A madman in France? How come he's always at crime scenes!

Chapter 23 Calling for Reinforcements

Preparing for the bar exam is always a long and arduous process.

Zhang Jiajing, sporting panda eyes, flipped through the tattered book of criminal law practice questions in front of her again and again.

"Boss, do you think the person who asked the question has any psychological trauma?"

Wu Liang lifted his eyelids from the case file.

Zhang Jiajing poked the question with his pen cap: "Look at this one: 'A sneaks into B's house late at night to steal, but finds B's three-year-old child alone at home. A abandons the theft and instead cares for the child until B returns. Does A constitute attempted crime?' Is the person who set this question expecting thieves to get a childcare worker certificate and find new employment?"

So what's your answer?

"That's a valid point; he subjectively waived his right to steal."

"wrong."

"How come it's wrong again!"

Wu Liang stubbed out his cigarette in the enamel mug: "A broke into someone's house late at night, which constitutes the commencement of theft. Caring for the young child is a separate act, and the illegality of the previous act cannot be retroactively eliminated. The question setter wants to test the time point of the crime's cessation, not your ability to be judged on touching deeds."

"What normal thief would go to someone's house in the middle of the night to act as a temporary babysitter?"

"That's why the cases in the law exam are randomly selected from the mental hospital's database."

Wu Liang leaned back in his chair. "How normal do you think the clients you encounter in the future will be?"

Zhang Jiajing remembered the old lady who was sleeping soundly in the garage.

That makes sense.

The water in the kitchen had boiled, so Zhang Jiajing put down her pen to turn off the stove. When she returned, she saw Wu Liang flipping through another set of past exam papers on her desk—last year's criminal prosecution case file.

"Boss, were you this stressed when you took the bar exam?"

"I?"

Wu Liang gathered the past exam papers together, his gaze drifting towards the ceiling as if recalling something from a distant past.

"The night before my objective test, my roommate asked me how far I was in my review. I said I had only read up to the special provisions of civil law, and I was sure I was doomed."

Hearing this, Zhang Jiajing's face lit up with a secret joy, but she still said, "Oh no, I'm still looking at the sub-thesis, there are only six days left—"

"I was lying to him."

"...Boss, you're really asking for trouble."

Wu Liang pulled an unopened box of black coffee from the drawer and tossed it in front of Zhang Jiajing. The packaging had a line of German text printed on it, none of which he recognized.

"What is it?"

"Officer Fang's friend brought this back from Germany, saying it's especially good for boosting energy. I don't like the taste, so you're lucky."

Zhang Jiajing opened the package, smelled it, and wrinkled her nose.

"Why does it smell like tires?"

"Just tell me if you want it or not."

"Yes! Why not!"

Zhang Jiajing poured coffee powder into a cup, and the moment hot water was poured in, an industrial atmosphere filled the entire law firm.

She took her cup back to her seat, looked down at a page of questions, and then suddenly looked up again.

"Boss, if I pass the objective questions, do you think I'll pass the subjective questions?"

"Let's get objective first."

"Can't you just feed me a cake? Even a drawing would do."

Wu Liang thought for a moment.

"If you pass, your salary will increase by 500 next month."

"Hehe, deal."

Zhang Jiajing lowered her head with satisfaction and continued working on her problems, but after less than two minutes of silence, she spoke up again: "Boss, any progress on Ni Dayong's side?"

Wu Liang put down the materials in his hand.

"How come you care about this more than I do?"

"I didn't mean to..." Zhang Jiajing sighed, "That girl Ni Xiang is so pitiful. Last time, she waited outside the police station all night. I brought her some food to comfort her, but the girl just wouldn't say a word."

Zhang Jiajing stirred her coffee, her voice muffled.

Wu Liang thought of the girl with big eyes, took out another cigarette from the pack, and shook his head.

"Sometimes people don't not want to talk, they just know it's pointless to talk."

……

"Sometimes people don't not want to talk, they just know it's pointless to talk."

Sun Jin threw his cigarette butt into the roadside ditch, and Fang Lue followed behind him.

The two had just come out of Shen Xuejun's small supermarket, which was about ten square meters in size, when an electronic voice came from inside the store welcoming them to visit again.

"I've truly never seen anyone like this before." Fang Lue tucked his notebook under his arm. "His daughter has been missing for twenty years, and now that we've heard from her, he shows us the expiration date on the soy sauce shelf?"

Sun Jin did not respond.

Shen Xuejun was more troublesome than he had anticipated.

It's not that the other party was uncooperative; on the contrary, Shen Xuejun was very polite from beginning to end.

I politely invited them to sit down, poured them tea, and listened attentively to their purpose.

Then he stood up, took two bottles of soy sauce from the shelf, and said that the production date of this batch was not clearly printed and had to be returned, asking them to wait a moment.

I waited for twenty minutes.

"He wasn't checking the goods at all," Fang Lue finally couldn't hold back anymore. "He was just telling us that he's just a small shop owner now, and that nothing else matters to him."

Sun Jin walked to the car door and glanced back at him.

"You seem to understand this quite well."

"I understand, I understand," Fang Lue said, quickly catching up. "But that's his own daughter! A perfectly good girl, taken from the provincial capital to a remote mountain village, abducted for nearly twenty years, and this is his attitude as her father?"

Sun Jin opened the car door and got in. He turned to look at the supermarket, where several boxes of cheap laundry detergent were neatly stacked at the entrance.

"Didn't you notice?" Sun Jin suddenly asked.

Fang Lue was still seething with anger: "Noticed what?"

"When I said, 'Your daughter has been found,' his first reaction wasn't to ask where she was."

Sun Jin adjusted his seat back to make himself more comfortable.

Instead, he reached for the cigarettes on the counter.

Fang Lue was stunned for a moment, trying hard to recall what had just happened.

"What would be the first question a normal father would ask when his daughter, who had been abducted for twenty years, is finally found?"

Fang Lue blurted out, "Is she alright?"

"Yes." Sun Jin frowned, pondering Shen Xuejun's motives, "but he didn't ask a single question."

"yes!"

Fang Lue slapped his forehead, realizing that he had been so focused on being angry that he hadn't paid any attention to these things.

"You mean he already knew about Jiang Cuilan... oh no, Shen Xin's situation?"

"I didn't say that." Sun Jin lit a cigarette and rolled down the car window. "I just said he didn't look like someone who had just found out where his daughter was."

He stared at the rearview mirror, but the person behind the counter never showed up, and his phone screen was flashing.

An entrepreneur who served seven years in prison ran a small supermarket in Shuangtang Town for more than ten years.

What is it that makes him even afraid to reunite with his daughter who has been abducted for so many years?

Fang Lue was really worried: "Captain Sun, should we call Attorney Wu? His way of judging people... maybe we can dig something out of him."

Sun Jin flicked the cigarette butt out the car window, turned his head, and looked at him with a smile.

"So you've learned to call for backup now, haven't you?"

"...Look at what you're saying, I'm just making reasonable use of social resources."