0021 Healing Roasted Pork Zongzi
In a small reception room, the three people parted on bad terms.
No one expected this outcome.
Qu Zhong wanted to find out about any relationship between Chen Xi and Bai Qing beyond that of teacher and student, while Zhai wanted to help her find out. Bai Qing anticipated the questions Qu Zhong would ask, but her way of asking them was too harsh, completely disregarding the fact that Bai Qing was a victim of rape and whether Qu Zhong's words would cause her further harm.
Bai Qing was still sitting in the lobby of the procuratorate and had not left.
As it was getting late, Zhai was worried that it would be too dangerous for her to go back to school alone in her current mental state, so he contacted Qi Du.
Qi Du is an investigator in Chen Xi's rape case, and Zhai asked him to help send Bai Qing back to T University.
The last time Qi Du saw Bai Qing was the day she reported the crime. She was wearing a white dress and a khaki trench coat. She walked calmly to the C District Police Station alone, clutching a medical report she had just received from the hospital. She told him, "I was sexually assaulted and I've come to report it."
Bai Qing was a very strong person, that was Qi Du's impression of her. But when he found her on a chair in the corner of the prosecutor's office lobby, she was huddled there, a small ball, visibly weak, as if she was trying her best to hide herself.
Qi Du then realized he had misunderstood her. He sighed, walked up to her, and squatted down to her eye level: "Let's go, I'll take you home."
They walked in silence. The two walked one after the other on a cobblestone path at T University. The wind howled, the moon cast a deep shadow, and Qi Du saw her back, which exuded endless desolation and bleakness.
"Bai Qing".
His voice came suddenly, and Bai Qing stopped abruptly, turning to look at him with a questioning look in her eyes.
Qi Du was used to outwitting and outmaneuvering those who had committed crimes, often using a tone of admonishment and interrogation. At this moment, he wanted to comfort her, but didn't know how to begin.
Even though he had rehearsed his lines several times, when he actually called out her name, all his efforts were in vain and he was completely speechless, letting his ears turn red.
Bai Qing remained staring intently at him. Qi Du reached up and touched his neck, finally gathering his emotions and organizing his thoughts: "Don't worry, the prosecutor handling this case is an excellent one, and he will definitely help you get justice."
His voice was clear and resonant, each word carrying the night breeze into Bai Qing's ears.
Bai Qing pursed her lips and met his gaze: "I know."
Zhai had already met her once before today. His purpose was the same as Qu Zhong's: to find out about her relationship with Chen Xi.
Qu Zhong was right; Bai Qing did like Chen Xi. In the Modern Literature Appreciation class, she always arrived at the classroom early and sat alone in the front row. She would look at Chen Xi on the podium, interact with him, and afterwards take all sorts of literary works to his office.
Soon, rumors and gossip abounded. But their relationship was always one of soul connection, and there was never any immoral conduct between them.
Chen Xi always interprets the words she loves with remarkable insight. In Bai Qing's eyes, he is aloof, romantic, and passionate, completely out of place in this dirty, complicated, and incomprehensible world; he has his own Shangri-La.
Bai Qing, by chance, stumbled upon it. Those days were like a beautiful dream. After waking up, he frantically tore off her clothes and violated her amidst her pleas for mercy.
Just as Qu Zhong had guessed, Chen Xi pinned her against the office wall, like a beast devoid of emotion but filled with desire, endlessly thrusting in and out of her body.
After saying all this to Zhai, Bai Qing lowered her eyes and whispered, her voice filled with pain and contradiction, as if confessing to a pastor: "I actually had a physical reaction at the time... After reporting it to the police, I feel disgusted every time I think back to that time."
Zhai firmly told her at the time, "This is normal and it won't change the nature of his coercion."
Their eyes met, and Qi Du could still hear the girl's clear, melodious voice:
"He has eyes that see justice."
"Just like you."
...
After returning home from get off work and calming down, Zhai carefully reviewed what he had said to Qu Zhong in the reception room that afternoon that had caused her to become so emotional.
After reviewing the events several times, I've come to the preliminary conclusion that the word "cold-blooded" seems too strong.
He scratched his head, feeling somewhat regretful, but mostly angry: he had spoken too harshly, but wasn't she right too? What kind of ridiculous questions were those?
But on second thought, it seems not so hard to understand, since there are precedents showing that forced rear-entry sexual assault is very difficult to achieve.
Furthermore, the public security organs, procuratorates, and courts have a division of labor and cooperate with each other in handling cases. Therefore, the procuratorate has the public security bureau upstream and the courts downstream. However, lawyers are not within their system, so they have no say in the matter and instead have to deal with all three parties alone.
He was well aware of how many criminal defense lawyers had been convicted of perjury for their investigations and evidence gathering.
Damn it, she's absolutely right. He's really despicable. Why does a perfectly good prosecutor always try to speak for the defense?
Feeling agitated and unable to sleep, Zhai opened Weibo to check the latest public opinion surrounding Chen Xi's case. He ended up in the comments section and saw a barrage of insults directed at Chen Xi and his defense lawyer, the language of which was extremely offensive and offensive.
The more he read, the more his brows furrowed. When he saw the sentence, "Why wasn't she the one who was raped?" he sat up and cursed, "Damn it, how can this guy talk like that?"
Are these influential Weibo users ignorant of the law, casually posting such misleading topics? Does Weibo not care about this and just let these insulting comments run rampant?
Zhai acted impulsively, not caring what time it was, and typed a message on WeChat at lightning speed: "Help me look up someone."
He's been shameless, so be it. He's even resorting to his personal power for this defense.
