Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Jingyan, gesturing at the sign on the closing door that clearly read ‘Prosecution Lobby No. 3’ and not ‘Defendant Lobby No. 3’ but the defendant just smiled serenely, his hands tucked in the pockets of his cardigan. A little informal for court, considering that he was a defense attorney in his regular life when he wasn’t on trial for murder, and therefore should have known better. But then again, defense attorneys were known to be eccentric. The best ones, at least.

He doubted that this Su Zhe was one of the best ones. There was something about his smile that Jingyan didn’t trust, and besides, the best defense attorney Jingyan had ever known was d–

Well. Perhaps Su Zhe was more than he appeared. His cardigan did look very warm at least, so maybe it was a practical choice. These courtrooms could be drafty, Jingyan knew, and he imagined one might get cold, without the fervor for the truth that kept his blood racing during each of his trials.

“Apologies, Prosecutor,” he said, pleasantly. Everything that he did was pleasant, in a way that seemed perfectly calculated to make Jingyan hate him. His voice was calm and even, his words unfailingly polite, and his smile careful and so unfailing it had to be fake. Even his stupid comfortable cardigan was pleasant, in a way that made him look non-threatening and domestic and a little bit out of his depth. “Old habits, I’m afraid. I suppose I’m not used to the way the courts work in this city yet.”

“Ah, yes, that’s right, you’re a small-town lawyer,” said Jingyan, only a little nastily. In his defense, he was meant to be preparing for his trial, and Su Zhe was being very distracting.

Su Zhe inclined his head, somehow smiling even more politely, as though he knew Jingyan was trying to insult him and wanted Jingyan to know that he knew and that he wasn’t insulted.

“I am,” he said, with a modest shrug. “I’m sure I would’ve gotten the hang of it here eventually, if it weren’t for…” He let his voice trail off delicately, waving his hand in a careful circle that was far too casual for someone referring to being on trial for murder.

“Of course,” said Jingyan, letting himself be a little nastier. “What a shame for your career aspirations.”

Jingyan imagined that most people would never suspect Su Zhe of murder, that if character witnesses were admitted he would have crowds of friends and acquaintances falling over themselves to say that he would never hurt a fly, that he couldn’t possibly be a killer, that there was no way he had murdered a schoolteacher with a sword, just look at him. Well, Jingyan was looking, and he didn’t like what he saw.

This was not to say that he looked guilty, because Jingyan had stood in the courtroom for long enough to know that no one looked guilty. Not because anyone looked innocent, but because anyone could be guilty, no matter what they looked like.

But everything about his appearance was so carefully unassuming that he must have done it on purpose. He was a defense attorney, after all, and based on what Jingyan had seen of his record, not a particularly scrupulous one. Jingyan hadn’t been able to find any evidence of wrongdoing in the day he’d been given to prepare between the murder and the trial, but he knew better than anyone—anyone still living or practicing law—that many criminals and corrupt lawyers weren’t caught until it was far too late.

“Yes, a shame,” said Su Zhe. And then he raised his head, meeting Jingyan’s gaze straight-on for the first time, a confident edge to his smile, as he said, “But I’m sure with you seeking the truth, I have nothing to fear.”

And then, before Jingyan could come up with a suitable response, Su Zhe bowed his head politely and murmured a pleasant farewell and left the room. Hopefully he was heading back to the defendant lobby where he ought to have been this whole time, but that really wasn’t Jingyan’s problem.

“The prosecution is ready, Your Honor.” Jingyan definitely could’ve been more prepared, especially with the weight of Su Zhe’s unsettling gaze on him, but he wasn’t not ready.

“The defense is ready too, Your Maj– Your Honor!” Jingyan didn’t think Jingrui looked or sounded especially ready. He sounded overly cheerful, like he was compensating for nerves, and he kept glancing back and forth between his client and his co-counsel, his legendary attorney father Xie Yu, for reassurance. Jingyan was a little bit surprised that Xie Yu had allowed his son to take on a murder for his first trial as the lead attorney, let alone such a seemingly unwinnable case, but he must have believed in his son’s abilities. Believing in their sons was something that fathers allegedly could do, but Jingyan wouldn’t know about that. Not firsthand, anyway.

Then again, maybe Xie Yu just believed in his own ability to win at any cost, even though this was technically supposed to be his son’s trial. From what Jingyan remembered of Jingrui, he doubted he would approve, but Jingyan knew how difficult it could be to contradict one’s father.

