Chapter 153 I Want You to Love Me Too
The day for the second court hearing came quickly.
There were even more reporters outside the courthouse than last time, their flashes creating a continuous barrage in the morning light.
However, when Ruan Yi sat in the waiting room, she felt more at ease than last time, because Fu Jingchen was almost certain of success.
The lawyer claimed that she might be required to appear as a witness to testify that Fu Jingchen was subsequently with her in a hotel room.
Despite her inner struggle between feeling guilty towards Fu Wang and hoping that Fu Jingchen was alright, she still agreed to attend.
When her gaze fell on the back of the man in the defendant's seat on the screen, she couldn't help but recall the phone call Fu Jingchen had made to inquire about the situation.
After all, before Fu Jingchen had even begun his arduous investigation, such clues, sufficient to prove illegal filming and overturn the charges, appeared "inadvertently" before his eyes.
The man's voice came through the receiver, without the slightest hint of suspicion or probing, but rather shrouded in an irrepressible tenderness.
"Has Xiaoyi helped me during this time?"
Ruan Yi certainly couldn't admit that she had received a "huge gift" in exchange for the evidence.
She pretended to be innocent and knew nothing, responding to Fu Jingchen as if she were a child.
"No, I don't have that ability. Maybe...maybe it's fate? Maybe God doesn't want you to go to jail!"
Unbeknownst to her, Fu Jingchen, on the other end of the phone, leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, listening to her clearly weak yet deliberately softened tone, his eyes overflowing with tenderness and affection.
"Is it fate, or my own will?"
The man never imagined that one day he would be protected.
When the judge declared the video evidence invalid in court due to illegal acquisition and improper source, Ruan Yicai finally felt relieved.
However, Anderson's plaintiff's lawyer showed no intention of giving up the charges. He produced documents and quickly presented a series of clues, from Fu Jingchen's itinerary before the incident to the vague testimonies of eyewitnesses, attempting to piece together a possible conviction from fragmented accusations.
Fu Jingchen's defense lawyer immediately countered, each point precisely hitting the flaws in the opposing side's evidence.
Whispers still broke out in the jury box. The video had lost its legal validity and thus its meaning, but that did not mean that the content of the video was entirely false.
The courtroom was filled with arguments, but none of them could truly pin Fu Jingchen down as the perpetrator of the shooting.
Ruan Yi sat in the audience, her fingertips loosening slightly.
Currently, given Fu Jingchen's status, unless there is solid evidence of a serious crime, the remaining controversies can be smoothed over with money and power.
When the courtroom dispute reached a stalemate regarding the timeline, the court called witnesses.
Ruan Yi took a deep breath and walked from the waiting room to the witness stand. Although she was trembling with nervousness due to her mixed emotions, she began to speak according to the words her lawyer had instructed her to say beforehand.
“After the incident, Fu Jingchen and I stayed in the suite and did not see any trace of Mr. Søren Anderson.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Fu Jingchen's defense lawyer took over, sharply refuting the plaintiff's claims.
"The plaintiff's claims of a 'shooting incident' and 'bribing those who disposed of the body' do not match up at all; the evidence is insufficient and it is a false accusation!"
"The witness and the defendant are in a romantic relationship, so the credibility of their testimony is questionable!" the plaintiff's lawyer immediately retorted, and the two sides engaged in another round of verbal sparring.
Ruan Yi's testimony was very simple. After she finished speaking, she was given permission to leave the courtroom. She first turned her head to look at the defendant's dock.
Fu Jingchen sat there, his hands, handcuffed in silver, resting on his knees, his expression calm and gentle, silently mouthing a reassuring "Don't worry."
Ruan Yi composed herself and turned to return to the waiting room.
But just as his gaze swept over the last row of the audience seats, his steps suddenly froze.
A man wearing a baseball cap and a mask sat in the corner, the brim pulled down very low, but his exposed eyes still caught her attention.
It seems...it really seems like it!
Almost the instant Ruan Yi stopped, the man seemed to sense something, and rose very quietly, leaving silently towards the side door of the courtroom without disturbing anyone around him.
My heart was pounding, and almost instinctively, the moment I was guided into the waiting hall, I quickly bypassed the staff and ran towards the exit.
Even if there was only a slim chance of her admitting her mistake, she wanted to catch up and see for herself.
Even just a glance at someone who resembles him.
Fu Jingchen stared intently at Ruan Yi's retreating figure as she hurriedly left after seeing something, his hands, handcuffed with silver handcuffs, suddenly clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white from the force.
When Ruan Yi chased after him, the corridor was only filled with staff members coming and going and a few passersby; there was no sign of the man.
The girl ran anxiously from one end of the corridor to the other, asking everyone she met, her voice slightly choked with sobs.
"Hello, did you just see a man wearing a baseball cap and a mask? He was very tall and wearing a black jacket..."
