Chapter 310: I Have Waited Five Years for This Day (1)

"He's the defendant's lawyer? Did I hear that right? Someone actually dares to risk public outrage to defend the suspect?"

"I'm from Jiangcheng Law Firm. I've heard of all the famous top lawyers in Huaxia, and I've never seen this kid before. He's probably just some amateur lawyer—nowhere near Gou Changzheng's league."

"Now we're in for a show. Not many people in Jiangcheng dare to dig up the Jiang family's dirty laundry."

Murmurs rippled through the gallery as almost everyone turned to look at the defense lawyer who had just walked in.

"I made it just in time. Gathering the evidence held me up a bit." Du Yu walked over to the defense counsel's table, set his document bag down on the desk, and turned to give me a smile. "I watched the live broadcast of the trial on my way here. Your argument was brilliant. Keeping a clear head—and a thick skin—even when backed into a corner is a rare and admirable quality."

Du Yu carried a peculiar aura that inspired trust. Pinned between two bailiffs, I couldn't greet him properly and could only offer a polite nod. "I'll leave the rest to you."

With Du Yu's arrival, every last doubt I had harbored about him vanished. After being forced onto the defensive for so long, my moment to strike back had finally come.

"Order in the court!" Chen Haiyi rapped his gavel, reasserting order. "We will now resume the cross-examination. It is the defendant's turn to present evidence, to be cross-examined by the plaintiff's counsel."

Du Yu unhurriedly opened his document bag as over a hundred pairs of eyes in the courtroom fixed on him.

"Could what the suspect said earlier actually be true? Does he really have evidence against the Jiang family?"

"It's possible. Just look at the Jiang family's young master—his face is completely purple."

"If that's the case, he really might have been framed. Mobilizing armed police for the arrest, moving up the trial date, interfering with normal judicial procedures—the Jiang family knows they're guilty and wants to silence him."

The eyes of the jurors and the lenses of the cameras all locked onto Du Yu—or more precisely, onto the file in his hand. It was a thin stack of only a dozen or so pages, yet right now it held everyone's undivided attention.

"Before I submit this evidence, I would first like to establish the logic of this case with the judge. The defendant, Gao Jian, faces twenty-one charges, but the core charge is the suspected murder of Jiang Long. The subsequent twenty charges only arose because of clashes between the police and the defendant during the manhunt."

"Jiang Long's death occurred late on the night of the 11th of this month. The Grade A Wanted Notice jointly issued by the Jiangcheng Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Provincial Public Security Department was released early on the morning of the 12th—mere hours after the crime. I do not know how the relevant authorities managed to identify the culprit within just a few hours, nor what evidence they relied on to be so certain the killer was the defendant, Gao Jian." Du Yu's voice rang with resonant weight, razor-sharp words hidden behind his genial smile.

"Five days and five nights have passed since the crime, yet the evidence submitted by the plaintiff doesn't even include a basic autopsy report. Right here, before the presiding judge and the jurors present, I would like to ask a question. If five days and five nights aren't enough to assemble a complete chain of evidence, on what grounds did the public security organs issue a Grade A Wanted Notice for the defendant, Gao Jian, less than twelve hours after the incident?" Du Yu waved the file in his hand and looked toward Jiang Chen at the plaintiff's table. "Is it because the deceased was Jiang Long that this case receives special treatment? Just because the deceased was a director of Jiangjin Real Estate, does that give anyone the right to overstep the law and launch a citywide manhunt without being one hundred percent certain of the killer's identity?"

The Jiang family held absolute sway in Jiangcheng. They could even push a trial forward ahead of schedule, let alone have a wanted notice issued. Once Old Master Jiang stepped in personally, many obstacles simply ceased to be obstacles.

The gallery broke into a buzz of discussion. The authorities' handling of the matter had indeed been improper. If I really was the killer, it could be brushed aside; but if it turned out I had been framed, those departments would be guilty of dereliction of duty.

"Order!" Chen Haiyi himself had lost count of how many times he had been forced to restore order in the courtroom.