A reply came quickly: "Who?"
Zhai went to see Qi Du after seeing the comment, "If you've been rained on, you should tear other people's umbrellas apart." His professional sensitivity as a prosecutor made him realize that the statement was not simple.
"Qu Zhong" (曲衷).
It's not difficult for the police to investigate an individual. Not long after starting work the next morning, Qi Du sent him the results: "Nothing special, a law-abiding citizen. However, seven years ago, she called the police once, because..."
sexual harassment.
Zhai saw these three words. He hoped that Qi Du had made a mistake, or that he himself had misread them.
Seven years ago, Qu Zhong was a junior at Nanjing University, working as a translator. She was just one of many ordinary female college students, with a normal social life and a stable boyfriend. The two met on the school's debate team, but their relationship didn't work out, and she eventually confessed her feelings to him.
Every day, she repeated the simple routine of campus life: during the day, she went to the cafeteria, the language classroom, and the library to read bilingual novels. In the evenings, she would sit with her boyfriend on a bench outside the playground, talking about her ideals and ambitions.
At that time, Qu Zhong said she wanted to become a translator like Zhang Jing, standing on the world stage to speak for the whole country.
One ordinary day, Qu Zhong was walking back to her dorm after class. On that familiar path, she encountered something that would change the course of her life.
A middle-aged man rushed up to her and, without any logic, exposed his genitals to her, then laughed arrogantly and terrifyingly.
In that instant, Qu Zhong was completely stunned; her mind went blank, and she even forgot to run away. It wasn't until the security guards came and took her away that she came to her senses, her legs trembling uncontrollably.
She was quite frightened, and her boyfriend rushed over when he heard the news, holding her and comforting her constantly.
Qu Zhong initially thought it was just a dirty eye and nothing else, and that she would recover. But then she heard her boyfriend say, "Wear more clothes next time."
His tone was sincere.
Qu Zhong gently pushed him away from her embrace, looked at him silently, pondered for a long time, and then said casually, "Let's break up."
"What?"
"I told you we should break up."
It's true that she fell for him during her freshman year of college, that she took the initiative to send him a long voice message to express her feelings for him, and that she's also true that she's breaking up with him now.
During the time she was heartbroken, it was around the Dragon Boat Festival. Every day, Qu Zhong would go to the East Campus cafeteria to buy two salted egg yolk and pork rice dumplings. She ate them every single day until she got sick of them and never wanted to see them again.
Because the day Qu Zhong confessed her feelings to him was the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival. He didn't reply to her message, but instead bought two salted egg yolk and meat dumplings from the East Campus cafeteria, ran all the way to the library, and breathlessly said to her, "Happy Dragon Boat Festival."
Sweetness is like rice dumplings, and so is healing. Even Qu Zhong, a future criminal defense lawyer, finds an efficient way to move on from heartbreak.
After this incident, Qu Zhong not only stopped wearing more clothes, but became increasingly daring in her attire. She also made a decision that no one understood: she decided to pursue a Master of Laws degree.
Her classmates thought she was crazy, and her family advised her to think twice. But Qu Zhong's decision was unwavering. While her classmates were preparing for intermediate and advanced interpreting exams, she was studying criminal law, civil law, and jurisprudence on her own.
And so, a year later, she successfully passed the entrance exam for H University's Master of Laws program, completing her transition from studying the principles of faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance to studying criminal law.
In fact, Qu Zhong originally wanted to study law to speak out for more people who had suffered misfortune and harm like herself, and to uphold fairness and justice in the world. Even she herself never imagined that she would eventually become a criminal defense lawyer; it's as if she's standing in stark contrast to her self seven years ago.
She was willing to speak up for Chen Xi, and for countless people who had hurt others, including herself. Even when misunderstood, she never doubted the significance of criminal defense.
In addition to the three bodies of law enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing, there must be a role to counterbalance them.
This character is like Qu Zhong, a criminal defense lawyer. Even if his power is meager, it is better than letting the dark judicial history of decades ago repeat itself.
*
The title of this chapter is a personal dig at Benjamin Butler; those interested can give it a listen—the song is called "Healing Rice Dumpling with Pork."
When I wrote about Qi Du before, a friend said they wanted to see his love life, so I'm including it here. The specifics might be written in a side story.
Let me add a few more words. These two latest chapters are the original intention behind writing this story. A while ago, the drama "She and Her Perfect Husband" aired, and there was a scene where the female lead said, "I am a good lawyer, not only to win cases, but also to uphold the justice and fairness of the law."
This is a discussion about the professional duty of lawyers. When I took this course in law school, my professor also led us on this topic. My view is that upholding fairness and justice is not a lawyer's primary responsibility; expecting them to do so is overly demanding. The law doesn't impose its will on people; a lawyer's role is simply to serve their client, inevitably requiring them to take a stance, much like in a debate where the assigned side is fixed. This is at least true in the field of criminal defense, because the clients in criminal defense are defendants—convicts who are likely to serve time in prison. Many of them are genuinely guilty, and acquittals represent only a very small percentage. Therefore, expecting criminal defense lawyers to uphold fairness and justice is inherently contradictory and impractical.
Of course, lawyers cannot blindly speak for their clients; there must be a bottom line. For example, if a client conceals significant facts or engages in illegal or criminal activities outside the case, the lawyer should not cover it up and can refuse to retain the client. I believe that beyond this, lawyers should not be required to bear any further obligations to uphold fairness and justice.
I'm just offering my humble opinion on this line of dialogue, not on the actor or the character. Feel free to share your different perspectives in the comments section; let's have a rational discussion!
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