Liwu hesitated.
Lin Tian smirked.
That smirk annoyed her so much that she stood up and tugged her shirt in one swift motion. Gasps rippled through the courtroom. Across her chest ran a jagged scar, not too deep but long enough to show how the knife had been pulled. It was as if Lin Tian wanted to cut her open for an autopsy.
Weijun’s jaw dropped. "I have never seen this."
He had seen her in dresses that were open near the neck. If she had a scar as big as that, he would have noticed!
"I have been covering it with make-up." Liwu admitted to the judges. "I wanted to wait until justice had been served before permanently erasing the scar."
The judges murmured among themselves, their voices overlapping like static.
Lin Tian’s lawyer raised his voice. "Objection! Detective Liwu’s testimony is biased. Her bad luck is known for causing sses. How do we know that it is what saved her life? For all we know, my client was the one that caused the devices to overload because he was trying to save her life and the lives of the couple that died that day."
The judged nodded. "Valid point. Bad luck cannot be proven."
Liwu straightened. "My scar is not bad luck, it is evidence of what Lin Tian did. He was looking into my eyes and he tried to carve my chest open. I scratched his face and gave him that scar beneath his left eye. I personally arrested him. His DNA was under my nails. This is evidence."
The judges ordered for the devices that had been collected to be presented. In addition, a demonstration of how they had been used had to be played out in the courtroom.
As the devices were being set up, the lead judge continued to question Liwu. "How did you co to the conclusion that Mr. Lin Tian was the culprit you were searching for?"
Liwu put her shirt back on and leaned forward. "We were investigating a series of fear induced attacks on employees at Shenbei at factory. The SOB was called in because so employees had quit, claiming that sothing or soone in the factory had frightened them so much that two people had ended up in the hospital.
It was not just ordinary fear of a bug or a scare crow, it was sothing much worse--their minds. It happened every ti they showed up to work. One by one, the workers started to quit so their boss called us in.
The more people we talked to, the more Lin Tian’s na ca up. He was an employee at the factory and all the people that experienced these fear attacks had so sort of enmity with him."
"Objection." Lin Tian’s lawyer shouted.
"Denied." The lead judge replied. "Continue detective Liwu."
Liwu nodded. "After we learned his na, we started investigating Mr. Lin Tian and discovered that he was a registered system host. He has a Fear Simulator Extraction System and he earns points by scaring other people.
The more fear, the more points. The Bureau had found his system to be useless and he was forbidden from using it until they found a way to ensure that it did not cause harm to others.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lin was not that patient. When he was not at work, he was researching devices to enhance and harvest this fear. His cousin owned the escape room and Mr. Lin sent her away on vacation and started using it to run the fear simulation trials."
The devices were activated and Liwu was asked to step down. An expert from the Bureau was asked to step forward and explain how each device worked.
A volunteer was strapped to the first device. It whirred, projecting his mories: being kicked off a cliff and then being buried alive. He kept screaming for help and yet a voice in the device was asking random math questions.
Weijun gulped and leaned towards Liwu. "Does anyone else realize that the man strapped to that X- like thing is bleeding from the nose?"
Liwu nodded. "A side effect that Lin Tian never warned his victims about."
"Do all trials here involve live demonstrations?" He asked her.
She nodded once again. "When necessary. The judges make their decision basing on data. Devices that cause people to bleed and scream for help will not score highly with them. Each judge has a similar but different system. The lead judge is the retribution judge. The others are truth, rcy, balance, order and chaos."
He looked up to the judges, frowning. "A chaos judge. What is that?"
The courtroom burst into gasps as a puppet that looked like Lin Tian walked forward and stabbed the man who was begging to be freed. And then, it carried him to a chair with many wires and strapped him down.
"Is...." Weijun started.
"The blood is not real." Liwu cut him off. But the pain he is suffering is very real."
Weijun crossed his arms on his chest. He pictured this kind of demonstration in an ordinary courtroom in a normal trial. People would be going crazy right about now. The relatives of the victim would be screaming and reporters would be going wild.
In the system court, the reactions were toned down.
Soon, the demonstration ca to an end and the unconscious volunteer was carried out.
"We shall now deliberate." The lead judge declared.
The six judges left the courtroom briefly. Liwu wanted to go and exchange so greetings with the bailiffs but Weijun held her back.
He looked at her with eyes that held sympathy, "Did it hurt?"
Liwu blinked. What was he asking her about?
Weijun’s eyes moved to her chest, around the area where a scar was hidden under her shirt. "When you were stabbed, did it hurt?" He closed his eyes, grimacing. "Sorry, I am a bastard, of course it hurt. I just don’t understand how you can still be doing this job after suffering such a horrendous attack? Wouldn’t it just be easier for you to quit? You co from two wealthy families, there is no need for you to kill yourself on this job. Why do you insist on continuing?"
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