Jingyan had been nervous before his first trial too, but xiao-Shu had been watching him from the gallery, so he’d tried his best not to show it, meeting the challenge in xiao-Shu’s eyes. He’d pretended that xiao-Shu was the one standing across the courtroom from him, his rival and his other half and his partner in seeking the truth.

It was a glorious, certain future, one that would be realized as soon as xiao-Shu passed the bar and took his place as Jingyu’s junior partner. Jingrui had believed in that future too, Jingyan remembered, though his interest in it was childish hero-worship, following xiao-Shu around and insisting that he was going to be a defense attorney just like him some day. Nevermind that xiao-Shu wasn’t technically a real defense attorney yet, nevermind that Jingyu would be murdered before he had a chance to teach him much of anything, nevermind that xiao-Shu would be disbarred in his very first trial for presenting forged evidence while defending the man falsely accused of Jingyu’s murder, nevermind that none of his potential would ever be realized and that if anyone spoke his name it would be synonymous with tragedy and scandal.

Jingyan marked his own career in terms of before and after. His first trial before was all nervous, buoyant anticipation, bright and sparkling and the start of something new and good.

His first trial after was a funeral for the person, and the lawyer, he might have been. His first trial after, and every trial after that, was an exercise in harsh efficiency. He had to find the truth as quickly as possible, and he couldn’t allow lies to stand unchallenged, whether they were from defendants, attorneys, or his fellow prosecutors. He was too numb, too full of deeply smoldering rage to be nervous anymore. Xiao-Shu had been disbarred, disgraced by charges of corruption and evidence forging that should have been dismissed immediately while Wei Zheng went on the run instead of going to prison for the murder he hadn’t committed, so there was no mercy in the world. And then xiao-Shu had been murdered, and a morally bankrupt defense attorney had gotten his killer acquitted, so there was no justice in the world either.

All that was left to Jingyan was the truth.

Still, if Jingrui’s relatively optimistic demeanor was anything to go by, he was still clinging to that old dream, his and Jingyan’s and xiao-Shu’s and Jingrui’s friend Yan Yujin, who followed him as Jingrui followed xiao-Shu, all of them so convinced the courts were a place where they could save the world. Jingyan wasn’t sure if that made Jingrui lucky or a fool.

Especially when it was his own father, Xie Yu, who had let xiao-Shu’s murderer walk free in the first place.

“If the prosecution will kindly stop glaring and call his first witness,” said the judge, and Jingyan blinked, jolting out of his thoughts. “You seem to be frightening the defense.”

“My apologies,” said Jingyan. “I didn’t mean to cause any distress.”

“That’s quite alright,” said Jingrui, looking a little bit overwhelmed. Jingyan made a conscious effort to soften his expression, relax his jaw. He hadn’t been aware of glaring; he’d thought his expression was carefully neutral but maybe his poker face was worse than he thought. He wanted to succeed in this trial by finding the truth, not by intimidating his opponent. That would have been his father’s tactic.

And then he noticed Su Zhe, watching him intently with a very strange expression on his face. Not disgust, which Jingyan was used to, but something far more unsettling, somewhere between calculation and hunger. “Do you have something to say at this time, Mr. Su?”

“Prosecutor Xiao, your witness, if you please,” said the judge, a little impatiently now. He wasn’t so far out of favor that he was in danger of facing the kind of consequences that prosecutors never seemed to face—contempt of court, that sort of thing—but he didn’t want to antagonize the judge so early in the day.

Su Zhe smirked. Jingyan called his first witness.

“Please state your name and occupation for the record,” said Jingyan. Normally, he preferred working cases with Meng Zhi, who at least respected him as a colleague instead of treating him with the same disdain as the rest of Criminal Affairs and the Prosecutor’s Office. He was a competent detective, and he was an honest witness, a rare quality for which Jingyan was infinitely grateful. But Meng Zhi was too honest, and he was sympathetic, and it was all too easy for Jingyan to imagine him being taken in by whatever games Su Zhe was playing.

So for this trial, Jingyan was glad he was calling Xia Dong instead, despite the utter contempt with which they treated each other. If he was being generous, he could admit that the feud was half his fault, because he didn’t have to respond to her every time she loudly blamed xiao-Shu for ruining her husband’s credibility as a witness and therefore as a detective. Sure, xiao-Shu’s cross-examination had been… rigorous, but Nie Feng had been lying, and anyway Xia Dong didn’t have to keep bringing up how his career had been ruined within Jingyan’s hearing. As if xiao-Shu’s career hadn’t been ruined. At least Nie Feng was still alive.

