Chapter 1

In 2007, I defended a fifteen-year-old accused of murder. I argued to have the charge reduced from intentional homicide to intentional injury causing death, and won him a lighter sentence.

Yet just two years after his release, he killed again. This time, the victim was his own father.

After his arrest, he asked for me by name. He wanted me to defend him once more.

But the first thing he said when we met sent a chill through me.

“Mr. Wu, I never actually killed anyone back then.”

1

In 2015, I received a call from a detention center.

A man suspected of killing his father had specifically requested me as his defense lawyer.

I had stopped taking criminal cases long ago. My first instinct was to refuse.

Then I heard the suspect's name, and froze.

Chen Yu.

I knew that name all too well.

The very first criminal case I had handled was his.

2

It was 2007.

Chen Yu was only fifteen. Drunk and caught up in an argument at a karaoke bar, he had stabbed another man to death.

Terrified by what he had done, he fled the scene.

The police caught him soon afterward.

The case appeared straightforward. Every witness and every piece of physical evidence pointed to Chen Yu, and he quickly confessed.

His parents came to our law firm in tears, begging us to help get their son a lighter sentence.

Few lawyers wanted cases involving juvenile offenders. I had just graduated, and in a burst of youthful idealism I volunteered.

It was the first case I handled on my own.

In principle, a killing committed in a drunken outburst was a crime of passion; that ought to count as mitigation at sentencing.

The prosecution, however, charged Chen Yu with intentional homicide.

Only after reviewing their evidence did I discover that he had known the victim beforehand. They had argued several times, and Chen Yu had even threatened to kill him.

It was also Chen Yu who had invited the victim to the karaoke bar that evening.

On the face of it, there did appear to be an intention to kill.

Because Chen Yu was under sixteen, even a conviction for intentional homicide could not result in a death sentence. At most, he would spend a little over a decade in prison.

But I was young and stubborn. After investigating carefully, I found a major weakness in the case.

Chen Yu's fruit knife had punctured the victim's spleen. The man had ultimately died of blood loss.

In his statement, Chen Yu said that after he stabbed the man, he saw blood pouring out and watched him collapse in pain.

Then he panicked and ran.

When I revisited the scene, however, I noticed something odd about the trails of bloody footprints.

There were footprints from two people.

One set clearly belonged to Chen Yu.

Forensic examination confirmed that the other belonged to the victim himself.

That proved the man had not died on the spot.

He had managed to get up and walk a few steps.

His injuries were too severe, though, and he had been unable to get help in time.

The police had overlooked the detail because the case seemed so simple.

On the strength of those footprints, together with the fact that Chen Yu had not stabbed him again, I argued that he had not intended to kill.

His offense was therefore intentional injury causing death, rather than intentional homicide.

In later statements, Chen Yu also said that he had never meant to kill the man. His earlier threats had been angry words. Impulsiveness and alcohol had led him to inflict the injury.

The court accepted my argument and sentenced him to eight years for intentional injury causing death.

Good behavior earned him a two-year reduction. He was released after six.

But the case brought me endless trouble.

The victim's family unfurled banners outside our firm. The media tore into me, accusing me of selling my conscience for money.

My mentor told me:

“A murder committed by a minor is bound to stir up public anger. The victim's family already struggles to accept that he can't be sentenced to death. And you fought to make his punishment even lighter. If you were one of them, could you accept that outcome?”

I was still painfully naive.

I believed I had upheld my principles and defended the dignity of the law. I had done nothing wrong.

My mentor sighed.

“Insist on your principles in every situation, and you'll only end up hurting yourself.”

After that, I never took another criminal defense case.

I no longer knew when I ought to stand by my principles.

3

Even after I left criminal defense, Chen Yu's case still held my attention.

More precisely, it stirred a bitter anger in me.

Two years out of prison, and he had killed again.

His own father, this time.

What sort of monster had I defended so stubbornly in the name of principle?

Part of me even regretted it.

If I could go back eight years, perhaps I should have argued that the circumstances were especially serious and kept him behind bars a little longer.

I wanted to know why he had committed another crime.

And how he had the nerve to come back to me.

At our second meeting, Chen Yu looked nothing like the boy I had known eight years earlier.

He was haggard and listless. There was no light left in his eyes.

I felt an involuntary pang.

One of the main reasons I had fought so hard to reduce his sentence was that he had never struck me as a bad person.

He had been a terrified boy, with something almost innocent still lingering in his eyes.

However I looked at him, I could see no trace of a vicious killer.

