Thanks to Lu Xun and Qian Wei’s efforts, the website’s operations were steadily improving. The two of them used some of the alumni investment money to buy search keywords, and combined with the on-the-ground promotion from the law schools, the site gradually began attracting organic traffic. After the initial scramble to get things in order, Qian Wei gradually got a handle on things, collecting user feedback promptly and adjusting accordingly. She wore several hats at once—she was the “boss,” but also customer service. After users downloaded templates, depending on each client’s needs, Qian Wei was also responsible for advising on how to modify them, including handling simple legal consultations. Even though it was exhausting, every time she saw someone enjoy the convenience of legal help at a price they could actually afford, she felt deeply satisfied inside. Perhaps that was the true meaning of law—not to build a system where only a privileged few could enjoy their rights, but to realize the equality of rights that already existed, to protect, as much as possible, the rights of the vulnerable—including their right to access the law.
“Qian Wei! Let’s go, let’s go, drama club is doing role selection today!” Liu Shiyun said, grabbing Qian Wei’s hand as she spoke. “We’ll be late if we don’t hurry!”
Lu Xun and Qian Chuan were also waiting downstairs at the girls’ dormitory, and after the group—Qian Wei, Liu Shiyun, and Li Linlin—gathered together, they all headed to the activity room the drama club had borrowed.
What surprised Qian Wei somewhat was just how many people had turned out for the drama club—though naturally, most of the people with this kind of artistic interest were girls; there were always fewer boys to begin with, so when Lu Xun and Qian Chuan stood there, they once again stood out like cranes among chickens.
The club’s organizer went over some rules and things to note, then got straight to the point. “The plays we perform in our club are all adapted from novels written by members of our literature club. Today we’re casting for She’s in Your Dreams. I’ll hand out a copy of the story outline and brief character introductions to each of you, along with a short line of dialogue for each role. You’ll have fifteen minutes to prepare, and once time’s up, we’ll do interviews in order of the characters. Just pick the role you want to audition for and perform the line on the spot.”
Qian Wei glanced over the outline. The story was a melodramatic romance, a tangled love polygon—an innocent female lead and the male second lead were childhood sweethearts who’d sworn eternal devotion to each other, only to have a vicious second female lead appear out of nowhere and frame the heroine, landing her in prison. The vicious second female lead deceived the male second lead and took the heroine’s place, successfully getting engaged to him. But after the heroine got out of prison, she turned dark and began plotting her revenge step by step, latching onto the male lead—a powerful figure—and from then on, cheat codes activated: the scheming second female lead ended up losing both love and money, while the male second lead, who’d foolishly trusted her and abandoned the heroine, finally came to his senses, wracked with guilt and regret, never able to forget the heroine again, unable to love anyone else. In the end, only the heroine and the male lead walked off together, hand in hand, as life’s ultimate winners.
Lu Xun glanced at the outline and character summaries, and said concisely, “I’ll audition for the male second lead. You audition for the female second lead.”
“Huh?” Qian Wei was rather surprised. “The male and female second leads aren’t exactly portrayed favorably…”
But Lu Xun was quite firm. “We only came along to keep Li Linlin company. Playing the male and female leads would be stealing the spotlight. And besides, we’ve got the business to run—we can’t spend too much time rehearsing.”
“Then there are other, more minor roles—why not play those? There are plenty of background characters, with even fewer lines…”
“Those don’t show off acting skill.”
“…”
Regardless, in the end Lu Xun and Qian Wei auditioned for the male and female second-lead roles. Li Linlin auditioned for the heroine role, but because of concerns about her appearance, she wasn’t selected.
Li Linlin was naturally dejected. “I told you—being this fat, there’s no way I’d get any decent role.”
Lu Xun, however, wasn’t the least bit worried. He glanced at the drama club organizer and pointed at Li Linlin. “We only came to keep our friend company. If she can’t perform, then we’re not participating either.”
