"It turns out I succeeded. I have made my mark in the legal world, passed the bar exam, and secured a full-time position."

"My mom was overjoyed. She rushed over to celebrate, rented a luxurious hotel lobby, invited many friends and business partners, and even had the waiters set up a champagne tower, letting me pop the champagne with a small knife."

"That banquet was filled with joy and laughter, and it remains one of the proudest memories of my life."

"But that wasn't the end of it. After the celebration, my mom offered me a position at her company as legal counsel."

"I took the job, reconciled with my mom, and let go of past grudges. Life finally seemed to have turned a corner."

...

Zhou Hao clapped his hands and said, "How about it? Are you moved?"

An Shuyao silently raised her pinky finger, deliberately drew it across his face, then turned it toward her ear, pretending to dig out imaginary earwax: "Not moved, just dry and bland, all about how great your mom is to you."

"Hold on, it's not over yet," Zhou Hao rubbed his hands together: "Just as my life was getting back on track, my mom died."

"...Isn't she still alive? Didn't she crash into my mom's car?" An Shuyao asked squinting.

"I'm talking about a story, get it? A story is made up. Just think, if she died back then, how heartbroken would I be..."

Zhou Hao sighed deeply: "It would have been better if she had died back then."

An Shuyao couldn't understand. Listening to the first half, she felt it was about a loving mother and son, growing more curious about what happened to make them strangers now: "Then what? What happened afterward?"

Zhou Hao had no intention of hiding it, nor did he see the need to. He spread his hands and said, "Later, she became the virtuous one, and I became the villain."

"What do you mean?" An Shuyao didn't realize that the topic had veered off: "Don't just drop a sentence like that without context. Who can understand it?"

Zhou Hao casually explained: "The company's legal department mainly deals with two problems: first, personnel disputes, like whether to give severance pay, and layoffs compensation; second, infringement disputes, mainly lawsuits against other companies. Doing this kind of work, I'm certainly cursed by everyone; she, on the other hand, plays the good cop, naturally becoming the virtuous one."

"That's it?"

An Shuyao was a bit disappointed. If you take the money, you should deal with the hardship. If you're not satisfied, just change jobs, right? How did it escalate to mother and son becoming estranged?

Zhou Hao didn't comment, continuing to add, "Then she had an affair, divorced my father, and I led the divorce proceedings, back then I even had a few people specializing in marriage cases, making sure my father left with nothing."

"The situation got ugly at the time, my father's career was basically over, and unable to bear the blow—perhaps because his life had been too smooth until then—he couldn't figure things out and jumped to his death."

...

An Shuyao didn't know what to say. Divorce is normal, losing a case is just fate, but awarding everything to the adulterer seemed odd. Who knew how the divorce case was fought...

Zhou Hao wasn't finished yet; he hadn't even gotten to the key point: "Then I worked for her for another year or two..."

"Wait a minute, haven't you only been a lawyer for one or two years?" An Shuyao couldn't help but ask.

"Who says that? I've been at it for many years." Zhou Hao looked genuinely puzzled.

An Shuyao scratched her head, unable to put her finger on why, just instinctively thinking that Lawyer Zhou seemed to have been working for only a couple of years, something felt odd but unexplainable.

Zhou Hao perceived her confusion as irrelevant and continued, "Later, she bribed my assistant to slip in a corporate transfer contract with my routine signing paperwork, making me sign and seal it, intending to make me the legal representative, take the fall, and send me in...I don't know what she was thinking, trying this on a lawyer."

"When I found out, I confronted her."

Zhou Hao paused and asked, "Guess what she said?"

An Shuyao guessed tentatively, "Felt ashamed? Lied that she didn't mean it? Or directly accused the assistant?"

Zhou Hao gave an unexpected answer: "She admitted it and told me to endure for a few years. After all, I'm her son; once I'm out, she'll support me."

An Shuyao couldn't believe someone could be so shameless.

She couldn't help but ask, "And then?"

Zhou Hao shrugged, "Then I got really angry, we had a big argument, she turned her back on me, acting like I worked for her in vain all these years, and wouldn't let me resign because I had too much 'internal information', forcing me to quit law altogether..."

