Positive Connection | Crime – 自由档案馆

Not every evil has a crime.

On June 15, 2023, the first instance judgment of the “Peking University Bao Li case” (or perhaps more accurately, the “Mou Linhang abuse case”) was announced: Mou Linhang was convicted of the crime of abuse and sentenced to three years and two months in prison. Since Mou Linhang had been detained since June 2020, the length of detention could be offset against the sentence. Therefore, at the time of the judgment, Mou Linhang still had two months of his sentence to serve. On August 8, 2023, Mou Linhang was released after serving his sentence.

Many people still remember this case. Four years have passed, and perhaps many people have gradually forgotten the details. Let’s review it first.

In October 2019, Bao Li (pseudonym), a female student from the Class of 2016 at the Peking University Law School, committed suicide by taking medication in a hotel. Afterwards, her mother and friends discovered that Bao Li had been subjected to nearly a year of mental abuse by her boyfriend, Mou Linhang, before her suicide. Mou Linhang, on the grounds that Bao Li was not a virgin, subjected her to high-density verbal abuse and also proposed to her: “You have a child for me, and then have an abortion”, “Remove your fallopian tubes and bring them back to me”, “Tattoo on your body that I am Mou Linhang’s dog” and other demands.

After lying in the ICU for 168 days, Bao Li passed away on April 11, 2020, the day after her 23rd birthday.

We were born in the same year and studied at the same university. There were countless traces of our trajectories overlapping in this school. In 2018, Bao Li, as the Minister of Literature and Art, organized the campus Top Ten Singers Competition, which I attended. Also in 2018, I met the other person involved in the incident, Mou Linhang. To this day, Mou’s WeChat account is still in my list of friends.

We are too close. Her classmates are also my friends. Four years have passed, and in those class reunions, we still talk about her, using her real name. I once felt that there was no difference between us. She could become any one of us, and any one of us could become her. If she were still alive, would she also be in the various spaces where I am?

After the judgment in June this year, I contacted her mother, lawyer, friends, and classmates to restore the entire process from the day of the incident to the final conclusion of the case.

This is a long process. First, a case needs to be filed, and then an investigation can be launched. After collecting enough evidence, the police can detain the suspect and transfer the case to the procuratorate after the investigation is concluded. If there is sufficient evidence, the procuratorate can decide to prosecute; if the evidence is insufficient, it can return the case to the public security for supplementary investigation. The supplementary investigation lasts for one month, and the total number of times cannot exceed twice. Then there is the public prosecution, the first instance hearing, and the judgment. Later, because Mou Linhang appealed, there was also a second instance.

Every link was not smooth. The case was filed only after reporting it twice, and the two opportunities for supplementary investigation were exhausted during the procuratorate’s review and prosecution stage. The first instance was postponed, and the judgment was also postponed.

People felt angry and hoped to bring Mou Linhang to justice. Bao Li’s teachers and classmates all came from the Peking University Law School. This matter brought a deep pain to everyone, but they understood that since no one could determine whether Mou Linhang subjectively wanted Bao Li to die, nor could anyone confirm whether there was a 100% causal relationship between Bao Li’s suicide and Mou Linhang’s behavior, this matter entered a gray area in legal terms.

Professor Zhou Guangquan of Renmin University of China introduced the concept of “extra-legal space”: People often use the binary scale of “illegal-legal” to define people’s behavior. If a behavior is not legal, then it is illegal. But in fact, there is a world that is not legal at all, should be regulated by law, but the law also “does not evaluate” the gray space.

In this space, how a group of knowledgeable and capable people, relying on simple justice, promoted the development of the case, explored some cracks, and made some small changes in the world, also became the most attractive part of this story.

The maximum level that may be sentenced

“I’m very upset. The judgment result is too different from what I expected. My lawyer told me that I could be sentenced to the maximum.” In June 2023, the first instance had just been pronounced, and this was the first sentence Bao Li’s mother said when she was contacted.

The judgment stated: The defendant Mou Linhang committed mental abuse against his cohabiting girlfriend, and the circumstances were heinous, leading to the victim’s suicide. Therefore, the court comprehensively considered factors such as the nature, circumstances, and social harm of Mou Linhang’s crime, as well as his attitude of admitting guilt, and sentenced him accordingly.

On the Internet, most people believe that the sentence was too light, “only three years for killing a person”. In this regard, the legal community holds different views, and most people believe that this is a basically reasonable ruling. The victim, Bao Li, studied at the Peking University Law School before her death. Many of her classmates told me that this was already the maximum level that could be sentenced under the current legal system.

“Sentencing under the crime of abuse is already a legal innovation.” A doctoral student used the term “legal innovation”.

At the beginning, the classmates of the Law School were not optimistic about whether Mou Linhang could be convicted.

Xiao Ren is a classmate of Bao Li’s in the same school. He told such a story: In October 2019, the month before Bao Li committed suicide by taking medication, Mou Linhang often appeared in the hospital. He went to the hospital to visit, and one evening, after dinner, when no one was around, Mou Linhang suddenly asked him: You are also from the Law School, do you think I might be sentenced?

“Actually, I didn’t start considering this problem until that moment,” Xiao Ren said. After the classmate’s suicide, as a law student, the issue of legal responsibility naturally came to mind. But at that time, he only knew that Bao Li’s suicide might be related to her boyfriend, Mou Linhang, and the specific connection was not yet apparent.

After much hesitation, he said to Mou Linhang, from a student’s point of view, I don’t think it constitutes a crime.

Mou Linhang asked the same question to more than one person. Bao Li’s close friend witnessed it with her own eyes. Still in the hospital, Mou Linhang said in front of everyone, I will not be held legally responsible for this matter.

A proxy lawyer also mentioned that Mou Linhang said when he was first questioned by the police: I have consulted legal experts, and this matter is “controversial in civil law, and there is no criminal responsibility”.

At the New Year’s Eve party at the end of 2019, the entire Law School was in a depressed atmosphere. At that party, the students wrote more than 200 heart-shaped sticky notes and handed them to Bao Li’s mother. The sticky notes read “Get well soon”, “Wake up soon”, and “Waiting for you to come back”. But it was impossible for Bao Li to wake up again.

According to the students, the teachers of the Law School had specially formed a WeChat group chat, hoping to help. They also planned to organize a discussion in the school to talk about how girls should protect themselves in emotional relationships.

Despite this, when a student found a highly respected professor of criminal law and hoped that he could provide an expert opinion, the professor did not agree.

“Of course we hope to be sentenced,” said a Law School classmate. “You are very emotional, you know this person should die, but you know rationally that according to the current law, you can’t sentence him for intentional homicide. You will also hear the teachers in the school discussing this matter, knowing that the teachers are also working hard for this matter, but sometimes, the situation is also quite complicated.”

“Complicated” means: the law must speak with evidence, and the evidence is not necessarily sufficient. It is very risky to make a slight breakthrough in the law, and it may have a wrong impact on other cases in the future.

It was not until February 2021, when the procuratorate filed a public prosecution, that everyone felt happy, “because in our country, the acquittal rate after a public prosecution is very low”.

The initial difficulty of the case lay in the determination of the crime. Before the result officially emerged, what strategy should be used to prosecute and what crime might be established was not an obvious matter. All parties had different opinions, and the two litigation attorneys could not fully agree.

