Chapter One: Second-Degree Murder

Midtown City Courthouse.

The judge's face was contorted with anger as he gripped his gavel, pounding the bench forcefully and shouting, "Order! Defendant Zhou Yi, during Mr. Jennifer's surgery, why did you fail to suture the inferior vena cava, resulting in Mr. Jennifer's death?"

In the dock stood a tall, thin man of Chinese descent. His curly hair was tied back, and his handsome face bore a look of agitation. He clung tightly to the rail before him, his knuckles white.

"No, I am certain I sutured the inferior vena cava during the operation. Jennifer's injuries from the car accident were severe. During the procedure, I removed the shattered spleen, located the damaged inferior vena cava, excised a portion, and performed a double-layer suture. Before closing the abdomen, I meticulously checked for any bleeding. I am a doctor; I was saving a life. I would never have neglected this! Furthermore, if the inferior vena cava had not been sutured, Jennifer would not have survived even a few hours—she would have gone into hemorrhagic shock and died within minutes. None of this makes sense; it simply doesn’t add up!"

The judge raised his eyes, peering at the impassioned Zhou Yi through the gap in his spectacles. His eyelids drooped slightly; this explanation seemed to leave him unmoved, showing not the slightest interest in uncovering the truth. He spoke with indifference.

"Yet, none of the nurses or surgical assistants from Johns Hopkins Hospital who worked with you that day saw you suture the vessel. How do you intend to prove your claim?"

Zhou Yi glanced over at his defense attorney, Chase, a man of African descent, who sat in the defendant's corner appearing half-asleep, eyes barely open, with no intention of mounting any defense.

Fury surged in Zhou Yi’s chest, but he forced himself to remain composed.

"The video recording! Every surgery is recorded from start to finish. I asked my defense attorney to retrieve it; that will prove my innocence!"

The judge tilted his head, casting a mocking glance at the defense attorney before gesturing toward the projection screen.

"The video recording? On the day of the incident, all the hospital’s surgical videos were deleted. This is the result of the police investigation and the supporting evidence."

An uproar swept through the courtroom as the audience began to murmur and debate.

The judge signaled a clerk to show the documents to the jury, then turned back to Zhou Yi.

"The police investigation found that the defendant, Zhou Yi, used his home computer to hack into the hospital’s system and delete the relevant video recordings. This evidence is on record."

Zhou Yi stood frozen. Deleted videos? Using his home computer? What was going on?

What had begun as a sudden medical accident had, since the trial began, transformed into a murder case. Former colleagues and friends claimed they hadn’t seen him perform the suture. How could that be? If it were true, the patient would have died on the operating table from blood loss. Did no one understand such basic medical facts?

But no one would listen to his defense. His lawyer acted as if he were just going through the motions, following the process of a guilty plea rather than mounting any real defense. What was this all about?

At that moment, both the prosecutor and defense attorney were called to the bench. After a brief, hushed conversation, the judge looked to the jury box, where it seemed the jurors had reached their final decision.

Indeed, a woman in the front row raised a piece of paper. A man hurried over, took it from her, and handed it to the judge, who surveyed the courtroom.

Bang!

As the gavel struck, everyone in the courtroom rose. The judge adjusted his glasses and announced, "After six days of intense trial, the jury has reached a unanimous verdict. During surgery, the defendant failed to suture Jennifer’s inferior vena cava, resulting in her bleeding to death. The act was cruel, and the defendant refuses to admit guilt. This court finds Zhou Yi guilty of second-degree murder and sentences him to twenty years in prison."

Zhou Yi stared dumbly at the judge and at the jury members nearby, their faces cold and expressionless, as if they were wax figures.

A case riddled with such obvious holes had just branded him as a murderer. His mind was a blank void.

He wanted to shout, to plead for an appeal, to resist, to defend himself, to explain once more to the jury.

But at that moment, a heavy blow struck his neck. His eyes widened as he collapsed.

Faces of the judge, lawyers, jury, bailiffs, and countless others swirled around him, their mocking voices echoing, near and far, relentless.

“Heh heh!”

“You killed someone!”

“Don’t bother appealing!”

“You’re a murderer!”

“Murderer!”

“Deserve to die!”

