【ER】Golden Rule

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"Can you tell us what happened that night, Madame Thenardier?"

"Of course, of course," said the woman on the witness stand.

The first round of cross-examination began on a morning in March. It was warm and cold, but the room was terribly stuffy.Grantaire hangs crookedly on his desk, watching the fat woman on the witness stand holding a crumpled tissue in one hand, wiping her broad forehead for a while, and her eyelids for a while— —Madame Thenardier, the first witness in the first round of cross-examination, was a very fat woman with a rather masculine square face flushed with emotion and grief.She was sobbing and blowing her nose loudly, as deafeningly as a drunken burly man.

"That night, we closed the door, put all the extra key cards under the table, and got ready to go to bed—Cosette had already gone to bed! She was sick, and we all acted lightly, not wanting to disturb her." De Mrs. Nadi rubbed her poor tissue and sobbed dramatically in a sad tone, "Suddenly, about half an hour past nine, there was a knock on the front door—like someone knocking on it with a stick. It's the same. My husband went to answer the door—for God's sake, there was a big man standing in the doorway, dirty clothes, bearded, with a golf club in his hand, yelling, 'Take Cosy Leave it to me!' The voice was so loud that the whole hall was shaking, and I was so frightened that I sat behind the counter."

Madame Thenardier uttered a sob as if choking.

"Having heard what he was saying... We thought it was impossible, and we promised poor, poor Fantine... My poor husband went up to stop him, and the robber knocked him down with a stick— — so fast, I didn't have time to do anything, my poor boy fell down... red, white... my poor boy!" She hoarse the last words and began to hang Weeping loudly.

"Thank you, ma'am... ma'am, thank you!"

Grantaire coughed loudly, mostly acting, trying to overcome Madame Thenardier's loud sobbing.Today he was in charge of questioning the witnesses, and he wanted to leave it all to Marius, but unfortunately the guy had been fighting through the night last night with another charge of intentional harm - which made Grantaire go straight to court, Facing Enjolras sitting in the same courtroom.Enjolras was still exactly the same as the last time they met, with tight lips and angry eyes, like a sharp pen.Grantaire had no idea what Valjean had said to him, but he looked clearly furious - don't trust your client too much!Grantaire sighed inwardly.After this case, Enjolras would probably only hate him more.

"Did you know Mr. Valjean before?" Grantaire spread out the folder on the table, propped his body with one arm, and tried hard to hold back a yawn that was about to burst out.

Madame Thenardier stopped sobbing, and looked at him with her little red eyes like a flushed walrus.

"No, sir, by God—we are serious businessmen, how could we know such a criminal!"

Well done, well done - Grantaire applauded himself boredly in his heart, there was nothing more to ask, and he finally yawned smoothly. "Thank you, ma'am. I have no further questions, Your Honor."

Before he could close his mouth, Enjolras stood up with a "squeak", and the file folder slapped on the table with a crisp sound.

"It was nine-thirty at night, wasn't it?" Enjolras said, with a perfect accent and a beautiful pronunciation, and Grantaire could only curse himself for staring at his neck inappropriately, with a stick stuck in his neck. A yawn on the lips.

Madame Thenardier nodded. "Yes, sir."

"That is to say, it is very late—very dark," said Enjolras. "One often sees things wrong in dimly lit places, doesn't he?"

The fat woman looked at him and sobbed loudly again. "Our lobby is very bright - there's a huge chandelier in the lobby."

Enjolras hesitated.But he quickly picked himself up again.

"As you say, Madame, neither you nor your husband knew M. Valjean. If a suspicious stranger could be seen, at night, in rags, with a golf club—why would you open the door?"

Madame Thenardier blew her nose and looked distraught. "We can't turn away guests, sir—the trade rules."

The blond warrior looked as if he had taken another punch.But he cleared his throat and continued.

"... Ma'am, according to Ling Hotel's credit records, you and your husband had three bad tax records in 02, 06 and 11—"

"Does this question have anything to do with this case?" the judge interrupted.Apparently he also knew Enjolras, probably his speeches are really famous in this area.

