The night was dark.
The bedroom windows are closed to prevent mosquitoes from entering.
The mosquito coil next to it emits a little smoke silently, and the room is quiet, except for the sound of the fan turning.
Gu Liang sat across from Yang Ye, clasped his hands, and seemed a little uneasy.
After hearing his words, Yang Ye knew that the poor little Gu Liangliang felt that he was unforgivable again. He probably thought that after hearing his story, he would stop loving him immediately.
But Yang Ye didn't say anything for the time being.
He was sitting too close to the fan, so Yang Ye just got up to help him hold the fan farther away, and then turned its direction a little, so as not to keep blowing on Gu Liang's back.
After finishing this, Yang Ye sat down opposite Hui Liang again, quietly waiting for him to speak.
Although Yang Ye didn't speak, such a simple action of his finally comforted Gu Liang.
Gu Liang's arms relaxed, placed on both sides of the armrest, looked at Yang Ye, and whispered about his affairs.
After the divorce, Gu Liang's mother's mental state was not very good for a while, her blood pressure could not drop, and staying up late and being too sad caused endocrine problems. Various hormones in her body were abnormal, and her thyroid gland and breast glands also had problems. Both will run to the hospital.
In high school, apart from going to school, Gu Liang took care of his mother.
Later, my mother's health improved a lot, but the root cause of the disease was still behind, and she still went to the hospital frequently.
Wang Qing was a patient friend of Gu Liang's mother when she was in the hospital. Both of them raised their children by themselves, and they had a lot in common, so they became friends.
The only difference is that Wang Qing brought a daughter instead of a son.
Wang Qing often joked with Gu Liang's mother, saying that Gu Liang was too good, if her daughter was not born late and too young, she would have let her daughter marry Gu Liang.
Gu Liang has graduated from university for two years, and Wang Qing's daughter is seven years old.
It was that year that something happened to her.
One weekend, Wang Qing went to work overtime.
Her daughter and her friends are playing hide and seek at home.
While laughing and playing, her daughter tried to hide in the closet and let her friends come to find her.
Wang Qing and his family installed a wardrobe with a large wardrobe in the upper part and a double row of small drawers in the lower part.
The little girl opened the drawer and climbed up with her feet. When she tried to climb into the big cabinet above, the wardrobe fell down and directly pressed her underneath.
The daughter died just like that, and Wang Qing fell into a breakdown for a while.
Her family is not well-off, and the renovations at home, including this new wardrobe, have almost used up her savings.
But she wanted to sue the furniture company, so she had to ask Gu Liang for help.
In fact, this case is not Gu Liang's direction. Besides, his law firm does not allow him to take the case privately.
Gu Liang agreed to help Wang Qing at the request of his mother, so he had to apply to the leader.
The leader watched the case with him, and directly said that the significance of going to court was not great.
The relevant safety instructions and warnings of the furniture company are clearly marked.
This is a big brand, and the relevant risk management process has been relatively mature, and the quality inspection of the furniture also meets the standards.
The cause of the accident was that the wardrobe was not fixed in time.
The wardrobe is delivered and installed by the brand. It was delivered just two days ago, but something went wrong with the parts used to fix the wardrobe. During the installation, the installer found that the parts were damaged and could not be replaced. The wardrobe is fixed.
The installer had no choice but to tell Wang Qing that the new parts have to be resent from the factory at the headquarters. After two days of arrival, they will bring the parts to the door for installation again. Please do not use the wardrobe for a few days, because there is a safety hazard. Hidden danger.
It is true that the brand is responsible for the tragedy, but Wang Qing is also responsible.
Wang Qing didn't pay much attention to what the installer said. She really didn't expect such a tragedy to happen. As a result, she didn't educate her children in place, and secondly, she didn't ask someone to help watch the children at home when she was working overtime.
This lawsuit is indeed difficult to fight, and it can be said that the possibility of winning is very small.
It was because the installer told Wang Qing that he could not use the closet for the past two days, because it was recorded when it was not fixed.
