Chapter 227 Collapse

Qin Guan completely broke.

He stood in the defendant's dock, back hunched, head hanging low. Not a trace of the indignation and passion from the first trial remained.

The hellish days locked in the detention center, coupled with the mountain of irrefutable evidence looming before him—immovable, impenetrable—had finally caused him to utterly collapse.

He would never get out.

During these days locked up, he had tasted unimaginable suffering he had never before contemplated.

He had dreamed of leaving this place, dreamed of shedding these handcuffs. For this, he actively adjusted his mindset, spent all his savings seeking better lawyers, and tried to boost his spirits daily.

But lifting his head, wherever his gaze landed, he received the same message—in every pair of eyes, he saw contempt, disgust, hatred, disdain...

Yes, everyone wished they could tear him apart.

Yet, he too was filled with grievances.

He was only thirty! So young, promising, smart, capable! How could he die? He had fought tooth and nail to crawl out of that mountain gully. Every single step had been a thousand times harder for him than for others. How could this be his end?

It was so unfair.

From birth, he had to endure that shameful family and background, those parents he couldn't bear to show anyone, the endless mockery, scorn, even hunger and cold—most of the money his sponsors sent every month was taken by his drunkard father. Countless nights, he sat shivering under a lamp in thin clothes doing homework, stomping his feet constantly just to barely keep warm. When starving, with no food to be found at home, he ate washed leaves and even chewed on cotton wadding.

He had suffered so much, endured so much! He had climbed along a razor's edge to finally reach this point. He couldn't allow anyone to destroy this hard-won, splendid life! What was so wrong about that?

Had anyone ever thought about him?

"Ah—" Qin Guan suddenly opened his mouth, letting out a hoarse, heart-rending howl, as if trying to expel all the pent-up resentment and grievance from his chest.

"Ah— Ah—" He roared in all directions, his voice like a wild beast.

Finally, the entire courtroom fell silent.

The next second, Qin Guan laughed. It was a vacant laugh, a bewildered laugh. His lifeless eyes drifted indifferently from the judge to the jury, then settled on Xu Ruyi's face.

It was all her fault. If, as a teenager, she hadn't gone with her parents to see him. If her eyes hadn't held those sparkling stars when she looked at him, luring him closer, tempting him to climb higher, he would never have walked this path.

He had the ability! He could have struggled on his own!

But she had to offer the olive branch, creating obstacles on his promising path. She clearly promised wholehearted devotion, willingness to give everything for him. Her whole family clearly acted that way for everyone to see. Yet, everywhere they set up defenses, dangling him along, trapping him, holding that little bit of leverage high above, playing with him like a dog, a donkey, a beast.

He had been ruined.

Heh heh, heh heh... Qin Guan laughed lightly, easily, even wantonly.

"Qin Guan?" His lawyer called cautiously, staring uneasily into Qin Guan's eyes—using mental illness to escape guilt was a plan they had discussed countless times. But Qin Guan himself had rejected it.

It wasn't that he couldn't bear to stay in a mental hospital for life; it simply wouldn't work. His mad mother wasn't born insane. During that beating Qin Guan deliberately incited his drunkard father to inflict, which sent her to the hospital, she underwent a full examination due to her head injury, including a brain CT. Unlike many mental patients, she showed no abnormalities in her brain's white matter.

This report was naturally now in He Zhisheng's hands. Otherwise, why would He Zhisheng be sitting there right now, so upright, calm, composed, and utterly unruffled?

So this time, how could Qin Guan possibly try to escape guilt by claiming a genetic predisposition to mental illness?

Ridiculous, right?

Qin Guan's legs gradually weakened. He leaned against the seat and slid down, laughing even harder—how could he have imagined that the beating he orchestrated against his mad mother at the age of ten would turn around twenty years later and strike him dead center?

"Hahahahahaha..."

He landed on his backside on the floor, laughing hysterically. Then, amidst the laughter, he suddenly began to sob.

"I... I was just scared..." he wailed, his mouth twisted. "I was scared Qi Min would tell Xu Ruyi about my father-in-law... I was scared of losing everything... everything I worked so hard to get... My father-in-law, Xu Qian, he also threatened to tell Xu Ruyi, to divorce... my mother-in-law too... They were all forcing me... forcing me onto a dead end... I had no way out... I couldn't go back to those mountains... I never want to live like that again..."

"Ruyi, Ruyi," he raised his shackled hands, reaching out towards Xu Ruyi, towards this woman he had instantly recognized years ago as the one who could change his life with a single glance—

Even as the bailiffs dragged him away, his hands stubbornly remained outstretched.

"Sorry... Ruyi... Please forgive me... I was really wrong... Forgive me this once, for our child's sake... I will definitely change..."