The news broke three days later.
I was in my office when it happened. Not that "being" anywhere meant much anymore. I didn't touch the chair I sat in. I didn't turn the pages I read. I didn't breathe the air in the room. But habits lingered, even after everything else stopped.
The television in the waiting area flickered to life.
I didn't turn it on. No one did. It just… started.
"—new developments in the Lin Yue case—"
I was on my feet before the sentence finished.
The reporter stood in front of a courthouse. Mid-thirties. Thin. Tired eyes — the kind that didn't come from long hours alone, but from choosing not to stop. He held a stack of papers in one hand. Notes. Evidence. Fragments of a story someone had tried to bury.
"—previously convicted for the murder of her husband, new evidence suggests a miscarriage of justice—"
So this was him. The journalist Ruan Qing had mentioned. Lin Wei.
The footage didn't stop there. They brought in a second clip.
A witness.
I recognized him immediately. He had testified with absolute certainty during the trial. Said he saw Lin Yue leave the scene. Said he was sure.
Now, he wouldn't meet the camera.
"I… might have been mistaken," he said.
Might. Even now, he couldn't say it cleanly. Couldn't admit what he had done.
The reporter didn't interrupt. Didn't push. He just let the silence sit there, long enough to become uncomfortable. Then he moved on. Another document. Another contradiction. Another crack in something that had already collapsed.
Court records. Witness statements. Photos.
All of it familiar. All of it correct. He did his job well. Too well.
I moved closer to the screen, like distance still mattered.
"—sources indicate that key testimony may have been coerced—"
He didn't rush. Didn't dramatize. He just laid it out piece by piece. Like a lawyer. Like me. He wasn't just reporting. He was building a case — not for a courtroom, but for the public. Same structure. Same method. Establish doubt. Break certainty. Replace it with something harder to ignore.
But unlike a courtroom, there were no rules. No objections. No judge to control the flow. Only attention. And attention was unpredictable. Dangerous. Harder to win. Harder to survive.
For a moment, something settled in my chest. Not pain. Not anymore. Something else. Recognition. Respect. Maybe even pride.
The segment ended. The screen went dark, and the waiting area returned to silence.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I laughed. It came out wrong — flat, hollow, like the sound didn't belong to me anymore.
"Three years," I said.
No one answered.
"Three years and that's what it takes."
Not evidence. Not arguments. Not the truth. Just the right person telling the story.
I turned away from the television and went back to my office. Sat down in the chair I couldn't feel and waited.
---
The follow-up came faster than I expected.
The next day, the story spread. Not just one report — multiple. Different networks. Different angles. But the same core. Lin Yue. Wrongly convicted. System failure.
Public pressure started building. Slow at first, then faster.
I watched it happen in real time — clips, interviews, legal analysts arguing over details they barely understood. People online turned it into something simple. Something easy. Right. Wrong. They always did.
The law wasn't like that. It never had been.
---
I found him two days later.
The journalist. Lin Wei. The one Ruan Qing said was ready to see me.
But I wasn't alone.
Ruan Qing was standing outside his building, waiting for me. Leaning against the wall. Arms crossed. Looking at me like I was late for an appointment.
"You're here," she said.
"I'm always here. I'm dead. I don't have anywhere else to be."
She didn't laugh. She never laughed.
"He's on the fourth floor," she said. "He knows you're coming."
"How does he know?"
She pushed off the wall and walked toward the door.
"Because I told him."
---
The building was old. The kind where the elevator hasn't worked since the 90s. The stairs were narrow. The lights were broken. The walls smelled like dust and old cooking oil.
Ruan Qing climbed ahead of me. Her footsteps echoed. Mine made no sound. They never did.
"So," I said, "what's his story? Besides the dying part."
She didn't look back.
"He was good. Investigative journalist. Won awards. Exposed corruption. Then he got lung cancer."
"How long?"
"Six months. Maybe less."
We reached the fourth floor. Apartment 4C.
"He can see you," she said. "Not because he's special. Because he's dying. The living world is letting go of him. So he can see the other side."
She knocked. Three times. Soft. Slow.
The door opened.
---
He was thin.
Not the kind of thin from dieting. The kind of thin from dying. His cheeks were hollow. His eyes were sunken. His clothes hung loose on his frame. But his hands — his hands were steady. And his eyes, despite the shadows beneath them, were sharp.
He looked at Ruan Qing. Then he looked past her. At me.
He could see me. Really see me. Not almost. Not for a second. His gaze landed and stayed.