The crimes that may be related to this case include “abuse”, “intentional homicide resulting in death”, “negligent homicide”, and “intentional injury”. The litigation difficulties of each crime are as follows:

Intentional homicide: It is necessary to prove that Mou Linhang played a role in “inciting suicide” in Bao Li’s death. It is also necessary to prove that Mou Linhang delayed treatment on the night of Bao Li’s suicide, and that the delay in treatment was based on his subjective intent.

Intentional injury: Limited to the physical injury suffered by the victim, mental injury is not included.

Negligent homicide: It is necessary to prove that Mou Linhang delayed treatment on the night of the incident, and that the delay in treatment led to Bao Li’s death. The sentence for negligent homicide is similar to that for abuse. If it is only out of the simple wish of the family members that the defendant can be sentenced for a few more years, the two are actually not much different.

Abuse: The biggest problem that abuse will face in law is called “unqualified subject”, because the applicable subject of abuse is “family members”, while Mou Linhang and Bao Li have no marital relationship. On the other hand, abuse is divided into physical violence and mental violence. In this case, the evidence of mental violence is sufficient, but the evidence of physical violence is not sufficient. If only mental violence exists, whether abuse can be constituted will also be somewhat controversial.

Insult: Usually refers to public insult, which requires causing a decline in the victim’s reputation. In addition, the crime of insult is a self-prosecution crime, not a public prosecution crime.

It can be seen that no crime can clearly correspond to Mou Linhang’s actions.

“Living together”

Bao Li’s mother reported the case twice in total. The first time was on October 18, 2019, and the second time was on November 19. When she reported the case for the first time, Bao Li’s mother only wanted to figure out what happened on the day her daughter committed suicide. But at that time, the situation was completely unclear, and there was no evidence pointing to other possibilities, so the police could not file the case.

On November 7, 2019, Mou Linhang returned to Inner Mongolia to teach, and Bao Li’s mother retrieved Bao Li’s mobile phone from the police. She saw content she had never imagined (she later found that Mou Linhang had deleted some of it). Soon, she reported the case for the second time. But this time, they could still only write a report lacking a specific factual statement, and it was still difficult to file the case.

Liu Minghe is a senior student from the Peking University Law School, Class of 2012, four years ahead of Bao Li. At the time of the incident, he had already graduated and was working in a law firm. Through a classmate’s introduction, he found him for help.

In a coffee shop, Liu Minghe met with Bao Li’s mother. He took the initiative to tell Bao Li’s mother that he did not need any remuneration. “Out of a sense of righteous indignation,” he described the reason for his involvement in this case.

Liu Minghe first determined the idea of abuse and successfully got the case filed.

Among several crimes, abuse may be the closest, but the first problem to be solved is “unqualified subject” – the scope of application of abuse is “family members”, referring to spouses or relatives within three generations, while they are just a pair of student lovers and have no marital relationship.

In order to seek help with his ideas, Liu Minghe returned to his alma mater and met with Professor Ma Yinan of the Peking University Law School. Professor Ma Yinan is an expert in the field of marriage and family law and has participated in the drafting of the “Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China” and the “Population and Family Planning Law of the People’s Republic of China”. She provided Liu Minghe with a lot of inspiration.

In Professor Ma Yinan’s office, they discussed the breakthrough point called “living together”, based on the preamble of the “Opinions on Handling Domestic Violence Criminal Cases in Accordance with the Law” and Article 37 of the “Anti-Domestic Violence Law”.
These two legal documents both define the subject scope of domestic violence as “occurring between family members and between those who live together with relationships such as guardianship, support, foster care, and cohabitation”. In other words, “people living together” can be implemented with reference to relevant legal provisions.
However, abuse is a crime in criminal law. Does the “Anti-Domestic Violence Law” support this expansion of the subject, which means that the criminal law also supports it?
Liu Minghe said that in fact, the legal community generally believes that this is an excessive intervention and is parental protectionism. Therefore, this practice in the practical world often fails to gain the support of the academic community.

It can only be said that when all roads are impassable, this is a glimmer of breakthrough. Based on this, Professor Ma Yinan’s important suggestion is to try to find evidence that can support the fact that the two have a common life and the intention to live together. For example, do they have a financial relationship? Do they share some living materials?

Mou Linhang and Bao Li officially established a romantic relationship in August 2018. After the new semester began, Bao Li applied for a language partner project in cooperation with Japanese students and moved to the international student apartment in Zhongguan Xinyuan. Unlike the undergraduate dormitory, Zhongguan Xinyuan has single rooms, which are much better. Mou Linhang moved in to live with her. According to Bao Li’s university friends, the two of them carefully arranged their shared small space.

After March 2019, a face recognition system was installed in the apartment of Zhongguan Xinyuan, and Mou Linhang could not enter. Bao Li moved to Mou Linhang’s home until Bao Li committed suicide seven months later. During the more than a year of their relationship, the two did maintain a “living together” relationship.

After visiting Professor Ma Yinan, the first thing Liu Minghe did was to organize a few classmates to help him look through all of Bao Li’s ride-hailing software, food delivery software, and Taobao software, and sort out the addresses filled in for ride-hailing, food delivery, the joint financial expenditures of the two, and the items purchased by Bao Li for their common life.

Liu Minghe explained that this evidence would help prove that the two of them were not simply a relationship of “couple weekends”, but a long-term and stable cohabitation relationship.

Although she may not understand the logic behind these behaviors, Bao Li’s mother still felt moved. She remembered that Liu Minghe had his own work to do during the day, and he could only deal with Bao Li’s case at midnight. “He told me that this is evidence.”

Dolphin Necklace

In the hospital, Bao Li’s mother was in a state of isolation and helplessness. The Peking University Third Hospital at that time was in chaos, with lawyers, reporters, various social media, and gods, Taoists, Chinese medicine practitioners, and even sorcerers from Shandong, and people from all walks of life in society came and went.

Bao Li’s mother had been a full-time housewife for more than a decade and did not have much social experience. When she first arrived at the hospital, her only reliance was her daughter’s boyfriend, Mou Linhang. However, three days later, when she asked Mou Linhang if they had quarreled, Mou Linhang grabbed her shoulders with both hands, “staring with a pair of big eyes”, and said, your daughter doesn’t love herself, your daughter is a liar, I am a traditional Shandong man.

She felt scared and realized that Mou Linhang was untrustworthy, but she could not show it openly. A month later, Mou Linhang never came to the hospital again.

At this time, Bao Li’s mother was accompanied by a few female students in their early 20s, including Bao Li’s junior high school and high school classmates, as well as university classmates. These girls had heard of each other from Bao Li, but they did not expect that the final convergence point would be in the hospital. At that time, they jointly took on the responsibility of accompanying Bao Li’s mother and helping her connect with people from all walks of life (schools, hospitals, lawyers, reporters).

“We always suffer losses, and then we seek experience in suffering losses. A group of students who are still in school have to deal with a group of people with rich social experience.” Bao Li’s university friend, Li Siqi, described the situation at the time.

I met Li Siqi in July 2023. On the day of the graduation ceremony, she was about to move out the next morning. In the shadow of the big and small boxes in the backlight of the setting sun, she told me about the dreams she had after Bao Li left.