"There is no possibility of winning the lawsuit. At most, it will create some public opinion that is not conducive to the brand, and it will be enough to get enough compensation. In this matter, you can help out of personal feelings, but this is not what the law firm wants to accept. We are not a charitable organization after all. Therefore, you can help, but it cannot delay our normal work and the progress of other cases.”
"Finally, you should take care of yourself, and don't let any problems affect the reputation of our law firm. Otherwise, even though I value you very much... when the time comes, I'm afraid I will have to let you go."
"Actually, I really don't recommend that you take care of this matter. If you don't handle this kind of case involving human life, you will make yourself messy."
This is the suggestion and advice that Gu Liang heard from the leader.
At that time, Gu Liang just wanted to help his mother's friend, and he just took it as part of his job, and it was just free of charge. He didn't expect this incident to have such a big impact on himself and his mother.
Gu Liang did the research very seriously, squeezed out all his business time, and took this case very seriously.
The installation master of the other party recorded the sound at that time, which was very unfavorable to Wang Qing.
Gu Liang could only find design flaws in the wardrobe installation itself and loopholes in the installation process.
In the end, Gu Liang found out two key problems of the other party.
The first is a design flaw.
In order to pursue the so-called unconventionalism of this kind of furniture, even the parts such as the screws that fix the wardrobe are very special, so that after being damaged, ordinary hardware stores cannot buy suitable ones, and they can only wait for their headquarters to resend these parts from the factory. Come and install it.
They made unnecessary special designs on the fixed parts, which to a certain extent formed a safety hazard, which is actually a design defect.
The second is the installation problem.
This kind of wardrobe needs to be fixed at the four corners of the cabinet. When Wang Qing’s wardrobe was installed, only one part of the cabinet had a problem. Because of it he died.
Grasping these two flaws, Gu Liang helped Wang Qing sue, contacted the brand's lawyers, and started a lengthy negotiation.
In fact, Gu Liang didn't want to fight a public opinion war at first.
He and Wang Qing have no money and no power, and they will not get any benefit from angering such a big brand at the beginning. They have a special public relations department. Fall into passivity.
But Wang Qing's matter was still noticed by the media. Some media interviewed Wang Qing, and then exposed the matter on the Internet.
This incident was especially fermented on Weibo.
Everything that happened afterwards was out of Gu Liang's control.
Many self-media took advantage of the opportunity to scold the brand side.
The lawyer of the brand was still negotiating with Gu Liang. In this way, the brand would think that Gu Liang's actions were not in compliance with the rules. The compensation and so on were all negotiated well. Why did they suddenly play public opinion attacks
The public relations of the brand were dispatched quickly, and the recording of the installer and the detailed process of the incident were all published on the Internet.
At the same time, the company bought a batch of rhythmic marketing accounts and sailors, and attacked Wang Qing in turn, saying that she was taking advantage of her daughter's death to extort money.
Obviously, the installer had told her that the wardrobe was not fixed and there were hidden dangers. It was because she didn't take good care of her children, no wonder the brand side.
In fact, the matter has not been said that it cannot be handled until this point.
The negotiation between Gu Liang and the opposing lawyer went smoothly.
He also has a daughter at home, besides, to put it bluntly, he is just working for the brand this time.
The other party has the conscience of being a person and humanitarianism, but after all, he has been paid and has to do things, and what he has to do is to maintain the brand's reputation, but at the same time, he also conveys the meaning of the brand and is willing to compensate .
Gu Liang also believes that a lawsuit is actually unnecessary.
The first trial and the second trial have been delayed for several years, but the final result is actually no different from the pre-trial settlement.
What Gu Liang was mainly discussing with the other party was the amount of compensation, as well as the statement of apology and the optimization of the risk control process.
The brand side is actually not willing to do this.
No one wants the tragedy to repeat itself, and they are also optimizing the related risk control process.
But what the other party is thinking about at the same time is how to minimize the damage to the company's reputation if an official statement is to be published. After all, if an apology statement is published, it is actually tantamount to admitting a mistake. If they do not explain clearly about the follow-up risk management and control, the impact on the company will be very bad.
