"Explain your presence at the scene."
"She was comforting !"
"Explain the fifty million yuan you stand to inherit."
"I didn’t want her money! I wanted HER!"
The prosecutor stepped back, his expression one of satisfied pity. "No further questions, Your Honor."
Shuyin was led back to the defense table, her whole body shaking. She had failed. She knew she had failed. She sounded exactly like what they wanted her to sound, desperate, unhinged, guilty.
Zhou i tried to salvage sothing in her closing argunt. She emphasized the lack of direct evidence. The suspicious timing of the family’s departure. The convenient appearance of the poison vial. The rushed nature of the trial itself.
"Ladies and gentlen, this case has more holes than evidence. Yes, Miss Lin collected dication. Yes, she was present when her grandmother died. Yes, she stands to inherit money. But none of this proves murder. None of this proves intent. And the prosecution’s theory requires you to believe that a young woman with no history of violence, no history of criminal behavior, suddenly decided to murder the person she loved most in the world. Does that make sense? Or does it make more sense that sothing else happened here? Sothing we haven’t uncovered yet?"
But her words fell flat against the weight of the prosecution’s case.
The prosecutor’s closing argunt was devastating in its simplicity.
"Ladies and gentlen, this case is not complicated. Motive: fifty million yuan and a family that had betrayed her. ans: access to dication and poison. Opportunity: sole presence at the scene. Tiline: three days of systematic poisoning. Physical evidence: the poison in her possession. The defendant had every reason to commit this cri, every opportunity to commit this cri, and every ans to commit this cri. She did commit this cri. And justice demands that you find her guilty of first-degree murder."
Judge Chen looked at the jury. "You may now deliberate."
The jury filed out, and Shuyin was led to a holding cell to wait. Zhou i sat with her, both of them silent. What was there to say?
The jury was back in less than two hours.
Two hours to decide the rest of her life.
When Shuyin was led back into the courtroom, the atmosphere had changed. The crowd was quieter, and more tense. This was the mont they’d all been waiting for.
The jury filed back in, and Shuyin searched their faces desperately for any sign, any hope, but none of them would look at her. Not a single one.
She knew what that ant. Everyone knew what that ant.
"Has the jury reached a verdict?" Judge Chen asked.
The foreman stood, a middle-aged woman in a blue cardigan who looked like soone’s mother. "We have, Your Honor."
"In the matter of the People versus Lin Shuyin, on the charge of first-degree murder, how do you find?"
The courtroom held its collective breath.
The woman’s voice was clear and absolutely final. "We find the defendant guilty."
The courtroom exploded.
Reporters rushed for the doors, and spectators cheered or gasped.
Soone in the back shouted "Justice!" Others joined in until it beca a chant.
"Justice! Justice! Justice!"
Shuyin heard none of it. The word "guilty" echoed in her head, drowning out everything else.
Guilty.... Guilty.... Guilty. .
She had been convicted of murdering her grandmother. The one person who had truly loved her. The one person she would have died to protect.
Judge Chen banged his gavel repeatedly, calling for order. It took several minutes for the chaos to die down enough for him to speak.
"Order! I will have order in this courtroom!" His voice finally cut through the noise. When silence fell, he turned to Shuyin, his expression was hard, showing no rcy.
"Lin Shuyin, you have been found guilty of first-degree murder, one of the most heinous cris in our legal system. You murdered your own grandmother, a woman who loved and trusted you, for financial gain. This court finds no mitigating circumstances. No remorse and no justification."
He paused, letting his words sink in.
"It is the sentence of this court that you be imprisoned for the rest of your natural life, without the possibility of parole. You will spend every remaining day you have behind bars, where you will have ti to reflect on what you have done. Perhaps, in that ti, you will find the conscience you so clearly lacked when you committed this terrible cri."
The gavel ca down with a crack that sounded like a gunshot.
"Bailiff, remove the prisoner."
Life in prison. The words didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem possible.
"No!" Shuyin found her voice, standing so abruptly that her chair fell backward. "No! I didn’t do this! I’m innocent! Soone has to investigate my family! Please! They killed her! They frad ! Please!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers