First-Class Lawyer

When Yan Suizhi glanced through the photos, he had taken note of a few things. One of which was Chen Zhang’s inconspicuous-looking house. In spite of how quickly Yan Suizhi had gone through them, he had actually memorised the plate on the corner of the wall; on it, the address was inscribed as such—19 Camphor Forest Lane.

The car that Yan Suizhi rented allowed manual navigation and driving, so he had gotten straight into the driver’s seat. 

When the car started, the default setting was set to autopilot mode, thus it could drive autonomously. Yan Suizhi searched the map of Zone 3 and set the destination to 19 Camphor Forest Lane, then left it be, allowing the driving system to move freely. On the other hand, he himself turned on his photon computer, intending to go over the case file once more.

But he hadn’t spent long on it before raising his head, his gaze landing on the rearview mirror.

Usually, smart driving systems had an additional feature called ‘Track Car Ahead’. But only the police could openly use this feature; all other vehicles on the road weren’t allowed to activate this feature without authorisation. If there really were special circumstances requiring its use, an application needed to be submitted in advance and approved by the police before it could be enabled.

This meant that if anyone had a sudden urge to follow a car on the road, they would either have to hire a man-operated taxi or do it themselves. 

In short, the car had to be tracked manually.

Manually driven cars always stood out amidst a sea of smart-driving cards, easily recognisable from their pathing and the way they turned.

So, Yan Suizhi had only taken a quick glance when he noticed a particular car in the rearview mirror.

And why this car in particular, was because the car had been following him.

Yan Suizhi gave it a go, moving the steering wheel, twisting his car around a corner. The car in the rearview mirror, from afar, hesitantly followed him, also making a turn.

“…”

It also took a special kind of talent to tail a car this clumsily.

He had been tailed for various reasons on many occasions in the past. In a sense, he had plenty of experience, but this was the first time that he witnessed such a brash method of following a car, like it was sent up to his doorstep for his amusement. As for who was in the car, he could guess it even had he used his toes to think. 

Who else could it be but the reporters he had just duped?

It was impossible to be anyone else.

Yan Suizhi leisurely admired the car’s poor acting for a while. He gave the other party ten minutes of free play before unhurriedly keeping his photon computer. He put one hand on the steering wheel and clicked on the map with his other hand. After giving the map a rough look, he simply turned off the autopilot.

On the highway, a Silver Panther S60 was moving with the flow of the smart-driving traffic, making a less than necessary turn every now and then, causing the whole carriage of the car to twitch like it was malnutritioned.

Inside the car were none other than the two reporters from Honeycomb Media. Bens was seated in the front passenger seat, his beady black eyes tightly fixed on the car in front of them. He would always look for a while, then turn over to prod the driver, look for a while, and turn back over to prod the driver again.

The taxi driver had a pained look on his face, as if his arse was seated on a steel pegboard not a driver’s seat. Judging from his expression and the occasional twitch of the corners of his mouth, he was probably regretting taking the order for the millionth time.

After Bens made a fuss for ten minutes thereabout, the driver finally couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped looking ahead, turning his head and saying to Bens, “Mister, can you shut up and take it easy for a while?” 

“You!” Bens glared with his beady black eyes, which made him look like a ladybird. “How can you speak like this? Where’s your service attitude?”

“This attitude is good enough already. Any other driver with poor service would have blown you off the moment you said you wanted to follow the car ahead.”

“Bullfuckingshit—”

“Ehhh!” 

Just as the two men seated in front were about to mouth off at each other, Hershey, who had stayed quiet as a mouse the whole time in the back seat, suddenly spoke. “Wait, look!”

He pointed to the front windscreen, saying, “That car!”

The taxi driver and Bens whipped their heads over to look, only to see the car that they had been smoothly following a second ago suddenly make a sharp turn, its speed spiking instantly as it turned a tricky angle in the traffic. Within a couple of seconds, it sped out the highway with a beautiful arc through the raised exit ahead, hurtling out of sight.

