Chapter 104: Justice Dies Halfway

The whole-school parent meeting that day could be called a grand celebration.

Colorful flags fluttered across the campus, balloons danced, and every corner was filled with the clamor called "Hope".

Well‑dressed parents gathered in groups of three to five, their faces bearing proud or hopeful smiles, discussing their children's grades and futures.

Gao Zhiyuan stood amid the crowd, moving against the flow.

He wore a deep‑colored Windcoat faded to near‑white from washing, his frame gaunt, as if a gust could topple him.

He clashed with the bright, joyous atmosphere, like a ghost crawling out of a tomb, wrapped in an inescapable cold, dead aura.

Every laughing family, every happy face, turned into invisible sharp needles, stabbing his eyes and piercing his already riddled heart.

His world was gray and dead‑silent.

Here, however, it was colorful and noisy.

The stark contrast churned a wave of nausea in his stomach.

He entered the school's main auditorium, where noisy voices and stifling air hit him.

He locked onto his target at a glance.

The most conspicuous spot in the front row.

Liu Jianjun, Deputy Detachment Chief of the city Criminal Investigation Team, now wore a flushed face, his back straight as a victorious lion.

He was basking in the flattery and praise of the surrounding parents, the self‑satisfaction of a person of power showing without concealment.

Beside him, a girl with flaxen hair and light makeup idly scrolled her phone, looking down on everything around with a superior impatience.

Liu Ya.

In Gao Zhiyuan's view, the world instantly narrowed to that youthful yet vicious face.

It was her.

It was that face, appearing in his daughter's final nightmare.

Gao Zhiyuan found an inconspicuous corner, like a lifeless statue, and waited silently.

He was very patient.

Like a lone wolf lurking in the grass, waiting for prey to expose its throat.

Time passed second by second.

Leaders on the auditorium's podium changed one after another, reciting the same hackneyed platitudes.

Finally, the speech ended.

The crowd began to stir, preparing to disperse.

Now.

Gao Zhiyuan moved.

He hesitated not at all; his movement was as smooth as if rehearsed thousands of times.

The silent leopard bared its fangs.

He suddenly drew the cold‑glinting Boning Knife from inside his Windcoat and charged at the front‑row target!

"Ah! Knife!"

A sharp‑eyed mother let out an ear‑piercing scream.

The entire auditorium erupted in an instant.

The once‑peaceful celebration turned at that moment into a panic‑filled slaughterhouse.

Screams, cries, the clatter of overturned tables and chairs, a chaotic boil.

The crowd, like startled fish, surged wildly toward the Exit.

Liu Jianjun's reaction speed far exceeded what a pampered official should possess.

At the first instant the screams rang, he lived up to his Criminal Investigation elite background; his body's instinct reacted before his brain.

He shoved the still‑unaware daughter Liu Ya hard behind himself, while his right hand, like lightning, reached for his waist and drew the sidearm that symbolized power and violence!

The gaping muzzle aimed precisely at the charging Gao Zhiyuan.

"Police! Drop your weapon!"

Liu Jianjun's roar, bearing formidable deterrence, cut through all the noise.

However.

Gao Zhiyuan seemed not to have heard at all.

In his eyes, only the girl trembling behind Liu Jianjun remained.

She was the murderer who killed his daughter.

She was the embodiment of evil.

He completely ignored the deadly warning, ignored the gaping muzzle, and, like a berserk demon, kept charging without any loss of speed!

Die!

Die together!

Liu Jianjun's gaze instantly turned exceedingly fierce.

The warning was ineffective.

He hesitated not a moment.

"Bang!"

A gunshot.

The bullet struck Gao Zhiyuan's right arm, which held the knife, with precision.

A spray of blood erupted!

The intense pain made Gao Zhiyuan's arm jerk, and the Boning Knife nearly slipped from his grasp.

But he actually didn't fall!

He didn't even let out a painful groan.

He merely used the massive forward momentum, adopting an almost twisted posture, and in midair switched the knife to his left hand!

At that moment, he was only a few steps away from Liu Ya!

Liu Jianjun's pupils suddenly contracted into the most dangerous needle‑like shape!

He pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A few more gunshots followed.

Gao Zhiyuan's chest erupted in several glaring splashes of blood.

His forward‑charging body suddenly stalled, as if struck hard by an invisible force.

Then his tall frame crashed to the ground with a thud.

His body, under the great inertia, slid forward along the smooth floor for a short distance.

Finally, it came to rest at Liu Ya's feet.

He reached out, as if still trying to grasp something.

But that hand eventually just drooped weakly and slammed heavily onto the floor.

In the final moment of his life, the scattered pupils reflected the last scene—

Liu Jianjun held his terrified, soul‑shaken daughter tightly, using his broad back to completely shield his corpse from her, preventing her from seeing any drop of blood.

A father protecting his daughter with his life.

A father seeking justice ultimately died under the gun of a People's Guard, as a 'Thugs' perpetrator.

And the one the People's Guard swore to protect at the barrel of his gun was precisely the true murderer who killed his daughter.

This ultimate absurd black humor was clearly recorded by countless people in the auditorium who hadn't yet escaped, using their phone cameras.

The incident quickly fermented online.

At first, public opinion overwhelmingly praised the decisive, gun‑wielding hero police who protected the students and parents.

But soon, some opportunists dug up Gao Zhiyuan's identity.

And the tragic fate of his wife being raped and murdered, and his daughter being bullied to death.

The wind of public opinion began to show a Weird shift.

Some posts began to question why a desperate father would choose to commit violence at a parent‑teacher meeting.

The truth, like peeling an onion, was uncovered layer by layer.

When Liu Ya's name and her father's identity were exposed, the entire internet boiled over.

Fuck, I think I got it.

This is literally a hell‑level joke! The Thugs wanted to kill the murderer who caused their own daughter's death, only to be shot dead on the spot by the murderer's police dad?

A murderer protected by police, the victim's father becoming a Thugs who gets shot… This script, even damn Hollywood wouldn't dare write!

This is no longer a question of whether justice is late; this damn thing is justice dying outright halfway!

Satire spread everywhere.

The cold morgue.

Gao Zhiyuan's corpse lay quietly on the cold dissection table.

The white sheet covered the gruesome bullet holes on his body, but couldn't hide the thick, unmelting resentment that filled the air.

Late at night.

The fluorescent tube above the morgue began to flicker ominously.

Sizzle... sizzla...

In the corner, the deepest Shadow, as if a living creature, began to writhe and converge Weirdly.

A slender figure stepped slowly out of the Shadow.

It was Chu Che's Shadow clone.

He walked to the dissection table, looking down from above at the corpse bearing endless resentment and despair, his eyes showing no pity, but a fanatical appreciation as if admiring a work of art.

He extended his hand, as if he could touch the near‑solid black resentment emanating from the corpse.

"What a perfect material..."

He praised in an almost lyrical tone, softly.

"A soul that died for 'Justice', bearing a deep‑seated hatred toward the entire 'Order'..."

"Enough to create a masterpiece impossible to replicate."