The drama club organizer had been hoping to really go all out this time, rehearse the play properly, and take it to the school’s year-end New Year gala. Now that he’d finally landed a group of good-looking auditioners like Lu Xun and company, there was no way he’d let them go—especially someone like Lu Xun, a campus idol who came with his own built-in buzz and following, essentially saving him a fortune in promotional costs.
He gritted his teeth. “Fine!”
And so, after everyone made some concessions, it was decided: Qian Chuan and Liu Shiyun would play the male and female leads, Lu Xun and Qian Wei would play the male and female second leads, and Li Linlin would play the heroine’s best friend—also a supporting role with a fair number of scenes. This character had complicated feelings toward the heroine, a mix of friendship and jealousy; when the second female lead framed the heroine, she’d sensed something was wrong but hadn’t warned her, yet once the heroine had truly ended up trapped in prison, she was the only one who kept visiting her. It was a very three-dimensional, complex character with a lot of room to perform, and Li Linlin, seeing this, was eager to give it a try.
Once the roles were settled, the club organizer handed out each person’s relevant script excerpts. “You can go study these first. The activity room’s open for rehearsal anytime.”
Qian Chuan was thrilled when he got his script. “Ahahahaha, I’m the big villain of the whole play!” He looked over at Lu Xun with a gleam in his eye. “Xun-ge, according to this script, later on you’re going to come beg me for something, ahahaha, I’m almost embarrassed by this plot, ahaha. With looks like yours, it just feels wrong for you to have to beg anyone. I really do feel bad that you have to play out this storyline—later I’m going to mock and berate you all kinds of ways, and when we get to that part, don’t blame me, okay? I’m the type who really gets into character, so once I start berating someone, I’ll go all the way through with it. But hey, I’m sacrificing myself for the sake of art—deep down, I really don’t want to treat you that way!”
But even as he claimed reluctance, Qian Chuan’s tone and expression completely gave away his true feelings—pure, gleeful satisfaction. Probably because in real life, all he ever got from Lu Xun was the short end of the stick, so being able to even the score in the play left him practically giddy with triumph.
Liu Shiyun flipped through her script and, for once, looked a little embarrassed. “This… why does the male and female lead have a kissing scene? And there’s several of them? And the lines… are a bit suggestive too…” She asked, “Can we cut them or change them?”
The drama club organizer shook his head. “No way. Those scenes where the leads pour their hearts out to each other are the very essence of their relationship progressing to something physical—there’s absolutely no cutting them.” He looked back and forth between Qian Chuan and Liu Shiyun a few times. “And aren’t you two already a couple? I’ve seen you two making eyes at each other in front of me several times already. It’s not like it’s a big deal to kiss in front of everyone—why so shy?”
Liu Shiyun stubbornly denied it. “Don’t talk nonsense! When have I ever made eyes at him? People these days need to be responsible for what they say!”
She said this with quite a bit of bluster, but the drama club organizer was clearly the blunt, straightforward type himself. Faced with formidable opposition, instead of backing down, he pressed on undaunted. “I never lie. Just in the few minutes I’ve been talking to you, he’s already snuck several glances your way. And at first he absolutely refused to play the male lead, but the moment I convinced you to play the female lead, he suddenly agreed without much resistance at all. Explain that! You think the masses are blind or something? Huh?!”
Qian Wei and Lu Xun, as members of said masses, both gave Liu Shiyun and Qian Chuan a meaningful look.
Liu Shiyun blushed a little under the scrutiny, but still tried her best to change the subject. “Never mind me for now—worst case for my kiss scene, we can just fake the angle. Qian Wei and Lu Xun, your scenes have an actual proposal in them! A real one!”
“Huh?” Qian Wei had only skimmed the script earlier without reading closely. Now, prompted by Liu Shiyun, she looked more carefully—and sure enough, there really was a proposal. After the male second lead abandoned the heroine, he ended up with the vicious second female lead and proposed to her with great emotion. This proposal scene was actually a major set piece, meant to contrast the second leads’ loving devotion with the tragedy of the heroine languishing in prison.
