Chapter 27: For Justice and Fairness

The law school in late autumn was steeped in the fragrance of sweet osmanthus. Li Yifei hurried through the corridor, clutching a stack of casebooks on the Code of Criminal Procedure, his coat brushing against a few golden, ginkgo leaves scattered on the stone steps.

Ever since Professor Zhao’s lecture, he had been like a spark set aflame. He was always the last to leave the library when the closing music played, and he would appear in the study hall at the break of dawn, clutching a thermos filled with hot water.

His notebooks were layered with red and blue annotations, and the sticky notes tucked between the pages looked like butterflies poised for flight, densely packed with questions challenging the legal statutes.

"Li Yifei has put Professor Wang on the spot again!" came the whispers outside the criminal law classroom that morning.

Inside, Professor Wang pushed up his sliding tortoiseshell glasses, chalk dust falling in little flurries onto his neatly pressed navy blue suit.

Li Yifei stood in the front row, his copy of *A Guide to the Application of Criminal Law* frayed at the edges, the spine reinforced with clear tape—a testament to how often it had been pored over. "Professor, according to current law, when facing an ongoing, serious violent crime, does a defensive act that results in the death of the perpetrator necessarily constitute excessive defense? But surely, the right to life should take precedence..." His voice was clear and calm, yet it acted like a sharp scalpel, precisely slicing through the folds between legal text and reality’s dilemmas.

Professor Wang’s hand, holding the chalk, trembled slightly, and fine beads of sweat formed on his forehead. In his twenty years of teaching, this was the first time he had felt the embarrassment of being backed into a corner in his own classroom.

The ginkgo leaves outside rustled in the wind. The chalk hovered over the blackboard for a long time, leaving only a crooked white scratch. Finally, he sighed and closed the textbook. "This question touches on the lag in legislation. Let us discuss it after class."

When the bell rang, Li Yifei watched the professor’s retreating back as he hastily gathered his lecture notes. A few specks of chalk dust clung to the back of his suit collar, and that glimpse of fluster stung Li Yifei’s heart—he had never intended to embarrass his teacher; he simply longed to touch the true face of the law through his questioning.

These scenes soon transformed into a mountain of teacher feedback piling up on Professor Zong’s mahogany desk. Professor Zhang had left heavy red-ink comments on a memo questioning "the standards for establishing chains of evidence," and Lecturer Liu’s handwriting was laced with indignation: "Constantly questioning the conflict between procedural justice and substantive justice—it is bordering on provocation!"

Professor Zong removed his gold-rimmed glasses and wiped the lenses with a velvet cloth, recalling the words Professor Zhao had said while patting his shoulder before leaving: "Young Zong, that boy named Li Yifei—there is fire in his eyes."

"Yifei, sit." When the young man pushed the door open, Professor Zong noticed the frayed cuffs of his faded denim jacket, yet they could not hide the tempered sharpness in his gaze.

"Are you having any difficulties with your studies?" Professor Zong asked tentatively. Li Yifei looked down, rubbing the corner of his jacket, his knuckles calloused from years of holding a pen. "Teacher, I feel that what I have learned is still far from enough." He suddenly looked up, his eyes burning. "Every time I open the casebook, I can feel the cracks where the law meets the reality of its application."

Professor Zong suddenly laughed, a sound filled with both relief and helplessness. "Come with me to the Beihu Provincial Higher People's Court in two days." He paused, his gaze behind his lenses profound. "There is a case there. Perhaps you will see the law as it truly is."

During the eight-hour bumpy car ride, Li Yifei stared blankly at the fields flashing past the window. The sunlight of 2007 hit the asphalt, refracting into blinding spots of light.

When the gilded characters of the "Beihu Provincial Higher People's Court" came into view, his temples throbbed. News images he had seen in his previous life surged before his eyes: a man, wrongly imprisoned for seventeen years, walking out of prison with a hunched back; a gray-haired mother kneeling before the courthouse gate, her withered fingers clawing at the cracks in the ground; a wife running through the rain, holding yellowed appeal documents that were soaked through, blurring the final stroke of the word "Injustice."

The archives were filled with the musty smell of old case files, mixed with the electric hum of vintage fluorescent lights. Three experts—two men and a woman—were already waiting.

The female judge with round-rimmed glasses pushed over a stack of yellowed files. The metal clips clattered, startling a moth resting in the corner. "The 'wife-murder case' from '97. The defendant was only acquitted last year." Her voice suppressed a deep anger, her fingertips trembling slightly as they traced the documents. "The crime scene investigation records are missing, witness testimonies contradict one another, and even the signature on the autopsy report is blurred..."

Professor Zong put on his reading glasses, his fingertips sliding over the yellowed verdict as the paper made a fragile rustling sound. "The collegiate bench at the time based its judgment solely on the defendant's confession, completely ignoring the integrity of the chain of evidence." He suddenly turned to look at Li Yifei, his eyes piercing behind his lenses. "What do you think?"

Li Yifei swallowed hard. He opened the autopsy report, his eyes scanning the conclusion of "death by mechanical asphyxiation," when he suddenly noticed that the ligature marks on the victim’s neck in the photos showed a strange reverse spiral. "Teacher! The direction of the ligature marks contradicts the defendant's statement, and the murder weapon was never found..." His voice trembled with excitement. "This is clearly a classic case of presuming guilt despite reasonable doubt!"

The discussion heated up. The prosecutor in gold-rimmed glasses slammed his hand on the table, making the tea leaves in his cup swirl. "The most ridiculous part is that the investigators at the time actually said, 'If he didn't kill her, who would have?' What kind of logic is that!" Li Yifei noticed the procuratorate badge pinned to his cuff; it caught the cold light of the incandescent bulb, yet it seemed to reflect no warmth at all.

As dusk deepened, Professor Zong announced a break in the discussion. Li Yifei stood by the floor-to-ceiling window in the courthouse corridor, watching his reflection blend with the distant neon lights.

Seventeen years of prison, seventeen years of appeals—the lives crushed by time flashed before his eyes. When Professor Zong handed him a cup of hot tea, the rising steam blurred his glasses. "Tell me what you have gained."

"Teacher, this case reveals more than just individual errors." Li Yifei's voice was low and firm, though he choked up when he remembered the hollow look in the eyes of the wrongly accused. "It is the law enforcement's disregard for procedural justice, the judicial system’s slackness regarding evidence rules, it is..." He tightened his grip on the teacup, the searing heat traveling from his palms, "...it is the ruined destinies of countless families."

Professor Zong listened quietly, his gaze softening. Outside the window, the city's neon lights flickered in the night, like countless sparks waiting to be ignited.

Li Yifei gazed at the tea leaves unfurling in his cup and suddenly understood: the warmth of the law is not found in cold statutes, but in the persistence of seeking the truth and the steadfast defense of justice.

The grievances sleeping in the files would eventually become the resounding footsteps driving the progress of the rule of law, and he was willing to be the eternal spark that illuminated this path, no matter how thorny it might be.