Chapter 320
Chapter 320
A month later, the police referred Scarlett’s case to the prosecutor’s office. With that, the prosecutor’s office was put in charge of examining and prosecuting the suspect.
Layla put in a great deal of effort and used many connections. Finally, a businessman whose surname was Dixon came forward and acted as an intermediary for her. He helped Layla contact a lawyer with the surname Dunn, and this lawyer had just come back from overseas a year ago.
Although David Dunn was not as well-known as the other lawyers Layla had contacted, nor did he have a perfect record of winning cases since returning to the country, he still managed to secure the best outcome for his clients in the cases he had taken up.
The evidence for Scarlett’s case had already formed a closed loop, so it was hard for David to clear Christopher’s name without new key evidence.
The trial commenced at the end of the year.
David asked the court to take into account that this was Christopher’s first offense and the fact that he took remedial measures, called an ambulance, and called the police on his own initiative after the murder. In addition, there was no trace of violence at the scene. Except for the wound that killed Scarlett, there were no other signs of trauma on her body. Therefore, David claimed that Scarlett had died due to Christopher’s negligence and that he should be given a lighter
sentence.
However, the prosecutor argued that Christopher did not call the emergency services immediately, so there was suspicion that he intentionally caused the death of the victim. It was voluntary manslaughter,
so Christopher should be sentenced according to the said crime. Coupled with the fact that Christopher had a tendency to violence in the past, the prosecutor proposed that he should be severely sentenced.
The prosecutor and defense debated back and forth several times. Finally, the court found Christopher guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced him to four years.
By the time the case ended, it was already the end of the spring season of the following year.
After Yuliana and Christopher divorced, she settled all her affairs in Juxshire and went to Jeahron with Rowan.
On the day of the announcement of the trial verdict, Yuliana and Rowan were basking in the sun in their yard.
Rowan had just turned one. Perhaps it was due to his premature birth, compared to other one-year-old children, Rowan’s ability to speak developed much later.
Not only that, he learned to walk much slower than babies of the same age.
Other children could walk and utter some words when they were one year old.
Alas, Rowan couldn’t do the same. He could only climb on the ground and could barely walk even with the walker.
It took even longer for Rowan to start to speak. Many babies could say some simple and common words in about ten months, while Rowan could only babble, and he could only do so when he was in distress.
Most of the time, he would use his fingers or make gestures to express himself.
Yuliana could understand his movements, but she wanted to make Rowan talk, so she deliberately pretended not to understand him. Whenever this happened, Rowan would either act cute to get his way or pretend to cry by producing a few dry sobs.
Even though Yuliana knew he was pretending, she couldn’t help but give in every time. This was the main reason why Rowan didn’t learn to speak until much later.
On All Souls’ Day, Yuliana went to Yrinas alone.
The Livingstone family was born and raised in Yrinas. Even Damian was also born and raised in Yrinas.
Before he passed away, he would take Yuliana back to Yrinas Day every year on All Souls’ Day. Damian also hired people to clean and maintain the house where Yuliana’s grandparents used to live all year round. When they went back to pay respects to the deceased, they would stay in that house for one or two nights. Content © copyrighted by NôvelDrama.Org.
She had promised Damian she would come back to pay her respects to her grandparents every All Souls’ Day. Last year, it was not convenient for her to return because she had just given birth to Rowan. This year, although Yuliana was in Jeahron, which was considerably further, she still yearned to come back.
She was not familiar with Yrinas. In previous years, it was always Damian who brought them here. They usually went to her grandparents’ house first. Then, they would prepare the things they wanted to bring along to the graves of her grandparents and the ancestors of the Livingstone family.
Yuliana booked the earliest flight to visit her grandparents’ graves and then went
go back to to have a look around the house where they used to live. She would Jeahron in the afternoon.
She didn’t expect to run into an acquaintance as soon as she got off the plane.
“Ms. Livingstone.”
Hearing that, Yuliana looked up and saw Wesley standing a few steps away with a simple backpack in his hand. Obviously, he had just gotten off the plane too. Yuliana was stunned and took two steps forward. “Mr. Duncan, why have you
17-1
come to Yrinas?”
Wesley replied, “I came to take care of something. What about you?”
“Yrinas is my hometown. I came here to visit my grandparents’ graves,” answered Yuliana.
Wesley glanced at Yuliana discreetly. She only carried a small bag with no other luggage in her hand. Evidently, she didn’t intend to stay in Yrinas for a long time. “Where are you headed? I’ve contacted a driver. I can give you a ride.”
“No need for that. I have relatives here. I contacted them before I came over. My cousin will come to pick me up at the airport,” said Yuliana, refusing Wesley’s offer.
Yuliana’s cousin was the grandson of her uncle, and he was over ten years than her. He ran a small business in Yrinas. Since Damian had taken care of him
older before, when he heard that Yuliana would be back on All Souls’ Day, he took the initiative to offer to pick her up at the airport.
Wesley didn’t insist. He had something to do in Yrinas this time, and it would be inconvenient with Yuliana around.
After that, they exited the airport together.
The driver Wesley contacted arrived first.
Before getting in the car, Wesley asked, “When are you going back to Juxshire?”
Yuliana said, “I won’t go back for the time being.”
Wesley nodded and didn’t say anything more. He opened the door and got in the
car.
Yuliana watched Wesley’s car leave.
The last time they met was when Christopher got into trouble last year. She had asked Wesley to help investigate Scarlett’s case.
She had called Wesley to ask about the situation after she and Christopher got a divorce. At that time, Wesley hadn’t found anything useful, and she didn’t intend to interfere in Christopher’s affairs, so she asked Wesley to contact Layla instead. Yuliana didn’t know exactly what happened later, but Christopher was finally imprisoned due to involuntary manslaughter. Judging from the outcome, it seemed Wesley hadn’t made any progress in his investigation since then.
Yuliana waited for half an hour before Chandler Livingstone finally arrived.
“I’m so sorry, Yuliana. I was delayed by the traffic,” Chandler apologized to Yuliana with a smile.
“Thank you and sorry to trouble you, Chandler,” replied Yuliana while fastening her seat belt.
“Don’t mention it, my dear cousin,” said Chandler.
Chandler spent a lot of time socializing with people due to the nature of his work, so he talked quite a lot. He talked all the way, with Yuliana occasionally
responding.
In fact, they didn’t know each other well. Yuliana had only met him a few times.
When Chandler faced some difficulties back then, he came to Yuliana’s father on his own to ask for help to resolve his problem.
Chandler had a few other siblings who agreed to visit their elders’ graves too. They would then have lunch together at Chandler’s house at noon. Since Yuliana was not familiar with this place, she chose to follow them.
When they were done visiting the graves, it was already past lunchtime.
Yuliana followed everyone to have a late lunch at Chandler’s house. When she said that she would like to go have a look at her grandparents’ house, Chandler took the initiative once more to drive her there.
As Damian was no longer around, and also because she hadn’t returned to Yrinas all these years, she thought the house would be in disarray and covered in dust. She didn’t expect that the house would be no different from when she visited a few years ago, and its interiors were all very clean.
Chandler said, “Uncle Damian arranged for someone to come and clean the house regularly.”