Even though Qi Xi had stayed remarkably calm and even ruthless throughout the negotiation with Qi Ruiming, enough to leave him with the impression of a vicious daughter, once she finally forced herself to walk out of the café and stepped onto the sunlit street outside, Qi Xi felt her entire body collapse under the weight of exhaustion.
The pain from her father’s affair, the resentment built up from his preference for sons, the anguish of watching him betray his family—none of that faded just because Qi Xi had successfully confronted Qi Ruiming. The emotional aftermath was always bound to catch up eventually. And now that she’d completed the task that had absorbed all her focus and energy—gathering evidence, negotiating with Qi Ruiming—there was nothing left within Qi Xi’s control to keep doing. All the turbulent emotions she’d been holding back came crashing over her at once, like a tsunami following an earthquake, sweeping her under without giving her even a second to catch her breath.
Hurt, anger, resentment, unresolved grievance, guilt—it all wrapped around her like a net, leaving Qi Xi with nowhere to run.
Gu Yan drove, but instead of taking Qi Xi back to the firm or dropping her off at home, he drove her to the lake instead.
“Qi Xi, whatever’s hurting you, whatever’s upsetting you—leave it all for today. Today I’m here with you. You can let it all out.”
Before her lay Rong City’s largest lake, stretching so far into the distance she couldn’t see the far shore, with only the city’s iconic Ferris wheel visible far across the water, silhouetted against the horizon. The night views here were beautiful, always drawing crowds of people out for evening walks—but right now, there was hardly anyone around.
There was no wind today. The vast surface of the lake lay so still it looked almost frozen, sunlight scattered across the surface, catching in the tiny ripples like shattered fragments of mirror, reflecting light that seemed to stretch endlessly into the distance, without any visible end.
In that moment, Qi Xi suddenly understood why so many people, after suffering some deep hurt, felt the need to travel, to seek healing in nature and scenery. Nature always offered the broadest, most forgiving landscapes—like this lake, covered in fine ripples, each one like a small setback in the course of a life, and yet, viewed as a whole, the lake remained calm and gentle, its vastness able to hold everything within it.
“Qi Xi, I know this is hard. I’m not the one going through it, so I could never truly feel exactly what you and your mother are feeling. But everyone in life faces hardships—sometimes ones that feel like the sky is falling. But when you’re old, looking back, you’ll find that in the grand scope of your whole life, these things really might not matter that much at all, in the end.”
Gazing at the gentle, calm surface of the lake, listening to Gu Yan’s warm voice beside her, Qi Xi understood, in that instant, exactly why he’d brought her here.
Throughout this whole ordeal, she’d lost a great deal—severed ties with family, watched her family break apart—but it hadn’t been entirely loss either.
Her mother, facing this crisis, had turned out to be far stronger than Qi Xi had ever imagined. Investigating together, mother and daughter had grown closer, come to understand each other more deeply than ever before—not just through this act of raising each other up, but Qi Xi had also come to see, through her mother’s education and character, qualities she genuinely admired and respected.
And then there was Gu Yan’s steadfast support as her boyfriend. At the moment Qi Xi had needed help most, he’d never once let go, staying by her side through it all, helping her get through the initial wave of pain. And when Qi Xi had wanted to face her father alone, Gu Yan had chosen a quieter, more restrained kind of protection instead—not standing directly beside her, but staying quietly nearby in the café, ready to step in and help the moment things turned dangerous.
Like the invisible hands steadying a child learning to ride a bike—when Qi Xi had known nothing about how to handle herself in this, Gu Yan had bent down beside her, diligently helping balance the weight of it all, and once she’d finally started to wobble her way forward on her own, he’d given her enough freedom to learn on her own, while never once letting his hands leave the sides of her bike.
Like a gentle spring rain, quietly nourishing everything it touched, asking for nothing in return, never drawing attention to itself.
And alongside all this, Qi Xi had also gained the professional support of Gu Xuehan as her boss—a lighthouse guiding her through the darkness, someone she could both respect and befriend. Gu Xuehan hadn’t just guided her through the professional mechanics of the situation, but had, without Qi Xi even realizing it, shared so much wisdom and insight about life itself, leaving Qi Xi instinctively wanting to catch up to her, to become the kind of bold, capable, formidable woman Gu Xuehan was—to grow strong enough herself to pay forward the kindness Gu Xuehan had shown her, to protect other women who might be more vulnerable.
