Chapter 50#

When it rains, it pours. Fate always reveals its hideous face when you are most caught off guard.

Jiang Qin went downstairs with a heavy heart, passed his own car in the parking lot, and walked for quite a while before suddenly realizing he had walked past it. Just as he turned around, his phone suddenly rang. It was a call from Guan Feng:

“News received two minutes ago: the police will charge Jin Yan with suspicion of threatening and harming others, also involving large-scale fraud and gambling. Fang Yuan has a key witness in his hands who has been secretly hidden before. Many people in the Public Security Department only just learned about this.”

Jiang Qin asked in confusion: “Witness?”

“Can’t find out who it is,” Guan Feng said. “To be honest, if even the person cooperating with me can’t find out, I estimate no more than three people in the entire Public Security Department know about this.”

“Are there any clues?”

Just as Guan Feng was about to say something, Hellen’s voice suddenly sounded: “President Guan, Mr. Zhang’s email has arrived.”

Guan Feng turned his head to read the email, and only his steady breathing could be heard on the phone. After about a few seconds, he suddenly asked: “—Did Jin Yan ever bet fingers with someone before?”

Jiang Qin’s breathing stopped abruptly.

“The amount involved is tens of millions. The victim has no record of reporting the case, and the police have not filed a case for investigation… Hellen, it’s useless to tell Mr. Zhang this kind of thing. I still need the witness’s name.”

Hellen agreed, but Jiang Qin interrupted abruptly: “Wait, help me check someone’s entry and exit records first!”

“Who?”

As if even his breath carried a chill, Jiang Qin’s lungs felt as raw as if scraped by a knife. His voice was unusually hoarse when he spoke: “Surname Zuo, named Zuo Zhijie. He should have emigrated a few years ago and came back to find me at the end of last year… I just want to know one thing: after he left H City in May, did he return to the United States?”

Guan Feng didn’t make him wait too long. In fact, in less than two hours, he sent a text message:

“No exit record for this person. He should be in Fang Yuan’s hands.”

“Jin Yan has been charged with intentional injury. The court session opens next Wednesday.”

When the court session opened on Wednesday, Jiang Qin was dressed in a black formal suit and met briefly with the lawyer before the hearing.

The lawyer had discussed many countermeasures with Jiang Qin before, but with the hearing imminent, it was inevitable to be nervous. His nerves were stretched like rubber bands, and his facial expression was stiff and rigid, looking a bit strange. Jiang Qin patted his shoulder and said in a deep voice: “Don’t panic, we can’t lose today.”

The lawyer took a deep breath and nodded vigorously.

Rather than a trial, this was more like a battlefield where two forces in the province competed. The faction in power supported by the Jin family, and the candidate faction using Fang Yuan’s group as vanguards, regarded this as the forefront of their mutual slaughter to fight for connections, resources, money, and power. The Jin family was the commander’s flag planted on the battlefield.

Whether to chop down this flag or continue to plant it on the position depended entirely on today’s confrontation.

At the beginning of the hearing, the atmosphere was tense, but there was nothing unusual. The prosecution raised charges against Jin Yan such as illegal jade smuggling and suspected organization of underworld gangs, all of which were dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

Among them, the results of handwriting identification sparked heated debate. Finally, the external audit submitted results, raising more than a dozen major questions about Star Entertainment’s financial statements. Most of them were left unsettled because they were difficult to verify due to the long time elapsed. There were a few discrepancies in transactions that really couldn’t be explained, but they weren’t fatal, and could only result in a huge fine in the end.

Jiang Qin had already considered this when doing the accounts. Completely clean accounts only exist in accounting theory. In reality, there is no enterprise whose accounts don’t have tricks. If you hand over a flawless account book to an external audit, it is equivalent to running directly to the court and shouting loudly: I am laundering money! I am evading taxes! Come and catch me!

So everyone is willing to pay fines, as long as the amount of false accounts is not large enough to constitute a criminal offense.

During the ten-minute recess, observant people summarized the main victories and defeats of the first half: Star Entertainment was heavily fined, but Jin Yan himself was safe and sound. If there were no important charges in the second half, the goal of sending Jin Yan to prison would probably not be achieved.

Sure enough, Fang Yuan lived up to expectations. When the court resumed, the prosecution raised the last and most critical charge: opening a gambling den, intentional injury causing disability.

As the person primarily responsible for this case, Fang Yuan personally stood in the prosecutor’s seat, and the victim testifying in court was shockingly the long-lost Zuo Zhijie.

His gaze was a bit dazed. He didn’t even react when the judge asked the first time, only searching quickly in the gallery with his eyes. A few seconds later, his gaze landed on Jiang Qin in the last row.

Jiang Qin frowned slightly, looking down at him.

In that instant, Zuo Zhijie opened his mouth abruptly, as if he wanted to say something; however, immediately after, the judge’s voice came from the court: “—Witness Zuo Zhijie? Please sign the court record!”

“Ah… yes, yes.”

Just as Zuo Zhijie lowered his head to sign, Jiang Qin suddenly glimpsed out of the corner of his eye that Jin Yan turned his head from the defendant’s seat and looked straight over.

“…” His upper body couldn’t help leaning forward, only to see Jin Yan shake his head gently. That movement was very subtle; apart from Jiang Qin, others could hardly detect it.

They had lived together for so many years. Jiang Qin knew without thinking that Jin Yan was warning him to be calm, not to be impulsive, and not to worry about him.

Jiang Qin gripped the armrest tightly, his knuckles changing color due to excessive force. It was only after a few seconds that he loosened his hand bit by bit.

