Chapter 98: This Time, It's Our Turn to Call the Roll

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At 6:12 a.m., the air outside the Supreme People’s Procuratorate was as sharp and biting as a blade.

Song Zhao stood in the deep shadow cast by the steps, like a statue on the verge of cracking.

His fingertips unconsciously caressed the copper piece taken from his father’s safe. Its rough edges seemed to still transmit the cold and despair from fifteen years ago. Deep in his palm, the burning pain triggered by forced empathy had not yet fully faded.

Footsteps approached from afar. Lin Wan came to his side, offering him a neatly bound file without any unnecessary greeting.

On the cover, the title—“Technical Explanation of the Evidentiary Chain for Project Echo”—stood out clearly in the morning light. Below was a complex blockchain evidence verification number and a timestamp precisely synchronized with the national judicial system.

“The residual data in Cabin D3, the tape recording that was demagnetized and restored, Zhou Zhengsheng’s handwritten notes, and the forged autopsy report compared with the real brain tissue slices—all the evidentiary chains were cross-verified and solidified by 4 a.m. today,” her voice was low but every word carried immense weight. “This time, no one can say it’s just ‘speculation.’”

Song Zhao took the folder, his knuckles turning pale from the grip.

He nodded slowly and solemnly, then carefully slipped the copper piece—the origin of everything—into the inner pages of the folder.

“Not speculation,” he whispered, as if comforting the souls that had slept for fifteen years rather than replying to Lin Wan. “The evidence itself has walked its last mile.”

At exactly 9 a.m., the special investigation court was packed, the air so heavy it seemed about to drip moisture.

With the fall of the gavel, the hearing officially began.

On the main screen, the fire night surveillance footage restored under Tang Yourou’s leadership began to play. Every frame struck like a hammer on everyone’s heart.

The footage was not the chaotic fire rescue scene known to the public but a cold, premeditated purge.

The seven members of the Emergency Response Team were not trapped in the command room by the fire. Before the thick smoke filled the air, a group of unidentified men dressed in black dragged them out forcibly, disappearing from the surveillance blind spots.

The scene switched to the sample operation room of the mortuary.

Zhou Zhengsheng appeared clearly on camera, wearing gloves, personally removing a label from a brain tissue sample and replacing it with another pre-prepared label.

His movements were practiced and calm, as if handling evidence unrelated to himself.

Next came footage from Shen Wei in the underground laboratory of the Wei Foundation.

With his back to the camera, he signed his name on a document titled “Project Echo Initiation Order,” captured precisely by the lens.

When the final frame froze, the courtroom descended into a deathly silence.

It was a clip extracted from a miniature recorder hidden by Chen Yanting in a cryogenic chamber. The lighting was dim, the camera shaking violently from the owner’s trembling, yet the words etched on the metal wall were exceptionally clear: “Help me, Zhou is lying.”

The judge’s solemn voice broke the quiet, announcing the summons of key witnesses.

All eyes turned to Song Zhao.

However, Cheng Ye rose but did not approach the witness stand.

Instead, he walked to the prosecution’s desk, spreading out a stack of high-precision scanned evidence photos, one by one.

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The first photo showed the microscopic scratches on the door lock of his father’s office fifteen years ago, perfectly overlaid via 3D modeling with the cold spots on the exterior of a USB drive caused by extreme cold.

The second was the groove on the copper piece inside the wristband of the South Branch boxer, seamlessly fitted with a tiny chip disguised as a decorative rivet.

The third displayed a unique soundwave from the cooling system activation in Cabin D7, matching a barely noticeable anomaly in the background noise of the key tape. Both showed astonishing consistency in spectrum analysis.

“I’m not here to testify,” his voice was quiet but carried clearly to every corner of the courtroom. “I’m here to show how these dormant pieces of evidence, silent for fifteen years, can speak for themselves.”

By 11:40 a.m., the media zone outside the court was swarming with reporters.

Lin Wan stood at the crowd’s edge and calmly activated a preset program on her phone.

Almost simultaneously, the updated version of the “White Paper on the Truth Investigation of the Renxu Incident” was automatically pushed like a virus to the internal networks of courts and procuratorates nationwide, as well as the backend servers of major mainstream news platforms.

