, "He said the epidemic among the disaster victims was relatively severe, so he withdrew another thirty-eight bottles of AbbVie Johnson Type III Antibiotic from the warehouse. At the time, that was the last batch of medicine."

Lin Wen turned to the other side. "Did he distribute the medicine?"

The middle-aged man's face had already twisted with rage. "That dog-bastard didn't distribute a single thing!"

Lin Wen turned to the short, fat man and demanded sharply, "Where is the medicine you took? Where did it go?"

The short, fat man's lips trembled, but no words came out. He desperately tried to find an excuse, but it was futile. Before facts as solid as iron, no lie could possibly hold together.

"And at 6:51 PM on the 22nd, where were you, and what were you doing?"

The short, fat man's expression had become one of uncontrollable terror. "I-I was eating. I didn't do anything. I just had a headache, so I went b-back to Huai Town to-to have dinner with friends..."

Lin Wen stared into his eyes. "Was Aibo from the distributorship department of AbbVie Johnson Pharmaceutical Company your friend?"

"I-I-I-I don't know..."

"Whose card is bank account number 91298373861? At 7:33 PM on the 22nd, who transferred 30,250 Imperial yuan into it, and why?"

The short, fat man could no longer speak. Every slab of fat on his body was trembling.

With a bang, a heavy fist struck the short, fat man in the face. It was not Lin Wen.

He merely turned to face everyone, and the booming voice from the electric loudspeaker rang across the wilderness beyond the town.

"Yu Dachang! Guilty of dereliction of duty, murder, and crimes against humanity, resulting in the deaths of thirty-one disaster victims. Your crimes are unforgivable. Sentenced to death. Immediate execution!"

Fang Yaobo, standing nearby, seemed to want to say something, but Lin Wen ignored him. He turned and drew a specially made short gun from the belt of the black-clad giant.

Uncle Jie was slightly surprised, but he did not stop him, letting him draw the short gun.

Lin Wen flicked off the safety and aimed the short gun at the short, fat man's head.

Bang!

The deafening gunshot rang across the wilderness.

The high-velocity Type 59 pointed-shell bullet from the short gun punched straight through his head. Because the distance was so close, it only left a through-shot wound, making the scene somewhat less horrifying.

The short, fat man's eyes bulged wide, as though he could not believe he had died just like that.

With a thud.

His corpse toppled onto the wooden platform. Even the disaster victim who had been beating him was stunned.

The sound of his fall was amplified through the loudspeaker to the entire crowd.

Not a sound could be heard.

Several seconds later, Fang Yaobo's dry voice finally came through. "The... the charges are upheld. Imprisoned in the death cells. E-executed after the autumn harvest, uh..."

The next second, earth-shaking cheers drowned out heaven and earth.