Chapter 441 It’s Too Late
In a private law firm in City G, Chen Maochang was basking in the flattery and compliments of a group of colleagues.
He just finished a case this morning. His client is a local real estate developer who is very rich but also very snobbish.
The developer recently bid on a project that required land in a suburban area, and the planned location of this land just happened to affect the houses of twenty or thirty households nearby.
Logically speaking, this shouldn't be considered a big deal. As long as both parties reach an agreement, the demolition should proceed as required, compensation should be paid as necessary, and the project can begin once the other party agrees.
The key point is that this developer was unwilling to spend more money on this aspect, so he deliberately kept the price extremely low.
In this way, these twenty or thirty households were naturally unwilling. They weren't stupid; who wouldn't want to lose money when their property was demolished and they didn't expect some benefits?
The two sides couldn't reach an agreement and remained deadlocked. Coincidentally, the son of the developer found out about this. This young master was a good-for-nothing hoodlum, and he immediately gathered a group of cronies to cause trouble for the residents, forcing them to move out as soon as possible.
During the altercation, the boss's son killed an elderly person from one of the families and injured several others.
Chen Maochang, acting as the lawyer representing the developer's son, used the excuse of "mental illness" to win the case and obtain a hefty reward.
As expected, the boss lost money, but his son was not criminally liable, did not go to jail, and did not pay with his life.
From a certain perspective, he has won this lawsuit to the greatest extent possible.
"Bang……"
As Chen Maochang was being led forward by the crowd, a figure suddenly rushed over aggressively and slammed into his shoulder.
Chen Maochang was jolted by the impact and nearly fell over.
Clutching his aching shoulder, he stared lividly in the direction the figure had vanished.
Upon seeing this, the crowd that had been surrounding Chen Maochang paused in their flattery, and after a long while, someone timidly spoke up: "Brother Chen, are you alright? Ah Ming... he didn't do it on purpose."
As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Maochang's face darkened. Several other colleagues who wanted to curry favor with Chen Maochang saw his expression and immediately added fuel to the fire, saying, "I think he's doing it on purpose. He can't stand that Brother Chen is better and more capable than him because his own performance is not good."
"Yes, yes, yes, it's normal for Brother Chen to feel a little resentful after making such a big deal on his first day. But so what if he feels resentful? Brother Chen is still better than him, he earns more and better. Only mediocre people are not envied. Brother Chen, let's not stoop to the level of such mediocre people."
The words of the others made Chen Maochang's expression much better, but some of the people who were closer to that colleague couldn't help but roll their eyes when they heard what they said.
Chen Maochang felt a sense of satisfaction, but he also knew that his colleague hadn't hit him out of any jealousy; he simply couldn't stand that Chen had helped the developer's son get away with it.
Chen Maochang felt no guilt whatsoever about this. As a defense attorney for the defendant, his duty was to strive for the best possible outcome for his employer.
Besides, so what if they don't like it? It doesn't affect his reputation or his ability to make money.
Compared to those vague moral principles, only these things are truly real.
Thinking this way, Chen Maochang felt much better. He was just about to pack his things and leave work early when he received a call from the old man next door.
"Xiao Chen, why did it take you so long to answer the phone? Your dad's in the hospital."
"What?" Chen Maochang was startled, his face changing color. "What happened? Why is my dad in the hospital?"
"It's a long story, you should go to the hospital right away."
Upon receiving the address, Chen Maochang rushed out of the office without a second thought, startling many people inside.
Chen Maochang rushed to the hospital as fast as he could, but he was still too late.
Upon learning that his father had passed away a few minutes earlier despite all efforts to save him, Chen Maochang's legs went weak, and he knelt down in front of the operating room, weeping uncontrollably.
He was born into a single-parent family. His mother passed away from illness when he was in elementary school, and his father raised him single-handedly.
He finally grew up and achieved success in his career, but his father passed away before he could enjoy his retirement. This was a huge blow to him.
After crying for a while, Chen Maochang calmed down a bit. He grabbed the kind neighbors who had taken his father to the hospital and said anxiously and angrily, "What exactly happened? My dad was fine this morning and had breakfast with me. How could he be like this so soon..."
Because his mother passed away early, Chen Maochang paid great attention to his father's health and arranged for him to have a full-body check-up every year.
In his view, his father was in very good health and there was absolutely no way he could have been hospitalized with an emergency; something else must have happened.
"Uncle Chen, he... he was murdered."
Chen Maochang was stunned for a moment, then roared, "Who? Who killed him? I'll make him go to jail and pay with his life!"
The speaker looked embarrassed, yet also somewhat sympathetic towards Chen Maochang: "It's the son of the Gao family in Building 9."
At first, Chen Maochang didn't realize who he was talking about, but after thinking about it carefully, he remembered that there was a famous person in Building 9...
"The woman of the house went out to buy groceries around noon, leaving her child locked inside. Somehow, he managed to escape. When he rushed out, your father was resting under a big tree downstairs from their building. The Gao family's son was carrying a stick and a knife..."
Chen Maochang couldn't listen to what the other person was saying after that.
At that moment, he had only one thing on his mind: the Gao family's son was a mentally ill madman, not like the developer's son who was faking madness, but an absolute, well-known, genuine madness.
Upon learning the whole story, Chen Maochang almost immediately recalled the scene from this morning when everything had settled down: the old man's own son, who had been beaten to death, stood at the courthouse entrance, staring at him with a sinister look.
He said, "You will get your comeuppance, you will all get your comeuppance, I'm waiting, I'm waiting!"
Chen Maochang felt dizzy and inexplicably remembered a comment a minor celebrity had made to him online not long ago.
"Talking about professional ethics with a murderer? You do it if you want, I'm not doing it."
At the time, he scoffed at these remarks, and his subsequent deletion of comments was merely to avoid being dragged into the public opinion, not to imply his agreement.
As the saying goes, you'll never know how much it hurts until you cut yourself.
Chen Maochang felt that he had never understood this sentence as deeply as he did now.
It was only at this moment that he realized that before adhering to his so-called professional ethics, he must first treat himself as a human being, a person with values and a bottom line.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
(End of this chapter)
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