“Of course I didn’t mean that. Don’t overthink it, Lawyer Gu.”
Cai Shengnan glanced at the judge quickly. Seeing that the judge was still calm and impassive, she calmed down a little.
Gu Nianzhi smiled and cut to the chase. She stopped mocking Cai Shengnan and continued to interrogate Huo Guanchen.
“Mr. Huo Guanchen, you haven’t answered me. Who is your older brother?”
Huo Guanchen said in a low voice, “My older brother, Huo Guanyuan, was also a soldier and a hero. He died in that experimental accident.”
Gu Nianzhi glanced at Luo Jialan. “May I ask what relationship your older brother, Huo Guanyuan, has with the defendant?”
“He was Luo Jialan’s father.”
The judge looked up at Luo Jialan.
Luo Jialan’s heart skipped a beat.
What did Gu Nianzhi mean by dragging her father into this?
Gu Nianzhi ignored her and asked Huo Guanchen directly, “Then why is Luo Jialan’s surname Luo and not Huo? Isn’t she Huo Guanyuan’s daughter?”
Luo Jialan gritted her teeth.
Wasn’t she asking the obvious? !
Pretend! She was just pretending to be ignorant!
Huo Guanchen replied calmly, “Her name used to be Huo Jialan. She had always been my brother’s daughter, and my niece. It was only after Bai Jinyi’s case last year that we learned that she wasn’t my brother’s biological daughter. This year, she moved out of the Huo family’s registration and changed her surname to her mother’s, Luo Xinxue’s.”
Gu Nianzhi nodded. “Do you know why?”
Thinking the same thing as Luo Jialan, Huo Guanchen stared at Gu Nianzhi.
Wasn’t she asking the obvious?!
But Gu Nianzhi was the prosecution’s lawyer, and Huo Guanchen was the witness. Even if Gu Nianzhi knew, she couldn’t say those words out loud. They had to be said by the witness to have more legal effect.
Huo Guanchen frowned. After a while, he shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why she changed her surname, or why she moved out of the Huo family’s household registration. But she’s an adult now, and has the right to do something like that.”
He could guess why, but Luo Jialan had never admitted it, so he couldn’t tell her his guess as if it was the truth.
Gu Nianzhi gave him a long look. “Mr. Huo Guanchen, you really didn’t know?”
Luo Jialan clenched her fists so tightly that her fingernails were digging into her palms.
Afraid that he would tell her about her “fake marriage” plan with Huo Shaoheng, she looked at Huo Guanchen nervously.
Even though it had nothing to do with the case, it was too embarrassing, and she didn’t want too many people to know about it…
Huo Guanchen didn’t look at her, but he didn’t say anything about it either.
Gu Nianzhi saw that Huo Guanchen didn’t say anything, so she didn’t mind and continued to ask.
“Mr. Huo Guanchen, you said that during the experimental accident, everyone else died, but only Ms. Song Jinning survived. I heard that your brother could have escaped, but in order to save Ms. Song and Ms. Song’s father, he sacrificed his life for them and chose to die himself. Is that so?”
Huo Guanchen pursed his lips even tighter.
Cai Shengnan almost burst out laughing when she heard Gu Nianzhi’s question.
What kind of question was that?!
Even Cai Shengnan, who had just arrived in the Huaxia Empire, knew the details of Bai Jinyi’s lawsuit. She also knew that Huo Guanyuan had a secret crush on Song Jinning. This was Huo Guanchen’s problem, yet Gu Nianzhi had actually asked him that in public. Tsk, tsk, she really didn’t know how she had won all those lawsuits in the past…
At that moment, Cai Shengnan was even thinking that He Zhichu must have been helping Gu Nianzhi in all those lawsuits she had won?
This time, He Zhichu had let her go, and Gu Nianzhi’s true colors were revealed.
Cai Shengnan tilted her head and looked at Gu Nianzhi. Her eyes were like searchlights, and she wished she could see through Gu Nianzhi’s appearance, as well as see through her heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
Upon seeing that Huo Guanchen was silent, Gu Nianzhi said gently, “This is very important. So important that we are seeking justice for Ms. Song Jinning.”
“She had been severely mentally abused for ten years. Her goal was to kill her right under your nose. With such blatant provocation and blatant malice, don’t you want to seek justice for her?”
Huo Guanchen couldn’t refuse this request.