Enjolras glared at him (Grantaire guessed that was the friendliest look he could make at the moment). "My lord, I just want to make it clear that a person with a stained reputation can also lie in court."

Grantaire raised a hand lazily.

"I object, my lord." He said, leaning on the table and stood up slowly, pretending not to feel Enjolras' furious gaze stuck to his left side, "The statement made by my knowledgeable colleague just now is pure speculation... ...hope you will instruct the jury to forget what he just said - I don't want our honest public opinion to be influenced by prejudice."

The judge nodded at him. "This court accepts that." He turned to the jury. "I ask the jury to forget what the defense attorneys said just now about the speculation of lies."

After doing this, the tired and absent-minded middle-aged man took off his glasses and put them on the table, and looked up at Enjolras who was still standing upright on the defense bench.

"Adjournment. I think we can go to lunch—you have no other questions, sir."

Grantaire pulls his suit jacket straight off his head as soon as he's out of court, and he's wearing a hood underneath, which makes him have a funny lump on his back going into court, but he doesn't care.He rolled his coat under his arm and walked quickly across the hall.He should have cheered for the good performance of the prosecution witnesses, but thinking of Enjolras' expression before the adjournment, he felt something stuck in his throat.He walked across the front porch and out of the corner of his eye caught a glimpse of Eponine and her mother chatting together in the bathroom door—she was the same, with lip liner tattoos and ears pierced with an unscientific number of holes.Her leatherette bra wraps tightly around her upper body, exposing her left breast, which is tattooed with a skull.

The next time it's her turn to testify, she'll have to change her clothes - Grantaire thought as he walked - buy a knee-length dress, get the smoky makeup off, and make the jury think she's a "decent" Girl.He hurried past the mother and daughter, who did not see him, or only pretended not to see him—his relationship with her mother, since the incident with Azma Thenardier, should have been very different. Awkward.Eponine hasn't returned his calls since the case started, so that's fine, and he won't be at risk of inducing witnesses, as long as Eponine deliberately avoids him because he has something to hide from him. .

He continued to walk forward, tearing off the tie that was tightly strangling his neck, the weather was starting to get a little stuffy, and he wanted to hurry to have a glass of wine.Standing at a corner in front of him was the man wearing glasses who was sitting behind Enjolras when he was in the court. He should be his colleague—it doesn't make sense, Enjolras didn't stand with him.What's more, Enjolras hadn't looked at Grantaire since the trial began, every time in the past year, as if looking at him would shame his soul.

He went on, but he could not find Marius anywhere, God knows where he had gone.Enjolras was not in the hall either, which is understandable considering he was probably changing in the locker room, folding his blazer neatly like a battle suit and packing it respectfully into his briefcase—full of respect!Oh my god.Grantaire snorted, pulled out his phone and dialed Courfeyrac's number. The trial went smoothly, but he was somehow not happy at all. Maybe only his friend's nonsense could save him.

"……Oh."

He was stunned when he walked to the door, and the hand holding the phone froze by his ear.The gate of the district court was surrounded by reporters—no wonder, the prisoner changed his name and changed his surname to escape for ten years, and when he reappeared, he knocked out the brains of the local hotel owner with a golf club—it’s been a long time in this area There is no other story worth writing about.It was impossible for these reporters to contact Wa Rang, and police officers like Javert would only give them bad looks.Now they can only come to harass the trial lawyer.

"... If I were you, I would shrink my neck and hide away." Grantaire muttered, and he saw the golden head in the middle of the crowd from a long distance, and before he could take off his suit in court, No wonder it will become the target of long guns and short guns.But then again, Enjolras himself was not someone who could be easily ignored by the crowd.He's got a pretty face and a big mouth -- the reporters love him the most because he's always speaking his sharpest points to the camera.People like to see him in the news, and even more people like to scold him online.