Weighing all of this against her losses, gazing out over the lake, Qi Xi suddenly felt a kind of release.
Sadness and pain were inevitable. And yet—this was the worst of times, but it was also, in its own way, the best of times.
Qi Xi finally let herself go. She wrapped her arms around Gu Yan, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed uncontrollably by the empty lakeside.
She had needed this cry so badly.
But deep down, Qi Xi understood—once the crying was done, there would be tomorrow. There would be the future.
**
Gu Yan remained endlessly patient throughout. He didn’t mind in the least that Qi Xi’s face was a mess of tears and sobs; he simply held her tightly, gently patting her back over and over, never rushing her, offering no hollow words of comfort—just genuine, unwavering presence.
Once Qi Xi had finally cried herself out, he pulled out a handkerchief that seemed to have been prepared in advance, gently wiped her face, and took her hand.
“Oh, by the way—there are two people who’d like to see you.”
Qi Xi’s eyes were still red from crying, and she felt a little embarrassed. She took the handkerchief from him and wiped her own face again. “Who?”
“Wu Jianqiang and Wu Kangqiang.”
Qi Xi blinked, and after a long moment, finally remembered. “What do they want to see me for? Didn’t they already settle things with that awful factory last time? Did something else go wrong?”
Gu Yan kept her in suspense. “You’ll see when you meet them.”
There was no time like the present. Once the traces of crying had faded from Qi Xi’s face, Gu Yan made a call to the two brothers, seemingly arranging a location, and then drove Qi Xi straight there.
It wasn’t until they arrived at a small beverage stand by the riverside and saw Wu Jianqiang and Wu Kangqiang waiting there that Qi Xi finally understood the purpose behind the brothers’ visit.
Wu Kangqiang spoke first. His once-green hair had long since been dyed back to a normal black, and he looked much more well-mannered now, though the acne on his face had, if anything, gotten worse. His tone was a little bashful. “I already contacted Attorney Gu before and thanked him, but I really wanted to see you in person too, and properly say thank you!”
Wu Kangqiang was still young, but as he spoke, his eyes already welled up slightly with emotion. “Thank you for not looking down on us. Especially you, Attorney Qi—thank you for not asking for compensation after my brother attacked you, and for actually going out of your way to help us instead, helping my brother finally get the justice he deserved!”
While Wu Kangqiang said all this, Wu Jianqiang stayed silent the whole time, though his eyes reddened slightly too. He was wearing loose, simple, inexpensive clothes, but they were clearly well cared for. Though life clearly wasn’t easy for them, he looked noticeably more energized now—no longer as manic as before, but no longer withdrawn and listless either.
Wu Kangqiang glanced at his brother and said gratefully to Qi Xi, “Ever since he got the compensation he was owed, my brother’s finally been able to let go of all that resentment he’d been carrying. All those years, he just felt bitter, felt like there was no justice in this world, no fairness at all—he hated himself so much, blamed himself for everything that happened to our family.”
“At first, honestly, my brother didn’t even believe we’d actually get the compensation. He kept telling me lawyers were all scammers, and honestly, I got a bit swept up in his cynicism too at first. But thank you—thank you both for not only refusing to charge us a single yuan, but also for not looking down on us for being uneducated, for having misjudged you at first. You helped us win this fight, completely free of charge!”
Wu Kangqiang couldn’t help wiping away a tear as he continued. “You wouldn’t believe what my brother was like when he got the money. He genuinely couldn’t believe it. He cried harder that day than I did—he really felt, for the first time, like society hadn’t given up on us, that we hadn’t been abandoned after all, that there was still justice out there, still good people in the world.”
Perhaps a little embarrassed at having his tears exposed like this, Wu Jianqiang gave his younger brother a nudge with his elbow, muttering, “Don’t go telling them all this. They don’t need to hear it.”