“…According to the injury appraisal report presented by the prosecutor, the five fingers of the victim’s left hand were severed by a sharp weapon. Although they were all reattached after replantation surgery, they have lost their functional ability, classifying as a grade eight major disability…” Fang Yuan paused, put down the appraisal report and asked: “Zuo Zhijie, may I ask what sharp weapon severed your fingers?”

Zuo Zhijie was silent for a long while, then whispered: “Dagger.”

“Was it severed by the defendant personally?”

“Yes.”

“To what extent can your five fingers bend now?”

Zuo Zhijie took off his glove, revealing a circle of dark red scars at the base of his five fingers. They could only bend slightly about thirty degrees and could no longer move.

“—As the prosecution report shows, you lost tens of millions of funds in a gambling game with the defendant, and then were forced to have five fingers severed to admit defeat. Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Fang Yuan finally stopped questioning and bowed slightly to the bench: “Presiding judge and judges, as the prosecutor’s report shows, Zuo Zhijie participated in a gambling game organized by the defendant involving a huge amount of millions. After losing all the gambling money, according to the illegal rules of the gambling game itself, five fingers were forcibly severed. Please note that according to the witness statement submitted by the police, Zuo Zhijie and his family had strongly resisted and negotiated with the defendant many times, but the defendant still insisted on committing the assault. The method was extremely cruel and caused major disability.”

A sneer floated on the corner of Jin Yan’s mouth.

“From this point of view, I believe that the methods adopted by the defendant are particularly serious, the consequences are extremely bad, exceeding the standard sentence of three to ten years for general serious injury. I request the court to impose a heavy sentence.”

Fang Yuan paused and said: “Thank you, judge. My statement is finished.”

There was a slight murmur from the bench, and then the judge asked: “Defendant Jin Yan, do you admit the witness testimony submitted by the prosecutor?”

Jiang Qin stared closely at Jin Yan, but only saw that his profile had no expression at all, and he said coldly: “I do not admit it.”

There was an uproar in the gallery, and Fang Yuan’s face changed immediately.

“I didn’t organize the gambling game, and I don’t know where the gambling money went. It was an employee under me who severed the party’s fingers. The party himself was unwilling to report the case, so I am not clear about the course of events either.”

Zuo Zhijie blurted out: “You are lying! It was clearly you…”

“My lawyer told me that this employee surrendered to the police last night and is willing to bear all losses of the party and his family.” Jin Yan smiled slightly and said: “I think the police will update the statement soon.”

Fang Yuan stared dead at Jin Yan’s face—this man’s expression clearly said “I am lying”. What employee surrender? Everyone knew it was just someone the Jin family found to take the blame!

The judge didn’t expect such a development either. The bench whispered for a while, and the atmosphere fell into a stalemate for a moment.

Just at this time, the defense lawyer stood up and said: “Judges, I have something to say.”

“…Please speak?”

Time suddenly paused, and the whole world quieted down instantly.

Jiang Qin clenched his teeth slightly.

“I want to question the impartiality of the prosecutor, Officer Fang, regarding this case.” The lawyer paused and said: “According to some evidence in my hand, the prosecutor Fang Yuan holds extraordinary admiration for my client Jin Yan’s legal spouse, the acting president of Star Entertainment, Jiang Qin.”

The court was instantly in an uproar!

“Prosecutor Fang Yuan once used his position to inflict violence on Jiang Qin and personally threatened that he held a personal grudge against my client and would not hesitate to abuse his power to kill my client!” The lawyer pulled out a recording pen and a USB drive from the folder, held them high in his hand and displayed them to the entire gallery: “—I must question Officer Fang: With a prosecutor whose bias is so obvious, how much credibility is left in the evidence he submitted? Does the testimony of the witness Zuo Zhijie, who was secretly hidden by Officer Fang before the trial, still have any credibility?”

“The recording of the conversation between Officer Fang Yuan and Star Entertainment’s acting president Jiang Qin, as well as the surveillance video of Officer Fang Yuan inflicting violence causing injury to Mr. Jiang Qin, are all here. I request the court to verify the authenticity of the evidence!”

After a brief silence, the courtroom instantly exploded!

Jin Yan suddenly looked up at Jiang Qin, the shock in his eyes indescribable, and then turned back to stare dead at Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan stood up abruptly, almost rushing down from the prosecutor’s seat instantly; several colleagues rushed over to hold him back, dragging and pulling with difficulty before pressing him back heavily!

The bailiff came to take the evidence but was almost knocked down by Fang Yuan’s colleague. By this point, the courtroom was already in chaos. The judge banged the gavel several times to no avail; there were buzzing discussions everywhere.

Jiang Qin took one last look at Jin Yan, stood up, and left his seat quietly.

His foot injury hadn’t healed yet, and it hurt piercingly when touching the ground. However, his steps were still steady. He walked to the gate, supported himself gently, and went out quickly.

Fang Yuan’s mind was blank, staring at him leaving the court from afar, his eyes full of bloodshot veins. In that instant, he almost forgot everything. If his colleagues hadn’t stopped him desperately, he might have rushed up already.

—He only realized now why Jiang Qin went to his apartment specifically that day, forcing him sentence by sentence to speak out all the darkest and most unspeakable thoughts.

He had always thought that this beautiful cousin of his was soft-hearted, confused, easily deceived, and accustomed to being swayed by the will of men stronger than him; however, at this moment he discovered that he had long fallen into Jiang Qin’s palm. All calculations and seductions were just like a jumping clown.

The trial was irreversible. After consultation, the judges decided to postpone the hearing.

As the first defendant in this case, Jin Yan had no evidence to convict him, so he was released on bail pending trial and released in court.