Bao Li had been admitted to the hospital for a week, and the hospital had confirmed brain death. Li Siqi dreamed of a surreal environment – it was a dim sum shop in Guangdong, with many old-fashioned round tables and small carts pushing siu mai – they were sitting at a large round table, and Bao Li said to her: “My head hurts.” But she also said, I am doing well now, it’s just that my head hurts. Finally, Bao Li pushed her into a taxi and said, “Go, you don’t belong here.” So she said goodbye to Bao Li. After waking up, she found that the dolphin necklace Bao Li had given her was broken. She felt that Bao Li was saying goodbye to her in this way.

Li Siqi and Bao Li were both students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, so they always played together. They went to get braces together, found the same dentist, studied for a double degree in Guanghua together, and watched movies together. She was very funny and would imitate Louis Koo speaking Mandarin. They had the same sense of humor. She gave her many things, rabbit dolls, big houses and small houses, and dolphin necklaces. Sometimes she would just give her a strawberry, and she would also attach a small note. In the year of graduation, Li Siqi participated in the tassel-turning ceremony. When she walked on the red carpet, she also held the rabbit doll Bao Li had given her.

On the afternoon of the day Bao Li committed suicide in the hotel, Mou Linhang contacted her and asked her to search with Bao Li’s other friend on campus. They searched from five o’clock to eight o’clock at Weiming Lake, from the light of the sky to the dark night. Mou Linhang told her that he had found it. She asked, do I need to come over? Mou Linhang said, no need, it’s already okay.

What she waited for was not okay, but the news of Bao Li’s brain death.

Li Cuishi and Huang Mingyao were the “iron triangle” in Bao Li’s junior high school. In high school, they were still in the same school. Many passwords in Li Cuishi’s mobile phone were numbers related to the three of them. In junior high school, she would also be jealous because Bao Li and Huang Mingyao had a better relationship and wrote a special letter of accusation to the two of them.

In early November, after not being able to contact their friend for a long time, the two rushed to Beijing from Guangdong and Taipei respectively. Mou Linhang persuaded them not to go to Bao Li’s mother, saying that the aunt did not want to see anyone at this time. The two did not have Bao Li’s mother’s contact information, and finally could only find the Peking University Law School. At Peking University, the two of them, with a glimmer of hope, picked up three ginkgo leaves, hoping to give one to each of them after finding Bao Li.

Through the school, they contacted Bao Li’s mother, but the ginkgo leaves could no longer be brought into the ward. They immediately found that Bao Li’s mother did not want to see anyone as Mou Linhang said, and she needed help very much.

Public Opinion Field

The “people with rich social experience” soon appeared. After Bao Li’s mother reported the case for the first time, Lawyer Lan He took the initiative to contact Bao Li’s mother and expressed his willingness to provide assistance.

Lawyer Lan He’s resume states: He was once an investigative journalist and switched to being a lawyer. He has handled some cases with great social influence, such as the case of Yao Qingwei, the father of Yao Jiaxin, for defamation. There are many kinds of lawyers, and Lawyer Lan He is one of them. He attaches great importance to the help and influence of social public opinion.

Li Siqi remembers that Lawyer Lan He’s idea at the time was: “First collect the evidence and see what means can directly attract the attention of the public.”

In November 2019, Lawyer Lan He brought his friend, Chai Huiqun, a senior reporter from Southern Weekend. They invited Bao Li’s mother and the students who were helping at the time to have a meal to learn about the situation. On December 12, 2019, the report titled “Heart-chilling” Love, Chat Records of a Peking University Student’s Suicide” was published, which immediately triggered an earthquake of public opinion.

The day after the report was published, the project management office of the Peking University Graduate Student Teaching Support Group immediately announced the cancellation of Mou Linhang’s recommendation for postgraduate studies.

The friends of Bao Li had a complex mentality when facing this report. The report focused on why a highly educated female student from Peking University would be controlled by her boyfriend and go on a path of no return because of love, calling it an “unusual love sample”, and spent a lot of space describing the black box operation of the student union. They felt that there seemed to be an implicit accusation against Bao Li. As friends, the complexity of the media made them feel hurt.

“Since it has already been exposed, we can’t let everyone know only a little bit.” They decided to write a more detailed one and let everyone know that the fault was not with Bao Li. This new factual compilation was organized by Li Cuishi, and everyone worked together to organize and review the manuscript. Because they could not find a suitable carrier for a while, they temporarily used the public account “Triumph Twelve” of the high school class. Later, this account was used at critical moments, such as in February 2021, on the eve of the official public prosecution by the procuratorate.

“Triumph”, in the past, referred to the triumph of the college entrance examination. Before becoming the base of the battle manifesto, its function was to send birthday blessings to classmates in the class. The girls deleted all the posts and issued this article “I am Bao Li’s friend, the truth is far more terrible than you know”. In the jointly written new manuscript, the girls released more shocking chat screenshots, hoping that everyone could focus on Mou Linhang’s mental control.

It is difficult to say whether it was Liu Minghe’s reported materials, the report of Southern Weekend, or the push of “Triumph Twelve” that played a role, or all of them. In mid-December, the public security organs finally officially filed the case.

Several interviewees mentioned: If it were not for the initial report, if it were not for the label of “Peking University” that attracted widespread attention from the public, this case might not have had the opportunity to be handled relatively fairly.

The public impact of this matter is lasting. The term “PUA” has completely entered the scope of public discussion. Before this, the original meaning of PUA was “Pick-up Artist”. This matter expanded the connotation and extension of the concept of PUA, adding the meaning of “Gaslighting” (gaslighting, i.e., mental control). Until a few years later, there are still many people on social networks saying that they only realized after this matter that they had also been “PUA”ed.

In April 2020, Lawyer Lan He disclosed the news of Bao Li’s death in his circle of friends. He posted a photo of a beautiful girl lying on a hospital bed, but Bao Li’s classmates knew that this photo was not of Bao Li herself.

Physical Violence

Before and after the case was filed, Li Siqi cooperated with the police for many interrogations. From the Yan Yuan Police Station to the Haidian Police Station, and then to Dongguan, she could feel that the focus of the police’s attention was gradually changing.

At first, because Bao Li’s mother provided Mou Linhang’s clues about delaying treatment when she reported the case, the police’s focus was on restoring the timeline of the day. At that time, some people felt that “negligent homicide” should be sued, but this road did not work.

In the later stage, the focus of the police’s inquiries was more inclined to Mou Linhang’s physical violence, which was also one of the main focuses of the prosecution’s later efforts.

Traditional theory usually believes that criminal law should pay attention to tangible violence and tangible injury, and ignore mental violence and mental injury. This is because in law, the definition of mental violence is not clear.
But if the evidence of physical violence can be confirmed, Mou Linhang will not necessarily face only three years and two months in prison.

At the end of 2019, Liu Minghe led the students to sort out the clues related to physical violence. For example, on May 14, 2019, Bao Li mentioned in a chat record with a friend: “I can’t go back obediently and be beaten by him”, on July 11, Mou Linhang said: “Last time I asked you to slap yourself, you pretended for a long time and said you wouldn’t slap yourself, so why are you suddenly able to do it today? You slapped really hard.” On September 16, Mou Linhang asked: “Can I hit you for other things?”

In the chat record of May 2019, Mou Linhang formally admitted for the only time: I hit you today, I was wrong. In November 2019, when he returned the phone to Bao Li’s mother, he deleted this part of the content. It was not until early 2020 that the police used some technical means to restore this chat record, along with other content deleted by Mou Linhang.

