Fierce! A Desperate Counterattack

A tidal wave seemed to surge through the courtroom, crashing over everyone and swallowing them whole.

That was right.

Under Special Defense, when someone violently threatened your life, you were no longer bound by the requirement of a "proportionate response"!

You could fight back without limit. As long as the threat objectively remained, you could strike even if the attacker stopped resisting. You could kill him without bearing responsibility!

"The deceased, Li Erniu, escalated his attack to attempted murder, meeting the conditions for Special Defense."

"Wang Qiang's actions constituted Legitimate Self-Defense. He should be acquitted!"

Xu De took a deep breath and slowly sat down.

His argument was well reasoned and backed by precedent. Unfortunately...

"Rejected!"

At the Prosecution Bench, Hu Guang, who had remained silent until now, rose with a cold look in his eyes. He faced Xu De and said:

"The defense is overlooking our argument: the thirty-second gap after Wang Qiang got out of the car!"

"Not what happened after the victim seized the knife!"

Thirty seconds...

Those damn thirty seconds again!

Xu De felt a surge of frustration. The prosecutors handling this second hearing had revised their indictment, and their case was now leagues stronger than in the first.

Difficult... extremely difficult!

"Prosecution, there is no evidence that the defendant cursed, shouted at, or pursued anyone during the thirty seconds after he got out of the car!"

Xu De fought his point.

"Furthermore, the defendant is older. He needed time to process what had happened!"

"Those thirty seconds were a lapse in thought, not a provocation!"

Order had broken down... completely.

The usual procedural statements were long gone. The case had clearly moved into open debate.

Hu Guang refused to give an inch. In his fitted black suit, he once again projected an overwhelming presence.

"Emotions and subjective intent are inseparable from actions!"

His booming voice carried one challenge after another.

"The defense just said the defendant needed time to think before acting."

"But according to the testimony, when the deceased, Li Erniu, approached with a knife, the defendant—after thirty seconds of thought—clearly took a stance to confront him!"

"And multiple actions in a single case form a continuous sequence."

"Taken together with his suspected 'pursuit' from inside the police car..."

Emotion, intent, and action were inextricably bound.

Put it this way.

Even when police investigated a crime, they used the wounds on the victim's body to determine whether the killer had acted "intentionally."

And if he had, they asked what emotion had driven him.

If it was anger, they investigated the victim's acquaintances to find someone the victim might have angered!

Thus, working backward from the result...

"In conclusion, defendant Wang Qiang clearly acted with 'intent' during the incident!"

Hu Guang's words struck straight at the heart of the matter.

"Absurd!"

Xu De slammed both hands on the table. Bang! Bang! The sounds rang in everyone's ears, venting his outrage.

He looked up, anger plain on his face, and met the two prosecutors' gazes without flinching.

"Prosecution, let me emphasize this..."

"Article 20 of the Eastern Kingdom's Criminal Law imposes no 'duty to retreat' in cases of Legitimate Self-Defense."

"No statute required Wang Qiang to back away!"

The law did not require you to flee or dodge.

If someone came at you with a knife and you fought back reasonably, no one could fault you for fighting instead of running.

"But it does affect the legal determination!"

Hu Guang shot back. Nearly ten meters apart, the two turned words into blades and clashed fiercely across the courtroom.

"Excessive Self-Defense has strict conditions: exceeding necessary limits and causing serious harm!"

"In judging necessity, if a person 'could easily escape without danger' but chose to stay and fight, striking hard, that exceeded what was necessary."

"Defendant Wang Qiang clearly meets that description!"

He finished his argument.

An eerie silence settled over the First Courtroom.

Nearly five hundred people were present, yet the room was quiet enough to hear one another breathe. No one spoke loudly; not even a whisper or murmur could be heard.

Everyone stared blankly at the judges' area.

Their faces all seemed to say, Who am I? Where am I?

Why?

Because that entire clash between prosecutor and defense counsel had unfolded in just five minutes!

Five minutes!

This was no simple sum like one plus one. They had to know the statutes by heart, apply their own interpretations, shape their responses into arguments, and deliver them on the spot!

If there was one way to describe it...

It was two martial arts masters trading moves and counters, exchanging hundreds of blows in a matter of breaths!

Bystanders could not even make out the techniques. They saw only flashes of steel and showers of sparks.

Right now, even ordinary "masters," let alone bystanders, could only stare in disbelief.

"Which school... did Attorney Xu graduate from?"

Wang Chao, himself a graduate of a top-tier university, felt his eye twitch at the sight. He swallowed hard.

Did he and Xu De really both hold degrees from leading universities in the country? Why hadn't he learned to argue like that?

Had his school been holding out on him!?

"Yanda University."

Lin Yue took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her forehead. Her mind felt overloaded and feverishly hot. Clearly, she was struggling to follow it too.

But at least she could keep up with the reasoning.

A moment later, Lin Yue steadied herself and looked back toward the judges' area.

At the judges' area.

"Haa..."

Seated at the Defendant's Bench, Xu De let out a long breath and rubbed his brow. He knew he could not keep this up.

His stamina was limited, while the prosecutors could take turns and wear him down all day.

He had to... attack from another angle!

With that thought...

"Presiding Judge."

"The prosecution has expressly argued that the defendant, Wang Qiang, unnecessarily stayed when he could have escaped."

Xu De did not hesitate. As he handed over his documents, he changed tack:

"On this point, the defense states that the provision the prosecution cites does not apply at all!"

"And what I have here is the medical examination report on defendant Wang Qiang, submitted by the prosecution."

After the incident, Wang Qiang had been in terrible shape.

How terrible?

