CH 69

Guan Wenji was removed from the courtroom and the witness stand was once again vacated. Bard was only startled back to attention by the sound of the judge’s gavel.

The one item that should have been most advantageous to him, the one item most able to convince the jury to side with him, had been branded as non-credible evidence just like that. 42 hours of wakefulness without rest, when extrapolated to arrive at a logical conclusion, was worse than a simple lack of sobriety. How did you keep the suspect awake when he was drowsy? How did you induce him to keep talking when he was over exhausted? How did you tear down his psychological defences and break his will? 

If it was a sharp-tongued and smart counsel, he could even weave this 42 hours in the direction of torture.

But that intern didn’t. Just as if he were having a friendly sparring session, he stopped right at the fringe.

Bard gave a long look to the defence table. Frankly, if he was the opposing counsel, he would have used this issue to his advantage and not finished until he squeezed the maximum value out of those 42 hours. If he wanted to win, he had to take every opportunity to turn the tables and nail down the other side.

After all, a nail was a nail. In this profession, the victor was the king. 

It was the decade-long experience he accumulated fighting lawsuits… Of course, this couldn’t even be called experience. It was common sense in the eyes of everyone, probably.

His thoughts roving, he scanned the courtroom, inadvertently meeting Brewer Manson’s hawk-like gaze. At once, he hastily dropped his gaze and straightened his expression, focusing his attention back on the case.

Soon, there was a new witness on the witness stand. Bard had already risen at the judge’s prompt to begin his examination.

There were still people whispering in the courtroom. Gu Yan could hear them even without turning his head, coming from Brewer Manson’s subordinates and assistants. The few words that he could vaguely catch were in the same tangent as Prosecutor Bard’s thoughts. Only Brewer Manson himself didn’t respond, remaining very silent.

The doubts that Bard would ask now, possibly after another decade more, he would no longer ask again.

The only people who could fully understand Yan Suizhi’s approach in this courtroom were Gu Yan, and perhaps the senior judge.

Yan Suizhi had said this a long time ago: the members of the jury weren’t fools. They were people chosen from all walks of life, representing the diversity of the populace, with contrary ideologies that collided against each other. But no matter what, one thing was for certain. They must have a certain level of judgement, and were regarded as people capable of upholding justice.

They didn’t need to be preached to, they didn’t need to be spoonfed ideas. Even, to a certain extent, these people had their own pride. Not everyone was entitled to sit on a jury and decide a person’s freedom or life and death. It was only natural that they had their own pride. 

Prideful people didn’t swallow down ideas that were spoonfed to them. They would resist, reject, and even rebel.

So, it was good to stop at that point. The follow-up questions that Bard could think of, the jury could too.

And what they could think of themselves, would always be better than what was shoved down their throats.

Apart from that, there was perhaps another point… 

A point that even the judge didn’t grasp…

Yan Suizhi was looking towards the prosecution table, listening to Bard question the witness. Whilst from the corner of his eye, Gu Yan seemed to be looking right at him.

“What are you staring at me for?” Yan Suizhi suddenly asked in a low voice.

Gu Yan, “…” 

A certain someone had mucked around in court for so many years, yet still refused to follow proper court etiquette.

Everyone else would sit on the edge of their seats, either conscientiously using the time to go through the case file or listen intently to the opposing counsel and witnesses. Whereas people like him who would still interact with others on occasion, couldn’t be found even if one scoured the galaxy.

Which intern would dare to be so impudent?

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Dane nodded. “The whole of the outer suite was dark. The door was left open by a crack so that we could hear Mr Manson if he needed anything. But the lights in the hallway were dim. It didn’t really help much, it was still very dark inside.” 

Bard said, “Before Mr George Manson was found, you didn’t hear anything suspicious?”

Dane, “Yeah, we didn’t. It would have been difficult for us to hear any small movements. If someone had bumped into something in the suite, we would have found out, but that didn’t happen, unfortunately. That in itself should be enough to tell us something. After all, Mr Manson’s suite… um. There was quite a bit of stuff.”

Bard encouraged him to continue, “What do you mean by quite a bit of stuff?”

