Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

That's not "judicial prudence".

Li Rui now understands.

That's the instinctive dodge when someone is selling their soul.

He checked.

That very night after the application was rejected, unofficial news came from the provincial court: Zhou Shouzhen's name had appeared at the top of the list of candidates for appointment.

"So, that's the price."

Li Rui opened his eyes, and the dark red in his eyes suddenly ignited, deep and clear, without a trace of madness.

If burning Zhang Ziqian to death was revenge, then searching for Zhou Shouzheng was to cleanse—to eliminate those "weights and measures" that, while cloaked in the guise of justice, weighed human lives in the dark.

"You're not afraid to look at me," Li Rui spoke silently to the void, "you're afraid to look at your own conscience. You've chosen a path... leading to death."

He stood up, took one last look at the photo, and pinned the brooch, now warm again, inside his shirt, close to his heart.

"Xiaoxiao, the second one. Wait for me."

He pushed open the door, and his figure instantly disappeared into the thick, inky night.

……

Three o'clock in the morning.

District 7, a high-end residential area.

In Zhou Shouzhen's study, the ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts.

He had insomnia.

On the desk lay a copy of the case file concerning Zhang Ziqian, especially the rejection application, which looked like a tombstone.

He rubbed his swollen eyes and tried to pour himself a glass of water, but his hands were trembling slightly.

He kept telling himself: I did it for judicial prudence, I did nothing wrong.

The roads in the province have been paved; once you cross them, a new world awaits.

Besides, once I leave Dawn City, who will know about my past?

"Judge Zhou, are you having trouble sleeping?"

A voice, calm beneath which lay hidden anger, rang out without warning at the study doorway.

Zhou Shouzhen trembled violently, and the water glass in his hand crashed onto the mahogany floor, shards of porcelain scattering everywhere.

He looked up abruptly and saw that Li Rui was already standing there.

In that dark shadow, two dark red dots were slowly rotating in Li Rui's pupils; they were the flames about to ignite at the entrance to hell.

Zhou Shouzhen's voice began to tremble: "Li Rui? How did you get in? What...what do you want?"

"I have a question for you." Li Rui slowly approached.

He leaned down, placed his hands on the desk, and stared intently into Zhou Shouzhen's eyes: "Zhang Ziqian, can you get a promotion?"

The study fell into a deathly silence.

Zhou Shouzhen's face was deathly pale, and his lips moved violently, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Li Rui looked at this face.

He saw a person who soberly chose to betray justice.

Su Xiao's life and the justice of the law seemed so insignificant in the face of the provincial court's proposed appointment list and Zhou Shouzhen's meticulous accounting.

This isn't the kind of insane evil like Zhang Ziqian's; this is shrewd and calm evil.

He calculated it, and he felt it was worth it.

"Do you know what it was like when my wife died?" Li Rui spoke again. "You've gone through those files, you've seen those photos. You know how horribly she died, and you also know what kind of person Zhang Ziqian is."

"You knew everything. But you still chose to embrace me..."

Li Rui paused for a moment, and those two words echoed deafeningly in the silent room:

"dark."

"You, too, are darkness."

Zhou Shouzhen finally broke down. He tried to stand up and run away, but found his legs were as weak as noodles. Tears mixed with sweat streamed down his face: "I just... I just wanted to take a step up... I didn't expect it to turn out like this, I was just following the procedure..."

"Take one step up." Li Rui stretched out his right hand, his five fingers suddenly spread wide, hovering above Zhou Shouzhen's head. "I'll use my wife's life as a stepping stone for you."

The flames of karma ignite silently.

This was no ordinary flame; it poured directly into Zhou Shouzhen's skull.

Zhou Shouzhen felt the burning pain in his body, and at the same time, his consciousness was instantly pulled into the dimension called "Judgment".

He opened his eyes in the illusion.

He found himself transformed into Li Rui, sitting in the stakes seat.

He looked toward the judge's bench, where Zhou Shouzheng was sitting.

"Should we sentence him?"

A cold voice echoed from the depths of his soul.

He "saw" himself on the judge's bench raise his head and strike the gavel.

The sound shattered his eardrums: "Rejected."

In an instant, the suffocating feeling of Li Rui's shattered last faith in the law exploded completely in Zhou Shouzheng's senses.

That was the hope he had killed with his own hands, and now it was tearing his soul apart inch by inch.

the second time.

the third time.

the fourth time……

In each reincarnation, he became a different victim.

He became Su Xiao, he became the female college student who was tortured and killed by Zhang Ziqian, he became the victim's father who cried until he lost his voice, he became Duoduo who was curled up in the corner.

And at the very end of every despair, the high and mighty "Zhou Shouzhen" would strike the gavel expressionlessly.

"Should we sentence him?"

The voice persisted relentlessly, like an eternal countdown.

He was writhing, howling, and begging for mercy in his hallucinations.

He wanted to shout, "I agree! I change my mind!" but all he could hear was the sound of coke rubbing together.

The rules of karmic fire are absolute: you must personally experience every despair you create; that is not being a bystander, that is "becoming".

Li Rui stood quietly in a corner of the study, his hands in his pockets, coldly watching Zhou Shouzheng convulse on the floor like a dying fish.

His face held only a focused expression that bordered on compassion.

After each round, he would ask softly, "Should we rule?"

Until the ninety-ninth time.

Zhou Shouzhen's body had mostly disappeared, and the edges were grayish-white, like the ashes of burnt paper, which would scatter in the wind.

Li Rui walked over, squatted down, and his face was only a few centimeters away from Zhou Shouzhen's distorted face.

He spoke calmly in a voice only Zhou Shouzhen could hear:

"As a judge, you should know best what 'appropriate sentencing' means."

"Ninety-nine times, not one more, not one less."

Zhou Shouzhen's pupils contracted sharply; that was his last human emotional reaction.

Immediately afterwards, Li Rui stood up and walked out the door without looking back.

Behind him, the last cluster of dark red flames engulfed the figure from the inside out.

In the study, only an empty chair and the pajamas that had fallen off were left.

Li Rui sneaked out of the residential area; the sky was shrouded in the deepest darkness before dawn.

He took the ruby ​​brooch out of his pocket, pressed it against his chest, and felt the lingering warmth of its heat.

"Xiaoxiao, the second one is finished burning."

He gazed at the layered shadows of the buildings in the distance.

"You said I am fire."

"The fire will not stop. The fire will only keep burning until it burns through."

"Burning through the darkness."

------

It's 6:30 in the morning.

When Zhou Shouzhen's wife opened the study door, she was holding a cup of freshly made hot milk.