CH 57.1

By the time Ning Wan and co arrived at the scene, the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics had placed Chen Shuo on a stretcher, about to take him to the hospital. Having seen his situation with her own eyes, Ning Wan's worries were somewhat alleviated. The simple on-site inspection from the paramedics had revealed that Chen Shuo's leg was fine, and since he still had sensation below his waist, he hadn't become paralyzed. It was something of a blessing at least.

Chen Shuo was currently conscious, but his whole face was scrunched up as he struggled to rise from the stretcher. "Senior sister..."

"Hush and go to the hospital," Ning Wan said to calm him down. "Don't worry, we won't forget about this. Director Ji has already called the police, and I myself am a lawyer, so I'll certainly defend you if you need it. Set your mind at rest."

But the moment Chen Shuo left, the calmness she had maintained in front of him collapsed. A frown creased her face.

The police had already set up a cordon. Since Chen Shuo had been injured by a falling object, the first order of business was to find the "weapon" that had fallen on him. But unexpectedly, despite having searched within a several mile radius of the incident, no trace was to be found. If they couldn't find the weapon, then they wouldn't be able to figure out where it came from, let alone determine the party responsible for the incident. Then wouldn't Chen Shuo have gotten crushed for nothing?

Fu Zheng also looked solemn. "Is there any surveillance in this area?"

The policeman who had arrived at to the scene to collect evidence shook his head. "There's no monitoring in this area. There are cameras at the intersection where there are more people, but they aren't able to cover this area."

Although the police stressed that they should hold out hope and check the intersection camera, when she looked at the camera positions Ning Wan knew that the police had not been blowing her off. Checking the intersection cameras was fruitless, done only because it was better than nothing.

Fu Zheng thought for a moment. "We should just ask Chen Shuo directly. After getting hit, he only fell to the ground, injured. He shouldn't have been unconscious the whole time. Maybe he would know what hit him."

Ning Wan thought it was reasonable, so when Chen Shuo left the operating room that afternoon, the two of them hurried over, bearing flowers and fruit baskets.

Their only consolation was that Chen Shuo had not suffered serious, irreversible injuries. Apart from his broken arm, he had also broken three ribs and needed quiet bedrest.

"Senior sister, you came?" Although exhausted from encountering unexpected disaster and just coming out of the operating room, Chen Shuo's mental state was still fairly good. He was very happy to see Ning Wan entering the ward.

But he soon calmed back down when Fu Zheng followed Ning Wan in.

After inquiring about his situation and saying a few words of concern, Ning Wan remembered that they were here for business. "By the way, Chen Shuo, did you see what hurt you at the time? It's really weird, but we didn't find anything suspicious at the scene."

"No, I didn't see anything..." When speaking about this topic, Chen Shuo lowered his head, avoiding her eyes. He looked like he didn't want to remember it, and was obviously trying to avoid this topic. "It happened so fast at the time that I didn't notice..."

Ning Wan sighed internally. It looked as though they were at a dead end. This was not good.

Even if they didn't know which household threw them, Chen Shuo had been hit while standing below the two high-rises with no other tall buildings around, so the assaulter must be from one of them. To find the falling object, they would have to start there.

Then, according to tort law, unless each building resident had a clear alibi such as not being at home that day, and couldn't otherwise prove that they were the assailant, they would have to share the compensation damages - Chen Shuo's medical expenses, lost time and so on, each household paying a part.

The purpose of this law was to protect the victim to the greatest extent possible. After all, any object falling from a high altitude was very dangerous. Even a small mahjong tile might kill a person. From the standpoint of helping the victim, at least this manner of compensation would ensure that the victim had money for medical treatment, and the tenants who had shared the compensation would be able to compensation from the true assailant if their identity came to light afterward.

When they walked out of Chen Shuo's ward, Ning Wan looked worried and distressed. "We don't know what hit him, and we don't even have any physical evidence, let alone being able to get money out of the residents of those two buildings... On top of that, Chen Shuo must have gone crazy. Such unexpected trouble came his way, and yet he wants me to forget about it. Is this such a simple thing to forget?"

"Even if I take Chen Shuo out of the equation, I have to think about the other residents in the community. The kind of person who can just casually throw things out the window whenever is will likely make a habit of it. If not punished financially by having to pay for damages, they'll do it again. Maybe next time they throw something out, it'll hit another victim, and that next victim might not be as lucky as Chen Shuo. They might be paralyzed or die..."

Fu Zheng pursed his lips, but put forward a guess. "Do you think  that Chen Shuo might not have told the truth?"

Ning Wan hesitated.

"In my opinion," Fu Zheng continued, "Chen Shuo isn't the sort of person who would just let this go. On the contrary, after having known him for a while, I feel like he has a serious, perfectionist sort of personality. An ordinary person might give up because they don't understand the law and feel like it's too much trouble to go through the legalities of defending their rights. However, Chen Shuo is a lawyer himself, so he should have no such concerns there, and he's definitely not the sort of person who will just resign himself to being unlucky. Just now, when you asked him what happened, he wouldn't meet your eyes. I might just be imagining things, but I feel like he knows something, just that he doesn't want to say it for some reason."

Ning Wan had thought Chen Shuo had acted a bit strange, but hadn't put too much thought into it. But now Fu Zheng's analysis  confirmed it to be true.

But Chen Shuo himself was a victim. What was there to hide?

She pondered the matter all the way until she bid goodbye to Fu Zheng. She was planning to go to headquarters to pick up materials for a case, and was still thinking about it as she got on the subway.

The only subway line that led to headquarters was Line 1. It was crowded no matter what time it was, so she could only stand, surrounded by people in every direction. Because one's social bubble didn't exist, although she didn't want to, her line of sight inevitably rested on the screens of the phones the people around here were holding. Some were chatting on WeChat, some playing games, some watching dramas, and there were a few college students gathered together watching some interesting Weibo. Uncaring of the surrounding environment, they chatted and laughed--

"Oh my God. What the hell?! A dog falling from the skies? Like, a flying dog?"

"I dunno, it's falling from such a high story, when you zoom in and look at its expression, it's kinda like it's questioning its life choices..."

"Did it jump off a building? Won't it die falling from such a height? And you guys are all still laughing; that poor dog!"

"I don't know if it jumped off by itself, but the OP said that the dog ought to be okay. This was taken in her neighbourhood. She was hanging her clothes out to dry on the balcony when she saw a big ol' dog falling from the skies, and immediately took a video. At first she was worried about whether the dog died, but later on she said that she saw it again when she was walking around outside, so it should be okay."

Their friends were quite amazed. "What an awesome dog! I mean, I know cats are fine falling from tall buildings, but dogs, too?"

……

The carriage was crowded and stifling. Standing there, squeezed until her head swam and listening to the noisy discussions of the people around her, Ning Wan felt suffocated...

"What magical community was this in?"

"OP said Yuelan? You know, over around Yuecheng..."

Ning Wan had originally been forced to listen to this thanks to the crowded subway carriage, so it had all been going in one ear and out the other. However, the moment she heard the word "Yuelan", she perked up all of a sudden.

Hold on a minute.

Yuelan community, a falling dog, the dog had jumped off a tall building, and it was still okay?

Chen Shuo smashed by a falling object, yet no "murder weapon" found at the scene?

If... if these two things were related, would it be too much to call it sheer coincidence? Could it be this dog that hit Chen Shuo? After all, a dog falling from the skies would never have survived under normal circumstances, unless there was some sort of cushion at the bottom... And if it had found a cushion and and wasn't injured, well it was after all a living thing. It would naturally run away. And equally naturally, it would be impossible find it later...