Grantaire crouched and slid down the steps beside the crowd—he was wearing a hood and jeans, hadn't shaved in days, and no one would think he was a lawyer.Enjolras was speaking impassionedly in the center of the crowd about childish things like procedural justice and presumption of innocence, knowing that most people would not accept such things.Grantaire hangs his head, about to slip away safely unnoticed—

"stop."

Enjolras' voice came from behind him.

...Damn it.

Before Grantaire had time to swear a word, all the guns and short guns turned in his direction.The crowd pushed him to the center as well.

"He's the prosecutor," Enjolras announced, with the look of an elementary school math teacher pulling a troubled boy in front of the class.Grantaire shrugged awkwardly, wondering if he should greet the cameras in front of him one by one.

"Examining a guilty person helps cleanse the conscience." In the end he had to respond to Enjolras' words, hoping that the other party would understand that this was just a joke against their previous unpleasant quarrel.

It's a pity that Enjolras clearly fails to understand his sense of humor (and when it comes to humor, Grantaire has reason to suspect that such a thing never appeared under the young lawyer's golden head).He snorted coldly, as if trying to compete with Grantaire, raised his chin towards the long guns and short guns in front of him, and said loudly:

"I will not send my client to jail on a murder charge," he said, clanging like a speech. "I plead not guilty."

... it's over.

The shutter flashed white, and Grantaire covered his face in his mind—you're going to die, God of Justice.He sighed inwardly, wishing he had just had the chance to cover the fighter's mouth.

"... Scum, immoral, hypocrite, sanctimonious... What else did I not read?"

Grantaire sat behind his desk, lazily scrolling his fingers through his mouse.On the computer screen is a wide-format photo of Enjolras, which is exactly the same as the photo on the front page of the newly issued newspaper today.The headline printed next to Enjolras's head reads in bold typefaces such as "Insist on the defense of innocence". You don't need to think about what kind of uproar this attitude will cause on the Internet—almost all the pages of news websites are full of Insulting the blond lawyer, the few seemingly calmer comments also suggested that the young and energetic lawyer chose to plead guilty instead of letting the "criminal who got away with it for several years get away with it".

"If I were him, I'd talk to the judge and tell him that everyone suffers from the unfair bias of the media." Grantaire grumbled, but knew Enjolras would not bother to do so.

"You should be glad that you picked up the job of the prosecution." Courfeyrac came in with a few envelopes and said friendly, seeming to be in a good mood about the progress of the case.

Grantaire gave him a listless grimace, and quickly closed the page he was browsing.

"I think the blond orator is going to hate me," he said, trying to be nonchalant—what else could he expect?Enjolras didn't take him seriously at all, he was the only one who thought to himself every time because of the tit-for-tat in court.

"By the way, what about Marius? Didn't you agree to let him take Eponine to buy more conservative clothes?"

Courfeyrac winked at him. "Who knows, no one has seen him these days." He said, with a big laugh at the corner of his mouth. "Let me tell you, he has been in a trance every day recently, and Yu Munao may have fallen in love."

"Hey." Grantaire followed him and whistled - Eponine had a good relationship with him, which basically meant that she knew everyone here.She had not been infatuated with Marius for a day or two, and it was an open secret except for the person concerned.Grantaire knew what Courfeyrac was thinking—if Marius did finally come to his senses and accepted Éponine's affections—they would all be happy for her.After all, her father had just encountered such an accident, and this was the only thing she could be happy about now.

"You will have a chance to question Marius well tonight." Courfeyrac said beamingly, throwing an envelope in his hand on Grantaire's table, "A new judge has been promoted in the district court, and there is a small reception , sent invitations to lawyers in this area."

"I hate you," Grantaire said succinctly. "Why did you get the letter for me? Put it back in my mailbox and pretend it never came. I don't want to wear a suit and I don't want to be with Marius I'm in love Pontmercy was trapped in the same room all night."

"You won't hate me," Courfeyrac smiled at him kindly. "You know what I mean when I say 'lawyer of this neighbourhood'? Enjolras will be there too."

Grantaire choked up.His friend flashed him a smug smile—he knew he couldn't say no.

"I really hate you," Grantaire said weakly, reaching for the invitation.

TBC