“Xia Dong,” she said. “Detective.” Her reply was curt, but then again, she was curt with anyone. You had to know her better than that to know that the curl of her lip meant she disliked Jingyan specifically and would prefer to be out of his presence as soon as possible. At least it made her testimony efficient.

“Detective Xia!” said the judge in recognition. “You were a witness in my trial last week, weren’t you? Stellar testimony you gave, it really cracked the whole thing open.”

Xia Dong opened her mouth, looking confused, and then closed it again, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth trying to understand what the judge was talking about. She’d been out of the country working a case with Interpol until the day of this murder. She’d told Jingyan this while pouring herself the last of the coffee in the Criminal Affairs office.

“Although,” the judge continued, “I thought you looked a lot older at the time. You really do look so much younger without your beard, maybe I should try shaving mine sometime and see if that works for me.”

Jingyan made a heroic effort to resist putting his head in his hands. Su Zhe, seated unobtrusively next to the defense bench, smiled pleasantly in a way that suggested he would burst into laughter if it wouldn’t have been horribly rude. Jingyan couldn’t blame him. This whole trial was a farce.

The whole justice system was a farce, really, except that the joke was that anyone still pretended it was about justice.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” said Xia Dong dryly, “you must be confused. That wasn’t me, that was my superior, Detective Xia.”

“I see,” said the judge, who clearly didn’t. Jingyan sighed. This was going to be a long trial.

“Hold it!” said Jingrui. “All you’ve proven is that someone had to hire the assassin who killed Li Chongxin! What makes you so sure it was my client?” Well, obviously someone had to have killed Li Chongxin, at any rate, because the man was clearly dead, and it was looking increasingly unlikely that Su Zhe would have been able to commit the crime. He didn’t have the strength required to wield a sword with that amount of force and precision, for one thing, and he had a fairly convincing alibi that placed him at the tea shop across the street from the scene of the crime at the exact time of the killing, for another.

None of this meant that he couldn’t have hired an assassin, although Jingyan had no idea why. What reason could a small-town defense attorney have for causing the death of a schoolteacher whom he had, apparently, never actually met?

“My job is to find the evidence,” said Xia Dong. “It’s up to you to find the meaning in it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Jingyan, not sure whether he was talking to Jingrui, Xia Dong, or both. It was probably both. This whole thing was ridiculous. Once, he would have taken satisfaction in the work of picking apart strands of truth and untruth. Once, he would have delighted in talking over an impossible case with xiao-Shu, racing to be the one to unlock its secrets. Now, he just wanted it to be over. “Your client was the only one who knew the victim’s location, since they had arranged to meet secretly at what would become the scene of the crime. No one else would have known where to find him.”

“Objection!” said Jingrui, pointing at Jingyan triumphantly, as if he’d already won. “The person who hired the assassin didn’t have to know the victim’s exact location. Only the assassin needed to know that!” He smiled at Su Zhe, bright and confident, and Su Zhe nodded back approvingly, which only made Jingrui’s smile grow brighter and more confident. Jingyan’s heart sank as Jingrui turned back to the judge and said, “Your Honor, I’d like to call a new witness: the assassin that killed Li Chongxin!”

Jingyan had never been one to shirk his responsibilities; even grieving, even hollowed out by the loss of xiao-Shu, he had gone to work and done his job, because it was a job that needed doing, as inadequate for the task as he sometimes felt. Some days he thought they might as well have taken away his prosecutor’s badge the day xiao-Shu died, because without him Jingyan was only ever going to be half of the lawyer he could have been.

But giving up on their dream entirely would have meant failing xiao-Shu, and he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he did that. So instead he showed up to work every day and dutifully gave it his all, because he didn’t know how to do any less. It didn’t make him popular amongst his coworkers, many of whom were corrupt in a variety of petty ways, but it did mean that his record was too good for them to justify firing him.

Right now, though, the last thing he wanted to do was prepare the witness, this masked assassin that Jingrui had summoned from who could say where. There were still fifteen minutes left in the recess, and he doubted anything he could say would make enough of a difference anyway, so instead he found himself in the hallway between the defense and prosecution lobbies. He told himself that he was looking for Jingrui, to ask him where he’d found the assassin and whether or not he was in on whatever game Su Zhe was playing, but when he saw Jingrui standing at the vending machines with his friend Yan Yujin, he didn’t approach them and looked around for a glimpse of Su Zhe’s soft blue sweater.

