Chapter 53 Morality and Reason
Both of them dropped out of school after junior high and started working. Their meager income was simply a drop in the ocean compared to the huge medical expenses.
“He…he really had no other choice…” The girl’s voice was broken and choked with tears. “He watched me suffer from the pain, watched us sell everything we could, and borrowed from every relative we had…he was more anxious and more in pain than anyone else…he used to never steal a bag of candy from the supermarket…”
“He tried working on construction sites, delivering food, and doing three jobs at the same time… but… but that little money couldn’t even buy a box of medicine…”
“I don’t know when he started…doing that kind of thing…by the time I found out, he was already deeply involved…I cried, I made a scene, I begged him…I said I’d rather die than have him do this…but it was no use…he wouldn’t listen at all…he said nothing was more important than my life…”
The girl raised her tear-filled face and looked at Su Xiaonuan with despair: "What can I do? I can only pretend I don't know anything, pretend I'm happy... What else can I do? I can only watch him sink deeper and deeper... I knew this day would come sooner or later... but I didn't expect it to be so soon..."
She choked back tears, her voice filled with endless self-blame and pain: "Just now... just now I saw you talking to the police, you two seemed to know each other very well... I beg you... please help me... please talk to the police and arrest me too! This all started because of me, I took the medicine, I spent the money... if anyone should go to jail, it should be me! I can't let him be in there alone... without him... what's the point of my life... I simply can't go on living..."
Su Xiaonuan sat in the driver's seat, listening quietly.
The noise outside the car window seemed to disappear, leaving only the girl's desperate cries and lamentations.
Her heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by an invisible hand, both suffocating and aching.
Human morality and legal rationality were tug-of-war and struggle wildly in her mind.
Emotionally, she could completely understand the helplessness and despair of this ill-fated couple.
Disease and poverty are like two heavy mountains, enough to crush even the most resilient soul.
The boy's initial motivation for going astray may indeed have been, as the girl said, not for pleasure, but to save the life of his beloved.
This twisted yet incredibly heavy love, born out of desperation, is deeply moving.
The girl's resolute willingness to share the blame also reveals a poignant and heroic spirit.
However, rationally speaking, she knew better than anyone that the law is the law.
Regardless of the motive, fraud is fraud, and illegal behavior is illegal behavior.
Those students who were scammed also earned their tuition and living expenses with great difficulty, and their families may also be plunged into hardship as a result.
Sympathy cannot be a reason to trample on the law and harm the innocent.
If everyone uses "excusable circumstances" as an excuse to commit crimes, where will social order and fairness be?
Her eyes flickered with a mixture of sympathy, helplessness, struggle, and a deep sense of powerlessness.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel.
Finally, looking at the girl outside the car who was crying almost to the point of collapse, she spoke with a complex expression and a slightly hoarse voice: "I heard about your situation. I'm... sorry."
She neither directly refused nor impulsively agreed, but instead chose a response that best reflected her current stance and understanding: "I will truthfully report what you just said to the police. As for how it will be ultimately determined and handled, that is not something I can decide; it needs to be judged by the law."
This may be the only thing she can do, and the only thing she should do.
Upon hearing Su Xiaonuan's answer, the last glimmer of hope in the girl's eyes was extinguished.
She seemed to have all her strength drained away, covering her face and sobbing uncontrollably. Her body went limp as she slumped onto the curb, curling up in a ball, as if abandoned by the whole world.
Looking at her desperate and helpless appearance, Su Xiaonuan felt as if her heart was being stabbed with needles.
She didn't say anything more in the end, but just sighed deeply, slowly rolled up the car window, and drove away.
In the rearview mirror, the white, huddled, trembling figure grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the traffic and crowds.
But that figure was etched into Su Xiaonuan's heart like a brand.
On her way home, she felt unusually heavy-hearted. The girl's crying and plea kept replaying in her mind, and reason and emotion were waging a silent war.
Of course, she wanted to fulfill the girl's wish and let her go and be with the boy.
However, reason told her that the girl herself had not directly participated in the fraud, her crime was insufficient, and she could not be admitted to the police station.
Even if she goes in, what will happen to her illness? Will the conditions in prison allow her to receive treatment?
This seems to have become a predetermined, unsolvable open-ended problem.
One may be suffering agonizingly in prison, their heart tormented; the other may be dying outside prison due to lack of funds for medical treatment, leaving behind endless regret and pain.
This ending, like those tragic novels that have been passed down through generations, is full of the mockery of fate and the helplessness that makes people sigh with regret.
The car pulled up downstairs, but Su Xiaonuan remained inside for a long time without getting out.
She leaned against the steering wheel and thought for a long time.
This matter is far beyond what a street vendor like her can handle and decide.
She needs a more professional and rational perspective.
After thinking it over, she took out her phone and opened WeChat.
Instead of asking any one person individually, she created a new small group for Lu Zheng, Xu Zhixian, Zhao Liming, and Qin Haoran, naming the group "Temporary Legal and Emotional Counseling Group".
Then, she organized her thoughts, omitting specific names and cases, and only giving a general overview. She described, as objectively as possible, the dilemma she had just encountered—that the suspect had turned to crime due to a close relative's serious illness and the urgent need for huge medical expenses, while his partner, though not directly involved in the crime, was aware of it and requested equal punishment—and then posed the heavy, troubling question that had been troubling her:
"From a legal and professional perspective, how should this situation be viewed and handled? Is it really possible for the partner who did not directly commit the crime but was aware of it and benefited from it to be held equally responsible simply because they 'want to share the burden'? If it's legally impossible, how can this emotional hurdle be overcome?"
She sent the message, then leaned back in her chair, waiting for a reply with mixed feelings.
She knew that everyone in the group, especially Xu Zhixian and Lu Zheng, could offer more profound and professional insights than she could.
Before long, the phone screen lit up.
Xu Zhixian was the first to reply.
His answer was long, well-organized, and delivered in an objective and calm tone, with the rational thinking of a judge.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
