CH 26

On the day the court convened, Joshua Dale tossed about the entire night sleeplessly, getting out of bed at five in the morning with dark eye bags under his eyes. His sister Rosie was curled up on another bed, wrapped in a wide quilt like a shrimp.

The environment of the hotel was many times better than that old house of theirs; it even came with soothing aromatherapy to aid sleep. The little girl slept very soundly. To be precise, she had been sleeping very soundly these past few days because she was never frozen awake in the middle of the night, was never frightened awake from the movement of rats and cockroaches, and was never shocked awake by the shouting and cursing of drunkards in the streets. She had never slept this soundly before. 

How he wished that she could always sleep so soundly, but he was unable to make any kind of guarantee.

Because today, he was going to trial.

He was very apprehensive, very opposed to it, and unbelievably pessimistic about it…

The ventilation in the hotel room was good; at least, much fresher than the air on the streets. But he felt that he had no way of staying cooped up in this confined, quiet space, feeling so suffocated that he was about to puke. 

So, he tucked the quilt in neatly around Rosie, put on a jacket, and stepped out the door.

At five in the early morning, the sky hadn’t yet turned bright. It was gloomy and overcast with thick clouds, looking like it was going to be a cloudy day.

From the ground floor of the hotel, Joshua sniffed the chilly air, the cold winds traveling through his nasal cavity and boring into his heart. He wasn’t quite a completely free man now, and it would be difficult to tell what his future would be. Under the many restrictions, he had many people he couldn’t meet, and many places he couldn’t go.

And his lawyer had warned him not to run around all over the place.

So, he wandered aimlessly back and forth the dark alleyways like a man at death’s door, desperately trying to seize the end of the rope.

Over the years, he had hung around all sorts of construction sites taking on all types of jobs, without conscious design, developing a pair of legs with superb endurance. For him, the distance from Silver Tea hotel and Two Moon Street was no more than a half hour’s jog.

Thus, by the time he came back to his senses, he was already standing in front of his own house.

A long time ago when his grandmother was still around, there was always a portable lamp lighting the house through the night. The brightness was kept dim in order to save power, but if anyone got up in the middle of the night, they wouldn’t have to stumble about in the dark. 

At that time, no matter how naughty he was outside, he would always see that in a certain room, the ball of light of a portal lamp quietly reflected in the glass window, and his grandmother in the armchair, waiting for him to return home.

Joshua Dale stared at the dark window in a daze for a while. He stuck his hand into his pocket, but it was empty.

He hadn’t brought the key to the house with him. It was left in the hotel, pressed under Rosie’s pillow.

So he continued to stare at the door for a while more. He didn’t know what he was thinking, but he suddenly raised his hand; and he hesitantly knocked thrice on the door. 

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His back against the door, he sat to the ground like a person without a home to return to. He sat there in a daze for a long time.

The bells at Two Moon Street would sound once in the morning at eight o’clock, and once in the evening at seven o’clock, never a second later. The bell tolled eight times. As if pulling out of sleep, Joshua stood up and rubbed his frozen hands together. Then, he slowly ran back in the direction of the hotel. 

—

“Where did you go?” Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan were talking in the hotel corridor, and seeing him come back, asked.

Joshua sullenly said, “Morning jog.”

Could a morning jog make someone look like they were going to a funeral? 

Yan Suizhi didn’t expose him, nor did he ask anything more, simply nodding his head.

“The weather looks terrible today. It’s overcast and might start raining anytime.” Joshua’s gaze hung down, he said, “I don’t think that it’s a good omen.”

Yan Suizhi, “Now that you’ve said it, you jinxed the two of us as well.”

Joshua’s lips thinned, but he didn’t smile. Today, he was really unable to get his spirits up at all. “I don’t know. I just feel… very sad. Like no one will believe me…” 

Generally, at this type of timing, someone would always respond with “I believe you”, whether or not it was true.

But Yan Suizhi didn’t say anything. He had experienced a lot, and he didn’t believe himself to be a good person either. There were times when his heart would soften, but more often his heart was startlingly cold. Regrettably, he was unable to say any words of consolation to his client. For him, the relationship between a lawyer and their client was as such—

He needed his client to trust him as much as possible, to tell him the whole truth. And indeed, in many cases, he was the only saving grace that his client could trust. However, he couldn’t wholly trust his client.

He had to always maintain his reservations about what they said. 

In the end, Yan Suizhi simply gave Joshua a pat on the shoulder. Instead, it was Gu Yan who asked, “Before the court session begins, let me confirm with you once more. Did you do it?”

Yan Suizhi glanced at him askew.

He asked it very evenly, and his tone was as cold as usual, just as if this were part of routine.

Yet, at this time, Joshua felt that even if it was just asking him a question, having a person willing to listen carefully to his answer would make him feel better. So he looked into Gu Yan’s eyes, shook his head, and he solemnly said, “No.” 

Once this word came out, the heart shuddering with cold winds in his chest, suddenly found a resting place.