So the first thing I said was:

“Why?”

He paused, then asked:

“Do you mean why I killed my father, or why I asked you to defend me?”

I shook my head.

“Neither. Why have you become like this?”

Instinct told me that something in those intervening years had dealt him a devastating blow.

But nothing prepared me for what he said next.

“Mr. Wu, I never actually killed anyone back then.”

4

I had no idea what he meant.

He hadn't killed anyone?

The evidence had been indisputable.

Even if the final charge was intentional injury causing death, that did not change the fact that Chen Yu had delivered the fatal stab.

Seeing my astonishment, he gave a bitter smile and shook his head.

“Let me explain why I asked for you first. It all goes back to that case eight years ago, and no one knows it better than you. You're thorough, conscientious, and you stick to your principles.”

I nodded.

That was true enough.

Otherwise, the case would never have left me in such a mess.

“More importantly, you were the only one who believed I wasn't a bad person. Weren't you?”

That stopped me.

Back then, I really had not believed him to be irredeemably wicked.

I thought a lack of proper guidance at home had left him hot-tempered and impulsive.

In other words, I thought he could still be saved.

Now, perhaps I had given him too much credit.

Chen Yu seemed to read my mind. He smiled bitterly.

“I know what you're thinking. Whatever way you look at it, killing your own father isn't something a normal person does. But if I told you why I killed him, even you would have done the same.”

I looked him in the eye.

“Why?”

His gaze darkened.

After a silence, he met my eyes again.

“Because the real killer in that case eight years ago was my father, Chen Bing.”

I was speechless.

We had found no evidence of a third person at the scene.

More importantly, why would Chen Yu's father do such a thing?

Had he meant for his own son to serve his sentence for him?

Chen Yu had a point.

If that was really what had happened, I might have wanted to kill him too.

He saw my disbelief.

“You don't believe me, do you? Neither did I. If I hadn't stumbled across his secret, he might have kept it from me forever. I'd still think of him as a good father who was willing to sacrifice everything for me. I asked you here today because I want to tell you what I found.”

5

Chen Yu's account.

All through my years in prison, I worked hard to earn a sentence reduction. All I wanted was to go home.

My father, Chen Bing, never visited me. Not once.

The only letter he ever sent was to tell me my mother had died.

I cried until I nearly passed out.

I had never imagined that my reckless, impulsive act would indirectly cause the death of the person who loved me most.

Never getting to see her one last time was the greatest regret of my life.

My father did not come to collect me when I was released.

I found my way back to our old home from memory, but a stranger answered the door.

My father had moved away long ago.

With nowhere else to turn, I went to the police station. They helped me find his current address.

When I got there, he was living with a woman I had never seen before.

His first look was one of surprise.

His second was disgust.

I could understand.

How could he be proud of a son who was a convicted killer?

He tossed me some money and told me to rent a place of my own. I was not to disturb his life.

I agreed.

I rented a room in an old neighborhood downtown for just two hundred yuan a month. Its only drawback was the lack of a private bathroom.

But I was used to that.

However bad it was, could it be worse than prison?

With a roof over my head, I happily began looking for work, ready to start over and make something of myself.

6

I had learned to repair cars in prison.

But I tried one garage after another, and none would hire me.

As soon as they heard where I had trained, they cursed at me and threw me out.

I applied for jobs as a security guard and a waiter. No one wanted me.

Fair enough.

People were the one thing this place had no shortage of.

Why would anyone hire a man who had killed someone?

The money my father gave me soon ran out.

I had no choice but to swallow my pride and ask for more.

The first time, he said nothing. He only looked a little annoyed.

By the second and third times, he had had enough. He flung two hundred yuan onto the floor.

“All you ever do is eat! Why don't you eat yourself to death? I'm not a fucking bank!”

My pride told me not to pick it up.

My stomach told me I would starve if I didn't.

I wanted to tell him I ate just one meal a day: noodles boiled in plain water. I hardly ate much at all.

Instead, I silently picked up the money, bowed my head to him, and ran.

Back home, I curled up on a wooden board barely big enough for half my body and lay awake for hours.

The next day, I went to see an old classmate, someone who had once been one of my followers.

At school, I had been something of a class tough, always leading a group of boys into fights.

But six years had passed.

Most of those little delinquents had gone to vocational school or college and now held fairly respectable jobs.

Only Chang Fei worked at a karaoke bar.

I tracked him down.

After endless pleading and two packs of Chunghwa cigarettes, he finally agreed to put in a word with his boss.