Regarding the beating mentioned in the chat record, Mou Linhang later stated in court that “I waved her arm, it was very light, and she was not injured”. In this regard, Bao Li’s mother has always been indignant. She believes that Mou Linhang “has passed the legal examination”, and he knows how to say things to make himself escape the crime to the greatest extent.
Li Siqi had heard Bao Li say twice that Mou Linhang had beaten her: once slapped her in the face, and once held her shoulders with both hands and pushed her hard against the wall, bruising her shoulders, and also twisting her arms and legs with her hands. Based on this, she wrote a self-description material and submitted it to the police.
There is a dark corridor in the undergraduate dormitory building of Peking University. At the end of the corridor is a window with not very good lighting. Under the window at the end of the corridor on the 32nd floor, Bao Li and Li Siqi often squatted there and talked, whispering like all close friends. There, Li Siqi had seen Bao Li wearing a long skirt with bruises on her thighs.
But on that day, she asked Bao Li, were the injuries on your body caused by Mou Linhang? Bao Li said, no, I fell myself.
“I can’t lie,” Li Siqi said. “Once my testimony is different from anyone else’s, my entire testimony will be invalidated.” She could only truthfully inform the police of her conversation with Bao Li.
Li Siqi later learned that she might be the only one who had the hope of proving the existence of physical violence, because she was the only one who had seen the bruises. Bruises are very important, they are proof of intensity. She was under tremendous pressure for this, but she failed. The law followed its own rules, and the final judgment stated:

“The testimony of witness Li Moumou and Bao Moumou regarding Chen Moumou’s being beaten by Mou Linhang is hearsay evidence, not the facts witnessed by the two of them, and also lacks objective evidence to support it, and Li Moumou’s testimony also mentions that Chen Moumou stated that the bruises and scars on her body were caused by her own fall… Based on the evidence in the case, it is difficult to determine the cause of the scars on Chen Moumou’s body, and it is impossible to determine that Mou Linhang committed physical violence against Chen Moumou.”

She could only put all her energy into accompanying Bao Li’s mother. Every day after class, Li Siqi would go to the Peking University Third Hospital to accompany the aunt to see the doctor, buy food and fruit, take a taxi, and help the aunt communicate with the school teachers and lawyers, and convey her demands. “If the aunt feels that this judgment is appropriate, I will be very happy. If the aunt feels that it is not appropriate, I will continue to help her,” Li Siqi said.

Abuse

Because she felt that she was still inexperienced as a lawyer, after the case was successfully filed, Liu Minghe did not really represent the case, and the students who had been helping Bao Li’s mother did not support Lawyer Lan He to represent it. Who should fight and how to fight this lawsuit was still a problem.

On June 9, 2020, Mou Linhang was criminally detained. On June 24, Mou Linhang was formally approved for arrest. In September, the public security transferred the case to the procuratorate. Lawyer Chang Zheng joined at this stage. She was Liu Minghe’s supervising lawyer during his internship and had handled a series of major cases such as the Liu Han Liu Wei case, the Wanli Great Afforestation case, and the e-Zubao case. Liu Minghe recommended her. She is a female lawyer and also the first formal proxy lawyer in this case.

Following the idea of abuse, what is important is argumentation, not evidence collection. In other words, Mou Linhang’s actions, the facts are already very clear. What is important is to explain the legal principles.

At this time, Mou Linhang had been detained, and the police had already made a large number of transcripts. What Lawyer Chang Zheng needed to do was to look at the files and sort out a complete argumentation idea from these pieces of evidence in the case.

According to Lawyer Chang Zheng’s description, a complete argumentation about abuse is like this:

First of all, the subject issue still needs to be resolved, that is, to continue the idea of “living together”, find more details of the scenes in the daily life of the two, such as the two had been to each other’s home during the Spring Festival, had the behavior of calling each other’s parents “dad and mom”, and the two had discussed the topic of marriage many times. These seemingly insignificant small details can actually become key evidence in the judgment. The dormitory registration form of Zhongguan Xinyuan also became one of the exhibits in court.

Secondly, it is necessary to argue that Mou Linhang’s behavior (mental violence and physical violence) belongs to the abusive behavior in the crime of abuse and has reached the degree of heinousness. Abuse is a self-prosecution crime, and only when it reaches the degree of heinousness can a public prosecution be initiated. In this case, Bao Li has died, and of course it can be said that it has caused serious consequences.

Thirdly, it is necessary to argue that there is indeed a causal relationship between Bao Li’s suicide and Mou Linhang’s behavior. For example, Bao Li had anonymously posted on Zhihu two months before her suicide, “Does my true love boyfriend have a virgin complex and a tendency to domestic violence? Should I give up?”, which can be used as proof of the causal relationship.

In February 2021, the procuratorate filed a public prosecution against Mou Linhang for abuse.

Lawyer Chang Zheng’s style is gentle and clear, and her thinking is very “upright.” In fact, before the outcome, Lawyer Chang Zheng was also unsure whether the crime of abuse was fully established. She consulted many judicial interpretations and also consulted some experts and scholars, and these experts and scholars often had different attitudes, some supporting it and some not supporting it. “There is some controversy,” she once said in an interview. This relatively neutral and objective statement caused dissatisfaction from Lawyer Wan Miaoyan.

Regarding the differences with Lawyer Wan, Lawyer Chang Zheng emphasized, “This is a matter of legal understanding.”

Intentional Homicide

Lawyer Wan Miaoyan is the one we mentioned at the beginning, who told Bao Li’s mother that “the crime of abuse can be sentenced to the maximum.” She is also a female lawyer who has practiced criminal defense in Chengdu for more than 20 years and has long represented cases involving the rights and interests of women and children.

Bao Li’s mother said that at first, she only wanted to sue for the crime of abuse, but after Lawyer Wan reminded her, she realized that there was also the possibility of intentional homicide.

In Lawyer Wan’s opinion, the sentence for the crime of abuse is two to seven years, and Mu Linhan should be sentenced to the full seven years, and a charge of intentional homicide should be added, with multiple crimes being punished together. In June 2020, Bao Li’s mother had sought Lawyer Wan, but because she felt she was far away in Chengdu, Lawyer Wan did not accept the commission. At the end of the year, she saw reports about the progress of the case and felt that if she didn’t join, “it would be too late.”

It can be said that although there is controversy, the crime of abuse is the closest line of thought to the consensus of people in the industry, and it is also basically consistent with the final judgment given by the court. But Lawyer Wan Miaoyan’s evaluation of this line of thought is “too bad.”

Her language is very distinctive; she calls Mu Linhan “Chairman” and Bao Li “Minister” (their respective positions in the student union). As soon as she added her on WeChat, she took the initiative to ask me, what kind of person do you know the Minister is? And the Chairman?

In the winter of 2020, Lawyer Wan went to Beijing for the first time for this case, and an old friend treated her to dinner. She is from Chengdu and is not very familiar with the terrain of Beijing. As soon as she got out of the car, she saw the street sign of Zhongguancun East Road, and she immediately felt a chill in her heart, knowing that the place where Bao Li committed suicide was nearby. Passing through Shibao Street, she remembered that when Mu Linhan was entangled with Bao Li about the issue of virginity, Bao Li would sometimes forcibly change the subject and say what they ate in Shibao Street.

She read the case files in the taxi and quickly formed an intuitive judgment: Mu Linhan had a problem. This was based on her twenty years of criminal defense experience.

