The first time he hit me, I remember I was holding a cup of tea.
Lin Yue said this without looking at me. Her eyes were on the window.
"I don't remember falling. All I remember is the sound the cup made when it hit the wall. And I was on the floor."
She paused.
"Funny, right? What the brain keeps."
I didn't say anything. Lawyers learn early — sometimes the best question is no question. You let the silence work. You let them fill it.
And yeah, she filled it alright. Smooth, flowing like a river.
"I met him in law school. Li Wei. Third year. Already clerking for a judge. Everyone said he was going to be famous."
Her voice was flat. Worn down. Numb.
"He was charming. Handsome. The kind of person who walked into a room and everyone looked at him."
She finally looked at me and said:
"But I wasn't that person. I sat in the back. Took notes. Did the work. Made sure everything was correct."
I knew that type. I had defended that type. The ones who thought if they just followed the rules, the rules would protect them.
"He noticed me anyway. Or he pretended to. I don't know which anymore."
---
She told me about the wedding. Small. Her mother cried. Her sister was the flower girl. Fourteen years old, already taller than Lin Yue, already trying to protect her.
"He was different after the wedding," she said. "Not right away. That's not how it works."
I waited.
"The first time, three months in. He came home drunk. Something about a case he lost. I don't remember what I said. Something small. Something stupid."
She touched her ribs. Old habit. The body remembers what the mind tries to bury.
"He hit me here."
Her hand moved to her cheek.
"And here."
Then her throat.
"And here."
She stopped.
"I told myself it was an accident. His hand slipped. He was stressed. The case was hard."
Her voice didn't change. That was the worst part. Not the words. The flatness. The numbness.
"The second time, I told myself he was sorry. He cried afterward. He bought me flowers. He said it would never happen again."
She looked at her hands. Pale. Faintly blue at the edges.
"The tenth time, I stopped telling myself anything."
---
I should have said something to her. But I can't. Not because I don't know how to say something nicely. But I am in rage. Yeah, the kind of rage that wants to beat that worthless scum. How dare he. Got a wife and still beating her. Meanwhile, me, in life no wife, after I die, can't get it up. I guess someday, this frustration will be the death of me.
Nahh, I am already dead. Pretty sure there's no second time for dead. Ahhahaha.
Ok, let's get back to her please. Don't be distracted. That's what I say to my mind.
She just kept talking.
"There was a night I went to the hospital. Cracked rib. Black eye. The nurse asked me what happened. I told her I fell down the stairs."
She paused.
"The nurse looked at me. She knew. She wrote 'fell down the stairs' anyway."
---
The years came out in fragments after that. Apologies. Promises. Flowers. Dinners. The cycle repeating so many times it stopped feeling like change and started feeling like routine.
At work, she was respected. Partners praised her. Clients thanked her.
At home, she was careful. She learned to stand a certain way. To speak a certain way. To avoid certain rooms at certain times.
"No one knew," she said. "Or no one wanted to."
That landed. Right in the chest. I had defended clients like her. Sat across from them in this same office. Listened to their stories. Believed them. Then watched juries look at them like they were lying.
Because the truth is uncomfortable. The truth makes people shift in their seats. The truth is — good people stay with bad people. Every day. For years. For reasons they can't explain and lawyers can't argue and juries can't understand.
---
She told me about the night she decided to leave.
"I packed a bag. Hid it in the closet. I was going to tell him that night, after he came home from work."
A pause.
"But he came home early, drunk."
Something shifted in her voice. Memory coming back.
"One moment I was in the kitchen. The next, I was on the floor."
She touched her throat.
"He was on top of me. His hands here."
Her fingers pressed lightly against her neck.
"The kitchen light was too bright. The sound of his breathing, heavy and wet. The smell of alcohol, right next to my ear."
She stopped.
"I couldn't move. I couldn't think. I couldn't —"
She stopped again.
"The neighbors heard something. A scream. A crash. They called the police."
Another pause.
"When the police arrived... he was on the floor."
She looked at me.
"Dead."
"And you?" I asked.
"I was standing over him. Holding a knife."
Her voice didn't change.
"I don't remember picking it up or stabbing him. I only remember not being able to breathe."
She was quiet for a moment.
"There was blood on the knife. Blood on my hands. Blood on the kitchen floor. I didn't remember any of it."
---
I leaned forward.
"Who was there that night? Besides you and your husband."
She went still.
"Zhang Feng," she said. "My husband's business partner. He came to talk about money. About the deals they were hiding. About the people who would come for them if they didn't pay."
Her hand went to her throat again.
"My husband was already drunk. He was angry. He started screaming. Zhang Feng tried to calm him. He pushed me out of the way."
She paused.
"That's when my husband grabbed me."
---
She didn't cry. I kept waiting for her to cry. She didn't. In my mind, I just keep hoping she will cry. Even a small cry is ok just to distract her a little bit.