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After a few seconds, the taxi driver said, “If it weren’t my car that was shaken off, I’d give him 5 stars for his driving skills.”

Bens instantly snapped back to attention. He drew in a sharp breath, saying in a haste, “To hell with your 5 stars, hurry up and follow that guy! You’re left in the dust already!”

The driver didn’t flog the dead horse, leaning back in his seat and pointing at the logo on the steering wheel. “Please open your eyes. You booked a Silver Panther. That guy booked a subspace pod, just a little worse than an actual space shuttle. It’s many times faster than us. Why don’t you tell me how I am supposed to keep up?” 

“Then why didn’t you say so earlier?”

The taxi driver wiped his face. “Of course I can keep up with the smart driving speed limit. But who the fuck would expect that he would change to manual midway? Do it yourself if you think it’s that easy, if not shut up!”

Bens huddled back in the seat in a rage, feeling that not only was he not able to breathe easy, but he was soon about to choke to death.

Behind, Hersey watched the play unfold in silence. He glanced again at the road connected to the raised exit. Even though the subspace pod had long vanished, he continued to look on with relish for a couple more seconds, and was finally unable to hold back a snort of laughter. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Bens was as prickly as a ruffled rooster, jerking his head over to glare at him.

Hersey immediately pursed his lips, awkwardly humming and frantically changing the subject. “Nothing. I was just wondering where we should go now, Teacher?”

The lookover that Bens gave him was so long that Hersey began to fidget. Then he spoke, “You want to go back?”

Hersey deliberated for a moment before asking, “Do you plan on going back?” 

Bens rolled his eyes. “In your dreams.”

“…”

Bens turned back around again and leaned over the passenger seat to toss the taxi driver an instruction. “Go to Cherry Estate. You don’t have to follow any cars this time. Take your time, I’m going to get some sleep.”

After saying this, he grunted, leaning back into the seat and closing his eyes. He faintly heard Hersey give a very soft sigh from the backseat. 

He knew what Hersey was sighing about, of course.

Hersey was a young man who was a year fresh out of university. He was passionate, polite, and ambitious, but was too shy to do anything and kept everything clammed up. He was particularly bashful. However, this was an industry unkind to bashfulness.

As such, Hersey’s job search didn’t go smoothly. He had wandered around aimlessly until he finally found this run-of-the-mill website, Honeycomb Media.

Despite calling it an unremarkable website, the fact that it had survived amidst the countless competition in the entire interstellar alliance was an achievement in itself. So, at the end of the day, though the job wasn’t too good, it wasn’t too bad as well. The hiring requirements every year were actually relatively stringent. 

The HR officer hadn’t wanted Hersey at first, either. But he was hired because of an offhand comment from the boss.

The boss had taken a look at the photos in Hersey’s portfolio, and said that this kid had a compassionate heart.

Bens couldn’t see a lick of wherever this ‘compassionate heart’ came from. Who knows, it could be just another flowery remark that the boss spouted on a whim. All he knew was that Hersey’s photography skills were a hundred thousand miles behind the other two photographers in the company. HR obviously thought so too, so they arranged him under Bens as a junior reporter. Put bluntly, Bens was just there to do odd jobs and learn a little mishmash along the way.

Bens felt that he was already being very kind. Some teachers didn’t want to starve themselves to death by bringing students along, using them as an extra hand or as a waterboy without teaching them anything. He was different. He brought Hersey with him every time he went out, and every time he remembered any advice from his seniors, he would always pass it on to him. Such a dedicated teacher was hard to find; it was a pity that this brat Hersey didn’t know how to appreciate it. 

All he thought about all day long was the explosion case, the explosion case… and the explosion case.

Back when the explosion first happened, public discourse was at its peak, and Bens also had a period of such zeal. But to no avail, he chased down leads for ten days and found nothing that could shake things up nor any sensational topics. At that time, Hersey had also taken many photos, but with that technique of his…

In essence, Bens’ final verdict after going over those several hundreds of photos was: there was no focus.

The way he saw it, there wasn’t a single informative photo within the lot, let alone any with sufficient visual impact to draw discussion and traffic to their website. 

