Arrogance!

A smile appeared on Xu De's face. "Exactly what it sounds like."

"So you're saying..."

Lin Yue stared at Xu De, her dazed expression wavering slightly as she opened her mouth.

"The defendant, Wang Qiang... caused Li Erniu's death because he was acting bravely to protect a police officer!?"

"Yes." Xu De nodded.

Lin Yue pressed on. "Li Erniu killed himself... or rather, caused his own death? And he also committed attempted murder!?"

Seeing that she had grasped his point, Xu De looked pleased.

"Exactly!"

Lin Yue started to speak, stopped, then nearly spoke again. After a long while, she fell silent and swallowed every question she had.

Protect a police officer? Since when did a police officer need Wang Qiang's protection!?

No, wait...

"Can you really argue something like that in court?" Lin Yue took a deep breath, her voice thick with worry.

"Why not?"

Xu De found her reaction baffling. He spread his hands and leaned back in his chair, looking at her in confusion.

"I don't know what you're saving for court, but judging by what you've told me, don't you think this is a little..."

Lin Yue folded her arms and searched for the right word before finally putting it tactfully.

"Outrageous!"

Forget arguing it at the Trial Hearing. The moment Xu De submitted this, the prosecutor might pull off his belt and whip him like a spinning top!

"What's so outrageous about it? Everything I'm proposing is lawful and proper."

"If it's illegal, tell Chen Wei to sue me!"

Xu De remained utterly unconcerned. He waved a hand and said casually,

"Anyway... if Your Excellency really wants to help..."

"Find me a male lawyer you know over the next couple of days. If you can't, I won't press you."

Lin Yue fell silent.

After a long while,

she sighed deeply, helplessness showing on her face.

"All right."

She gave in. She had no idea how the prosecutor would react to Xu De saying all that.

But everything Xu De had come up with was legal from every conceivable angle. There wasn't a shred of illegality in it. Even if the prosecutor lost his temper, he couldn't do a thing to Xu De!

As for finding someone...

"I do have someone in mind. It's just..."

Lin Yue gathered her thoughts. A face surfaced in her mind, and her expression turned a little strange.

Xu De noticed her expression.

Intrigued, he raised an eyebrow from his chair.

"Just what?"

"It's just..."

Lin Yue thought for a long time before finally forcing out an answer.

"He's a bit of a free spirit!"

"A free spirit?"

Xu De froze. What kind of description was that?

"He doesn't take direction? Won't follow orders?" he guessed. "Let me be clear: I need someone trained in law who'll do as he's told."

Lin Yue shook her head and replied gently,

"He's trained in law and graduated from a top university here. When something comes up, he follows instructions and doesn't make mistakes."

He was capable and didn't make mistakes...

So what made him a free spirit?

Xu De didn't understand, but he wasn't one to get hung up on it, so he let it go.

"Good. If he's willing to come..."

"I'll pay him a thousand yuan out of my own pocket. Sorry for the trouble, Your Excellency. Please talk to him for me."

Lin Yue nodded.

She looked up at Xu De, her gaze complicated.

As a lawyer,

she knew all about the so-called "ambulance chasers" people talked about. She had even gone up against plenty of them.

But compared with this man, those supposed ambulance chasers... were positively innocent!

At the very least, they could read every law book cover to cover and still never think of stealing a child as a tactic!

And yet he had managed to avoid breaking any laws whatsoever. Despite her contempt for ambulance chasers, she found herself willing to help him!

Lin Yue's feelings were complicated.

So complicated that she even forgot to object to being called "Your Excellency." She sighed and said,

"All right."

"I'll be going."

Xu De gave her a friendly smile and stood up. "Take care. I won't see you out."

Lin Yue wasn't one to stand on ceremony. She turned and headed for the exit.

At the front door, she pulled her coat tighter and wrapped her scarf around her cheeks, as though trying to bundle up her tangled thoughts as well.

Creak...

The door opened, and she stepped into the cold wind.

Xu De looked away.

He felt nothing in particular. He simply gathered the documents on the desk and slipped them into his briefcase.

He had done everything he needed to do.

Now all that remained... was to wait five days for the Trial Hearing!

Meanwhile,

"Hah! What a wet-behind-the-ears fool!"

Elsewhere,

Chen Wei left Jinmao Law Firm and returned to Yang Teng Law Firm, where he worked, with anger churning in his gut.

Bang!

He shoved the front door open, his face dark. After striding inside, he slammed his briefcase onto a table.

Bang!

In the firm's lobby,

several lawyers who knew Chen Wei looked up at the noise. Seeing the displeasure written across his face, one raised an eyebrow and asked,

"What happened, Attorney Chen? Run into a difficult client?"

