Crack—!
A sharp sound rang out, as if the very bones of the dimension had been snapped.
Mrs. Zhu, who had been collapsed in the darkness, was forcibly dragged from the void by an invisible, gargantuan force and hurled onto the Defendant's Stand like a piece of refuse. Where was the shadow of the wealthy socialite now?
Her silver hair was as dry and tangled as withered weeds; her skin hung loosely from her face, and her sunken eye sockets emitted the stench of decay.
She looked like a half-desiccated zombie that simply refused to stop breathing. Viewers before their screens broke into a cold sweat:
—[Is that really Mrs. Zhu? Where are the multi-million dollar furs and jewels?]
—[She looks like she's been sucked dry... she aged so fast, it's like seeing a ghost.]
—[Wait, look at this place... is this a courtroom? This scale looks like the ruins of an alien civilization.]
The tide of the bullet chat shifted toward the environment.
The Hall of Adjudication seemed carved from a single, massive block of obsidian. The vaulted ceiling was so high the top was invisible, with countless stars weaving and drifting across it. The stars pulled at piercing lines of light, constantly rearranging themselves in a silent, eerie war dance.
There was no warmth of human civilization here. No wooden seats, no air conditioning—only stone pillars rising like tombstones and naturally formed stalagmites.
The solemnity here was exclusionary. It coldly told the world: Human law is but dust here; this place only accepts Karma.
Directly above, a phantom so vast its height was uncalculable suppressed the entire scene. It had no fixed shape, flowing like light and solidifying like water. Even through a screen, the pressure originating from the apex of life made billions feel a suffocating weight.
—[Is that... the Beast God?]
Before the comment could even finish, the thousand-plus animals in the Prosecution Stand stood up in unison. Led by the Old Yellow Dog, they bowed deeply toward the divine image. At that moment, over a thousand voices converged into a great tolling bell: "Greetings to the Great Beast God—!"
This wave of sound not only shattered the deathly silence of the hall but also pulverized the psychological defenses of every viewer through their signals.
Wen Xuehua was jolted awake by the deafening roar. Her vacant pupils began to focus, revealing an extreme, terrified clarity. Beside the prosecution stand, several stalks of immortal herbs ignited without fire, emitting wisps of cyan smoke that accurately enveloped her head.
It was a forced reboot.
—[What are they doing? Curing her?]
—[Cure, my foot! This is to make sure she feels every single minute with total clarity (covers eyes)]
—[Want to play dumb or feign insanity? In this place, you don't even have the right to faint (sneers)]
In the chat, someone sneered:
—[Is the Beast God playing cat-and-mouse? Just a formality to increase our fear? How cruel.]
That sentence was quickly buried by a sea of comments. However, the moment it appeared, the Law Keeper perched atop the dome moved. It opened Its vertical pupils, locking onto a coordinate in the void.
"I'm not as merciful as they are," It thought. It would not give these bipeds a second chance to insult The Great One. With a cold snort, a cluster of thunder-fire flickered from Its fingertip, instantly collapsing into the spatial coordinates.
Thousands of miles away, a keyboard—along with the chest of the person behind it—was incinerated into slag. Having done this, the Law Keeper yawned, lay back down, and closed Its eyes. It acted as if It had merely swatted a fly.
For Wen Xuehua, this was indeed no healing, but the highest form of torture. The fragrance of the herbs pierced her shrivelled nerves like steel needles, forcing her senses open.
Now, she could hear the rustle of blood flowing through her own veins; she could hear the echo of a needle dropping a hundred meters away.
She wanted to die, wanted to escape, but that power held her eyelids open like iron clamps.
She had to watch—watch how the wails she once ignored were now being carved back into her, blade by blade.
As the greeting ended, the thousand-plus spirit animals prepared to take their seats.
Most were mutilated: puppies with broken legs wobbled, and cats with gouged-out eyes felt their way across the rocks. Seeing several young rabbits about to tumble off the platform, a soft golden glow suddenly brushed through the void.
That light was like a spring breeze; wherever it passed, severed limbs were restored, and withered bones grew flesh. In the blink of an eye, all one thousand-plus spirits were restored to their peak forms from when they were alive.
The animals were stunned, then began jumping and playing in the solemn hall, their tender or aged voices blending into a chorus: "Thank you, The Great Beast God!"
The divine silhouette above flickered once and then vanished. She required no worship from believers; having accepted the gratitude of the souls, She departed.
"Silence for all spirits."
The Old Yellow Dog judge slammed the gavel down with a sound like rolling thunder. The animals instantly returned to their positions, a thousand pairs of bright eyes locked onto the defendant's stand.
The Old Yellow Dog unfurled a glowing scroll of Karma, pressing a paw upon it. Its cloudy eyes shot toward Wen Xuehua like daggers.
"Defendant Wen Xuehua, behind you stand 1,104 wronged souls. While they were being pierced and dismembered, wailing in despair, you—as the sole guardian—chose to gloss over the atrocities. For this crime, there is only the law."
A low resonance vibrated through the hall, sounding like ten thousand beasts suppressing growls in their throats. Wen Xuehua was pinned in place by an invisible force, her face deathly pale, yet the deep-seated arrogance within her sparked a sliver of defiance. Seeing the livestream cameras, she instinctively tried to maintain her crumbling socialite dignity.
