Etching

Yundu Financial Court·The Third Arbitration Tribunal

The air conditioner vent emits a faint hum, and Charlotte counts the stitches on the third button of her shirt - this is her habit when facing lies. Seventeen years ago, when her father sat all night holding the hospital diagnosis, she also counted the buttons of the hospital gown in this way, until the morning light dyed the blue stripes into gray.

"Does Lawyer Lin admit the authenticity of this agreement?"

The voice of the arbitrator dragged her back to reality. Lawyer Chenxing in the dock was holding up a yellowed folder, and the edges of the pages were curled like dried butterfly wings. It was her father's handwriting, and she would never make a mistake - there was a trembling ink dot on the lower right of each "的", like a sigh being suppressed.

"This so-called technology sharing agreement..." She stood up, and her sleeves rubbed against the scorch marks left by last night's explosion, "The signing date is November 7, 2002."

There was a commotion in the audience. Charlotte's eyes swept across the agarwood bracelet on the wrist of Morningstar's vice president, and suddenly she remembered that rainy night: when she was fifteen years old, she curled up in the corridor of the emergency room, and the same agarwood smell seeped out from the crack of the door of the emergency room, mixed with the transformer oil smell on her father's overalls.

"And here--" She raised the ultraviolet lamp, and the spot of light fell on the lower right corner of the agreement, "Mr. Zhou Weimin's signature used the Hero 329 ink that was discontinued in 2010."

Amid exclamations, Alexander flashed in from the side door. His right arm was in plaster, and the hem of his suit was stained with wall dust, but he still split the turbid air like a sheathed Tang sword. Morningstar's lawyer's teacup suddenly tilted, and the brown liquid soaked into the case file, leaving an ugly birthmark.

"Objection!" The opposing lawyer's Adam's apple rolled up and down, "This is related to..."

"It is related to the core of this case." Alexander walked straight to the evidence table, and the plaster brushed against Charlotte's back, raising a storm of cedar fragrance, "Because the real agreement is now in the safe of the CEO of Thunder Appliances."

He suddenly coughed violently, and the blood oozing from his fingers fell on the case file she spread out. Charlotte's fingertips twitched unconsciously-this scene was too familiar. When he was a sophomore, he had food poisoning and was also holding the laboratory operating table in this way, and blood dripped on the circuit board she was preparing for the competition.

"Last night's explosion scene..." Alexander used his bloody fingers to scratch the tablet computer, and the surveillance video showed that it was the security director of Thunder Appliances, "This gentleman took away no ordinary documents."

The whole court was in an uproar. Charlotte saw that the Buddhist beads of Morning Star Vice President suddenly broke, and the sound of the sandalwood beads rolling reminded her of the screws scattered on her father's workbench. The old man who always liked to touch the Buddhist beads and say "be compassionate" was now torturing Alexander with his eyes.

"Silence!"

The moment the gavel struck, Charlotte felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She saw someone in the dock reaching for his inner pocket, a cold metallic light flashing——

The body moved before the mind.

The moment she pushed Alexander away, the bullet grazed her ear and embedded itself into the national emblem relief behind her. The smell of gunpowder overlapped with her memory: the night when she was fifteen, her father clutched the rejected patent application, and the firecrackers that suddenly exploded outside the balcony also made her tremble like this.

"The third time." Alexander's voice was blurred in the tinnitus, and warm blood dripped down his plaster onto her skirt, "You always choose the worst moment to be soft-hearted."

In the chaos when the riot police rushed in, he stuffed a metal object into her palm. The USB flash drive with body temperature was incredibly hot, and the house number of her father's laboratory was engraved on the corners.

"The password is the string of numbers you want to forget the most." His breath smelled of rust, "In the safe..."

As the sound of the stretcher wheels rolling over the floor tiles faded away, Charlotte clenched the USB drive. She didn't know whose blood the sticky blood between her palms belonged to, just like she couldn't tell whether the intense heartbeat at this moment was caused by fear or the fingertips that brushed against her waistline when he inserted the USB drive.

A scream suddenly broke out in the audience. The holographic screen was frozen on the enlarged photo of the will - between Zhou Weimin's wrinkled fingers, half of a burnt baby photo was revealed, and the faded blue ink on the swaddling clothes read: Experimental Subject C-0917.

She recognized it as her father's handwriting.