Chapter 182: In the Courtroom

The young man shared his plan with the mute.

However, upon hearing it, the mute remained largely indifferent. "Does this have any meaning?"

He gazed numbly at the sky, which appeared terribly cramped and narrow beneath the overpass.

"This society is rotten to its very core. Is there any meaning in what you're doing? Can you really change anything?"

The young man stared silently at the mute for a moment, then said softly, "I don't know either, I just can't bring myself to do nothing."

The mute was stunned for a moment, then numbly retreated back onto his corrugated cardboard sheet and fell asleep again.

When night fell, the vagrants under the overpass gathered together, sharing the food they had managed to find.

Wormwood burned in a nearby fire, its wispy smoke driving away the flies and gnats.

The young man blended in harmoniously with the vagrants, showing no disgust whatsoever for the food they had eaten, and even produced a bottle of wine to share with everyone.

A cup was also poured for the mute.

When the young man handed him the cup, he hesitated for a moment before taking it.

Cup after cup of wine was consumed, and under the oppressive heat of summer, the other vagrants gradually drifted off to sleep.

Only the young man and the mute remained, drinking in silence.

As the mute grew increasingly drunk, he began to recount, once more, the story he had told hundreds of times before—the life story of a down-and-out man.

The young man listened quietly, uttering not a single word.

The mute was overly familiar with this story, and before the night was deep, he had brought it to an end.

After a brief silence, the young man began to tell a story of his own.

The story he told was not about a single person, but about dozens, even hundreds of people.

Among them was a young woman who had been violated by her superior; the security officers ignored her plight and instead mocked her in secret, driving her to leap from a building to her death.

There was also an elderly man whose retirement savings were swindled away; the security officers dragged their feet and refused to investigate because they found it too troublesome. When the elderly man went to reason with them, his leg bone was broken in the scuffle.

And there were others...

Story after story was narrated by the young man. His memory was truly exceptional; throughout the telling, he never once hesitated or forgot a detail.

It was as if he had experienced every single one of those events firsthand.

The more the young man spoke, the brighter the light in his eyes became. In them, the mute saw fury, as well as a profound, empathetic sorrow.

The mute fell into a daze because of this, realizing that this was precisely the look he had so longed to see in the eyes of those journalists and writers.

***

Having finished his stories, the young man looked at the mute and asked, "Have you resigned yourself to this?"

Resigned? Was there any point in talking about resignation anymore? My life had already been ruined anyway, what good would it do to speak of this now? Holding his wine cup, the mute thought numbly.

Seeing that he remained silent, the young man asked again, "Or rather, how can you bear it?"

Bear it? The mute looked blankly at the young man.

The latter continued, "How can you bear to just let things keep getting worse like this?"

"The child you saw running around in the courtyard when you went home must have reminded you of your former self, right?"

"That child is still living in this wretched society, and tens of thousands of other children are living in such a wretched environment as well."

"They, too, might end up experiencing the tragedy you went through." The young man's tone was calm, but to the mute, it sounded like an interrogation. "Can you really bear it anymore?"

"Can you really bear to stand by and do nothing for that little boy who lost both parents at the age of ten and was left completely helpless?"

The young man pressed on, "Can you truly bear it?"

Stunned into a long silence by the questioning, the mute felt a glimmer of light faintly reviving within his numb eyes.

The young man went on, a trace of sorrow coloring his tone, "I'm quite an unlucky person myself, but I don't want to let myself become numb. Because I feel that if I am crushed and stop caring about all this wretchedness..."

"Wouldn't I just become an accomplice to this damn world?" the young man said in a low voice.

The mute's mouth hung half open, the corners of his lips trembling. He staggered to his feet and announced that he needed to relieve himself.

Supporting himself against the wall, he stepped out of the firelight and into the shadows, covering his mouth so that his muffled sobs would not escape.

Snot and tears streamed down his face, washing away the numbness. For the first time in an agonizingly long while, he felt his heart begin to beat again.

Early the next morning, the young man left his corrugated cardboard, water bottle, and other belongings to an elderly vagrant.

He walked up to the mute. "I have to leave now; there are still many things that need to be done. I hope you live a good life."

The mute, however, grinned and said, "Why aren't you asking me anything today?"

The young man was momentarily taken aback, a pleasant surprise washing over his face.

He reached out a hand to the mute and asked, "Are you the mute from the overpass? I have something I'd like to ask you, do you have the time?"

The latter grasped his hand in return and smiled, "I'm no overpass mute. My name is Fang Pingxi, and of course I have the time."

...

In the courtroom, Fang Pingxi concluded his testimony.

Compared to standard courtroom statements, his words felt more like the narration of a story—filled with far more detail and spanning a much longer time.

***

Yet inside the courtroom, not a single person interrupted him.

In the gallery, a young woman was already weeping softly, and the eyes of a young man had turned red.

As for the representatives from all walks of life in Luzhou, after listening to Fang Pingxi's story, their faces bore not only profound grief, but surging fury as well.

From time to time, they cast sharp, piercing glares at Jiang Qin'gen in the defendant's seat.

Even the stern elderly inspector was moved by the account, though constrained by his position, he could only do his utmost to suppress it rather than let it show.

Nevertheless, the high-bulging muscles of his jaw betrayed the turbulent state of his inner mind.

Prior to this day, Fang Pingxi's life could be described as an unadulterated tragedy from start to finish.

The long-standing corruption within Luzhou's security department system found its most concentrated manifestation in him.

The tragedy of his life was the direct result of the rot eating away at the very lowest rungs of the law enforcement system.

It could be said that his entire existence had been destroyed by the Luzhou security department system.

His firsthand experiences constituted the most powerful indictment possible against the security department!

The elderly inspector struck his gavel. "The testimonies of the five witnesses are now fully concluded."

He turned his gaze to Jiang Qin'gen. "Representative of the security department, do you have anything to say regarding the cases prosecuted by these five witnesses?"

A strained smile squeezed past Jiang Qin'gen's pale lips. "Regarding the cases of the preceding witnesses, we will immediately launch internal investigations and will undoubtedly deliver justice to them! We will strictly punish any security officers who violate regulations!"

He swallowed hard. "However, as for Fang Pingxi's testimony, given that the timeline spans far too many years, many specific details are difficult to verify, and the primary parties involved have already passed away, leaving a lack of evidence. Therefore, I suggest that we investigate solely his case of being beaten into a false confession..." bBefore he could even finish speaking, an uproar broke out in the gallery.

"That's a mighty light way to put it! It's not your life that got ruined, is it?"

"I move for the establishment of a special task force to investigate the usurpation of Fang Pingxi's family property!"

"Delivering justice to Fang Pingxi means holding up a fair and clear blue sky for the children of the future!"

"..."

A torrent of curses rained down upon Jiang Qin'gen. He shrank his neck, not daring to utter another word, the strands of hair on his forehead plastered even more tightly against his skin.

"Silence!" the elderly inspector struck his gavel fiercely, the crisp sound instantly quelling the commotion among the crowd.