“I read the chat records eight times from beginning to end,” Lawyer Wan told me. “Everyone has read the chat records, but no one can read them so many times.”

She found many hidden clues. For example, some suggestive short stories that Mu Linhan occasionally sent to Bao Li. On the first day of the Lunar New Year in 2019, Mu Linhan sent Bao Li an obscene novel, saying it was his sexual enlightenment reading material, and he wanted Bao Li to learn how to obey from it. Lawyer Wan specifically read this novel, “I felt disgusted, and I endured the disgust and finished reading it.”

The content of the novel actually filled in the cause and effect of Mu Linhan’s request for Bao Li to tattoo “I am Mu Linhan’s dog” on herself.

The novel tells the story: A Hong Kong drug lord captures female police officers, and the female police officers become sex slaves. They will obey the drug lord like tools, tattoo “I am a bitch” on their bodies, and they will be in heat at any time as long as the drug lord wants. The drug lord sends their video photos like dogs to the police team to provoke them. The male police officers are ordered to rescue their female colleagues, either being shot dead in the gunfight or being captured. After being captured, they have sex with their female colleagues at any time and anywhere according to the drug lord’s wishes. The captured male and female police officers become tools for the drug lord to bribe political figures in South America and Southeast Asia, or to sell sex on the high seas. They either enjoy such a trampled life like dogs, or they sink into pain without end.

“The key is that the drug lord is not subject to legal sanctions at all,” Lawyer Wan emphasized.

In August 2019, when Bao Li decided to break up and return to her hometown in Guangdong, Mu Linhan forged a gastric lavage form to deceive her back. On the last day of Bao Li’s stay in her hometown, Mu Linhan sent Bao Li a WeChat public account article, which told the story of a primary school girl, Miao Miao, who liked the class monitor Xiao Yang, and both of them were excellent and beautiful, but Miao Miao was touched by other boys, so she felt that she was not pure enough to be worthy of Xiao Yang, so she took medicine and committed suicide.

On September 18, 2019, Mu Linhan asked Bao Li a question about the law exam: Someone drove a car and ran over Zhang San, and he hoped that Zhang San would end up like this. Then he fled. Is this a traffic accident escape, or intentional homicide?

On their three-month anniversary of expressing their feelings for each other, Mu Linhan sent Bao Li an article, “How Women Identify Violence in Intimate Relationships.” Lawyer Wan said, “She was still very silly and asked why he sent it to me. He (Mu Linhan) said: Keep it, you will need it later.”

When the chat records were turned to the second or third time, Lawyer Wan found that every step of the coercion was a day chosen by Mu Linhan: from the Minister saying she was willing to call him master, to her determination to die for him, these days were: the three-month anniversary of their confession, the three-month anniversary of their sleeping together, the three-month anniversary of their promising to be together for life, December 31st, New Year’s Day, Mu Linhan’s birthday, New Year’s Eve, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the day before she went to see his parents, Women’s Day, Youth Day, the day of her middle school exam, the day of her final exam, the day before her law exam, and the day of her school exam.

Mu Linhan said in court: This is how he loves his girlfriend.

To constitute incitement to suicide, there also needs to be a clear expression of “I want you to die for me.” Lawyer Wan found several places, which were in the chat records of February 8, 2019, where Mu Linhan said to Bao Li: “When you are willing to die for me, I will give you all the responsibility”; in the chat records of June 11, 2019, Mu Linhan said to Bao Li: “Didn’t you promise me before that you would die if you left me? Are you going? Huh? You promised me, didn’t you?”

“I insist that this is murder,” Lawyer Wan said. “The law is not imaginative enough for crimes of mental control.”

At the factual level, she also provided Bao Li’s mother with some new doubts:

The first doubt is the ID card. On the day of the incident, October 9, 2019, at 18:18, Bao Li sent Mu Linhan the last WeChat message, “The most regrettable thing in this life is this, that I met you, who was shining, while I was a piece of garbage, Mom apologizes to you today.” Ten minutes later, Mu Linhan, who realized that Bao Li had suicidal tendencies, immediately called the police. But when the police asked him to provide Bao Li’s ID number, he said that he did not have an ID card. Four hours later, Mu Linhan found Bao Li and, together with a friend, sent her to Haidian Hospital. At the hospital, a friend went to register and found that Bao Li’s ID number was needed, so he asked Mu Linhan on WeChat. At this time, Mu Linhan sent the photo of Bao Li’s ID card saved in his mobile phone to this friend.

In other words, Mu Linhan knew Bao Li’s ID number but did not provide it to the police in time. If the police had obtained the ID number at 18:28, they could theoretically have found the hotel where Bao Li was staying as soon as possible, and bought time for the rescue.

Mu Linhan’s own explanation for this was: he did not think the ID card would help the police, and online hotel bookings might not have registration information. It was not until he got to the hospital that he remembered that he had the photo.

The second doubt is mineral water—after Mu Linhan found Bao Li in the hospital, he immediately fed her a bottle of mineral water. Perhaps his intention was to induce vomiting by pouring water to dilute the concentration of the drug, but in fact, this accelerated the diffusion of the drug.

Mu Linhan said in the first instance court that the water was poured on August 30 when Bao Li took sleeping pills for the first time and was sent to the China-Japan Friendship Hospital for gastric lavage, as taught by the doctor in the emergency department of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital.

Lawyer Wan said: “I consulted the emergency departments of West China Hospital, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, and Peking University People’s Hospital. The doctors were very angry and said how could they teach like this!”

The time when Mu Linhan received Bao Li’s last text message was 18:18, and he called the police at 18:28. His mobile phone and Bao Li’s mobile phone could locate each other. Mu Linhan said in court that at first, the positioning of the mobile phone could not be turned on. Around seven o’clock, he located Bao Li’s approximate location. Around eight o’clock, Mu Linhan arrived at the building where Bao Li was located, and then he “slowly watched the surveillance for two hours” (Lawyer Wan’s words). During this time, the police said that they could help if needed, and Mu Linhan said that he could check it himself.

Around ten o’clock, he located the floor where Bao Li was located, and went upstairs to knock on the door with a friend. At 22:25, he found the room where Bao Li was located. At this time, Bao Li could still stand and open the door. Then he stayed in the hotel room for 25 minutes, poured water for Bao Li, and answered two calls from the school work teachers and a call from a police officer. He told the school work teachers “It’s okay, she’s sleeping,” and told the police officer “There is indeed no self-harm or suicide behavior.” The police officer asked if he needed assistance, and Mu Linhan said no.

At 22:53, he took a taxi and paid an extra 20 yuan to send Bao Li to Haidian Hospital, 500 meters away.

In order to make me intuitively understand what this means, Lawyer Wan bombarded me with questions:

I ask you, you have also lived in this area, do you know where Zhongguancun Mansion is?

I know.

Do you know where Haidian Hospital is?

I know.

Do you know that the distance between them is less than 500 meters?

I know.

If you encounter this situation, what is your first reaction?

Send her to the hospital.

The instructions say that the onset time of this drug is 4-6 hours, and this drug has some reputation in some suicide groups. From 18:18 when Bao Li sent the WeChat message to 22:25 when Mu Linhan found Bao Li, it was exactly four hours. Lawyer Wan even suspected that Mu Linhan knew what medicine Bao Li had taken, so he delayed it for four hours just right.