At the sound of the question,

Chen Wei's anger only flared higher. He drew a deep breath and said,

"Ran into some wet-behind-the-ears lawyer!"

That was all he needed to say. His colleagues immediately understood.

Law was a field of extremes. Newcomers were either scheming and ruthless or fired up with a passion to right every wrong in the world.

For veterans like them, running into the latter on a case...

was a genuine headache. Those people wouldn't budge no matter what anyone said, and they'd fight to the bitter end.

"Never mind that. Have my two clients arrived?"

Chen Wei took a deep breath, reined in his emotions, and looked around at the others.

A colleague replied, "The clients in the Wang Qiang case?"

Chen Wei nodded. "Yes."

It was at their request that he had gone to speak with Xu De. After their discussion at the police station, he had assumed Xu De would have come to his senses and agreed to cooperate by now. Instead... he had been berated a second time!

"Whew, Attorney Chen, people are making quite a racket over this case."

The colleague continued,

"Besides, the trial's coming up soon. Of course the clients are here. They're waiting in the reception room."

How could you gauge the importance of a case?

By the public outcry!

And the case in Li Family Village had already set all of Greenwood City ablaze with debate!

A child abducted, a ten-year search, the buyers treating him like a dog and refusing to return him, the victim's father killing a buyer and now facing a murder charge...

With all those factors piled together, how could the public outcry be anything but fierce?

"All right. Got it."

Chen Wei nodded again.

He left his briefcase where it was and headed straight for the reception room.

Before long, he reached the door and gently turned the handle.

Creak...

The door opened.

Li Youcai and Liu Cui came into view through the gap. They had been dozing, but turned at the sound.

The moment they saw Chen Wei, their eyes lit up and they hurried over.

"Well? Did that ungrateful woman agree!?"

Liu Cui asked eagerly.

As she spoke, she seemed to see Wang Mei waiting on her for the rest of her life. Her voice brimmed with anticipation.

"Heh, it's murder, after all. Her father killed someone, so he's got to pay!"

Li Youcai smugly lit his pipe, his voice drifting through the curling smoke.

"If she doesn't want him punished, she has to sign."

He sounded certain he had Wang Mei cornered.

Just as he had kept her under his thumb for the past ten years!

So what if they had abducted someone? She had never been able to do a thing to them!

Unfortunately for them, reality was another matter.

Chen Wei's face tightened. He hesitated, then shut the door and answered,

"They... didn't sign."

The words landed.

The two of them froze. A moment later, shrill voices rang out, thick with their rural dialect.

Li Youcai stared in disbelief. He took the pipe from his mouth and said, "Didn't sign?"

"Have they lost their minds? They dare refuse even now!?"

Liu Cui's face turned uglier still, and a furious screech burst from her pinched features.

"Her father killed our son! All we want is a grandson, and she won't even give us that!?"

With that,

Liu Cui began slapping her thigh and wailing.

"Heavens, where's the justice? How are we supposed to live? They're trying to end our family line!"

Chen Wei listened to their howls.

"Don't worry. The court has issued the trial summons. The hearing is in five days!"

He hurried to reassure them.

"Once we gain the upper hand at the Trial Hearing in five days..."

"They'll be the ones begging us to sign a Letter of Understanding!"

As far as he was concerned, the other side simply refused to face reality. The arguments at the first hearing in five days would shatter every one of their foolish hopes!

At those words,

Liu Cui and Li Youcai brightened at once and stopped wailing.

"Really!?"

Chen Wei smiled with complete confidence and took a couple of sips of tea from the table.

"Their lawyer's just an inexperienced kid. I asked around at his firm. He has no criminal Trial Hearing record at all. They're bound to lose!"

"Ha! Thank you, Attorney Chen!"

Li Youcai and Liu Cui were overjoyed.

Once they had his assurance,

the two hurried off, eager to get home and play with their grandson.

After seeing them out,

Chen Wei let out a long breath. He watched them leave, then fell into thought.

Apart from evidence, there was often another factor that determined how a case would go.

The judge's discretion!

In other words, the judge's personal judgment. It mattered enormously. Aside from the evidence, the only thing that could sway the outcome was which side the judge favored.

And what was most likely to influence the judge?

Public opinion!

In 2002, newspapers offered the clearest picture of public opinion surrounding the Li Family Village case.

At that thought, Chen Wei

walked straight to a nearby public newspaper rack and pulled out a copy delivered from Greenwood City that morning, still warm to the touch.

"Rustle!"

He unfolded the newspaper, its pages crackling crisply.

The next second, a report on public opinion about the case leapt out at him!

[Morality in decline! Shocking discovery in Greenwood City...]