"Lord Judge!"
A snow-white cat spirit leapt into the center of the court, its sharp voice carrying tears of blood. "All spirits bear witness! The defendant's daughter has tortured and killed the weak since childhood—slicing, freezing, shooting with arrows! Wen Xuehua, you heard the wailing, you smelled the blood, yet you called it 'child's play'! You personally watered the seeds of a demon!"
The white cat's voice rose to a shriek. "Fourteen years, 1,104 lives! Your indifference was the sharpest weapon of all!"
Mrs. Zhu's temples throbbed as she listened to the accusations of this "beast." She took a deep breath, turning a deceptively sorrowful face toward the camera. "What you say is pure fiction. Aside from the incident with Maomao, I knew nothing. I am but a heartbroken mother…"
Thud—!
Another heavy strike of the gavel.
Above the defendant's stand, a black ring—previously appearing as a stone decoration—suddenly flew up with a whistle that tore the air, locking tightly around Wen Xuehua's head.
"That's the Ring of Truth," the Old Yellow Dog said coldly. "In its presence, your soul has no authority to lie. Plaintiff, continue."
The white cat stared her down. "Did you truly not know where those cleared corpses went?"
Wen Xuehua opened her mouth. She intended to scream, "I didn't know," but the words twisted in her throat, turning into a mechanical, icy statement: "I knew. I arranged for private investigators to follow her at all times. Every single thing she did, I knew."
The hall fell into deathly silence; the bullet chat exploded instantly.
The white cat stepped forward, claws unsheathed. "You didn't just allow it; you were an accomplice, weren't you?"
Wen Xuehua's eyes bulged in terror. She fought desperately to close her mouth, but the Ring of Truth pulsed with red light, prying her jaws open:
"It was me. I sent people to shovel away the rotted meat, shattered bones, and bloodstains. I spent tens of millions to shut people up, all so these beasts wouldn't stain the reputation of the Zhu family."
After uttering these words, Wen Xuehua collapsed. The dignity she wanted most to protect had been torn to shreds under that ring.
"Honey, I'm sorry… I failed to protect the Zhu family." A single cloudy tear fell from the corner of her eye, carving a path through her withered face. But this tear was nothing but an insult in this hall.
A pair of bright, black rat eyes stared her down. Maomao stood up, its limbs crawling slowly and steadily toward the plaintiff's stand.
The white cat gave it a side-glance, squeezed out a defiant "hiss", and then elegantly jumped down to return to its seat.
Maomao climbed onto the high platform, looking down at the despondent Wen Xuehua.
"Mrs. Zhu."
A warm, middle-aged male voice rang through the hall, striking Wen Xuehua's soul. She snapped her head up; the voice was too familiar, familiar enough to make her whole body tremble.
"Mao… Maomao…?" her voice carried a sob. Qinghong's previous voice seemed to still be echoing in her ears.
"That Maomao... its last gaze before death was fixed in your direction. It struggled in that tiny iron cage, not praying for life, but praying for its only 'Goddess' to look at it one last time. It was crying: 'Mom... save... me...' And you, Wen Xuehua, you just stood there and watched it die..."
Wen Xuehua gaped, her expression wooden. "So... you will never call me Mama again..."
Maomao looked down at its pink paws, kneading them alternately before posing a fatal question:
"Mrs. Zhu, since you watched me die, why... why did you clone another 'me'?"
It was a question irrelevant to the legal merits of the case, yet it plunged the entire hall into a deathly silence. Even the arrogant Divine Beasts grew quiet, their gazes fixed on this human woman.
Wen Xuehua's tears crashed incessantly onto the table. The Ring of Truth flashed frantically, forcing out the darkest, weakest truth from the depths of her heart:
"Because... I wanted to go back. Back to the day before everything happened. I wanted to make amends."
Maomao rose on its hind legs, standing upright, its rat eyes staring directly into hers. "But everything has already happened. You do not govern time, nor do you govern Karma."
"Yes, everything has happened," Wen Xuehua blurted out, her voice hollow.
"Then who can you compensate? Me?" Maomao tilted its head, its tone suddenly becoming sharp. "Can you compensate the 1,104 lives present here?"
Wen Xuehua went limp, her forehead resting against the cold stone platform. "I can't. I, Wen Xuehua... am powerless and incapable of repaying the lives that have passed."
Tears hit the obsidian, splashing into tiny droplets.
In the Scales Space.
Hans, the lawyer watched the entire proceeding through the void screen.
He looked down at the mountain-high stack of files, the rhetorical strategies, and the simulated cases he had stayed up all night writing to handle any contingency.
After a long silence, he muttered to himself:
"So, I spent days and nights researching, writing this thick stack of paper to give to that dog... what exactly was the point?"
In this courtroom where a Deity directly reads the soul, logic and sophistry became the most ridiculous of decorations.
Hans sighed and walked toward the corner. There sat the broken coffee machine.
He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a wrench, and tried poking the rusted interface.
Compared to the judgment of the Goddess, fixing this damn machine seemed to be the only truth he could still control.