Because of this, this matter dragged on for a while, and the progress was not very fast.
First because of the death of her daughter, and later because of being scolded online for not taking good care of the child, Wang Qing was so stimulated that she went to the hospital for emergency treatment and almost woke up.
After coming out of the intensive care unit, all kinds of bills, including the mortgage, have also been thrown at Wang Qing like snowflakes.
Gu Liang believes that Wang Qing needs money.
She lost her daughter, but she has a long life ahead of herself.
Therefore, Gu Liang also talked to her, suggesting a pre-court settlement and accepting compensation.
Of course, this is when the other party publishes an apology statement and optimizes risk control to ensure that similar incidents are avoided as much as possible.
In fact, if you go to court for several years, the best result in the end will be nothing more than this.
But this is not the case in Wang Qing's eyes.
She has the concept of the older generation, and believes that once the pre-court settlement is made, it means that she admits that the matter is entirely her own and her daughter's fault, rather than the brand's fault at all.
And, she thinks, it also means that the rumors attacking her online are solid — as if she really was the type to extort money from her daughter's death.
She insisted on going to court and wanted to win.
When Gu Liang talked to her, she was still on the hospital bed.
Gu Liang thought that she just couldn't accept it temporarily.
When she recovers from her illness, I can slowly communicate with her about the pros and cons.
But Gu Liang ignored the power of public opinion.
The self-media who paid attention to the death of Wang Qing's daughter in the closet before are still following up the matter.
They even followed Gu Liang's negotiation with the other party.
They noticed that Gu Liang's mother was also hospitalized, and her family background was also very ordinary.
In the end, they were the ones who heard that Gu Liang was talking to the other party about the pre-court settlement.
So they subjectively believed that Gu Liang did this after receiving money from the brand.
The public opinion turned from scolding the brand to scolding Wang Qing. At this time, it reversed again and began to attack the brand again. This time it also brought Wang Qing's attorney, Gu Liang.
The other party's lawyer invited Gu Liang to dinner and discussed the details of the compensation, and they posted photos on Weibo, saying that Gu Liang had accepted the other party's "bribery".
Suddenly, all of Gu Liang's information was exposed by human flesh, his photos and education background were all exposed to the eyes of the world.
Even the matter of his father's homosexual fraudulent marriage became the place where everyone attacked him.
When opening Weibo, it was all attacks and insults against him, so Gu Liang uninstalled Weibo.
When he arrived at the company, what awaited him was the cessation of work.
Because of this, his other clients have doubts about his character and ability.
Then came the conversation between the personnel department and the leader, as well as the whispers and suspicious looks of some colleagues who didn't trust him.
Gu Liang had to resign.
Things are not over yet.
Wang Qing also believed the interviews with her from the media, as well as the gossip on the Internet.
Gu Liang has seen her, and he still hopes that she can get compensation at this time.
Gu Liang tried to analyze with her that the possibility of winning the lawsuit is very small, and the compensation he can obtain in the step of pre-trial settlement is already very high, which can solve the problem that she can hardly afford the high hospitalization expenses now.
And if the lawsuit drags on for a few more years, she may not get much compensation in the end, and she will also break herself down.
But as soon as Gu Liang mentioned the words of reconciliation before court, Wang Qing couldn't listen anymore. She suspected that Gu Liang had really betrayed herself.
Wang Qing does not understand the judicial interpretation of the word "reconciliation".
In her eyes, "reconciliation" means that she betrayed her daughter and forgave the brand.
This truth, Gu Liang only wanted to understand later.
At that time, he just thought that Wang Qing was emotionally unstable, so he refused to listen to his suggestion.
Gu Liang did not expect that Wang Qing, who was on the verge of collapse at that time, had been completely crushed by public opinion, and the "reconciliation" that Gu Liang was still talking about might be the last straw that crushed her.