...

Zhou Yi’s body shuddered as he suddenly sat upright, gasping for breath, prison uniform soaked in sweat.

Nearly every night, he endured the same nightmare. Many details had grown hazy, and at times Zhou Yi even doubted himself, wondering if he had truly killed someone.

He lifted his head, leaning against the bed, trying to calm his frantic heartbeat.

Outside the iron door, footsteps sounded—leather shoes striking metal floor plates—followed by the rapid bellowing, cursing, interrogating, and lecturing of Warden Alderson.

Soon after came the shouts, the thud of a rubber truncheon meeting flesh, and a man's pitiful pleas for mercy.

Zhou Yi exhaled. It seemed the noise outside had just jolted him from his nightmare.

Unable to sleep through the night, and tormented by nightmares whenever he drifted off, Zhou Yi closed his eyes, listening to the commotion. At least now, he could relax a little, without worrying about suddenly falling asleep.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before quiet gradually returned.

Opening his eyes, Zhou Yi’s once-handsome face was now obscured by tangled hair and a scruffy beard, his former appearance unrecognizable—he looked more like a beggar than a man.

His cell was about twelve square meters, containing only a bunk bed. In the northern corner stood a half-wall partitioning off the toilet and a washbasin. There was no mirror, no cellmate, and no sharp objects.

The small window above the toilet was the only opening to the outside world.

Rain was falling, drumming against the glass and mixing with sand and dirt, splattering in tiny explosions.

Zhou Yi stood, walked to the wall, and pressed his forehead against the concrete. With the nail of his left index finger, he scratched a mark into the cement.

Five marks per group—he now had eight groups and two extra: forty-two days. He had been in prison for forty-two days.

After making the mark, Zhou Yi paused, puzzled, and raised his left hand. Every day, he instinctively used his left hand to make these marks; using his right felt awkward, though he was not left-handed. Was this some strange effect of being in prison for so long?

He braced himself against the wall, exhaling deeply, closing his eyes again. In those forty-two days, he had replayed the events of that final surgery countless times.

If the assistants and circulating nurses claimed he had not sutured the vessel, why weren’t they called to testify in court and be confronted directly? That was a blatant violation of American legal procedure—how could the jury accept it?

And what of the eight hours after the operation? What had he done in that time? Why was his memory a complete blank?

Who had accessed his home computer and possessed the skill to hack remotely into the hospital’s defense system and erase every surgical record from that day? If he had truly done such a thing, wouldn’t it be the most obvious cover-up?

Of course, the most suspicious figure was his defense attorney. Chase, the court-appointed lawyer, had ignored Zhou Yi’s account throughout the trial, following a guilty plea strategy instead. Why?

Was someone responsible for Jennifer’s death, framing him for the crime?

Zhou Yi’s fingers trembled as he clung to the wall. In a flash, an image of metallic legs in a wheelchair flickered through his mind, gone in an instant, but the resulting dizziness made him feel as if he might suffocate.

He opened his mouth, gasping for air, as if only by breathing could he quell the terror of that fleeting image. Yet when he tried to recall the details, nothing came to mind. He shook his head, struggling to calm himself.

Second-degree murder—twenty years in prison. Was he to sit here and await death, to grow old within these four walls?

From initial confusion to mounting suspicion, he had at times even believed he might have killed Jennifer. But reason told him that as a doctor, he could never commit such an act. These hands were meant to save lives, not end them.

So what had truly happened?

His request for an appeal had already been denied—no reason given, no written document, just a brief verbal notice from Warden Alderson through the iron door.

Such a grave matter, dismissed with nothing but a word. Forget about human rights—this was pure negligence.

It could only mean that someone had used the opportunity of Jennifer’s post-car-accident surgery to murder her, orchestrated everything within the hospital, destroyed all evidence, and arranged for him to take the fall.

Now, the fifteen-day window for appeal had passed. This meant Zhou Yi was deemed to have accepted the verdict—twenty years confined by these four walls.

No. Absolutely not. No matter the cost, even if it meant death, he had to get out!

In an instant, Zhou Yi’s gaze became resolute.

He had to escape this place, at the very least to discover the truth behind everything. A bold plan began to take shape in his mind.