"Defendant Cheng Xin, you are charged with extortion and bribery!"
"How do you plead to these charges?"
...
Extortion and bribery? A plea?
In the middle of a nationally televised courtroom trial, the presiding judge’s two questions jolted Cheng Xin awake from his dazed, sleepy state.
He opened his eyes and looked around.
Cheng Xin suddenly realized that he had returned to the courtroom.
More importantly, the seat he occupied was not that of a lawyer, but that of the defendant!
In that instant, it hit him: he had been reborn!
He had returned to this courtroom three years ago, the very moment he was being put on trial.
As agonizing memories flooded his mind, a bitter smile crept across Cheng Xin's face.
Before he could even process the entirety of his memories, his body acted on reflex, and he blurted out, "I, Cheng Xin, refuse to plead guilty!"
Refuse to plead guilty?
The statement caused an immediate uproar in the gallery, and the number of viewers in the live courtroom stream surged past one million!
Cheng Xin looked up and noticed the camera recording the trial.
In the chat box of the live stream, messages flew by—everyone was mocking him.
"Are you kidding me, bro? Still not pleading guilty? You can actually smile right now?"
"Wasn't it already set in stone that Lawyer Cheng won the first trial of that case? How else do you break a 100% loss streak if not by bribery?"
"It's because Lawyer Cheng kicked a steel plate. The 'Lawless Outlaw' who loses every time somehow had a two-fold reversal against a gold-medal legal team and won? Doesn't that prove he bribed the judge?"
"If Lawyer Cheng performs poorly, the client just loses some money. If he performs normally, he sends the client to prison. This time, his 'extraordinary performance' finally sent himself in."
...
At the bench, the presiding judge hadn't expected Cheng Xin to be so stubborn as to refuse the charges.
He picked up the files he had organized on the table and asked Cheng Xin, "As far as I am aware, your legal career has been full of ups and downs, and your path to fame is highly irregular."
"Three years ago, you graduated from Southeast University of Political Science and Law. Yet, in your very first case as a qualified lawyer, you managed to send your own client to prison despite having a massive advantage. You were hailed as a legendary figure who shocked the legal world the moment you stepped onto the stage."
"Your subsequent cases followed the same pattern of repeated losses—either you sent your clients to prison, or you bled them dry until they didn't even have their underwear left."
"However, in last month's case, you faced off against a top-tier national gold-medal legal team and unexpectedly secured a victory in the first trial, nearly succeeding in having the opposing defendant imprisoned."
"Fortunately, the Supreme People's Procuratorate has strict discipline. In the second trial, they discovered that the chain of evidence you provided was insufficient and declared the defendant innocent!"
"Furthermore, the Procuratorate has recently received multiple complaints regarding bribery at your law firm, and the judge from your only winning case has provided evidence of your bribery!"
"As for the charge of extortion, the plaintiff and witnesses will be arriving momentarily."
"Defense, do you have anything else to say in your defense?"
As the judge finished speaking, all the cameras in the room synchronized, focusing on Cheng Xin in the defendant's chair to record this historic moment.
By now, Cheng Xin had fully recovered all the memories of his past life. Hearing these accusations, his face turned deathly pale.
He accepted that he had lost case after case and sent his clients to prison after graduating from Southeast University of Political Science and Law.
But being accused of bribing his way to victory against a top-tier gold-medal legal team? That, he would not accept!
Recalling the experiences of his past life, he was filled with conflicting emotions.
As a graduate of Southeast University of Political Science and Law—the top institution for lawyers in the country—his career should have been bright and full of promise.
Unfortunately, the very first case he took on had been a massive trap set by his client.
That first case involved a compensation claim.
The client demanded ten million in damages from the defendant. The defendant had actually agreed to pay, but the client had provided Cheng Xin with fabricated evidence and forged transaction receipts, hoping to extort an even larger payout.
Unsurprisingly, after a few investigations, the court not only uncovered the client's underhanded tricks but also discovered that the client had used this same method to defraud several other companies.
The result was as expected: not only did the client fail to get the money they were owed, but they also ended up with a ten-year prison sentence.
While the fault lay with the client, the word on the street was that the "distinguished" Lawyer Cheng from the prestigious university had "performed extraordinarily" in his first case and sent his own client straight to jail.Furthermore, the clients who subsequently sought out Cheng Xin seemed to be deliberately setting him up; they either intentionally withheld information, fabricated false evidence, or, in more extreme cases, bypassed Cheng Xin entirely to bribe the judge in cases that were supposedly "in the bag."