“Never mind about my trial,” Yujin was saying, waving a deliberately careless hand. “I mean, I won, of course–”

“Of course,” said Jingrui dryly, holding his bag of vending machine chips out of Yujin’s reach. Jingyan wasn’t particularly surprised that Yujin’s trial was already over, or that he’d gotten a guilty verdict. He was one of the most competent of Jingyan’s coworkers—and one of the only ones who was willing to give him the time of day—despite his casual attitude and his wildly successful musical side career.

“Hey, now, no need to sound so unimpressed,” said Yujin. “I’ll have you know that even my father was pleased by how well I did.” And then, while Jingrui was taking in this information, Yujin made another lunge for his chip bag, and Jingrui laughed and smacked him playfully on the arm.

They were so young. They were only a few years younger than Jingyan was now, and older than xiao-Shu had ever been, but they looked so young to him, reminded him so strongly of himself and xiao-Shu when they were teenagers, bickering fondly and showing off for each other like no one else’s opinion mattered. Well, Jingyu’s opinion had mattered to them back then too, but Yujin and Jingrui didn’t have anyone like that left.

The rest of Jingyan’s resolve to get back to his work crumbled, and he sat wearily on the hallway bench. If anyone were to ask, he was waiting for his young associates to stop blocking the vending machine. Anything other than imagining himself and xiao-Shu in their places, as they might have been in a kinder world.

“Your father was here?” Jingrui said.

“Yes, he comes to most of my trials now, whenever he can,” said Yujin impatiently, “ever since whatever your mysterious friend said to him–”

“He’s not mysterious,” said Jingrui, “he’s my client, and he’s a fellow attorney.” It was only his years of hiding—suppressing—his expressions that kept Jingyan from visibly reacting to Jingrui’s words. Maybe he was going to learn about his case here after all.

“Whatever,” said Yujin, throwing an arm around Jingrui’s shoulders in another transparent attempt to steal his chips. “You were friends before he was your client, and you can’t tell me he doesn’t have secrets.” He said this in an awed tone of voice that suggested that he found the thought of an accused murderer with mysterious secrets to be an exciting prospect. Jingyan worried for his commitment to the law.

“That’s hardly…” Jingrui spluttered. “I couldn’t possibly comment on that. Client confidentiality, you know.”

“Of course, of course,” said Yujin. “But can’t you at least tell me about that witness you just called, you know,” he lowered his voice, stage-whispering dramatically, “the assassin?”

Jingrui glanced over his shoulder before he answered, but he either didn’t notice Jingyan sitting there or didn’t consider him enough of a threat to care that he might overhear. If it was the former, Jingyan was disappointed in his observational skills, but if it was the latter, he despaired at his lack of judgment. Even as unpopular as Jingyan was, Jingrui should have known better than to discount him as an opponent. Popularity didn’t win trials; evidence did. Evidence and the truth, ideally.

Shrugging, Jingrui said, “I don’t know much. I don’t even know his name. But– Mr. Su told me how to contact him.” He hesitated before mentioning Su Zhe, as if he’d been about to call him something different.

“You must really trust that guy, huh?” said Yujin, putting a voice to Jingyan’s question. But before Jingrui could respond, the door to the defense lobby opened and his father was calling for him, so Jingyan gave up on learning any more and resigned himself to attempting to prepare an anonymous masked assassin as a witness.

“It was Su Zhe,” said the assassin, voice slightly muffled by the cloth mask covering the entirety of his face. Jingrui had startled the first time he spoke, clearly finding his voice familiar, but he hadn’t said anything, so Jingyan dismissed the observation as not immediately relevant to the case. “The man I signed the contract with was Su Zhe.”

“Hold it!” said Su Zhe, apparently forgetting that he was meant to be on trial and that he had chosen to hire an attorney instead of representing himself. No, when Jingyan looked closer he could tell that Su Zhe hadn’t forgotten anything. He didn’t look as though he’d gotten swept up in the moment; he looked cool and composed, as though this was the moment he’d been waiting for all along. “You couldn’t have signed a legally binding contract with Su Zhe, because Su Zhe does not legally exist. If you had signed a contract with me, you would know that my name is Mei Changsu.”

