Qian Heng’s expression was still icy, his handsome brows and eyes carrying that same aloof air, utterly out of place amid the lively bustle of the Japanese ramen shop. His face still bore the unmistakable “approach at your own risk” look, his beautiful thin lips pressed tight, giving no hint that just minutes ago they’d been the source of such biting sarcasm. And yet Cheng Yao had never once thought Qian Heng looked this handsome before.

Genuinely, devastatingly handsome.

Still poisonous — but poisonous in a way that was somehow impossible to resist.

“What are you staring at? Eat your noodles.” Her bad-tempered boss was still in a foul mood; he glanced at her and rolled his eyes. “Or do you have something to say?”

“No… nothing…”

Fine — she didn’t want to admit it, but even Qian Heng’s eye-roll had somehow managed to look handsome…

“Next time, use your head. Don’t be a pushover giving out free consultations.”

Though his tone was still icy, maybe it was from the bowl of noodle broth she’d just drunk, but Cheng Yao felt warm all over. Still, she was curious. “Boss, did it occur to you that if he and I had actually been close friends, what you just said might’ve put me in a really awkward position?”

Qian Heng snorted. “A real friend wouldn’t try to take advantage of you like that. Besides, he didn’t even know what your practice area was, let alone that you worked nearby — how good a ‘friend’ could that possibly be?”

“But what if he wasn’t a friend — what if he was, say, someone I secretly liked back in high school?”

Qian Heng’s expression showed unmistakable disgust. “Not even his own business, and he’s trying to mooch off an old classmate for free legal advice just to curry favor with his boss? If you’re into that kind of oily, opportunistic type, are you blind?”

“…”

“Never mind. You probably just haven’t seen much of the world before. But I have faith you’ll improve.”

“Why do you say that?”

Qian Heng smiled faintly and straightened his tie. “Going forward, you’ll be spending your work hours around someone as excellent as me. It’s bound to elevate your taste a little. Once you’re used to seeing me every day, of course you’ll start looking down on mediocrities like him. Your blindness will cure itself in time.”

“…” Cheng Yao thought, where are my emergency heart pills…

“I know that kind of exchange bothers you too. Next time it happens, refuse more forcefully.” Qian Heng paused, then added, “Remember — you’re a lawyer. You’re a fighter. You should speak up loudly against anything unreasonable, against any unjust system.”

This time, Cheng Yao nodded firmly.

“‘Four years of a full-time law degree comes to roughly 35,040 hours; a year of legal internship comes to roughly 8,760 hours. Every lawyer has to go through at least 43,800 hours like that before earning a license to practice.’ Time is the single greatest cost for every one of us lawyers. Whether it’s you or me, everyone only gets twenty-four hours a day. Every free minute of consulting you give to people like that is a minute of your life wasted. Every second of time is non-renewable.”

Cheng Yao was struck with genuine reverence, and answered dutifully, “Next time I’ll refuse properly.”

Qian Heng raised an eyebrow. “Why refuse ‘properly’? People who don’t respect the value of a lawyer’s professional labor — why should you respect them back? Refuse them with a bad attitude!”

“…”

“Hokkaido fish-bone ramen, here you go — enjoy!”

Just then, the server set down a bowl of noodles. Cheng Yao blinked, then realized — this was the bowl Wu Chen had ordered.

Eager to get on her impossible-to-please boss’s good side, Cheng Yao tactfully pushed the bowl toward him. “Boss, the Hokkaido fish-bone ramen is this place’s signature dish. Seems a waste to let it go cold — why don’t you eat it? You work so hard, you need the nutrition!”

“You eat it.”

Cheng Yao felt a small stab of gratitude — today Qian Heng’s presence was towering! Not only had he just put an obnoxious classmate in his place, he was even being considerate now. Truly moving.

But her gratitude lasted all of ten seconds before Qian Heng continued, matter-of-factly, from across the table—

“This place is terrible.”

“…” So it was because it was bad that he was giving it to her…

Qian Heng went on, looking thoroughly disgusted. “The day this place opened, I ate here once, and decided right then to spare myself and never come back.”

Huh? Wait — hadn’t this ramen shop only opened last year? If he’d found it unbearable the very first time, why was he here again today…

Qian Heng shot her a cold look. “You seriously don’t know?”

Cheng Yao: ???

“Take a look at what you sent me.” As he spoke, he pulled out his phone, opened WeChat, and set the chat log in front of her.

There, displayed plainly, were over a dozen crying-face emoji stickers…

Qian Heng’s finger scrolled slowly upward.

The line “Feeling like I’m not going to survive the one-year burnout curse” appeared plainly before Cheng Yao’s eyes.

That was when Cheng Yao finally understood — Qin Qin’s WeChat username was RebeccaQin, and Qian Heng’s was the pinyin of his surname, “Qian.” Before Qian Heng had joined her contacts, Qin Qin had been the only friend on her list whose username contained a Q, so Cheng Yao had gotten into the habit of just searching “Q” and firing off a message to whoever came up. As it turned out, at some point Qin Qin had changed her display name to “Xiao Qin” — so now searching “Q” pulled up only one person: Qian Heng.

Bleary-eyed at the time, she hadn’t noticed at all, and had simply sent that whole string of messages out of habit…

Yet because of those messages, Qian Heng had actually come looking for her — all the way to a restaurant he’d sworn never to set foot in again.

It was an embarrassing mix-up, but in that moment, something warm settled in Cheng Yao’s chest — apparently Qian Heng did care about the people under him, in his own way.

So — was he here to talk to her? To encourage her, maybe?

