"Ms. Su," Xie Qingyan closed his notebook, his tone softening slightly, "where were you on the night of the incident?"
"Working at the KTV." Su Xiaoqing answered immediately. "Eleven PM to six AM shift. Coworkers and surveillance can verify."
"And after you got off?"
"Went home." Her voice suddenly trembled, fingers gripping tighter.
The lawyer beside her spoke up: "My client has already described in detail what happened after she returned home in her initial statement. If there are no new questions—"
"I want to say it." Su Xiaoqing cut off her own lawyer.
She took a deep breath.
"I got home at six-thirty in the morning. The door wasn't locked. All the lights were off." Su Xiaoqing's voice grew distant, as if she were reliving that morning rather than recounting it. "The apartment was completely silent. No TV, no sounds of him moving around. Just... nothing."
She swallowed.
"When I walked into the bedroom—" her voice began to shake, "—he was curled up under the blanket, like... like a wounded animal. His whole body was trembling. Not the normal kind of shivering from cold. The kind that comes from somewhere deep inside, from something broken. I called his name. He didn't answer. I called again, louder. Still nothing. I pulled back the covers—his hands were covered in blood."
The air in the conference room grew heavy. Even the lawyer had stopped fidgeting with his pen.
"I asked him what happened. He wouldn't say. I asked many times—five, six, maybe ten times. I was shaking too by then." Su Xiaoqing's knuckles had gone white where she gripped her arms. "Finally he held me, crying while he said—"
She closed her eyes for a moment. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly.
"He said he'd killed someone. He said he went to find Chen Wan. He said he just wanted to confront him, just wanted to ask him face to face if it was true—but Chen Wan pushed him, and then he—"
Su Xiaoqing stopped.
After a few seconds, she opened her eyes again, looking directly at Xie Qingyan.
Her left hand unconsciously rubbed the wedding ring on her ring finger. It was just an ordinary silver band, no diamonds, no patterns. Worn too long, the edges had developed fine scratches.
Yin Wuwang's gaze fell on that ring.
In the cultivation world, rings were storage artifacts. Containing Mount Sumeru within a mustard seed, holding all things of heaven and earth within a tiny space. His Wuwang Ring contained three thousand years of collections, the most precious items stored in the first compartment—half of a broken sword tassel that Fuguang had unknowingly dropped, a scrap of cloth from a sleeve hem that had half-melted in the snow before he'd frozen it solid, and a strand of hair carrying the scent of cedarwood that he'd somehow acquired.
He'd always thought rings were meant for storing things.
Little Deer Assistant's voice sounded softly in his mind: "Reminder—in the modern world, rings hold a different meaning than in the cultivation world. Mortal wedding rings don't need any functionality. They can't store items, can't protect the body, can't transmit messages."
Yin Wuwang frowned internally: Then what's the point of wearing one?
Little Deer Assistant paused for a second, its tone suddenly sounding less like it was reading from a manual: "It carries the vow to spend a lifetime together. Mutual fidelity. Steadfast love. And also... the sentiment of 'I want to have you.'"
Yin Wuwang's breath caught for half a beat.
He thought of his own Wuwang Ring, filled with three thousand years of treasures—artifacts, weapons, rare cultivation materials. But also those secret items in the first compartment, the ones he'd never told anyone about. Worthless by any practical measure. Priceless by every other.
His gaze still rested on Su Xiaoqing's hand. When she rubbed that ring, her eyes were different—all the exhaustion, anger, and grievance retreated into the background, leaving only something quiet and heavy.
It was the unmistakable look of someone willing to go to war for the person wearing that matching ring.
Yin Wuwang committed something important to memory.
Su Xiaoqing's hoarse voice pulled his thoughts back to reality.
"Dr. Shen. I've been with Zhang Yunxiang for eight years. I understand him. He's timid, soft-tempered—even when a stray cat on the street gets spooked by a car, he feels bad about it for half the day." Her tone suddenly became unusually calm, the kind of calm that pressed down something heavier than tears. "He's not someone who would ever kill."
"But he did strike Chen Wan." Yin Wuwang spoke up. His voice wasn't loud, but it was clear in the quiet conference room.
Su Xiaoqing turned to look at him, a hint of sharpness in her gaze.
"Yes. He did hit him." She admitted quite straightforwardly. "But that's because he was deceived. Deceived for half a year. Someone spent half a year telling him, over and over, that his wife was betraying him. Do you know what that feels like?"
Her voice rose. The lawyer beside her reached out to gently touch her arm, murmuring a reminder: "Ms. Su, this part isn't directly relevant to the case. You don't have to say it." But Su Xiaoqing ignored him, brushing off the lawyer's hand.
"He didn't kill on impulse—he was pushed to the breaking point." Su Xiaoqing said. "That woman, whoever she is—she did it deliberately. She chose my husband, chose the person most easily broken, and spent six months pushing him off a cliff."
Her chest rose and fell several times, breathing gradually calming.
"That's why I hired a lawyer." She said. "Not to get him off. Not to argue that he didn't strike Chen Wan—he did, and we both know it. But to find that woman. The one who did this to him."
She paused, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
"I want to look her in the eye and ask her why."
[End of V2_Chapter 20]
Next: A compliment from the Sword Sovereign, a burning ear, and a three-thousand-year-old demon who definitely isn't affected.