“Mr Manson’s suite was like this—plush carpeting covered the ground between the window and the bed, but there was no carpet from the bed to the bathroom. A lot of stuff was scattered on this side; bottles, glasses, clothes, belts, ties, and car keys?” 

Dane himself thought it rather outrageous when he spoke of it. Nevertheless, Manson’s family relatives were present and he had to restrain his tone a little.

Bard supplemented his words with several images that he projected onto the holographic screen. “This was the scene in the suite when the lights were turned on after it was discovered that something had happened to Mr Manson.”

The entire courtroom, including the judge whose face had remained wooden until now, went blank for a moment.

Needless to say, the shock from that gripping mess presented on the holographic screen was extraordinary. 

The corners of Brewer Manson’s mouth twitched in a complicated mix of disdain, disgust, and resignation, but he just as quickly suppressed it. Next to him, his assistant only exclaimed once. “Oh…”

And then he rubbed his eyes.

These were the most vital pieces of information that Dane could provide, so Bard quickly wrapped up his examination, at the same time, giving the jury an understanding of these.

Judge Luther said, “Mr Ruan Ye?” 

Completely at ease, Yan Suizhi said, “I don’t have anything to ask.”

Bard, “…”

Inexplicably, now whenever that intern opened his mouth, Bard’s head would fill with complaints.

And so, with this head filled with complaints, he called on his next witness, Zhao Zemu. 

When Zhao Zemu took the witness stand, Gu Yan swept a careless glance over the rows behind him. The Manson family had the most people in the gallery, whereas Zhao Zemu had the least—not a single one.

Previously, there were rumours afoot that the relationship between the Zhao and the Manson family had turned rocky. The Zhao family, originally basking in the shade of the Manson family, no longer had this safety net. Some people guessed that this was due to the better relationship between Zhao Zemu and George Manson, consequently irking Brewer Manson.

It was hard to define what exactly went on in the power struggle between these family successors.

However, a hint of this conflict was apparent even in the courtroom. When Zhao Zemu entered the courtroom, Brewer Manson kept his eyes on the photos on the holographic screen. Only after a long time, when Bard had already questioning Zhao Zemu, did he unceremoniously shift his gaze over. 

His disdain towards Zhao Zemu was only too palpable.

On the other hand, the reason that Zhao Zemu stood on the witness stand was simple. It was because he had seen Chen Zhang’s hand by the window during the estimated time frame of the crime.

“Was the pipe by the wall gripped like this?” Bard demonstrated a gripping motion.

Zhao Zemu shook his head, flipping it. “He gripped it like this.” 

“How long did he held on to it?”

“A few seconds I think, about four or five.”

“And how are you sure that that hand was the defendant’s?” Bard asked.

Zhao Zemu said calmly, “Because there was a ring-shaped smart device on his index finger. The ring had a circular plate on it with two conspicuous horizontal lines that cut across it. Of course, I only noticed this feature. It was verified only afterwards during the police investigation that no one in the villa compound had a smart device like that except for Chen Zhang.” 

Bard put up a photograph of the exterior view of that villa window. From the architecture, if Chen Zhang needed to get from the windowsill on the second floor to the ground floor whilst keeping the sounds of his movements minimal, he would have to grab that pipe to slow down the impact of his landing.

And that hand just happened to appear within the time frame that Chen Zhang likely committed the crime.

Bard quickly rounded up his questions. Yan Suizhi began his cross-examination of the witness.

“Mr Zhao,” Yan Suizhi stood up, greeting him. 

Zhao Zemu gave a small start. While he might have already known who was defending Chen Zhang, it was still a little surprising to actually see him in court. However, he very quickly gathered himself, nodding. “Hello.”

“You saw my client, Chen Zhang’s hand, from the window?”

“As previously said, yes I did.”

“How much of it was showing?” Yan Suizhi asked. 

Zhao Zemu froze for a moment. He gesticulated with his own arm, showing half of the forearm. “About this much. Because he was gripping the pipe like this, I could see a bit of his sleeve and his wrist.”

Yan Suizhi nodded. “I’ve heard something before, I’m not sure if memory serves. Mr Zhao, do you have night blindness?”