Cannot Exclude Reasonable Doubt

Lawyer Wan has always held a subtle blame for the Peking University Law School. She believes that the students and teachers of the law school are all trapped in theory, “and cannot imagine how bad people can be.” “They may have studied more legal theoretical knowledge than me, but they don’t understand the practical work. Just talking about theory is also a paradox, and for me, it’s just a waste of time,” Lawyer Wan said.

Before contacting Lawyer Wan, I had discussed it with many law school students, and I thought I already had a basic understanding and judgment of this matter. After Lawyer Wan appeared, I was almost persuaded. The possibility she proposed was so dangerous, but it was not impossible. Just thinking about it made people feel cold.

“A good lawyer has this ability,” Professor Chen Bi of China University of Political Science and Law told me. “Lawyers will choose their own perspective, which is the first step in a lawyer’s work. If she has already chosen her direction, what she sees is all supporting her. With the same material, you can write a romance drama, or you can write a murder story, right?”

Chen Bi said, but this does not mean that every piece of evidence she provides can withstand scrutiny.

The probative force of the evidence is one of the problems. In law, only when the chain of evidence is combined and reaches the degree of “evidence is indeed sufficient” and “excluding reasonable doubt,” can we determine that the defendant is guilty. Otherwise, according to the principle of “presumption of innocence,” Mu Linhan is innocent.

However, the general theory of criminal law does not tell you what the details of “indeed sufficient” are, and what degree is considered to have reached “indeed sufficient”? When the probative force of the evidence is not clear enough, what is respected is the result of the “free judgment” of the person, that is, the presiding judge (or a higher-level person who can make the decision).

Lawyer Wan believes that Mu Linhan has a problem based on her intuition and experience, and she did tell a story. But regardless of whether there is a suspicion of trying to cover up the truth, Mu Linhan did provide rescue, he called the police, found people, and sent her to the hospital. As for not reporting the ID number, misleading the roommate, telling his parents but not Bao Li’s mother, deceiving the school work teachers and the police, it can all be explained as his confusion and inconsistencies in behavior when he was worried that his past abuse would be discovered, or when he was subjected to a huge shock.

He may of course be scheming and ritualistically forcing a girl to die for him; but it is also possible that he is out of a kind of evil instinct that he himself has not understood, and in the case of extreme lack of empathy for his partner, he caused serious consequences that he himself did not expect.

This is the inability to “exclude reasonable doubt.”

In the judicial practice of our country, incitement to suicide is usually treated as intentional homicide. However, whether Mu Linhan’s behavior can be identified as “incitement to suicide” and “indirect perpetrator” (that is, the murderer manipulated the victim to kill herself as a tool), there is a complex judgment of causal relationship in criminal law (this involves some relatively sophisticated legal principles). Chen Bi said that according to the existing judicial experience, it is difficult for Mu Linhan’s situation to meet the constituent elements of “incitement to suicide” and “indirect perpetrator.”

From another perspective, a radical lawyer is necessary. Raising a demand higher than expected helps to fight for more rights for the victims.

The law is not the straight and vertical thing I imagined, and I realized this for the first time. I thought it was very rigid, and each clause could correspond to a certain specific situation. But in fact, the law is more like a soft soil, and there are many gaps in it. The existence of these gaps makes the law sometimes powerless, and sometimes more flexible, allowing people to have room to fight for.

When I asked Liu Minghe this question, he replied: The law is a soft soil, but it needs fine cultivation. The reason for the softness is that it can be constructed. Starting from one point and reaching different directions, each explanation and each argument needs very exquisite and interlocking logic. This path can ensure that it will not deviate too far. And behind these explanations and cultivation, it is still your personal moral judgment, emotions, and values that are playing a role.

In July 2022, the first instance was opened. Despite their different personalities, different opinions, and some disputes, Lawyer Wan and Lawyer Chang Zheng still appeared in court as the attorneys and stated their respective viewpoints and ideas.

The first instance lasted a total of 13 hours, and Bao Li’s mother, Mu Linhan himself, the lawyers of both sides, and the witnesses spoke respectively.

One of the arguments of the defense was that Bao Li’s family was not without its particularity. She came from a wealthy merchant family in Guangdong in the past, and she had no worries about food and clothing, and her mother rarely participated in society. After college, her father left her, and the economic foundation of the family also collapsed, and her mother regarded her as her “only hope.”

Bao Li’s special family background, to some extent, weakened the causal relationship between her suicide and Mu Linhan’s behavior. The defense argued that a quarrel was not enough to make her commit suicide, and Bao Li also had her own unresolved psychological reasons.

When the judgment was made, the court used the theory of increased risk to explain the causal relationship. First, Bao Li had tried to self-harm or commit suicide twice on June 13, 2019, and August 30, 2019, and the risk was escalating; second, Mu Linhan was the creator of the risk of Bao Li’s extreme vulnerability at the time of her suicide; third, as a boyfriend, Mu Linhan did not fulfill his duty to help. The judgment wrote:

“Mu Linhan has been able to clearly recognize that Chen Moumou was already in a high-risk state of mental vulnerability, and he should have paid attention to Chen Moumou’s mental state in a timely manner, and taken effective measures to eliminate the above-mentioned risk state in a timely manner, to prevent Chen Moumou from experiencing extreme situations again. However, Mu Linhan turned a blind eye to the risk state created by him, and still repeatedly blamed and insulted Chen Moumou, which made Chen Moumou’s high-risk state of mental vulnerability constantly strengthened and upgraded, and combined with the stimulating words on the day of the incident, which ultimately led to the tragedy of Chen Moumou taking medicine and committing suicide.”

In addition, the court supported the expanded interpretation of the subject of the crime of abuse, pointing out: “With the rapid development and transformation of our country’s economic society, the profound changes and increasingly diversified social concepts, compared with the beginning of the crime of abuse, the social environment has undergone profound changes.”

The court also affirmed that when there is insufficient evidence of physical violence, mental abuse is also sufficient to constitute abuse. However, the court did not support the proof of physical violence, nor did it support the establishment of the crime of intentional homicide.

In the 13 hours of the first instance, Bao Li’s mother spent only a little more than an hour in court. Because the prosecution was by the procuratorate, the victim’s relatives could only speak in court as witnesses.

In order to extend the time Bao Li’s mother spent in court, Lawyer Wan proposed to add a civil lawsuit. With the civil lawsuit, Bao Li’s mother would have two opportunities to appear in court.

In the court of the civil lawsuit attached to the criminal case, the court ordered Mu Linhan to compensate Bao Li’s mother for economic losses of 730,000 yuan.

Bao Li’s mother does not need money, she hopes that Mu Linhan will be sentenced as severely as possible. A sentence of three years and two months was unacceptable to Bao Li’s mother. After receiving the result of the first instance judgment, she immediately decided to apply for an appeal.

In the judicial system of our country, the public prosecution has already been a strong public power organ (the procuratorate) to confront the court, and to confront another private subject, so the law will be more inclined to protect the rights of the defendant, as a balance. As a family member of the victim, Bao Li’s mother did not have the right to appeal, and could only file an appeal application with the procuratorate.

Lawyer Wan drafted the appeal application for Bao Li’s mother overnight. The application stated: “Mu Linhan has step by step caused Bao Li to go towards death as a reward, and Mu Linhan failed to make a reasonable defense in court, but only claimed that this was how he loved his girlfriend… The applicant, Bao Li’s mother, is not satisfied with the defendant Mu Linhan’s crime of intentional homicide not being pursued, and the sentence for the crime of abuse being too light, and hereby applies to the procuratorial organ for an appeal.”