The photos were immediately discarded by the website, but Hersey made a copy of them for himself. He was reluctant to delete them, going on about how there was a lot of information contained and many suspicious factors. But this kid was clumsy with his words; he wasn’t good at articulating his thoughts, thus his words didn’t hold much sway.

Ultimately, it was shelved.

Later on, the public interest in the explosion case had faded away. Countless news articles confirmed that there wasn’t anything noteworthy about the case itself—the only reason it attracted so much attention at that time was only because of the law school dean.

It was only human nature to follow the trend, after all. 

Of the many articles that were written, how many people had actually interacted with the dean? Not many. After jumping on the bandwagon, apart from a flood of classic photos, those people probably didn’t even remember the dean’s face. It was probable that if the dean had worn a beard or changed his hairstyle, the whole lot of them wouldn’t be able to recognise him.

Well, that was the case with Bens, anyway.

“Stop sighing. I’m doing this for you as well…” Bens grumbled. “You have to keep up with the times. Is there any point in flogging a dead horse?”

After saying this, he heard Hershey behind him go silent for a moment and reply, somewhat awkwardly, “I know.” 

What shit do you know!

Bens rolled his eyes, then knocked off to dreamland.

After losing his tail, Yan Suizhi switched back to autopilot mode again, leaving the steering wheel and continuing to read the case file in his hand. He looked calm and collected, as if he wasn’t the one who had driven the car off in a furious whirlwind earlier. 

Twenty years ago, he would take the wheel in this exact style, with nary a flicker in his expression when picking up the speed. On the other hand, the people sitting in the car tended to clutch the handles and look as if their hearts were about to leap out of their mouths.

Later on, after noticing this, he began to leave it be, using autopilot mode whenever possible, and eventually grew too lazy to touch the steering wheel.

The car soon pulled up to the preset destination; 19 Camphor Forest Lane.

The property prices in Zone 3 of Tian Qin were ridiculously steep. Due to its somewhat remote location, the prices at Camphor Lane were slightly better. Nevertheless, they still weren’t at a range that the usual populace could afford. Therefore, the houses in this area were particularly small, each crammed against the next. Also because of the hover road cutting above it, the houses couldn’t be built too high, and were at most three stories high. 

Chen Zhang’s house was only two-storied. From the front, it seemed that the ground floor could fit a small living room and kitchen at most, while the second floor could fit a bedroom and a bathroom.

Yan Suizhi pulled out a slim, white pair of specialised gloves from his pocket, which he had purchased the very night he arrived in Tian Qin. His wealth of experience taught him what he would need to prepare based on the type of case that he received. For disposable items like specialised masks and gloves, he would always buy them at the place itself.

A thin layer of dust had collected on the mailbox in front of the house and the window ledges. But there were still traces of the seals that the police had placed during their investigation and evidence collection.

At this time, the investigation was done. Most of the haphazard mess of seals and warnings were removed, leaving only a few on the entrance, windows, and keyholes, barring unauthorised entry. 

A young policeman from the headquarters was also stationed here. When he saw Yan Suizhi stop, he pressed the horn from his car.

“What’s your business here?” The policeman poked his head out of the car window.

Yan Suizhi sent his identification file over to him. “I submitted the paperwork on the way here.”

“Ah, the defence lawyer?” The policeman looked him up and down, probably feeling that he looked too young. Faint disbelief leaked into his expression. Nevertheless, he had clearly received word, and simply nodded without probing further. 

He didn’t twiddle his thumbs and continue to sit in the car, but came down to follow Yan Suizhi to the entrance.

Soundlessly, he watched this young man who still looked like a student meticulously wear his gloves, and a mask after that, before turning over to him, his eyes curving into a smile. “Pardon me, could you open the door?”

As the policeman used his access to undo the lock, he muttered in his head, ‘Why don’t you just bundle your entire body up…’

There were many vehicles that passed through this road. Without anyone cleaning the place in recent days, the musty smell of dust was heavy in the air, instantly billowing into their faces. The policeman was already used to it, merely entering with a hand over his nose. 

