Chapter 659: The Second Recess

A moment later, Lin Sizhi stood from his seat.

He did not come to the speaking platform. He remained at his table and addressed all the jury members from there.

"I believe this theory warrants further scrutiny. Three significant inconsistencies concern me.

"First, this particular insurance fraud scheme would not have been possible to carry out successfully.

"The insurance industry is highly developed, and insurance companies maintain robust internal risk controls. Different companies also share information with one another.

"Taking out multiple different types of large policies across multiple companies within a short period, with combined payouts of this scale, would leave the probability of receiving the claims at essentially zero. The companies would not honour the contracts.

"Second, signing policies of this nature requires the insured to personally sign and confirm in person.

"If the husband truly had no stable employment and was carrying gambling debts, and was still insisting on purchasing multiple large insurance policies on the wife's life, any woman of ordinary intelligence would have sensed something was wrong and refused.

"Whether through deception or coercion, persuading the wife to sign willingly would have been extremely difficult.

"Third, the overwhelming majority of policies today are issued as digital documents. Printed paper copies are uncommon.

"In light of all this, I believe this theory still has unresolved issues that require further explanation, and the possibility that the evidence has been compromised cannot be ruled out."

Tang Qing did not respond immediately. Instead, he looked out at the jury, "In that case, I ask the esteemed members of the jury to verify the evidence."

On the small screen in front of him, Cheng Wen saw the verification prompt appear for both pieces of evidence.

The screen allowed audience members to view all submitted evidence at any time, including rotating and zooming in to examine details.

For Cheng Wen, however, he had no ability to assess authenticity with the naked eye. Using the game's verification function was far more reliable.

After considering, he pressed verify for the 'Insurance Policies' and left the 'Casino Card' alone.

Other audience members had, however, pressed to verify the 'Casino Card,' and ten people were reached. Both verification results appeared at roughly the same time.

[The 'Multiple Insurance Policies' contain no false information.]

[The policies were personally signed by both the husband and wife. The policies are standard form contracts from legitimate insurance companies, with no alterations or falsifications.]

[The 'Casino Card' contains no false information.]

[This card was issued by a top-tier casino to one of its high-value patrons.]

Cheng Wen couldn't help furrowing his brow, "Both genuine?

"All of the policies are authentic? Not a single falsified or altered clause in any of them?

"That result is not great news for Brother Lin."

After the verification results appeared, Tang Qing stood again, gave a slight bow, then came to the speaking platform.

"My thanks to the esteemed members of the jury for confirming the authenticity of both pieces of evidence.

"Of course, I also believe the doubts raised by Lawyer Lin from a professional standpoint are entirely reasonable, and I will attempt to offer a simple explanation for each of them.

"It is true that insurance companies will go to any length to prevent fraudulent claims, and looking at real-world cases, the overwhelming majority of such attempts end in failure.

"However, we cannot apply the reasoning of a rational and ordinary person to someone who is cornered with nowhere left to turn.

"In reality, there are many documented cases of people attempting to murder a spouse for insurance money. The methods tend to be crude, and virtually all end in failure and imprisonment.

"But this is precisely what makes such behaviour 'the boldness of ignorance.' It is precisely because these individuals lack the relevant legal knowledge that they attempt such things at all.

"Of course, one of Lawyer Lin's points is particularly important: since all the policies have been verified as authentic, the wife's signatures must have been her own.

"Why would the wife have signed documents carrying such obvious malicious intent? If she was deceived, what exactly were the means of deception? These are questions we must answer.

"As for why the policies are in paper form rather than digital, I can offer one explanation.

"Many people have a distrust of digital data on phones or in email inboxes. They tend to feel that physical paper documents are more tangible and reliable.

"While executing this plan, the husband was almost certainly in a state of extreme anxiety throughout. He may have been unable to stop himself from repeatedly checking the policy amounts, the beneficiary, and the terms, or using them to imagine what life would look like after a successful claim.

"That would explain why he chose to have paper copies printed.

"Of course, all of this is speculation on my part. Further evidence would be needed to corroborate it."

Bai Zhilan looked around. Seeing no further objections, she said, "Then please, esteemed members of the jury, cast your votes."

[Truth Vote] [Do you believe the 'Possibility Analysis - Murder of Wife for Insurance' proposed by 'Detective' Tang Qing represents the truth of this case?]

Everyone completed their votes quickly.

[The Truth Vote results are now announced.]

[Yes: 46 votes]

[No: 54 votes]

[The 'Possibility Analysis - Murder of Wife for Insurance' is not recognised as the Case Truth.]

[A Recess will now begin. The trial will resume in 10 minutes.]

Cheng Wen couldn't help frowning at the result.

"That's a lot of 'Yes' votes, Sister Xinyi.

"Way more than when Brother Lin made his proposal.

"Those insurance policies are just too compelling."

When it came to voting, Cheng Wen had found himself genuinely wavering.

The 'Insurance Policies' evidence submitted by Tang Qing had been verified as authentic. That was a very strong point, and Cheng Wen had to admit that 'murder for insurance' was currently the most plausible explanation.

Fortunately, when he checked the two options during voting, neither triggered an insincere vote warning.

That was a good sign. It suggested the Truth Vote's insincere vote detection was relatively lenient: as long as you still had genuine doubts supported by evidence-based reasoning, voting 'No' was permissible.

Even so, the current situation was not encouraging.

Under the rules, once a Possibility Analysis reached 60 votes, it would be recognised as the Case Truth.

Right now the gap was only 14 votes, which wasn't large.

If Tang Qing managed to produce further evidence in subsequent rounds and offered plausible explanations for the remaining inconsistencies, his theory might pass directly.

"Also, Sister Xinyi, what is Wang Yongxin doing?

"The evidence he presented is clearly helping Tang Qing.

"Doesn't the casino card essentially confirm the husband as a gambling addict?

"If he wanted to help Brother Lin, shouldn't he be looking for evidence of the couple having a strong relationship? Something that would keep the case moving toward mutual suicide.

"Now that both the 'insurance policies' and the 'casino card' have been verified as genuine, the mutual suicide theory couldn't possibly stand anymore, could it?"