"The trial lasted two weeks," she said. Her voice was steady now. The same flat tone. Like she was reading a transcript.
"My lawyer was court-appointed. Young. Tired. He had twenty other cases waiting."
She paused.
"He didn't know about the messages. The threats. The photos."
"What messages?"
"My husband's phone. The one with everything he sent me. The threats. The photos of what he did to me. The proof."
She met my eyes.
"Zhang Feng took it. Before the police arrived. He deleted everything."
"The police never found it. The prosecutor never knew. My lawyer never asked."
---
"They called me to testify."
Her voice was quieter now.
"I sat in the witness box. The prosecutor stood in front of me. He had a kind face. A reasonable voice."
She paused.
"He asked me about the abuse. I told him. Everything. The first time. The last time. All the times in between."
Her hands were still.
"Then he asked me one question."
She looked at me.
"'If you were so afraid,' he said, 'why did you stay?'"
---
The courtroom was silent. She looked at her lawyer. He was looking at his notes. He didn't look up.
She looked at the jury. Twelve faces. Some sympathetic. Some bored. Some already decided.
She looked at the back of the courtroom. Her sister was sitting alone. Fourteen years old. Crying.
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
I knew that silence. I had seen it a hundred times. The silence of a woman who has been asked the one question she cannot answer. Not because she doesn't know. Because the answer makes her sound stupid. Weak. Complicit.
I stayed because I loved him.
I stayed because I was afraid of what he would do if I left.
I stayed because I didn't think anyone would believe me.
But oh boy, how wrong of me to assume all of that. Because the reason was none of that.
She didn't say any of that.
"Zhang Feng knew," she said. "He told me, after my husband died. He said if I said anything, if I told anyone he was there, he would find her. He would make sure she never saw her next birthday."
She looked at her hands.
"I sat in the witness box. The prosecutor was waiting. The jury was waiting. The judge was waiting."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"I didn't answer."
---
"The jury deliberated for four hours."
"Guilty. Twenty years."
She was taken to prison three days later.
"Anle," she said. "Peace and Happiness." Funny, right? That's the prison name. She gave a faint, wrong smile.
"I was there for three years. There was a guard. Old woman. She didn't talk much. Sometimes she left extra bread on my tray. She never asked about my case. She never looked at me like I was a murderer."
She touched her throat again.
"She retired six months before I died. I never learned her name."
---
"I died in the infirmary."
I waited.
"They said it was a heart attack. Stress. The body giving out."
Her voice was flat again.
"No one questioned it. No one investigated. I was a convicted murderer. Who would care?"
She looked at me.
"I was twenty-eight."
---
She stopped.
The room was quiet. The fluorescent lights hummed. The same hum as her kitchen. The same hum as Courtroom 7B.
"I tried to tell them," she said. "After I died. I went back to the courthouse. I stood in the courtroom. I screamed."
She looked at me.
"No one heard."
"I found this place three months ago. At that time, I was walking. Just walking. Trying to find somewhere to go. And somehow, it's like some unforeseen power or something that pointed me to this direction. And I saw your name on the door."
"Chen Lü. Attorney at Law."
---
I didn't answer. Because what could I say? That I understood? I didn't even know how to make heads or tails of my situation.
"His name," that was all I could ask.
"Zhang Feng."
"My husband's business partner."
She stood.
"Still alive. Still in that apartment. Still pretending nothing happened."
She looked at me.
"Can you help me?"
---
I looked at her. At the young woman who had been convicted of a murder she didn't commit. Who had served three years in prison. Who had died there.
Who had stayed silent to protect her sister.
I thought about my mother. Sitting in her chair at three in the morning. Crying at a photo. Waiting for a call that would never come.
I thought about the sister. Fourteen years old in the back of the courtroom. Watching her big sister go to prison for something she didn't do.
I thought about Zhang Feng. Sleeping in the apartment where Lin Yue's husband died. With the phone on his nightstand. With the evidence hidden in his closet. With the truth buried under three years of silence.
"I'll take it," I said.
She smiled.
"Thank you."
Then she was gone.
---
I sat there for a long time.
On a blank page, I wrote:
Zhang Feng.
I looked at it for a long time.
Three years dead. Three years of watching. Three years of learning what I could and couldn't do.
I had a client now. A case. A name.
I stood. Walked through the door. Through the lobby. Through the hallway that smelled of dust and old paper.
Outside, the street was waking up. A woman with coffee. A man checking his watch. A kid weaving through traffic on a bike.
Normal. Ordinary. Alive.
I walked toward the address I had written on the paper.
The apartment on Evergreen Court. Fifth floor. Apartment 5C.
Somewhere up there, Zhang Feng was sleeping. In the apartment where Lin Yue's husband died. With the evidence hidden in his closet. With the truth buried under three years of silence.
I intended to wake him up.
But I didn't know yet — some people don't want to be woken up. And some secrets, once buried, don't want to be found.