Free Web NovelChapter 208: Chapter 188: An Ending for the History Books (Part 3)
The sudden twist left them utterly shocked, to the point of taking their anger out on the actress.
A full two minutes passed before the performance could continue.
If the plot hadn’t taken another turn, there was no doubt this poor actress would have suffered the same fate as the head of the Potion Factory in *Holy Mountain Journey*.
While the audience was in shock, one old man was quietly falling apart.
Sir Turt realized his predictions about the plot were completely off track.
This wasn’t a tale of two men—the lawyer and his client—but a duel between the lawyer and the wife.
Of course. The title was *Prosecution Witness* all along.
He now had absolutely no idea how the plot was going to unfold.
He was no longer even sure whether the defendant was guilty or innocent.
He had been stumped by the mystery set by that writer, Agatha.
All the evidence pointed to the defendant’s guilt. Sir Turt could even recognize this as the "darkest hour," a common trope in drama.
The next step should be the protagonist finding a glimmer of hope.
But where would that glimmer of hope come from? Besides, according to this kind of dramatic structure, the defendant was supposed to be innocent in the end.
He was confused.
He had lost his angle to criticize *Prosecution Witness*.
Sir Turt was now even starting to empathize with the play’s protagonist. He, too, had reached his darkest hour.
Onstage, the lawyer’s doctor warned him to take care of his health—getting so worked up again could genuinely kill him in the courtroom.
But the lawyer replied that once he took a case, his client’s life became more important than his own, showing a resolve that bordered on a death wish.
Sir Turt started to feel that this old, portly protagonist had a certain charm.
His own glimmer of hope arrived at the same time as the lawyer’s in the play.
The lawyer received a message: a mysterious woman had provided key evidence that could prove the wife had fallen for another man and was intentionally framing the defendant.
The mysterious woman revealed a scar. "Have a look. It’ll give you sweet dreams, sir!"
Her husband had been seduced by the defendant’s wife, which led to him slashing her. Now, she wanted revenge.
"Deus ex machina!" Sir Turt shot to his feet and shouted.
When the protagonist is utterly incapable of overcoming a problem, a character is suddenly introduced to resolve the trouble.
It is the most inept of screenwriting techniques, typically used only when the plot has spun out of control and the writer has no other way to proceed.
This time, his heckle was finally successful.
The audience thought he had a point. Where had this mysterious woman come from? There had been no mention of her before, and now she suddenly appeared to resolve the evidence problem.
It was a twist for the sake of a twist.
The audience began to boo, interrupting the performance once again.
Sir Turt stood in his corner seat like a victorious gladiator.
’He had won after all.’
’Apologize! The play is a disaster! Give us a refund!’
However, the actors onstage continued their performance, completely unaffected.
The defendant was acquitted, and his wife embraced him in celebration.
Once the courtroom had cleared, the defendant’s wife approached the lawyer.
She suddenly swept her hair aside, the motion identical to that of the mysterious woman from before.
She said, "Have a look. It’ll give you sweet dreams, sir!"
The lawyer’s jaw dropped in astonishment, and in the audience, jaws dropped in unison.
The booing fell silent in an instant.
’To save her husband, she had willingly cast herself as the villain?’
At the same time, an even bigger twist followed.
"I could have proven his innocence through more legitimate means," said the lawyer.
"You could not have. Because he’s the one who committed the murder."
The audience was left reeling by the successive twists.
’The protagonist lost? He failed to bring the truth to light in the end?’
For the theater of its day, this was an incredibly daring move.
Even in a tragedy, the protagonist was supposed to be heroic in their defeat, failing against some unstoppable force, not simply losing to the antagonist.
Yet the reversals were still not over.
Just when everyone thought them a wicked but devoted couple, the defendant rejected his wife’s embrace and held another, younger girl instead.
He had betrayed his wife.
As the wife sat despondently in her chair, the lawyer once again picked up the Crystal Chip, casting a reflection onto the knife from the evidence table.
Before the astonished eyes of the entire audience, the wife took the knife and stabbed the betrayer, carrying out justice in an unlawful form.
End of play.
