Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The moment Gu Nianzhi finished her sentence, exuberance was heard throughout the entire courtroom. Everyone on her side stood up and applauded heartily for her. For a moment, she did not feel like a lawyer representing herself, but a hero who had just returned from war or a celebrity on stage. She had won their approval through her own amazing capabilities. The way she was able to turn the tables like that! She was indeed a genius!
“Great job, Nianzhi!” Yin Shixiong shouted. He had more inside information than most, but even he was almost convinced by Gu Yanran’s story.
He had felt so lost and numb in that moment just now. One thought had run through his mind: “We are done for… Nianzhi is a Japanese… We have leaked information… We have leaked information… This is going to be serious!”
Only when Gu Nianzhi had used the DNA sequencing to cleverly rebut Gu Yanran’s lies did Yin Shixiong feel alive again.
Ma Qiqi could not control herself and whistled. “I love you, Nianzhi!”
Song Jinning—who was usually calm and graceful—smiled widely as well, and felt like doting on Gu Nianzhi even more.
Secretary Cao stood as well, clapping louder than everyone else! He’d now made up his mind to get Gu Nianzhi into the secretary office of the Military Supreme Council. He would never let this girl go anywhere else! He planned to send General Ji a recommendation immediately after the hearing today.
He Zhichu did not stand up. However, his famously flirtatious eyes fixed on Gu Nianzhi. He could not see anyone else but her. His lips curled into a smile. There was nothing but gentleness in his eyes.
Xie Qingying was the one who felt the most relieved. She could not accept that she was in any way related to the Japanese. If it had been true, her and her father would have been chased out of the Xie family… Thankfully Gu Nianzhi managed to quickly prove her innocence! All of a sudden, Xie Qingying felt even more emotional towards Gu Nianzhi.
Xie Dezhao was even more thankful. He was crying tears of happiness, as he had already regarded Gu Nianzhi as his closest relative.
Even some of the audience on Gu Yanran’s side of the court room applauded. Gu Yanran’s housekeeper, Mrs. James, turned around and glared fiercely at a bodyguard who applauded. The bodyguard snapped back to reality. He stopped clapping immediately and awkwardly touched his nose.
The judge leaned back in his seat and chuckled. After a while, he raised his hand to control the long-lasting applause. Trying his best to be stern, he said, “Silence. There should not be so much noise during a trial.” He paused before adding, “Do not make me repeat myself.”
The audience laughed, then sat down and stopped applauding.
Jin Wanyi was extremely angry. Gu Nianzhi had struck a deathblow again! She had thought that Gu Nianzhi would have lost this time! Could it be that she would have to move away in court each time Gu Nianzhi was around?!
“You… you, you, you… What on earth are you talking about? What DNA sequencing?” The perspiration on Gu Yanran’s forehead trickled down. She was shaking like mad—and even her voice trembled. She nudged Jin Wanyi, who was by her side like she was hanging on to the last plank of floating wood. “Wanyi, Wanyi, shoot back at her quickly! Is she spouting nonsense? We are all Asians. Why would there be differences?”
On the outside, there was absolutely no difference between the Japanese and Chinese!
Gu Nianzhi flipped through the adoption certificate that Gu Yanran had provided again. She touched the paper and smiled: “This document is indeed rather old… It seems like DNA sequencing was still not as developed when you guys prepared this adoption document.”
Or rather, the people then still did not know that the Japanese had a different kind of genetic makeup compared to the pure Chinese in Huaxia empire, did they?
“Lucky for us, we have science.” Gu Nianzhi was humorous for the first time. “You have to keep up with the times when scheming. If not, the evolution of science and technology could let the cat out of the bag. This is a great example, isn’t it?”
“Don’t gloat yet!” Gu Yanran was so angry, she could not be bothered to keep up the image of civility. She was like a beast ready to kill. Grabbing on to the defendant stand, she stood again. “You’re spouting nonsense!”
“The science proves it.” Gu Nianzhi used her laser pointer to indicate the DNA sequencing of Gu Yanran and the vegetative man.
“I said that my father, Gu Xiangwen, is Japanese!” Gu Yanran was almost screaming. “Therefore your assumption is not valid!”
“Oh? Really?” Gu Nianzhi was extremely calm. She was playing Gu Yanran, as a cat would a dog. “Yet journal article, every research report published by Kevin Ku, stated that Gu Xiangwen was Chinese. Should I show you the reports about him from internationally acclaimed magazines?”
Gu Yanran was at a loss for words.
However, Gu Nianzhi refused to give her even more time to think. She took one step closer. “Gu Yanran, do you know why Gu Xiangwen can never be a Japanese? It is precisely because of this!”
Gu Nianzhi raised the so called ‘adoption certificate’ of Gu Tian. Had it not been for this Japanese adoption certificate, Gu Nianzhi would not have been able to link the type of people and DNA sequencing so easily. However, this ‘Japanese’ adoption certificate was akin to a bridge, and it linked two seemingly unrelated evidences together in Gu Nianzhi’s mind.
“In order to make Gu Tian the scapegoat, you produced this adoption certificate from Chiba Prefecture in Japan to prove that Gu Tian was an adopted Japanese orphan. This means that the Gus perhaps really had adopted a Japanese girl at that time. Because if an adoption certificate were forged, it would be too easy to prove. However, if an adoption really happened, it would be much easier to hide it from everyone.
“Moreover, there is information about the adoptive parents’ nationality and race. It states that they were Chinese!”