But watching his brother react this way, Wu Kangqiang couldn’t help but laugh through his tears. “You can see for yourselves, my brother’s doing so much better now. Getting that compensation lifted a huge weight off his mind. Now that we have money, I can finally take him to get proper treatment for his bipolar disorder, instead of stopping and starting his medication whenever we couldn’t afford it. The doctor we found this time is really good too, and after a proper course of treatment, my brother’s mood has become so much more stable—his symptoms are basically under control now! Just the other day, he even told me that even though he’s got a bit of a disability, he’s still got plenty of strength left in him, that he can’t just sit around at home doing nothing, and he’s planning to go find a job!”
Seeing his brother go on and on like this, Wu Jianqiang started clearing his throat pointedly again. “Why are you telling them all this for? These lawyers are busy people—haven’t you heard they charge by the hour? Stop wasting their time with all this rambling—what, are you giving a full status report or something? You just keep going and going!”
“Brother! Isn’t this exactly what we rehearsed beforehand? Weren’t you the one who insisted I write up a draft first and show it to you? You even edited it yourself and told me to say all this! Now you’re blaming me for it?”
Faced with his brother throwing him under the bus like that, Wu Jianqiang’s face flushed red. He made as if to swat at his brother, exasperated. “You little troublemaker, why do you have to blurt out everything like that! Where’s your discretion!”
…
Watching the two brothers bicker so lively, Qi Xi suddenly felt a long-forgotten sense of ease settle over her.
She glanced at Gu Yan, deeply grateful that he’d arranged this meeting with the two brothers for her right now.
After Wu Kangqiang and Wu Jianqiang bickered back and forth a bit more, they seemed to exchange some kind of silent signal, and Wu Jianqiang, a little awkwardly, retrieved something he’d set down by his feet earlier.
“Attorney Qi, Attorney Gu—you have to take this!”
Caught off guard, Qi Xi naturally waved her hands, declining. “We took on this case, so everything we did was simply our job. There’s no need for you to give us anything.”
“We know, Attorney Gu already told us you’d refuse gifts. But this really didn’t cost much at all, it’s not really even a proper gift—just open it and take a look before you decide whether to accept it or not!”
Qi Xi thought it over and decided not to refuse outright this time. She and Gu Yan unwrapped the long, wrapped object together.
Once unfolded, they found themselves looking at a silk banner, embroidered with the words…
“Fairness and justice walk the earth, Attorneys Qi and Gu banish evil and vice”
Qi Xi couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Which one of you came up with this?”
Wu Kangqiang scratched his head, looking a bit sheepish. “Is it not good? I thought about it for ages to come up with something that rhymed like that. I actually thought I did pretty well—I’ve decided I want to study law myself someday, be a big lawyer like you two.”
Though it was a fairly ordinary silk banner, and the phrase on it was the kind of thing that made you want to shake your head and laugh, Qi Xi still felt a wave of genuine emotion welling up inside her—a sense of professional purpose and responsibility.
Even though she’d originally studied law, originally strived so hard for first place, only to prove herself to Qi Ruiming, only out of sheer stubbornness—effort and learning were never wasted, regardless of the reason behind them. Qi Xi might have taken a roundabout path to get here, but looking at Wu Jianqiang and Wu Kangqiang standing in front of her now, she felt that even if her original motivations hadn’t been entirely pure, she’d still, through some kind of instinct, found her way onto the right path in the end.
The law had let her protect herself when facing her father’s affair and his illegitimate son. And the law had let her reach out and help others when she encountered members of society’s most vulnerable groups struggling against injustice.
“Fairness and justice walk the earth, Attorneys Qi and Gu banish evil and vice.”
A little unpolished, sure.
But not wrong, either.
Being an intern lawyer was only the beginning of a much longer career—more cases, more challenges lay ahead. Alongside realizing her own professional value, earning a living to support herself, she could genuinely help so many, many people along the way too.
Even though, in her negotiation with Qi Ruiming, Qi Xi had already proven herself, proven that a woman could handle a negotiation just as capably as any man—right now, in this moment, Qi Xi no longer felt any need to keep proving anything at all. If she kept insisting on proving women were stronger than men, wasn’t that, in its own way, just another form of falling victim to the same bias that favored sons over daughters?
As long as she lived her own life well, stayed true to her profession, and treated the people around her with sincerity and care, that alone was enough to be excellent—without needing anyone else’s validation at all.