The gallery erupted into frantic conversation as onlookers who followed legal news informed their neighbors that Mei Changsu was a legal genius, the author of several high-profile articles in respected legal journals advocating for reforms—badly-needed reforms—that were so radical it would be easier to rebuild the court system from the ground up than implement the proposed changes. From Jingyan’s experience with the man, he suspected that Mei Changsu knew it, and that this was in fact the point.

Someone like that almost certainly had a bigger plan for entering the capital city under a false name than just commissioning one murder, but right now Jingyan had other problems.

“Objection!” said Jingyan, who knew that the judge would probably overrule it but he couldn’t help himself. “Your Honor, the defendant just admitted to perjury.” As if anyone ever got in trouble for that these days.

“Objection,” said Su Zhe pleasantly. Or Mei Changsu, apparently. His voice was quiet, but he spoke without hesitation, like a man who was accustomed to being listened to. “I have yet to be called to testify, so I haven’t given my name under oath.”

“Objection!” said Jingyan again, jabbing his finger toward Mei Changsu. “First of all, Mr. Mei, you are the defendant, not the defense. Let your attorney do his job, he certainly has his work cut out for him with you.”

“You shouldn’t speak to him like that,” said Jingrui reproachfully. “It isn’t like you to be so harsh.”

Mei Changsu waved him off, fixing Jingyan with an offensively inoffensive smile. “Don’t worry, Jingrui. Was there more to your objection, Prosecutor? You seemed to have a great deal to say.”

“I do, as it happens,” said Jingyan. He was being unfair and he knew it, but everything about Mei Changsu’s behavior seemed calculated to get under his skin: his non-threatening demeanor, his smug smile, his lies about his name, his insistence on contradicting everything Jingyan said and further tangling the complicated knots of this trial. “Surely even a small-town defense attorney, and especially a conman masquerading as a small-town defense attorney, should know that criminals don’t often sign contracts under their actual legal names. Unless,” he let his lip curl into a sneer, “you’re claiming that there’s another Su Zhe with whom our assassin friend made his contract?”

“In the absence of evidence,” said Xie Yu, “I suppose we’ll just have to trust our witness.”

“Oh, will we?” said Mei Changsu, smiling like a shark. Jingyan couldn’t believe that just that morning he’d thought he looked harmless. The witness, behind his mask, gave an audible gulp of fear.

When the trial was over, Jingyan wanted nothing more than to barricade himself in his office and finish off the paperwork from this disaster of a trial. But there were too many unanswered questions. Most of them were questions he wanted to pose to Mei Changsu, questions he thought it was unlikely Mei Changsu would answer. He’d barely answered any questions under oath, so what chance did Jingyan have outside the courtroom? Still, he had to try.

The door to the defense lobby swung open as Jingyan approached it, and he nearly ran into Jingrui, rushing out into the hallway with a set to his jaw that suggested he was just barely holding onto his composure. Sure enough, when Jingyan got a closer look, he saw that his eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Not surprising, after what had just been revealed about his father and his step-father. Jingyan was no stranger to the knowledge that there was blood on his father’s hands, but there was a difference between knowing that your father was a corrupt prosecutor who convicted innocents and let your best friend’s murderer walk free, and finding out publicly that your father paid your step-father to commit murder in order to cover up crimes dating back at least thirteen years (including forging the evidence that had framed xiao-Shu and then Jingyu). Let alone finding this out because a man you considered a friend tricked you into calling your aforementioned murderous step-father as a witness.

Jingyan hesitated, wondering if he should try to say anything, but then he heard Yujin behind him, calling Jingrui’s name, and he thought he should leave Jingrui to be comforted by his friend. Jingrui probably didn’t want to hear from him anyway, not after the part he’d played in how the truth had been revealed.

He’d been enjoying himself, and that was almost the worst part. Not quite as painful as the revelation that Xie Yu had been involved in what had happened to Jingyu and xiao-Shu thirteen years ago, that it had all been a set-up from the beginning, that his brother and his best friend had died for someone else’s petty grudge and spiteful ambition. But his heart ached to realize that he and Mei Changsu made a good team, almost—as disloyal as it felt to think it—as good of a team as he and xiao-Shu had been.

Mei Changsu was a very different attorney than xiao-Shu.

(Everyone seemed to have forgotten that Mei Changsu wasn’t technically the attorney in today’s trial, even Jingrui, who’d watched the ending of the trial slumped back against the wall behind the defense bench.)