“Yeah.” Zhao Zemu thought about it, even laughing mockingly at himself. “There’s even a medical certificate on it.”

Everyone in the villa compound at that time had been made to go through a medical evaluation. 

“Night blindness…” Yan Suizhi repeated once, then asked, “Then how did you see what was outside the window?”

Zhao Zemu replied without flustering. “The lights in my room were on at that time. The light was enough for me to see what was close to the window, and the water pipe happened to fall within that range.”

“Did you have a clear view of it?”

“Yes, very clear.” 

“Did you experience any physical discomfort, such as dizziness, that night?” Yan Suizhi said, “If I’m not mistaken, you pretty much stayed in your room to recuperate for those two days.”

Zhao Zemu shook his head. “No. Actually, I no longer felt any physical discomfort by that time. Staying in my bedroom and not going out was just because of some lingering fear after the diving accident. I wasn’t in a good mood and didn’t want to affect others.”

Yan Suizhi went on to ask, “There was a party going on in the villa that night. Did you consume any alcohol?”

“You mean when I saw the hand?” Zhao Zemu shook his head. “No. I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol before going downstairs to join the party. In fact, I didn’t drink when I came downstairs either, Joe got someone to bring me juice.” 

“So you were perfectly sober the entire night, and didn’t experience dizziness or anything that could affect what you saw?”

“Yes.”

Zhao Zemu said this very confidently.

Yan Suizhi nodded, then clicked the video recording that Bard had earlier used, replaying it. 

That was the video that Laura shot when Gu Yan and Yan Suizhi had already boarded the space shuttle for their return trip. When Gu Yan received it, he had even let Yan Suizhi watch it. Laura never opened the video again after she sent it to them. She had originally intended to send the video to everyone after the party, but the incident involving Manson ended up happening on that same night; the police kept this video recording in their records, not letting others view it until now, where it was used as supporting evidence in court.

Yan Suizhi pulled the progress bar straight to a certain point in the second half of the video. In the video, Zhao Zemu had just been tricked down from upstairs by Glenn and the others, with Chen Zhang following behind. After reaching the hall, they found a corner to sit down.

Chen Zhang was quickly pulled into a conversation about diving by another group of people. They could dimly hear that the contents of the conversation were about how to save oneself if something happened underwater, probably because they were also shaken by what had happened on the dive.

Whereas on the other side, Zhao Zemu kept sitting in that corner watching the party. 

This scene occupied only a corner of this wide-angle video. As the rest of the screen was filled with frenzied partying, and the ruckus was very distracting, this corner was easily overlooked.

Yan Suizhi simply magnified the video so that what was happening in this corner could fill the entire holographic screen.

The spectators in the courtroom could clearly see that the waiter Joe had arranged was carrying a round serving tray with several drinks on it. He stopped around an arm’s length away from Zhao Zemu, then bent down, asking with a smile, “What can I get you to drink? Young Master Joe told me not to serve alcohol, so there’s pear juice, apple juice, and…”

His voice was mostly drowned out by the sound of merrymaking in the background, but it was clear from the way Zhao Zemu’s lips moved that he had asked for apple juice. 

Immediately after, a strange scene appeared.

As the waiter handed the glass over, Zhao Zemu reached out—and he missed.

His hand grasped air at a distance of two or so centimetres from the cup.

The waiter was obviously stunned for a moment as well. Zhao Zemu rubbed his forehead, saying something with a smile to the waiter, looking slightly apologetic. 

The waiter shook his head, giving the usual “it’s alright” type of response.

This time, Zhao Zemu reached out very slowly. When he was close to the cup, his fingers hesitated slightly, seemingly fumbling and wavering, then reaching forward a bit more.

The waiter probably couldn’t bear to keep watching on, placing the cup directly in his hand.

Yan Suizhi played this section and replayed it another three more times like a scoundrel. Then, he asked Zhao Zemu, “You were very certain earlier that you were in good condition all night, that you didn’t consume any alcohol, weren’t experiencing any dizziness, nor showing any symptoms of discomfort that would affect what you saw…” 

“So, how would you explain this?”