Conversely, Yan Suizhi, despite having the foresight to bring a mask, still choked on the musty smell, turning his head away and coughing lightly.

The policeman, in his head, ‘Isn’t this intern quite the delicate one…’

The places that could be searched in the house had actually already been searched. Yan Suizhi also didn’t expect to make any groundbreaking discoveries. He simply walked around the living room, stopping intermittently to scan around him, then walking to the kitchen and likewise sweeping the area.

His gaze flitted airily across item after item like a dragonfly skimming against the water surface. 

“Is it enough for you to just look around? Do you want to touch anything? An inventory has been made of the house, you can search around however you like.” The policeman eyed Yan Suizhi’s gloves for a long time, but ultimately still chose to pipe up, tactfully reminding, “Don’t be shy, I’m keeping an eye on things. Just touch whatever you want to.”

He thought that the reason for this awkward look around was due to this intern’s young age and lack of experience. Little did he expect that after hearing his words, the intern would only nod, smiling, “I’m good for now.”

The policeman, “…” Even I’m starting to feel anxious for you.

In the bedroom on the second floor, there was a smart device for home use by the bed. To a certain extent, this could replace the need for a photon computer, and also cost much less. 

When Chen Zhang went into custody, this smart device naturally couldn’t be taken with him. The police had checked through it once, then returned it to its original position, merely that they continued to monitor its activity.

Yan Suizhi gestured to the policeman. “I would like to use this.”

The policeman had ‘you’re fucking finally touching something’ written all over his face as he walked over to help him turn it on. Yan Suizhi remained as standoffish as before, only making a few quick swipes with his fingers to bring up the notification centre and glance through the messages.

After so many days of inactivity, Chen Zhang’s notification centre was cluttered with all kinds of unread messages. It included information about sales at the various shopping malls in Zone 3, official weather notifications, various kinds of rubbish scam mails, etc. 

It must be a chore for the police to keep an eye on this everyday.

The young policeman was obviously sick of it already. When he saw the messages, he looked down, massaging his temples. But when he looked up again, he found that the intern lawyer was still gazing at the message interface in silence, a translucent sheen of warm light covering his pitch-black eyes, gently moving with the scrolling of the messages on the screen.

Yan Suizhi quietly read through the subject titles of all the messages, occasionally looking towards the policeman when he found something of interest, then continuing to click into the contents of the next message.

The message he spent the longest time poring over was a promotional message from a welfare hospital, the sort that came with holiday greetings. After reading it, he turned off the screen, standing up straight. He nodded to the policeman, saying, “Thank you. I’ve pretty much covered it.” 

“Alrighty.” The policeman thought to himself, ‘This is probably the fastest investigation I’ve ever followed.’

But he didn’t show any of his thoughts on the surface, leading Yan Suizhi out of the room in a professional manner.

Yan Suizhi followed a few steps behind him, taking off his gloves thoughtfully as he went down the stairs.

It was only when they were right about to walk out the door that he took off his mask. He watched the policeman close and reseal the entrance, smiling at the other party. “Thank you for your time. I’ll go off first, then.” 

The policeman nodded and got back into his car. From behind, he watched Yan Suizhi head for the parking lot not far off, and couldn’t help but grumble, “This student probably didn’t know what he should do, so came here to stroll around for a bit and call it a day, right?”

But, naturally, Yan Suizhi wasn’t just strolling around.

He got into his car and set the destination for a welfare hospital called Zhigeng Hospital.

It just so happened that he had been to this hospital before. Either way, this wasn’t the kind of message that any random person would get. To have received this message meant that Chen Zhang had previously visited someone there. 

Zhigeng Hospital was not in Zone 3 of Tian Qin, but located in a remote and secluded area in Zone 1, well-suited for recuperating from illness.

The journey was unreasonably long. It was already night by the time Yan Suizhi arrived.

As he straightened the creases in his shirt and got out of the car, the smart device on his finger buzzed several times in quick succession.