Once the courtroom quieted down, Du Yu offered a faint smile and dropped another bombshell. "Now let us return to the case itself. Both the police and the Jiang family have insisted that Gao Jian is the murderer. Yet when I screened the social connections between the defendant and Jiang Long, I found that the two of them had never crossed paths prior to the 11th of this month. Where, then, is Gao Jian's motive for murder? Why would he go to the deceased's residence late at night with the clear goal of killing a complete stranger he had never met? This case went down the wrong path from the very beginning. The killer is not Gao Jian at all. He is nothing more than a scapegoat—someone else entirely wanted Jiang Long dead!"

Having finished speaking, he handed the documents in his hand to the court clerk, who switched on the projector and placed the pages into it in numerical order.

As the text on the documents gradually came into focus, the courtroom erupted into an uproar.

The first few pages contained evidence from twenty years ago, during the early days of Jiangjin Group's founding. When they operated as an agency selling homes for property developers, they frequently failed to collect their commissions and resorted to violence, leaving multiple people crippled or disabled.

The middle pages were accounting records showing that Jiangjin Group had used unfair methods to compete for development projects and engaged in illegal fundraising exceeding 10 million.

The final few pages were even more staggering. To construct the Xinhu High School Aristocratic Academy, Jiangjin Group had at one point invested over 100 million in funds—yet the vast majority of that money had vanished, with multiple capital flows within the group unaccounted for.

None of this evidence had been fabricated out of thin air; every bit of it was backed by receipts and ledger records. Jiang Long had originally kept these as his own insurance policy, never imagining that at this very moment, they would become my protective umbrella.

"These documents are photocopies, but the official seals stamped on them cannot be forged. Every single record and receipt here is authentic and reliable. Don't you think Jiangjin Group owes Jiangcheng an explanation?"

"Furthermore, most of the materials provided above came from Jiang Long himself. By now, some of you have probably figured out who wanted Jiang Long dead the most, haven't you?"

Du Yu stood in the center of the courtroom with a smile on his face, yet to Jiang Chen's eyes, that smile looked utterly terrifying. If devils truly existed in this world, they would probably look just like him.

"Order! Order!"

Only with great effort did Chen Haiyi manage to quell the commotion in the gallery, and Du Yu immediately resumed presenting his case. "A small portion of these evidentiary materials was in Gao Jian's possession. The defendant used to be a private investigator. He stumbled upon Jiangjin Group's secrets by chance, and as he prepared to investigate further, he uncovered Jiangjin Real Estate's conspiracy—which led the real killer to frame him!"

"Only that explains why someone would go to a completely unfamiliar place late at night, and how Jiang Long—a man with extensive combat experience—could be killed despite being guarded by so many of his underlings!" Du Yu's smile never wavered. "And it likewise explains why Jiangjin Real Estate was in such a frantic rush to pull every string available to issue a wanted notice for Gao Jian and move up the trial to put him to death!"

"Here is my second piece of evidence." Du Yu produced the testimonies of several local lawyers from Jiangcheng. "With brazen arrogance, Jiangjin Real Estate issued notices to every law firm in the surrounding area, forbidding them from taking the defendant's case—all to prevent the defendant from contacting the outside world and leaking these internal secrets of Jiangjin Real Estate!"

"The second piece of evidence I am submitting also includes certain account records. Driven by a guilty conscience, the real culprits did not hesitate to resort to monetary bribery, attempting to trade wealth for justice—which is likely their standard practice. Here, I would like to thank the Municipal Sub-bureau Criminal Investigation Detachment for their assistance; these account transaction records were provided by the Criminal Investigation Brigade."

Because personal account information was unsuitable for public disclosure to the media, Chen Haiyi acted with great caution, instructing the court clerk to bring Du Yu's second piece of evidence directly to the bench.

After the three judges finished reviewing it, they had the clerk hand the testimonies and account records over to the plaintiff, who needed to verify the authenticity of the evidence.

"Plaintiff, do you have any objections to the evidence submitted by the defense?"

Gou Changzheng and Jiang Chen's faces darkened as they looked over the evidence, which showed multiple remittance slips funneled through various channels into the private accounts of public officials within a short period of time. "Impossible. Even the Municipal Sub-bureau's criminal investigation team couldn't have dug this up in such detail. Who is this guy? I've never seen him anywhere in the country."

The receipts were crystal clear and could not be faked. Gou Changzheng finally began to take Du Yu seriously, though it was already a little too late. "Our side cannot determine the authenticity of these accounts at the moment, and we cannot rule out deliberate fabrication by the defense. We will need to verify the details before giving a formal reply."