Mei Changsu was quiet and patient where xiao-Shu had been bold and brash, and Mei Changsu resorted to manipulation and lies where xiao-Shu had used evidence and logic, but they both had the same knack for tossing out audacious claims and then somehow managing to defend them.

But they’d found the truth together. Each objection Mei Changsu raised had brought Jingyan closer to understanding what really happened, and he’d met every challenge with rebuttals of his own until they were all but completing each other’s sentences.

Jingyan had been breathless by the end, and even as the bailiffs led Xie Yu away and Jingrui accepted the judge’s condolences, he hadn’t been able to look away from Mei Changsu’s face, from the blazing look in his eyes as he’d met Jingyan’s gaze.

When Jingyan stepped into the defense lobby, Mei Changsu didn’t meet his eyes, gaze fiery or otherwise, because he was too busy having a coughing fit to do much more than nod his head in the direction of the door. Jingyan was not any more equipped to deal with a medical crisis than he was to deal with Jingrui’s emotional crisis, but there was no one else there so he was prepared to offer to help if he could.

But Mei Changsu straightened up, coughing fit resolved, and threw away a tissue that Jingyan could’ve sworn had blood on it. “Apologies,” he said, as if Jingyan weren’t the one intruding. “Can I help you?”

“I wanted to speak with you,” said Jingyan, hands hanging uselessly by his sides, feeling rather inadequate as he stood several paces away that might as well have been miles. “Are you… alright?”

“Well enough,” said Mei Changsu, mysterious smile pasted back on his face, but now Jingyan could see the edges of it, could see that his polite expression didn’t quite reach his eyes, that his jaw was set like someone steeling themself for an impossible task that they were determined to see through. “No need to be concerned for me. Now, what was it you came here to say?”

“I…” Jingyan crossed his arms and then uncrossed them. “Mr. Mei, I seem to have misjudged you,” he said bluntly. It wasn’t quite an apology, but he wasn’t quite sure Mei Changsu was owed one, at least not from him. “I should not have underestimated you.”

“Most people do,” said Mei Changsu. “I won’t hold it against you.”

“Ah,” Jingyan said, now thoroughly wrong-footed. “Well. Thank you, I suppose.”

Mei Changsu inclined his head politely in acknowledgment. “Although I get the impression that you had your eye on me from the beginning.”

“You were on trial for murder,” Jingyan pointed out. “It was my job to pay attention to you.”

“Hm,” said Mei Changsu noncommittally, like he knew Jingyan’s motivations better than Jingyan himself. For all Jingyan knew, that very well may have been true. He certainly seemed familiar with the motivations of Xie Yu and Zhuo Dingfeng, far more familiar than anyone who didn’t know them personally had any right to be.

“You’re right, though,” said Jingyan. “I did think you were suspicious, beyond the murder charge.”

“And now what do you think?” said Mei Changsu. He was worrying at his sleeve absently as he spoke, rubbing the hem between his thumb and forefinger. He hadn’t done it in court, which made Jingyan wonder what it signified, if it was a nervous habit he had been suppressing, what it meant that he was showing it now. Mostly, though, it reminded him of xiao-Shu, who made a similar repetitive hand motion when he was deep in thought.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Jingyan. “I know now that you were innocent of the murder, but I still don’t know your true intentions. Why did you really come to Jinling?”

Mei Changsu stood up finally and closed the remaining distance between them, standing close enough that Jingyan could’ve reached out and taken his hands. “I’m here for the truth,” he said. He took a deep breath, looked Jingyan in the eyes steadily. “It’s time for the truth of what happened thirteen years ago to be uncovered and brought into the light. The question is, will you help me?”

That wasn’t the question that Jingyan thought needed to be answered. He still didn’t know who Mei Changsu was, or what his purpose was in untangling the web of deceptions that surrounded xiao-Shu and Jingyu’s cases. He still didn’t trust the man. But he did trust what he’d felt in the courtroom today, that Mei Changsu would make a powerful ally, that maybe together they would be able to do what Jingyan couldn’t do alone.

“I look forward to our partnership,” said Jingyan, for the first time allowing himself to imagine a future of working alongside—across from—someone who wasn’t xiao-Shu, reaching out a hand for Mei Changsu to shake, and Mei Changsu took it. His hand was cold against Jingyan’s, but there was a warmth in his eyes—bright, determined, surprisingly sincere—that made Jingyan almost believe that they could succeed.