At the same time, Tang Yourou published an academic paper titled “Forensic Pathology Identification Standards for Systematic Death Forgery” on behalf of herself via the International Pathology Federation’s official website.

The article detailed how subtle variations in brainstem tissue could distinguish deep hypothermic dormancy from genuine death.

Within half an hour of its release, the Ministry of Justice issued an urgent notice, designating it as a “key reference guide for reviewing major difficult cases.”

At the storm’s center, Shen Yan chose to stand before the memorial of his father, Wei Chengyuan.

Facing countless flashing cameras, he publicly handed over two items: a specially made button from his father’s uniform and several torn paper slips retrieved from the button’s layered interior, containing records of secret communications with Zhou Zhengsheng.

“My father may have made mistakes, but he did not kill,” his voice trembled slightly, yet his gaze was resolute. “I hereby announce my immediate withdrawal from the succession line of the Wei Foundation. I will spend the rest of my life proving this.”

Reporters swarmed him, but he said no more. Before being engulfed by the crowd, he left one last sentence: “Remember seven names, not eight.”

At 3:17 p.m., the verdict bell at the Yunjiang Intermediate People’s Court finally tolled.

Zhou Zhengsheng was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for intentional homicide, abuse of power, and forgery of evidence, among other charges.

Shen Wei was prosecuted and immediately detained pending trial for organizing and leading a criminal gang, intentional homicide, illegal detention, and multiple other charges.

The court’s final statement was a special determination: “It has been verified that the seven members of the original Renxu Emergency Response Team were deliberately eliminated in the line of duty. Their sacrifice shall be re-evaluated, and all honors restored.”

As the judgment was read, restrained applause arose from the gallery.

Song Zhao did not join in. His face showed no sign of emotion.

He simply took from his pocket a brand-new, reissued police badge belonging to his father, gently pressing it against the verdict’s cover.

The metal’s cold touch seeped through the paper, as if a silent handover.

He lowered his head and whispered, barely audible to himself, “Dad, they named names.”

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At 6:59 p.m., the sunset bathed the riverbank in crimson.

On that high platform, seven one-to-one replica police badge models were rehung. This time, they were secured no longer by fragile cotton thread, but by resilient steel wire.

A gentle evening breeze swept by, producing a crisp, wind chime-like sound.

Song Zhao, Lin Wan, Tang Yourou, Chen Yan, and Shen Yan stood shoulder to shoulder, silently gazing at the river.

Su Wan’s voice came through the city’s remote broadcast system, playing again the 68-second siren frequency melody.

Unlike before, this time the electronic billboards at thirty-two main intersections displayed the names and brief biographies of the seven heroes synchronously.

Old Zhang, leaning on his cane, had arrived at the foot of the platform unnoticed.

He pulled the familiar cigarette case from his pocket and, beside the line “They are all dead” on the back, shakily added a small line in pen: “All alive, and well.”

Song Zhao exhaled deeply.

That strange ability that had tormented him for so long—allowing him to sense the lingering echoes of the departed—was quietly fading with the trial’s conclusion, leaving only a faint warmth from the copper piece at his fingertips.

Suddenly, he smiled—not a smile of victory, but like a drowning man finally breaking the surface and gasping for air.

Lin Wan turned her head gently, whispering, “Where to next?”

He looked at the ever-flowing river and replied, “Back to the West. There are still three hundred cases in the archives waiting to be closed.”

The wind came off the river, the tide’s roar like an eternal vow.

This time, no one could silence the dead again.

Night fully swallowed the last rays along the riverbank. The crowd gradually dispersed, each heading toward a new life.

Song Zhao remained alone, the river breeze fluttering his clothes.

Everything seemed settled—the scales of justice balanced, the souls at rest.

Yet within his heart was a hollow corner, not filled with the joy of victory but empty, as if a piece had been taken away.

The copper piece lay quietly in his pocket; the tiny notch at its edge, touched by his fingers, was like an unsolvable puzzle forever.

The verdict answered all procedural questions but sidestepped the most fundamental, personal doubt.

He suddenly realized that this fifteen-year pursuit’s end had never been the courtroom.

Some echoes only ring at the very beginning.