The responses were all headshakes: "Didn't see it." "Sorry, I didn't notice."
The more questions she asked, the redder Ruan Yi's eyes became, and her nose started to sting.
Was that just her hallucination? Has she had another episode?
Was it because she testified for Fu Jingchen in court that Fu Wang's spirit became angry and scared her in this way?
Even though she knew she shouldn't think like that, the girl was still overwhelmed by feelings of grievance and panic. Her nose tingled, and she felt like she was about to cry.
She bit her lip, wanting to run forward and ask again, unaware that she was about to pass a half-open door.
The next second, a large, bony hand suddenly reached out, tightened its grip around her waist, and pulled her inside the door, while another hand covered her eyes.
The door slammed shut, cutting off all light. In the pitch black, only the man's heavy breathing and heartbeat could be heard.
Ruan Yi screamed in fright. The moment she opened her mouth, her soft lips were suddenly covered by a scalding heat, which invaded her mouth like an invasion.
He plundered her fiercely, his strength so heavy it felt like he was going to crush her. She struggled desperately, pushing against the man's chest with her hands and kicking his legs, but her thighs were grabbed and lifted up.
Her body was instantly suspended in mid-air, her legs were forced to wrap around the man's waist, and her back was pressed against the cold door panel. She could only let him kiss her more and more fiercely.
The kiss was filled with extreme urgency, yet it was also an attempt to restrain something. The force of their lips touching clearly showed that the man wanted to tear her apart, but it was also tinged with a contradictory tenderness.
The kiss was so long it was almost suffocating. The man's lung capacity was astonishing; there was barely any time to breathe. Ruan Yi was already dizzy from the kiss, and her strength to struggle was slowly waning.
Finally, when the man stepped back slightly to catch his breath, a familiar scent instantly filled his nostrils—a refreshing lemon fragrance with a faint hint of tobacco.
The tobacco flavor was very faint, so faint that you could only smell it at close range, like when you were exchanging saliva.
Despite her extreme aversion to secondhand smoke, Ruan Yi didn't find it pungent at all; it was as if it had been deliberately treated, leaving only a faint aftertaste of tobacco.
Tears welled up and streamed down her face. Between sobs and mumbled whimpers, she asked, "Are...are you a ghost?"
The man's movements suddenly froze. He still held her lips between his teeth, but he didn't increase the pressure.
He didn't answer Ruan Yi's question directly; his tone was extremely soft, yet it sent chills down one's spine.
"You knew he killed me, so why weren't you afraid of him or left him?"
As soon as he finished speaking, he seemed to have finally hardened his heart and forcefully bit through the skin on her lip with his canine teeth.
A faint smell of blood lingered between their lips, yet he slowed his movements, gently licking the wound with the tip of his tongue, a contradictory tenderness in his expression.
Ruan Yi groaned in pain, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed, "Fu Wang, I..."
Before she could finish speaking, she was interrupted again. The man suddenly tightened his grip on her waist, pressing her even closer against the door. His voice was filled with an intense emotion that was hard to tell if it was love or hate.
Compared to him, am I really that insignificant?
"Then why are you crying in front of my tombstone! Why did you say those things! Why did you abandon me and then come back to me again and again!"
"Tell me...tell me!"
The force between her teeth intensified again, and Ruan Yi trembled all over in pain. She could only helplessly open her mouth to apologize, her voice broken and intermittent.
"I'm sorry, Fu Wang... I'm sorry. You can hate me, you can despise me, you can even seek revenge..."
"Revenge?" The man seemed to have heard a joke. He abruptly released her lips, but did not pull away, his nose still touching hers.
In the darkness, he could clearly see the teardrops clinging to the girl's eyelashes, trembling slightly.
The man laughed self-deprecatingly, his voice even hoarser: "Hate you? Yes, I do..."
"I hate that there are so many people around you!"
"I hate myself for not being able to kill as ruthlessly as Fu Jingchen!"
"I hate myself for going from someone who was never superstitious to someone who would consult fortune tellers and divine the future just to hear a fool say that we have a future together!"
"I hate you so much that I repeatedly ask God to confirm that it was my destiny to meet you and fall in love with you..."
"Instead of it being a dream that fate played a trick on me!"
Ruan Yi's tears instantly burst forth, falling hot and scalding.
She opened her mouth, but couldn't think of any words of comfort, and could only repeat over and over again, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
Ruan Yi reached out and gently stroked his cheek, crying as she returned the kiss, wanting to pour all her apologies into the kiss, even if it could alleviate his pain by a little.
"I don't want your apologies! Ruan Yi, I don't need them!"
The man tightened his grip on her waist slightly, his eyes bloodshot, and his voice filled with suppressed pain.
"I want you to be like you were before, like when we first met, and you fell in love with me at first sight!"
"I want you to change back, to go back..."
The last sentence, with its ending syllable, carried a desperate plea.
"I want...I want you to love me too."
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