Well, the first hearing had ended with Xu De's argument that "no one saw Wang Qiang take the initiative to kill the deceased" for a reason...

Someone at the scene really had beaten Wang Qiang!

The prosecution could not prove whether anyone else had intervened during the "arm wrestling." This time, they had reopened the case.

And correspondingly...

"According to the medical report, defendant Wang Qiang sustained serious injuries to several parts of his body."

"These included, but were not limited to, extensive bruising and trauma to his elbows, back, the backs of his thighs, and the area between his waist and hips!"

"And among those injuries..."

Xu De's eyes sharpened. He launched his desperate counterattack.

"There was an obvious blunt-force wound to the back of Wang Qiang's head. It nearly killed him on the spot!"

"That wound allows us to reconstruct what happened after the defendant got out of the car. There was someone behind him—not an empty, safe path, but a person who nearly killed him!"

"In conclusion, the prosecution's accusation contradicts the facts. Defendant Wang Qiang was forced to stay and struggle with the deceased, Li Erniu!"

The injury... the wound to the back of his head?

Its shape could reveal the direction of the blow. That, in turn, established that someone had been behind him, preventing him from returning to the car "quickly and safely."

The prosecution's claim would collapse on its own!

Clearly.

Hu Guang and Wang Wei saw the point too—and found its weakness!

"Objection!"

Wang Wei spoke first. His expression was grave as he declared:

"The available evidence does not prove that anyone was behind Wang Qiang during the 'thirty-second gap.'"

"The wound to the back of his head could very well have been inflicted by a third party during his struggle with Li Erniu!"

"Together with the 'attitude' and 'initiative' discussed earlier... defendant Wang Qiang clearly engaged in Intentional Injury!"

The injury was real, but when it had happened remained a mystery.

No one knew whether someone had blocked Wang Qiang's retreat at the time. Without supporting evidence, the defense could not establish it. And if they could not, the Trial Hearing would tilt toward the prosecution.

Besides.

The events of the case formed a continuous sequence!

If one point was in doubt, it could be inferred from the defendant's earlier actions.

His emotions, his conduct, the suspected "pursuit" inside the police car, the "thirty-second gap"...

Taken together, those suspicious points could legally establish "intent"!

Most importantly...

Legitimate Self-Defense had an unwritten rule. Although the law spoke of a "proportionate response"—as if someone slapped you once and you could only slap them once in return—

in practice, when courts heard cases... matching force was not enough.

If someone caused you a minor injury, your counterattack could only leave them with a negligible injury or none at all. Only then would it count as Legitimate Self-Defense!

Go beyond that, or even match the harm, and you would generally end up facing either Excessive Self-Defense or a finding of mutual fighting.

"Haa... the head of the Second Procuratorial Department's First Case Team..."

Xu De watched Hu Guang, his eyes flickering. The man was undeniably capable. After their exchanges, Xu De could already feel his mind tiring.

Across from him, the two prosecutors took turns, their thinking still clear.

That was the drawback of working alone without a team. They could wear him down simply by dragging things out!

But... that did not mean they could wear Xu De down!

"Prosecution, can a defendant's attitude be corroborated by his other actions in the same sequence of events?"

Xu De abruptly changed course and put the question to them.

Wang Wei paused and frowned. After thinking for a moment, he nodded. "Yes."

If he denied it, the prosecution's own argument would lose its footing.

But if he agreed...

"Good!"

Xu De did not hesitate. He showed his hand, raising a tricky angle no one had explored in the first hearing.

That was...

Use the opponent's own methods against him!

"Presiding Judge."

"According to the prosecution, if the events of a case may be judged from their continuity..."

"Then after the struggle that ended in death, defendant Wang Qiang was left with severe wounds, bruises, and abrasions!"

"By contrast, the deceased, Li Erniu, had only the fatal wound resulting from his own assault—an assault that could have killed the defendant. He had no other bruises!"

"Then."

"Does this objective evidence not show that my client did not pursue him to vent his emotions or use excessive force!?"

"Furthermore..."

The next moment, Xu De made a statement that seemed to defy common sense and logic.

"After the incident, defendant Wang Qiang was not arrested. He..."

"Turned himself in!"

Turned... himself in?

For an instant, everyone fell silent.

Then shock spread across their faces, and they began whispering to one another.

They remembered.

Xu De had indeed raised Wang Qiang's Voluntary Surrender at the first hearing.

But all attention had been seized by the claim that Wang Qiang had acted to help someone in danger. No one had thought much of it; they had assumed Xu De was simply saying whatever he could before time ran out.

But now, he seemed serious. And if that was so...

He had turned himself in?

Seven police officers had been at the scene, and one had even fired a warning shot. How could that count as voluntary surrender?!

"May I ask the prosecution, if we consider two established facts together..."

Xu De's gaze darkened. His face remained expressionless, but a cool rationality showed in his eyes.

"Can they prove that the defendant had no malicious intent to harm, no intention of pursuing anyone, and showed a cooperative attitude—thereby dispelling suspicion of intent!?"

His words fell.

An eerie silence settled over the room. For a long time, no one could speak.

Until...

In a daze,

the two at the Prosecution Bench swallowed and came to their senses. Then a voice rang out.

"Objection!!!"

Prosecutor Hu Guang shot to his feet, his eyes fixed on Xu De as if he could see right through him.

He slammed both hands onto the table with a resounding bang.

"Defense counsel, after the incident, the scene was under control. At least seven police officers were present, and the defendant was less than two meters from them. Therefore, the defendant, Wang Qiang..."

"Did not surrender voluntarily!"

Voluntary surrender? Seven police officers and a warning shot...

Hu Guang refused to believe Xu De could find any way to frame those circumstances as voluntary surrender!