Guiying nodded.
Bai Feng and the others left.
Guiying walked to the end of the corridor and stopped beside Zi Sihan.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
The city moved outside the window, indifferent and ordinary, entirely unaware that something significant had just happened in a small courtroom on the fourth floor.
Guiying looked at the window latch and pushed it open.
Cool air came in, unhurried, carrying the ordinary sounds of a Thursday morning outside.
"It's just us here," he said quietly. "You can cry. I won't judge you." He looked at Zi Sihan's profile, at the careful, exhausted stillness of someone who had been holding the dam for a very long time. "You've been holding it since the proceedings started."
Zi Sihan looked at the open window.
Then the dam broke.