Gu Yanran was totally defeated by this detail. She fell onto her seat, looking blank. She was almost foaming atthe mouth…
“You had pulled a scam to change Gu Jing’s adoption certificate to reflect Gu Tian’s identity and name. They would have to be be quite close in terms of age, with the same blood type. Therefore, all you had to do was bribe a low-ranking officer in Chiba in order to get what you needed. Perhaps you didn’t have to bribe anyone—just an opportunity to tell the authorities that Gu Jing had had her name changed, then you could get the name officially changed on the adoption certificate. Should we check with the Chiba authorities to see if Kasahara Shizuko had requested a change of name?
“There were few rules and regulations on adoption certificates thirty to forty years ago. That meant many areas where people could manipulate details. When Gu Tian passed away at a young age and Gu Xiangwen had met with his accident, you decided to take over my position. This would get rid of get rid of Gu Tian, so even if I were to find her to testify, you could slap me in the face with this altered certificate. Isn’t that correct?”
That was exactly the reason why Gu Yanran was calm and collected instead of being afraid when she learned that Xie Dezhao and Xie Qingying would be Gu Nianzhi’s witnesses.
“But you never expected I’d use DNA sequencing and genetic bar charts. When I used those to prove that Gu Tian could never be Japanese, your lies stood revealed. That means the adopted Japanese girl must have been someone else.
“You’d attempted a similar method on me—taking all my experiences and my identity, then passing them off as your own, while transferring yours onto me. Therefore, if the Gu family had really adopted a Japanese girl in the past, and this girl was not Gu Tian, then who could it be? I think the answer is already obvious to everyone.
“There were only two daughters in the previous generation of the Gu family—Gu Tian and Gu Jing. If Gu Tian was not the one, then Gu Jing would definitely be the Japanese lady who was adopted.”
Gu Nianzhi was full of confidence, and her words made Gu Yanran turn as white as sheet. Fear and panic were written all over her face, making her look extremely pathetic. Gu Nianzhi organized the events of the incident in her mind, and gave voice to her theory:
“…According to the defendant, the Gu family had a daughter many years ago. Her name was Gu Tian. However, Gu Tian was born with an illness. In order to cure her, the Gus managed to find a girl with a perfect bone marrow match. Her name was Kasahara Shizuko. For whatever reason, the Gu family adopted this girl, and changed her name to Gu Jing.
“However, after Gu Jing had grown up, Gu Tian got married. When Gu Tian needed her help, Gu Jing had made up her mind to leave the family. This was perhaps why Gu Xiangwen could not make it in time to save her sister when she needed help so much. This was what happened twenty seven years ago. Because Gu Jing had left the family, Gu Tian could not find a suitable bone marrow transplant and passed away at a young age.
“As for Gu Jing, in the years after she left, we can safely assumethat she did not lead a good life. She gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, who is the defendant here, Gu Yanran. It’s likely they could not make it on their own, or perhaps she got wind of Gu Tian’s passing, or maybe it was just for her daughter. We don’t know the exact reason, but she chose to return and beg Gu Xiangwen to take them in…”
As Gu Yanran listened to the theory, her pupils constricted. She snapped back to reality. Instinctively, she stood and angrily shouted, “Nonsense! Gu Jing is not my mommy!”
“Am I spouting nonsense? Then would you care to compare your DNA to Gu Jing’s?”
Gu Nianzhi’s aggressiveness had defeated Gu Yanran and she turned dumb once again.
“And don’t spout nonsense about Gu Jing’s biological sister having a daughter. If Gu Jing had a younger sister, whose daughter was also a perfect transplant match, that means sister would have also been a match. A sister would potentially be even more compatible than Gu Jing herself. If that had been this case, the Gus would have adopted both instead of just one. They wouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket—having a backup would have been ideal.
“But they only adopted Gu Jing, which meant she was the only suitable one. The daughter of her sister would be an even less-likely match. Therefore, Gu Yanran—as the ‘illegitimate daughter of Gu Jing’s younger sister’—would even less likely be adopted. Gu Xiangwen ran neither charity nor orphanage.
“Only one explanation makes sense—Gu Yanran was Gu Jing’s illegitimate daughter. With her mother’s genes, Gu Yanran could help the daughters of two generations of the Gu family.”
Gu Nianzhi managed to arrive at this deduction through careful analysis of the information she was presented with. ‘Gu Jing’s younger sister’ was in fact a non-existent character Gu Yanran had made up to cover any holes in her story.
However, Gu Yanran only wanted to rebut in a state of panic. “But Gu Jing had already passed on many years ago and her ashes had been thrown into the ocean after cremation. How could you test her DNA?”
Gu Nianzhi paused in surprise. “You know for a fact that Gu Jing’s ashes were thrown into the ocean? When exactly did that happen?”
Gu Yanran immediately shut up.
Gu Nianzhi waited for her to speak, but realized Gu Yanran was not going to talk anymore. She calmly continued. “Since we now know the truth of Gu Jing’s identity, everything else should be easier to investigate. Even if her ashes were thrown into the ocean, she grew up in the Gu family. The Gus had been a wealthy family in France in those times, and would no doubt have brought both their children in for health and dental care. All we would need is to obtain the records from those dentists and pediatricians. Blood samples and dentistry records are kept on file. With those two things, we would have Gu Jing’s DNA.”
Gu Yanran’s eyes began to sparkle with the intention to murder again.
Gu Nianzhi saw through her and shook her head. “Enough, Gu Yanran. Stop trying to kill everyone with connections to your past. There are so many people in the world, and many of them knew about you and Gu Jing’s real identity. Can you even finish killing all of them?”
Gu Yanran looked as shocked as ever. She hugged her head and screamed hysterically. “You are not human! You are not human! You are a ghost! You are a ghost!”
If not, how on earth could she analyze to an accuracy of eighty to ninety percent of the incidents that had happened those years simply based on deductions?