"So you're the lawyer," he said.
His voice was hoarse. Quiet. But there was weight to it. The weight of a man who had spent years asking questions and demanding answers.
"Chen Lü," I said.
"I know who you are." He stepped aside. "Come in."
---
The apartment was small. One bedroom. One bathroom. A kitchen that looked like it hadn't been used in weeks. But the living room was different. It was covered in paper. Newspapers. Printouts. Photographs. Pages torn from notebooks. They were pinned to the walls, spread across the floor, stacked on the table.
It looked like an explosion in a library.
Ruan Qing sat on a chair by the window. She didn't say anything. She just watched.
Lin Wei sat on the couch. He moved slowly. Carefully. Like his body was made of glass.
I stood in the middle of the room. Not sure what to do with my hands. Not sure what to say. Damn. I'm a lawyer. I'm supposed to know what to say.
"You've been busy," I said finally.
Lin Wei coughed. A dry, hollow sound. "I've been dying. It gives you a lot of free time."
He gestured to the wall.
"Lin Yue," he said. "Ruan Qing gave me the phone. The broken one. The messages are still there. The threats. The photos. Zhang Feng's face. All of it."
He looked at me.
"She didn't kill her husband."
"I know."
"The court knows now too. The Hell Court."
I didn't ask how he knew about that. Ruan Qing must have told him. Or maybe the dead talk to him. Or maybe he just guessed.
"You believe in it?" I asked. "The Hell Court?"
He smiled. It was a thin smile. Tired.
"I believe in justice," he said. "I've been a journalist for twenty years. I've seen the living court fail. Again and again. If the dead have their own court…" He paused. "Maybe that's where the real justice happens."
I didn't know what to say to that.
So I said nothing.
---
Ruan Qing spoke from the window.
"He wants to write the story," she said. "The real story. Lin Yue. Zhang Feng. The evidence the police ignored."
Lin Wei nodded.
"I want to publish it before I die."
I looked at him. Then at the walls. At all those faces. All those cases. All those stories someone had tried to bury.
"Why?" I asked.
He leaned back. His eyes didn't leave mine.
"Because that's what I do. That's what I've always done. I find the truth. I write it. I let the public decide."
He paused.
"Ruan Qing says you have other cases. Other dead people waiting for justice."
I looked at Ruan Qing. She didn't look back.
"There are others," I said.
"Then I'll write those too."
I laughed. It came out wrong. Flat. Hollow.
"You're dying," I said. "You don't have time."
He smiled again. That thin, tired smile.
"Then I'll write fast."
---
I stood there for a long moment.
Something was happening in my chest. Not pain. Not relief. Something else. Something I hadn't felt in three years.
Hope.
Damn. I didn't think I could still feel that.
"You can see me," I said. "Right now. Clearly."
"Yes."
"How?"
"Ruan Qing told you. I'm dying. The living world is letting go of me. So I can see the other side."
He paused.
"Also, you're not very good at hiding."
I blinked. "What?"
"Your emotions. You wear them on your face. Even dead. You're angry. You're tired. You're lonely." He tilted his head. "And you're hoping I can help."
I didn't answer.
Because he was right.
---
Ruan Qing stood.
"Then it's settled," she said. "Lin Wei writes the story. Chen Lü finds the next case."
She looked at me.
"Can you do that?"
I thought about it. Lin Yue was gone. The case was closed. Zhang Feng was still alive, sleeping in her apartment, keeping her phone on his nightstand.
But there were others. Others like Lin Yue. Others who had died before their cases were finished. Others who were still waiting.
"Yeah," I said. "I can do that."
Lin Wei nodded.
"Then let's get to work."
---
I left the apartment.
Ruan Qing followed me down the stairs. Her footsteps echoed. Mine made no sound.
At the bottom, she stopped.
"You're different," she said.
"Different how?"
"I don't know. Less dead, maybe."
I laughed. A real laugh this time. Still hollow. But closer to real.
"I'm still dead."
"I know." She pushed open the door. The cold morning air rushed in. "But you're not just waiting anymore."
She walked out into the street.
I stood there for a moment. Then I followed.
Outside, the city was waking up. A woman with coffee. A man checking his watch. A kid weaving through traffic on a bike.
Normal. Ordinary. Alive.
I looked back at the building. The fourth floor. The window where a dying journalist was already writing the story that would change everything.
For the first time since I died — I had a direction.
Not justice. Not yet.
But a direction.
And that was enough.
For now.