At 9:15 a.m., Joshua Dale and his defence lawyer Gu Yan arrived at the courtroom, along with Yan Suizhi who was dragging his injured leg, wilfully refusing to show any signs of disability.

The pre-trial conference in Wine City was very informal, hastily organised and chaotic. It wasn’t the first time that Gu Yan and Yan Suizhi had appeared in court in such a place. Many rules commonly used in other places were not well-enforced here, so they would always collect as much evidence as possible and find as many loopholes as possible to ensure a foothold in this chaotic environment. 

Gu Yan and the prosecutor showed each other their evidence and quickly went through procedure.

At 10 a.m., Courtroom 1, the judge was in place.

Gu Yan and the prosecutor nodded at the judge, and Yan Suizhi sat in the seat behind Gu Yan, crossing his legs under the cover of the table to avoid putting weight on his still-swollen injured leg. He looked at that judge’s droopy eyes and pursed lips, and he tapped the electronic pen between his fingers lightly against the table with a gentle thud.

“It seems that Joshua’s premonition isn’t inaccurate today.” Seated behind Gu Yan, Yan Suizhi whispered to the back of his head, “Such an overcast day is really not a good omen. We actually got Judge Murray Liu…” 

Gu Yan didn’t turn around. He merely coughed lightly, hinting that he shouldn’t be so unrestrained even if he kept his voice down.

But anyone who had dealt with this droopy-eyed judge knew that this was a judge with bias, often failing to treat the defendant with impartiality. The success rate of trying to plead not guilty in his hands was astonishingly low.

The prosecution and the defence took their seats, and the defendant, Joshua Dale, was shown to his place by the two bailiffs.

After he sat down, he took a deep breath and stared dead ahead at the entrance on the right side. From there, the jury were filing into the courtroom one by one, taking their places in the jury box. 

Those were the people who would decide his fate—a motley group of strangers chosen from a crowd.

When everyone was in attendance, Judge Murray Liu lowered his eyes. By his hand was a heavy tome that listed the standard sentences that a judge should use in court.

In truth, the judge had used these sentences countless times over and could long ago have recited them by heart. But he still had to routinely glance at the open tome, symbolic of the rigour and the meticulousness of the court.

The first thing the jury did after arriving was to take the oath. 

Murray Liu looked at the jury and said calmly, “The court requires your formal oath to give the most just verdict for this case about to be heard. Do you swear to give the fairest verdict in a faithful and dutiful manner?”

“I swear on my honour that I will uphold justice. If anyone wrongfully accused is exonerated, I will be glad for him; if anyone is wrongfully convicted, I will bear guilt for the rest of my life. I will faithfully try the defendant and let the law exercise its power, in accordance with the evidence.”

Joshua Dale exhaled slowly. He pressed his gently trembling fingers into his knees, clenching them slowly.

He was so nervous that he couldn’t even understand the simple words the judge used when pronouncing his name and confirming his identity. He stared at the judge for nearly five seconds before gradually and finally digesting the words. He nodded, sounding as if he was sleepwalking, “That’s me.” 

Then, it again took him a very long time before he realised that he could be seated.

By the time he sat down and looked to the middle of the courtroom, he found that the prosecutor had already begun his opening statement. The other party’s voice seemed to cross two mountains before entering his ears.

“—the defendant, Joshua Dale, used a bronze ornament sitting on a closet in the south-west of Kitty Bell’s house and a coarse cloth pillow on the sofa in the living room to first muffle any sound and then hit the back of Kitty Bell’s head, causing Bell to fall into a coma, preventing her from alerting the police. He took away one of Bell’s jewellery boxes containing several pieces of jewellery as well as an unbound asset exchange cheque. Joshua Dale was very familiar with the daily routine of Kitty Bell and her grandnephew Chester Bell, so he was able to leave the room precisely when Chester Bell returned home, hide in the yard and use while Chester Bell entered the house to climb back over the wall back to his own residence. All the above facts are supported by material evidence and witness testimony, as well as Joshua Dale’s own oral confession…”

The prosecutor voluminously raised the evidence in a clear and organised manner, at the end of his statement, looking towards Judge Murray Liu and nodding at him. 

“I express my deepest condolences for what Mdm Kitty Bell went through,” Murray Liu nodded, and turned to look at Gu Yan. The lines of his mouth were extremely tight and his face turned three times meaner within a split second. “Defence counsel? You may now present your opening statement.”

Generally, the opening statement was for the prosecution to describe the alleged crime, the course of the case, and the evidence they had at hand; then for the defence to state their main points of defence and emphasise their position.

Joshua Dale clenched his fists as he stared at Gu Yan. Yan Suizhi also lifted his gaze to look at the… handsome back of Student Gu’s head.

As the court quietly waited for him to speak, Gu Yan raised his hand and made a hand gesture to Judge Murray Liu. 

That gesture meant that the defence opted out of its opening statement.

The tautness in Murray Liu’s expression instantly loosened; he looked somewhat stunned. But Yan Suizhi reclined back, the corners of his lips cocking upwards.