After several such instances, Cheng Xin’s reputation in the legal profession was completely ruined.
The turning point occurred a month ago.
That day, a tear-streaked female student burst into Cheng Xin’s law firm, which hadn't seen a client in ages. The student, who identified herself as Lin Shuyao, claimed she had been raped and was seeking Cheng Xin’s help.
Because the victim was a minor and the evidence chain provided appeared to be completely solid, Cheng Xin accepted the case without hesitation, promising to secure justice for her.
Unexpectedly, however, the man who raped Lin Shuyao was no ordinary person—he was Su Tianhua, a spoiled scion of the Su Family, one of the elite families in Jiang City.
According to Lin Shuyao, she had approached other law firms before, but due to the Su Family’s terrifying wealth and influence, no one dared to take her case.
As things unfolded, Su Tianhua was completely unfazed by the rape accusation. Not only did he have no intention of apologizing or compensating the victim, but upon learning that the lawyer Lin Shuyao had hired was the winless Cheng Xin, he promptly retained the nation’s top gold-medal legal team. He even publicly boasted that Lin Shuyao was framing him and that, when the time came, she would be the one sent to prison by her own "ace lawyer," Cheng Xin.
Although Cheng Xin had never won a case, his previous losses were due to being sabotaged by his clients. After all, he was a graduate of Southeast University of Political Science and Law, the top legal school in the country, and his professional standards were by no means poor.
With a complete chain of evidence and the advantage of representing a minor, Cheng Xin defied the skeptics and secured a victory for Lin Shuyao in the first trial, even while facing the nation’s top legal team.
The incident caused an uproar across the internet. Cheng Xin initially thought he could use this momentum to turn his life around, but the Su Family pulled strings to lodge a frantic appeal with the court. They bribed the judge to forge evidence of bribery against Cheng Xin and secretly paid off Lin Shuyao’s family, demanding she recant her testimony during the second trial.
Under the Su Family’s machinations, Cheng Xin not only lost the second trial but was also accused by the Su Family of extortion, while the court charged him with bribery.
In his previous life, Cheng Xin was powerless against these accusations and was arrested and imprisoned.
After he was jailed, his parents went bankrupt trying to appeal his case and clear his name. Eventually, driven to desperation by online harassment, they jumped to their deaths.
Cheng Xin served his time in prison with the hope of release, only to be killed on the eve of his freedom by thugs hired by the Su Family.
Reborn into this life, facing the same desperate situation, Cheng Xin felt his heart turn to ash; he could see no hope of turning the tables.
"Must I go through this again? I don't want to experience it anymore..."
Suddenly, a mechanical sound, like a system notification, echoed deep within Cheng Xin’s mind.
[Ding! Detected that the host is suffering persecution and is being reviled by all. The Lawless Outlaw System is now initializing!]
[Upholding justice and defending fairness is the basic code of conduct for a lawyer.]
[The Lawless Outlaw System specializes in acting on behalf of heaven within the bounds of the law, punishing evil and promoting good!]
[With this system, the host will master all the laws of the world. The system can automatically identify perjured evidence for the host, ensuring the host is invincible within the framework of the law!]
The system was here!
Those who deserve their punishment are about to meet their fate!
You want to judge me? Shouldn't you be the ones on trial?
At this moment, the appearance of the system was undoubtedly Cheng Xin’s final straw.
With the Lawless Outlaw System, all the accusations currently leveled against him would be rendered completely void!
With the system’s help, Cheng Xin quickly found the key to breaking the deadlock within the law.
Cheng Xin raised his head and locked eyes with the presiding judge.
He knew clearly in his heart that the judge before him had undoubtedly received plenty of bribes from the Su Family.
"I would like to ask the presiding judge: on what grounds am I, Cheng Xin, guilty of extortion and bribery?"
"First, regarding the charge of extortion: what motive would I have to extort the plaintiff, Su Tianhua?"
As soon as Cheng Xin finished speaking, the door beside the plaintiff’s bench was pushed open. Escorted by a group of people, Su Tianhua strode in and sat down in the plaintiff’s seat.
A faint, subtle smile hung on the corner of Su Tianhua’s mouth. He was ready to cast Cheng Xin into hell during this trial.