The procuratorate rejected Bao Li’s mother’s appeal application. Soon, Mu Linhan also appealed, requesting that the sentence be changed to not guilty. If the defendant appeals, the court must conduct a second instance.

Lawyer Chang Zheng also insisted on her legal judgment, but in the second instance, she also fulfilled Lawyer Wan’s appearance in court.

The second instance was very rushed, because Mu Linhan would be released from prison in August, and the trial had to be completed in July. At the originally scheduled time for the second instance, Lawyer Wan was unable to appear in court due to a leg injury. Since there were two attorneys, as long as Lawyer Chang Zheng could go, the court could be opened. In order to enable Lawyer Wan to appear in court, Lawyer Chang Zheng took the initiative to terminate the agency agreement with Bao Li’s mother.

The second instance did not change the judgment result, and everything remained the same.

Imprint

Liu Weixi had just seen Bao Li’s mother in June. Auntie came to Beijing to hear the judgment result. Several familiar classmates went to see her together. At McDonald’s, at one moment, Liu Weixi suddenly felt that Bao Li’s mother looked at them as if—”If my daughter were still alive, she should be the same as you guys.”

Liu Weixi is Bao Li’s classmate, and she used to live across the hall from Bao Li’s dormitory. After the incident, she went to help and participated in the evidence sorting work led by Liu Minghe. The WeChat group chat at that time is still her WeChat top.

She and Bao Li’s personalities were not similar, and they were not familiar with each other. Before the incident, Liu Weixi’s impression of Bao Li was “beautiful.” The girls who looked good in the law school were divided into “big year” and “small year.” “Our year was a small year,” she said, “so I always thought that she was the most beautiful girl in our grade.”

In 2019, the year Bao Li committed suicide, Liu Weixi was also in her senior year. Affected by this incident, her graduation thesis was on the punishability of participating in suicide (incitement to suicide, helping others commit suicide).

This matter even affected Liu Weixi’s career choice. In the past, although she studied at the law school, she had never thought of becoming a lawyer. “I think the attack is too strong,” she said. “But later I found that people still have to have their own attitudes and positions, and they have to defend their own attitudes and positions.”

In 2022, after Liu Weixi graduated, she joined a law firm and became a lawyer.

“I didn’t expect that four years have passed, and we are still being affected by this matter, and we are still discussing it,” she said.

Three months after the end of the second instance, Lawyer Wan was still dissatisfied with the final judgment. She forwarded a case of “remote assistance” to others’ suicide in her Moments: “If Bao Li had met such a prosecutor and judge, Mu Linhan’s crime of intentional homicide could have been pursued.”

For this case, the academic community is still constantly arguing, discussing whether its nature is reasonable, whether the sentencing is reasonable, or analyzing legal breakthroughs. Most people hold a supportive attitude, and a few people are constantly putting forward some different viewpoints.

Chen Bi mentioned: There is a general theory in criminal law, which is the most authoritative and widely recognized viewpoint. But the general theory is not necessarily the most advanced in terms of values, and naturally there are various schools challenging the general theory. If there are more cases of this breakthrough nature, it may promote the change of the general theory.

At the end of 2023, this case was shortlisted for the “Top Ten Cases of 2023 for Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era” hosted by the Supreme People’s Court and China Media Group, and is currently in the voting stage. If selected, this case will have a wider role in promoting issues such as romantic cohabitation relationships, family violence, and mental abuse.

Burning the Barn

Whether Mu Linhan had the subjective intention to make Bao Li commit suicide is almost impossible to prove in law, but the problem cannot only be discussed from a legal perspective.

I read a novel called “Burning the Barn”: A wealthy man has a special hobby, which is to burn those abandoned plastic sheds, pour gasoline, throw matches, and then quietly watch from a distance with binoculars, burning one every two months or so. And those barns that were burned, no one cared.

For the person who burns the barn, the female’s self-destruction process is like a fire, a spectacle.

In 2019, Mu Linhan once said, “I am a traditional Shandong man,” which once caused an uproar. At first, the focus of the discussion was always on the controversy over the virginity complex.

As early as when “Triumph Twelve” published the first article, they had clearly sorted out Mu Linhan’s implicit logic: “1. Use various excuses to denigrate and insult Bao Li, and repeat it constantly, creating an unequal status between the two parties… The so-called virginity complex is nothing more than adding a crime; 2. Believing that Bao Li must use extreme methods to prove her love for him; 3. Controlling all aspects of Bao Li’s life, including social activities, money, and even daily whereabouts.”

Lawyer Wan also mentioned that this matter has nothing to do with the virginity complex.

At dawn on January 1, 2019, Mu Linhan suddenly told Bao Li that he was inspired by a female friend, and realized that the girl’s first time was very important, “This is a symbolic risk, she said that sex will be more casual afterwards,” he seemed to have suddenly obtained some kind of hint, and from this day on, Mu Linhan began to entangle on this topic repeatedly, constantly asking Bao Li to compensate him.

Lawyer Wan mentioned another statement by Mu Linhan, he admitted that in November 2018, his ex-girlfriend had sought him to reconcile, and he said that he was very hesitant and had considered it. He said to Bao Li that at that time, I already knew that you were not a virgin, and I was very entangled. Later, I thought it didn’t matter. In fact, I didn’t care much about this matter, but because you kept deceiving me, I brought it up again and again. This involves a question of trust.

He said that he had considered it, but he also said that he didn’t really care. Lawyer Wan believes that this proves that all the rhetoric is his tool, and the topic of virginity complex is also just a tool.

Another tool may be “deception,” “you deceived me.” The “deception” that Mu Linhan said refers to Bao Li’s vague words to him when repeatedly questioning the details of Bao Li’s past intimate relationships. So Mu Linhan used some resources to directly retrieve the mobile phone chat records that had been deleted by Bao Li, as well as the room records.

Li Siqi said that Mu Linhan defined the virginity issue as “the only problem between us.” His statement was: Everything is right between us, except for this one thing. As long as you can solve the knot in my heart, I will marry you. And the way to compensate is to belittle yourself and let him control you.

This explains why Bao Li found it difficult to escape. Before this, I had contacted some girls with similar mentalities, and they would regard whether they could properly handle the problems in their relationship as a manifestation of their own abilities. Bao Li wanted to solve this “only problem,” and Mu Linhan established an expectation and a path for her.

Mu Linhan would say that Bao Li was fat, even though she weighed less than 90 pounds at the time. Six months before the incident, Bao Li had double eyelid thread embedding. In 2017, she also went to correct her teeth with Li Siqi, but Li Siqi felt that her mentality when she later had double eyelid surgery was completely different from when they went to correct their teeth together.

Mou Linhan always quarreled with Bao Li on the eve of the exam – this was usually the time of greatest mental stress, and Mou Linhan would quarrel all night long. Sometimes, Mou Linhan forced Bao Li to skip class to play games with him, and if she didn’t, he would fly into a rage.

In court, Mou Linhan shouted at Bao Li’s mother, saying: Auntie, don’t believe them, they all want to harm me. Pointing to the lawyer, he said: Don’t believe the lawyer. I promised Bao Li that I would support you in the future. Do you think I want to be like this? I still want to call you Mom in the future.