Cheng Yao stared at that absurdly handsome face across from her, and felt an inexplicable flicker of nervousness, of anticipation.

“I know a lot of new hires can’t make it past their first year. Being a lawyer is a demanding, exhausting job, and a lot of people end up switching careers.” Qian Heng paused. “So if you can’t hold on, I’d like you to quit right now.”

Cheng Yao: ???

Wait — where was the encouragement? At least give her some kind of pep talk first!

“This afternoon I’ve got a meeting with the client from that post-divorce property re-division dispute. If you can’t stick with this, you’re off the case, effective immediately. Divorce cases involve nothing but the client’s private affairs — if you don’t want to be doing this, then don’t come to the meeting this afternoon.” Qian Heng glanced at his watch. “There’s an hour left before the meeting, so I need your answer right now, so I have time to find a replacement if needed.”

Cold and unfeeling as it was, Cheng Yao had to admit — Qian Heng was thoroughly professional.

Once he’d taken on a client, he put that client’s interests first in everything, thinking through every angle so meticulously. No wonder he’d become a top-tier lawyer in just a few short years.

For the first time, Cheng Yao truly grasped just how vast — how impossibly vast — the distance between her and Qian Heng still was.

“No — becoming a family lawyer is part of what I want to do with my life,” Cheng Yao said, biting down on her lip. “Don’t worry. I’ll complain, I’ll vent, I’ll have my low moments and setbacks — but I won’t give up.” Deng Ming’s face flashed briefly across her mind, and silently she added one more line to herself: I won’t give up before I’ve beaten him in court.

“Since you’re not quitting, then learn to properly label your contacts,” Qian Heng said with a snort. “I don’t want to see you accidentally send some bizarre message to a client again.”

“All right, nothing more to discuss.” Qian Heng straightened his collar. “I can finally leave this place — its whole aesthetic doesn’t suit me at all.”

With that, he elegantly dabbed at his mouth and got up, walking off without a backward glance.

As he passed the register, he pointed back at Cheng Yao, still seated at the table. “Put her bill on my tab.”

“…”

Cheng Yao sat there stunned. This — this man was actually her boss!

Fuming, she followed Qian Heng’s earlier instruction and changed his contact name in her phone.

She jabbed furiously at her screen until Qian Heng’s name had been replaced with three punchy, easy-to-remember characters.

— Shameless Bastard.

Even that wasn’t enough to satisfy her. She scrolled through her whole contact list and relabeled Qian Heng’s name that way everywhere.

The afternoon meeting was scheduled for two o’clock. Cheng Yao had the meeting materials ready and sat in the conference room two minutes early, waiting. Qian Heng — this chronic sufferer of what Cheng Yao thought of as “boss syndrome” — hadn’t stayed in his office answering emails; instead, he’d come and sat in the conference room too.

Cheng Yao, ever considerate, offered, “Boss, if you have anything to take care of, feel free to go back to your office — I’ll call you when the client arrives.”

At the firm where Cheng Yao had interned before, even when lawyers and clients had agreed on a set meeting time in advance, most individual clients still tended to run late out of habit. The most extreme case Cheng Yao had ever encountered was a client who’d shown up two full hours late.

China’s legal services market wasn’t mature enough yet, and clients’ sense of punctuality still had a long way to go in developing. Faced with this helpless reality, most lawyers just had interns or associate attorneys wait in the conference room and call them once the client actually arrived — otherwise, they’d be tethered waiting for one client and unable to get any other work done.

But Qian Heng showed not a shred of gratitude for her thoughtfulness. He simply glanced at her. “Not necessary.” He gave a haughty little smile and said, deliberately, one word at a time, “I, Qian Heng, never wait for anyone. If a client’s late even once, they can forget about ever working with me again.” He looked at her with something like pity. “You’ve never worked at a good firm before, so you’re used to indulging clients. Break that bad habit.”

Almost the instant he finished speaking, someone from administration knocked on the conference room door and led two people in.

Cheng Yao glanced reflexively at her watch — it really was exactly two o’clock, not a minute early or late.

The two who entered were a man and a woman. The man wore an ordinary casual jacket; the woman was far stranger — despite being indoors, she wore a hat, sunglasses, and a face mask.

Cheng Yao had no idea who the man was, but the woman was unmistakably Qian Heng’s client, Li Yan.

The man cast a wary, assessing glance at Cheng Yao the moment he walked in.

“Cheng Yao, my associate attorney — she’ll be following this case with me,” Qian Heng said, sweeping a glance at Cheng Yao. “She’s signed the confidentiality agreement.”

At that, the man seemed to relax, and Li Yan finally removed her sunglasses and mask.

Cheng Yao was just about to hand out the meeting materials to Li Yan when she looked up and very nearly jumped out of her own skin.

Li Yan? This was Li Yan?!

The person standing before her was, unmistakably, Bai Xingmeng! The actress who played Lingyao!

“Bai Xingmeng is her stage name.”

Qian Heng, apparently unable to bear watching her flounder, offered the explanation with characteristic brevity.

So — Bai Xingmeng’s real name was… Li Yan???

It was almost too shocking to process — like discovering that some celebrity hairstylist named Tony had, back home for New Year’s, turned out to actually be some village boy named Liu Dazhuang…

Even more shocking — the rumored romance between Xu Jun and Bai Xingmeng hadn’t been idle gossip at all! Not only had the two dated, they’d actually gotten married — and then divorced!

Cheng Yao had never imagined that she’d owe her front-row seat to celebrity gossip to Qian Heng of all people — that she’d get to see the real, living Bai Xingmeng up close like this…