After Gu Liang received her text message implying suicide, he ran madly towards her house. He called the police and asked all the neighbors who might know her whereabouts. In the end, the janitor of the community where Wang Qing lived told him that she might be going in the direction of a nearby park.
Gu Liang ran to the park and all the way to the artificial lake, and saw Wang Qing who was carrying his daughter's schoolbag and was about to jump into the lake.
When Gu Liang ran towards her, she had already jumped down.
Gu Liang jumped down, and while trying to rescue her, he also passed out.
He was saved, but Wang Qing still died.
After that, public opinion continued to render.
Even the public relations on the brand's side intentionally or unintentionally contributed to the flames in order to divert public opinion from hurting their company, and pushed the source of the tragedy to Gu Liang.
Gu Liang became the target of public criticism and an unforgivable character.
Gu Liang's mother naturally saw all the words that attacked Gu Liang, including his father.
She was very guilty and thought that Gu Liang should not be allowed to take Wang Qing's case.
It was all her fault that Gu Liang was hurt so much for no reason.
Self-blame and guilt, looking at the posts on the Internet that defaced Gu Liang's father, Gu Liang's mother was so angry that she had a heart attack.
Fortunately, Gu Liang was by her side at that time, called an ambulance, and gave first aid, temporarily saving her mother's life.
But sometimes it is like this. When you encounter a bad thing and get through it with difficulty, you will find that countless bad things will follow one after another, as if God is going to make life difficult for you.
While his mother was resting on the sofa, Gu Liang received a call from the ambulance, saying that because of the rain, there was a car accident on the viaduct. The ambulance, but Gu Liang had better make second-hand preparations, such as taking a taxi and asking the driver to pick up the doctors and nurses at the viaduct to see if it is feasible.
Gu Liang had given his mother nitroglycerin. He immediately asked the neighbors to help him watch his mother and not let her move, and then went to the gate of the community to stop the car.
Driving in the rain is always difficult.
After finally stopping a car, Gu Liang just wanted to explain the situation to the driver. The driver swiped his phone and looked at Gu Liang again: "Eh? Aren't you that trash lawyer? I won't let you sit in my car!"
The driver kicked the accelerator and drove the car away.
After another ten minutes, Gu Liang stopped the second car.
At that time, Gu Liang's mother's main problem was that her blood pressure could not be lowered. In fact, her heart problem was also caused by high blood pressure.
After a long delay, when we arrived at the hospital, my mother had already fallen into a coma.
The craniocerebral injury caused by high blood pressure left Gu Liang's mother in a coma for a long time.
Then she came back to life, did not live long, and died.
I don't know if it's because I've told the psychiatrist about these things, or because my heart is relatively calm after being punished for a day. In short, telling these things is not as difficult as Gu Liang imagined before.
He just feels tired.
Speaking of these things made him a little exhausted.
Looking back on the first half of his life by telling the past, Gu Liang can't remember the thrills, tension, pain, or fatigue.
Now he felt like he was in a dream.
He even had a feeling that those things were not what he had experienced in his own life.
It seems like a lifetime away, which is probably how he feels now.
And every word Gu Liang said was like a knife cut in Yang Ye's heart.
He was almost too distressed to speak.
Without knowing it, he secretly lamented that it is not necessary to wait too late to meet each other. He thought that maybe the timing of his meeting with Gu Liang was just right.
But now he felt that it was too late to meet, they met too late, too late.
How much he wanted to travel back many years and tell Gu Liang that none of this was his fault.
He wanted to time travel earlier so that Gu Liang would not care about this case at all.
He even wanted to go back to Gu Liang's high school days, and from then on, he would guard and take care of him every step of the way, so that he would not have to bear all the darkness and suffering that this world brought to him.
He also wanted to go back to the time when he asked Gu Liang if he didn't even use Weibo and didn't know about "Liangliang". The problem.
Gu Liang was not born to be a so-called "veteran cadre" or "old antique". He should have been able to browse posts on the Internet and check Weibo to read funny jokes like every young person.
It is because he was attacked and hurt by these posts on Weibo and the people above that he stopped using these softwares.
This moment.