Bao Li’s mother felt very angry, feeling that he “had no intention of repentance at all”.

“All external perceptions are not in place,” said lawyer Wan. “The media’s direction has gone astray, and they are all focusing on PUA.”

For Mou Linhan, lawyer Wan’s understanding is that of a high-functioning antisocial personality. He watched Bao Li die, “like a stepmother, who can’t stand her stepson or stepdaughter, can’t stand your child, and finally, on a snowy night, drives the child out, and the child starves to death. He knew that if he drove the child out, she would definitely die, but he still drove her out.”

“Bao Li was actually quite stupid,” said lawyer Wan. “Others were playing with a prey, and she thought it was love, that’s all.” But lawyer Wan added: “She’s not stupid, she’s just a normal child, a normal girl.”

Bao Li is not a silly sweetie, nor is she a love brain, Li Siqi insisted. She has expressed herself very clearly many times.

When Mou Linhan emphasized to Bao Li that she had dedicated her “most beautiful things” to another person, Bao Li said, my most beautiful things are my future.

When Mou Linhan interfered with her life, Bao Li asked: “Are you looking for someone you like or someone who obeys me?”

When Mou Linhan asked her: “Are a girl’s dignity and independence so important?”, Bao Li replied: “Very important. This is the foundation of my survival.”

When Mou Linhan said “(You) made me understand longing, understand sweetness, understand concern”, Bao Li retorted: “Do you really think your feelings are love?”

In May 2019, Mou Linhan beat Bao Li. Bao Li proposed a breakup: “You were once my whole ideal, but that was only because it matched my excessive expectations of happiness, and for me, fists (expression) and happiness can never coexist.”

“Normal”, I am very grateful to lawyer Wan for bringing up this word. The thinking of a normal person is that only if I love you, will I want you to love me. The thinking of an abnormal person is: I don’t love you, but you have to love me. Once you start to judge others by yourself, it will be difficult to escape the trap, and you can only be trapped in an abnormal logic: it’s all because I love you, that I can’t control myself.

I believe that the only way to get out is to obtain professional knowledge. You need an authoritative voice to tell you what these people are called, what these behaviors are called, what their real behavioral logic is, and whether there has ever been a trace of love in their barren hearts.

Unfortunately, in 2019, such discussions on the Internet were still very rare.

After the first instance verdict, although only two months of imprisonment remained, Mou Linhan still appealed, and the appeal was written in a flowery style:

“Request a reversal of the verdict and acquittal. Intimate relationships between lovers inevitably involve criticism and disputes. Conflicts and disputes arise from various causes, and quarrels and scolding are still morally acceptable, let alone legal matters. I have done my best to love her, and I have never thought of truly hurting her, nor have I ever done anything outrageous. The contradictions between the two people have many twists and turns. Although verbal disputes contain negative emotions, they also express care and love, and are also a process of getting along between lovers. It is too harsh to use this as a crime.”

“I have two questions: First, should the law easily intervene in emotions and judge love? Second, how do lovers quarrel without cursing or blaming each other? Is it illegal to quarrel, and how to quarrel without breaking the law? At what frequency and for what reasons is it not illegal to quarrel?”

“In addition, there are three major disadvantages to the conviction of this matter: First, this matter is unclear, and this judgment encourages the use of online violence to seek attention and put pressure on all parties, and in the long run, the media’s pen will be heavier than the hammer of justice; Second, it encourages the wrong trend of “suicide is justified”; a young man, burdened with the responsibilities of the nation, society, family, and himself, acts arbitrarily and abandons his life, and now the judiciary blames others, this is a great mistake of values, who knows how many years the poison will last? Third, it destroys the hope of a young man’s life. I hope to think carefully, fight for social rationality, fight for the dignity of the rule of law, and fight for the light of youth.”

Sorry We Missed You

In the hospital, high school friend Huang Mingyao took Bao Li’s phone and found many drafts in her phone’s memo, all of which were greetings she edited for everyone during the holidays and birthdays of friends. One of them was a draft from 2014, and the last sentence was “Your existence is the best gift in my teenage life”, Huang Mingyao remembered that this was what Bao Li said to her in high school.

On December 19, 2019, shortly after the Southern Weekend report was published, four classmates from the same law school went to Peking University Third Hospital to visit Bao Li. The visiting time was only half an hour in total, and they needed to take turns entering, and each person could only go in for less than ten minutes.

The scene they saw was something that everyone could not forget. According to the recollections of several classmates, she could no longer recognize her original appearance at that time. Because of the pressure, the fluid in her body would flow back to her head, so her head would be bigger than normal, and her face was swollen. And her arms, legs, and neck had no flesh, and they were all shriveled. Her mother would put makeup on her and braid her hair every day, “to make her look better”.

Chen Tainan wrote in his diary: “I will never forget December 19, 2019”.

“I hesitated for a moment before confirming that it was her. She looked like a forcibly glued porcelain, and her former appearance could no longer be seen. Squatting in front of her, in front of me were her fingernails painted bright red, between the thin and withered fingers, which were dark red, bright red, purple red, withered yellow, brown, folded, extended, back and forth pulling and pulling the lines. She was wearing a blue and white striped hospital gown, and her arm only filled one-third of the sleeve, and her chest was obviously rising and falling under the pressure of the machine, and her head was tightly bulging. Her mother had put makeup on her, her eyebrows were curved, the brown lines of the eyebrow pencil fell behind her head, and her hair was tied into two braids, which were scattered high on both sides. If color is used to express the withering of life, it is definitely not pale, but yellow, a waxy yellow skin that makes people dizzy, like the skin on a drum.”

In May and June 2020, Xiao Ren still frequently dreamed that everyone was taking professional courses in the Second Teaching Building, and Bao Li was sitting among them, and everything seemed unchanged, but her appearance had become the image of her lying in the hospital at the end.

Bao Li’s legal death occurred the day after her 23rd birthday. On April 10, 2020, her mother celebrated her birthday in the hospital, and then cried for a long time at the hospital door. The next morning, the hospital called and told her that Bao Li had left.

Her mother regretted it very much. She felt that it must have been because she cried for too long that her daughter heard it, so she left earlier so that she wouldn’t have to continue to suffer.

Few people noticed the problems with Bao Li’s mental state. As mentioned earlier, Bao Li did not live in her original dormitory for more than a year of dating Mou Linhan, which made it more difficult for her friends to find any abnormalities. Even Li Siqi, who was as close as Li Siqi, did not think that things had become so serious.

Li Siqi was once caught in a strong self-blame: If she had noticed that her mental state was not right at that time, if she had told her mother when she noticed that something was wrong, or even told the school teacher. If she had insisted on going to see her that day – at least there might have been a third person present in the hotel, otherwise, what happened in the hotel later would not have become so unreliable.

The fact is that a girl who seemed almost perfect, who had high demands on herself, and rarely truly revealed herself to others, left this world alone without asking for help from anyone.

In the winter of 2019, when this incident was finally officially exposed by Southern Weekend, the Peking University Centennial Hall was showing an EU film exhibition. This film exhibition was very popular that year, and Liu Weixi and I had both seen it.

Liu Weixi said that in the winter, she went to see Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You”. In fact, she didn’t know about this until the report was published, but when she watched the movie, she was thinking about Bao Li all the time, because of the title of the movie.

Sorry We Missed You.