Therefore, although that matter was a thorn in his heart, he still spoke.
“When the experiment accident happened, there was a surveillance video that proved that my big brother pushed Song Jinning and her father, Song Haichuan, out of the experimental building,” Huo Guanchen said honestly, “Then my big brother continued to go back to save her. Academician Song Haichuan ignored the danger and returned to the experimental building, but was hit by the blast wave at the entrance of the building and died.
“As for Song Jinning, she was pushed further away. She fell to the ground and was soon knocked out by the huge explosion that followed. It was later confirmed that the huge explosion still affected her brain and caused physical damage. After she woke up from the coma, she suffered amnesia. Every day, she would forget what happened the day before, and every day, she would only remember that she was 18 years old.
“Therefore, war hero Huo Guanyuan sacrificed himself to save Song Jinning and Academician Song Haichuan. All you have to do is answer yes or no.”
Gu Nianzhi’s expression was very serious.
Huo Guanchen was choked by her words and answered sulkily, “… Yes.”
There was no way to refute that.
At that time, there were many security measures around the experimental building. Not only were there security guards and armed soldiers on duty, but there were also cameras everywhere that captured the situation.
A few of the higher-up cameras that were further away “survived” and captured the scene of Huo Guanyuan pushing Song Jinning and Song Haichuan out of the entrance of the experimental building, followed by black smoke, flames, and mushroom clouds that soared into the sky…
“May I ask, who knows about the circumstances of war hero Huo Guanyuan’s death?” Gu Nianzhi continued to ask.
“Very few people know.”
Gu Nianzhi thought about it. “To be specific, who knew? For example, Bai Jinyi? Or your father, Huo Xuenong? ”
Huo Guanchen looked down. “These two knew.”
Gu Nianzhi looked down at her own information, then concluded, “In Bai Jinyi’s previous case, Luo Jialan also admitted that she knew all along that her father wasn’t missing at all, and all of you were lying to her and her mother. You said that her father had died trying to protect that ‘sl*t’.”
Gu Nianzhi emphasized the word ‘sl*t’.
“Judging from Luo Jialan’s reaction during Bai Jinyi’s previous case, she hated Song Jinning deeply and hated her for causing her to lose her father. This was the first fuse that set off Luo Jialan’s intention to kill Song Jinning.”
Cai Shengnan couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up and said, “Objection. The prosecution has made meaningless accusations. Huo Guanyuan’s death because he saved Song Jinning doesn’t constitute a reason for my client to kill Song Jinning.”
Gu Nianzhi laughed. “Don’t be in such a hurry to object, Lawyer Cai. I already said that was only the first trigger. I didn’t say that this was the direct reason for Luo Jialan’s murderous intent.”
Of course, it wasn’t easy to kill someone.
However, it was the accumulation of everyday discontent that created murderous intent.
The judge was silent for a moment before saying, “Objection overruled. Counselor, please continue. But counselor, please pay attention to your tempo. Don’t talk too much about unrelated matters.”
Gu Nianzhi smiled. “Thank you, your honor. I’ll soon prove that this matter is related to the murder.”
The judge raised his hand and motioned for her to speak.
Gu Nianzhi pulled up the information on her laptop and connected it to the audio-visual equipment in the courtroom.
The large projection screen on the wall at the side of the courtroom slowly lowered.
Gu Nianzhi put up the PowerPoint that she had made.
It was a summary of the last case against Bai Jinyi.
“Everyone, please take a look. This is the transcript and results of the trial last year when the imperial capital’s procuratorate accused Bai Jinyi of intentional homicide.”
“In that case, there was evidence that showed that Luo Jialan wasn’t Huo Guanyuan’s biological daughter, and that she had abandoned her dying mother behind without helping her.”
Gu Nianzhi slowed down and stared at Luo Jialan. “Why would Luo Jialan, who claimed to love her mother very much and was willing to torture an innocent person in order to avenge her mother, abandon her dying mother?”
“In other words, what exactly happened that caused Luo Jialan to turn her back on her dying mother?”
With an airy smile on her lips, Gu Nianzhi slowly looked towards Luo Jialan. It was an infuriating sight to behold.
Luo Jialan was shaking so hard that her teeth were aching. She couldn’t control herself.
If she wasn’t being stared at by the bailiff from the dock, she would have pounced on Gu Nianzhi and given her a good beating!
The smile on her face was so annoying!