Gu Liang raised his eyelids to look at Yang Ye, and said again: "I didn't realize what Wang Qing really cared about."
"Facing the vicious words of scolding her for extorting money online, scolding her daughter for seeking death, and adding the fact that her daughter is dead...she doesn't care how much compensation she can get. She believes that her daughter's death and the public's insults to her are all That company's fault."
"She would never accept the word 'reconciliation'."
"'Reconciliation', in normal times, refers to the settlement of disputes between two people and their reconciliation; but in law, it refers to the settlement of disputes reached between litigants in order to deal with and end the lawsuit. The judgment of the court is a way for the parties to resolve disputes by themselves through consensus.”
"It's my fault that I didn't explain it clearly to Wang Qing. That's why..."
After telling the story and remembering, when looking at Yang Ye, Gu Liang also felt a little uneasy.
Rationally, he knew that Yang Ye would definitely believe in him.
But when it happened back then, almost everyone scolded and cursed him.
Even a brother whom he respected and trusted from the same university as him once asked him if he really took money from that company.
After a long time, Gu Liang said, "You...why don't you speak?"
After asking this question, Gu Liang lowered his eyelids and didn't look into Yang Ye's eyes again.
At the same time, his hands were clasped together again, and the red rope on his wrist was dazzlingly bright.
After a while, Yang Ye's deep voice sounded. "I'm afraid I can't control myself to swear, and let you hear how dirty I can swear."
"Gu Liang, you have done a very good job."
"If it were me, I would definitely retaliate. Idiot keyboard warriors, and those unscrupulous media who only know how to create topics to attract traffic, regardless of facts and truth... Gu Liang, they are the ones who are guilty, not you. It was never you."
At that moment, Gu Liang's eyes were wet.
After the incident, he dared not feel wronged.
Because he thought it was his mistake.
He took two lives on his body, his mother's and Wang Qing's, how dare he feel wronged.
How could he not know the truths Yang Ye said.
But he didn't want to make excuses for himself.
Those rumor-mongering media and those who scolded him online were wrong, but he felt that he was also very responsible.
After all, he didn't cover everything. His way of thinking about the problem was too rational, and he didn't notice the psychological problems of the client. It's because he wasn't careful enough, and he didn't expect her to misunderstand, because she didn't understand the law, and she didn't understand these legal terms. In this case, the way she thinks about the problem is different from her own...
After all, I still didn't handle things properly.
Gu Liang recognized it a long time ago.
In this case, facing rumors, human flesh and malicious attacks, he can't feel wronged, and he can convince himself that he has nothing to complain about.
He has a healthy body and mind, can study, work and earn money to live on his own.
He could slowly make things better, and he did.
He treated, took medicine, went back to work, got a promotion and a raise, until now.
But I don't know if it's because they are in a relationship, they are easy to be soft-hearted and hypocritical. After many years, when talking about these things in front of Yang Ye, Gu Liang actually felt a little wronged.
Then Gu Liang found himself pulled up and hugged by Yang Ye.
After a while, Yang Ye held his face and kissed his tears.
"Gu Liang, you are so kind. I don't believe that God is so closed-minded. It must just...just give you all the hardships that a person has to go through in advance. You have already passed this hurdle, and the future is waiting for you , will be a good day. You will be very, very happy. And I will always be with you."
The humid and sweltering weather indicates that showers are coming.
At this moment, a bolt of lightning slid down, and it began to rain.
Gu Liang raised his arm, he seemed to have completely lost the pain of the fine wound under the gauze.
He cautiously touched his chin with his fingertips, as if confirming that Yang Ye was really there.
Gu Liang's eyes were blurred for a moment. "After taking sedatives or other drugs for depression, sometimes there will be fantasies, very beautiful, calming fantasies."
"Yang Ye, could it be that you are actually the person in my dream—"
Yang Ye asked him in a low voice: "Then do you want to find a way to confirm?"
"Well... yes."
Gu Liang smiled, held Yang Ye's face in both hands, kissed him gently on the lips.