An Shuyao thought about how heartbreaking this must be, being betrayed by your own mom, and it didn't stop there—the other side even stomped on his dreams, making him quit law, treating him like a tool. Truly awful.

"Afterward, there was nothing much to say. I didn't agree, she tried to send me in, tried to ruin me financially, the craziest time she hired two thugs to break my legs."

Zhou Hao stretched lazily, "Before, I couldn't do anything about her and had to endure. Now that I've got something on her, shouldn't I retaliate fiercely?"

An Shuyao finally understood, "So you took this case to get back at her?"

"Exactly." Zhou Hao admitted it openly.

"You aren't planning to frame her, are you?" An Shuyao vaguely felt something was off, perceiving that Lawyer Zhou seemed to be snooping around not for clues but contemplating how to fabricate physical evidence.

"What do you mean by frame?" Zhou Hao was quite displeased. She should be thrilled to have him personally handle the case, yet she was talking like this: "You just tell me, did she commit murder?"

"She did..."

"Shouldn't she be punished?"

"She should..."

"Then that's it."

Zhou Hao stood up, tapped her head with his briefcase, and said, "Follow me, let's ruin her completely!"

An Shuyao felt something was wrong, but she couldn't pinpoint it.

Now she was an amnesiac patient, though she found Lawyer Zhou irritating, she could only follow him obediently and do as he instructed.

When Lawyer Zhou asked her to memorize 'touching mother-daughter stories', she had to memorize them;

When Lawyer Zhou asked her to make herself cry, she would apply essential balm on her fingers, dab her eyes, and tears would fall;

When Lawyer Zhou asked her to give false testimony, she hesitated, feeling very resistant, but when the police asked her, she still acquiesced.

After two weeks of this back-and-forth, Zhou Hao met many people, submitted a lot of evidence, had countless dinners with the prosecutor and judge, and met two or three times with higher-ups.

Until the trial day, both sides took their seats as plaintiff and defendant, their eyes firing up with anger, seemingly ready to tear each other apart.

The plaintiff was An Shuyao, represented by Lawyer Zhou;

The defendant was Xi Yinning, represented by Lawyer Zhuo Wei.

The judge knocked the gavel; regardless of any deals made behind the scenes, ultimately, the truth had to unfold in court.

With the case introduced by Assistant Chen Ming, Zhou Hao stated the lawsuit's terms, followed by Zhuo Wei's statement time.

The opponent was also an excellent criminal defense attorney, viewing the case as unwinnable on the surface, at worst a suspended sentence, never a murder conviction.

Therefore, he played it safe, focusing on defense—with no mistakes being the greatest victory.

Zhuo Wei properly recounted the incident, reiterating that it was a brake issue, and the insurance and vehicle manufacturer should be responsible, framing the case as an accident.

Zhou Hao didn't argue over whether the third-party report was faked. Instead, he showed surveillance footage from a street vendor and questioned why braking would result in double acceleration, crashing into the car in front and veering onto the sidewalk?

Zhuo Wei prepared to explain, defending that switching brakes when one doesn't respond is a normal reaction, and instinct shouldn't be grounds for judgment...

But before he could speak, Zhou Hao suddenly stood up and announced loudly, "This is a premeditated murder case! The mastermind is the defendant Xi Yinning—"

"Objection! The plaintiff's side is speculating—"

The judge hadn't even struck the gavel before Zhou Hao changed the subject, "The accomplice is my client, An Shuyao!"

The courtroom fell silent, An Shuyao was stunned, and the rest were even more bewildered.

Zhou Hao spoke emphatically, presenting fabricated evidence:

"Indeed, the plaintiff and defendant conspired to kill the victim! This is my client's confession; she admitted being directed by the defendant Xi Yinning to bring her mother to the designated location."

"Regarding the defendant's motive for murder, there exists evidence—three years ago, in a divorce case, the defendant was at fault, the deceased was involved, and the case file appendix details this, all handled by the judicial authorities."

Zhou Hao gently placed a fabricated assessment report on the table:

"My client is the defendant's ex-husband's illegitimate daughter."

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