Chapter 176: Fang Pingxi

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Of the five witnesses, the case that had befallen this old woman was the most heartrending.

Her pension had been swindled away by fraudsters.

After she reported the crime, the security officers had assured her that they would recover the stolen money within three days.

But after that, nothing more was heard.

The old woman went to the nearby security station and asked about the two officers who had made her that promise. Yet those two brutes had been drinking while on duty.

They brazenly told her that they had deliberately put off investigating the case. Fraud cases were too difficult to solve, they said, and they had no intention of wasting their time on one.

Besides, she was already so old. She might as well hurry up and die. What did she need a pension for?

In her fury, the old woman struck the officers several times with the small handbag she was carrying. One of the burly officers simply slapped her to the ground, breaking her lower leg.

The two officers then escaped punishment by claiming that the old woman had attacked them while they were on duty.

They continued swaggering around the neighborhood on patrol as though nothing had happened.

As the old woman recounted her tragedy, cloudy tears welled from the corners of her eyes and slipped down her deeply wrinkled cheeks.

The members of the hearing audience listened with tightly furrowed brows. Several young women, overcome with emotion, even began to weep.

But that was not the end.

Standing beside the old woman was a middle-aged couple.

Their only daughter had been sexually assaulted by the owner of the company where she worked. The girl reported the crime afterward, but when the security officers arrived, the employer claimed that she and he had had consensual relations.

He said that after they were finished, the girl had suddenly thrown a tantrum and reported him. It was merely a private emotional matter between them, he claimed, and he would deal with it himself.

The officers actually accepted his story. They warned the girl not to make false reports again, declaring that the security bureau was not a tool for her to vent her temper.

Overwhelmed by shame and fury, the girl—her body covered in bruises—leaped from the roof.

When the couple learned what had happened, they reported the case. But after reviewing the surveillance footage, the officers declared that the girl had taken her own life and that her death had nothing to do with the company owner.

Still, in the spirit of humanitarianism, the owner paid the girl’s family five hundred thousand Tianlong coins.

And with that, the case was closed.

As they recounted what had happened, the couple wept so violently that they could scarcely speak. They had to take turns before they could finish telling the story from beginning to end.

The members of the hearing audience, whose brows had been furrowed moments before, now had flames of fury burning in their eyes.

When Long Wushuang heard this case, he cursed under his breath. “What a rotten system. Damn, it’s rotten to the core! Those officers must have been taking kickbacks from the owner!”

Yet the final witness’s story was the one that provoked the greatest outrage.

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He was a man dressed in utter disarray. His hair had grown long and was left unkempt, and black grime filled the cracks beneath his fingernails.

He stood there with a slovenly, careless air, seeming almost devoid of vitality.

The inspector asked, “You are twenty-seven years old this year?”

There was a note of doubt in his voice, because the man looked at least forty.

The man flashed a crooked grin. “I don’t look it?”

He lowered his head. “No. Everyone says I don’t. There’s nothing to be done about it after so many years in the wind and sun.”

There was an inexplicable sorrow in his voice. It was merely a simple reply, yet it left everyone feeling a pang of sadness.

Then he began to tell them about his case—or rather, about his life.

…

The man’s name was Fang Pingxi.

His family had given him that name in the hope that his whole life would be filled with peace and happiness.

In truth, he should have lived such a life, for he had been born into a wealthy family.

His family had been merchants for four generations. They dealt only in modest businesses, but by his father’s time they had accumulated a considerable fortune.

On Luzhou’s busiest commercial street, the family owned fifteen shops.

Outside the city stood two factories, one producing cloth and the other glass, both of them profitable.

The family also possessed connections accumulated over four generations, allowing the Fang family to broker access to various commercial resources. That business alone brought in tens of millions every year.

With such a background, and as the cherished late-born son of his parents, Fang Pingxi was adored beyond measure.

From childhood, he lived in luxury. His parents treated him as though he might be bruised if they held him too tightly or melted if they kept him in their mouths.

He was, in every sense, a little young master.

Yet their indulgence did not make him spoiled. On the contrary, he was an intelligent and obedient child who never made unreasonable demands of his parents.

Even when they were busy with business, he did not grow into a wastrel. At school, his grades were consistently among the best.

His parents were delighted and cherished him all the more.

Those were, one might say, the ten smoothest years of his life.

But shortly after his tenth birthday, everything was turned upside down.

While traveling abroad on business, his parents were ambushed and murdered by a band of bandits. Only two urns of ashes came home.

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Fang Pingxi suddenly became an orphan.

Fortunately, he still had an aunt who could take care of him.

His aunt treated him well—better, even, than his parents had, as though she meant to compensate him twice over for the love he had lost.

But as time passed, her true face was revealed.

It turned out that all her kindness toward Fang Pingxi had been a disguise. Her real aim was to seize the fortune his parents had left behind.

Fang Pingxi’s father had long since separated from his sister. His aunt had already received a share of the family property.

But she had married a younger man, and after she and that worthless husband squandered their wealth, she turned her attention to Fang Pingxi’s inheritance.

Before long, she had taken control of every one of the Fang family’s businesses. Fang Pingxi was only a boy of ten or so; he had no way to contend with two adults whose hearts were as poisonous as snakes and scorpions.

The lawyer appointed by his parents to handle their will also died mysteriously at home only a few days after their murder.

Thus, under the law, Fang Pingxi’s inheritance was temporarily placed under the management of his sole direct relative.

Once she had secured the legal advantage, his aunt’s attitude toward him became atrocious.

She often went out carousing with her lover, locking Fang Pingxi alone inside the estate without leaving him any food.

Only when he was starving to the brink of death would she return and impatiently toss him a few packets of biscuits.

Then she would go out to indulge herself again, leaving him to starve.

Unable to endure such a life any longer, Fang Pingxi seized an opportunity and ran away from home.

When he fled, he took with him the seal his father had left behind. His father had once told him that if anything happened to the family, he should go to the Luzhou Bank and use the seal to retrieve what had been left there for him.

Fang Pingxi did as he was told. He obtained a copy of the will and a letter from his father.

The letter said that if anything happened to them while they were away, then there could be no doubt: Fang Pingxi’s aunt was responsible.

She was his father’s half-sister and had always resented him. After Fang Pingxi’s grandparents died, she had demanded that the family divide its property.

Out of consideration for their shared blood, Fang Pingxi’s father had not treated her unfairly during the division.

But the woman seemed to suffer from a persecution complex by nature. She insisted that Fang Pingxi’s father had bullied her and transferred the family’s assets away, leaving her only that small portion of the fortune.

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