Qian Wei carefully read through a few pages of dialogue, then glanced at Lu Xun, a little embarrassed. “I didn’t really look closely before… this proposal dialogue is kind of overly emotional. If you don’t want to do it, we could switch to different roles…”
Lu Xun thought it over for a moment before answering. “No need to switch. We came here for Li Linlin’s sake, after all—if it calls for a bit of sacrifice, that’s only right.” As he said this, his expression stayed calm and composed, but there was a certain air of noble self-sacrifice for the greater good about it.
Qian Wei was quite surprised—she hadn’t expected Lu Xun to have such a caring side when it came to classmates… truly moving!
The group carried on cheerfully and in the end everyone accepted their assigned roles, deciding to go read through the entire script first before coming back to rehearse. Of everyone, no one was happier about the outcome than Li Linlin. Her face was flushed red, and she clutched her script as though it were a million-dollar check, practically trembling with excitement. It was clear that, aside from the personality issues caused by her family situation, deep down she genuinely had an interest in acting. In the past, because of her weight and her odd behavior, people had more or less kept their distance from her. This was the first time she’d truly felt part of a group—no one paying her excessive attention, but no one ignoring her either. For the first time, she experienced this kind of ordinary happiness, and her heart was full of emotion.
Much to Qian Wei’s surprise, the online legal consultation platform was developing even faster than she’d imagined. In just a few short days, through Lu Xun’s multi-pronged promotional efforts, the platform’s registered users were shooting up dramatically every single day. And because Qian Wei’s follow-up service was so professional and attentive, the first batch of “crab-tasters”—those first willing to try something new—went from initial hesitation to thinking, “well, it’s free, might as well try it,” and ultimately managed to get legal consultation services at the lowest possible cost, solving their real-world problems. This first batch of clients then became a living advertisement for Qian Wei’s website. People who’d already tried the site and benefited naturally told their friends and relatives about the platform, and combined with the joint promotion during several law schools’ legal education events, more and more people became willing to use the online legal consultation platform.
The business plan progressed even faster than Qian Wei had anticipated. Before she and Lu Xun had even actively gone out looking for law firm partners, one firm had already reached out and extended an olive branch.
Lu Xun arranged a meeting time with one of their partners, and went along with Qian Wei to meet them.
Since this was a strategic partnership discussion, both Qian Wei and Lu Xun dressed formally. Sitting beside Lu Xun, Qian Wei couldn’t help but steal extra glances at him. She’d already seen what twenty-eight-year-old Lu Xun looked like in formal wear, all cool restraint—but this was the first time she’d seen his nineteen-year-old self dressed the same way. As a young man, tall with long legs, the crisp formal suit stripped away some of his youthful rawness, and yet that youthful, vibrant, energetic quality still seeped through unmistakably.
He really was handsome.
“Ready?”
Before pushing open the door to the law firm, Lu Xun squeezed Qian Wei’s hand. Although he’d been the one encouraging her the whole time, Qian Wei could sense that even Lu Xun was, to some degree, a little nervous right now. But he was always so good at controlling his emotions—what he showed on the outside was always that vibrant confidence and unwavering steadiness that made people want to trust him.
The law firm they were visiting this time was a small practice that mainly handled litigation cases. The partner who received them was also quite young.
“My surname is Cheng. You can just call me Attorney Cheng.”
People who practiced law tended to like saving time and disliked beating around the bush. Attorney Cheng quickly got straight to business. He was very interested in establishing a strategic partnership with the online legal consultation website, and after listening to Qian Wei and Lu Xun’s plans for the platform and its current operating status, he went right into discussing the details of cooperation with Lu Xun.
Both being people who got things done, Lu Xun and Attorney Cheng hit it off very well in their discussion, and after some back and forth, they settled on an initial cooperation plan.
Toward the end of the conversation, Attorney Cheng learned that both Qian Wei and Lu Xun were only sophomores at A University’s law school, and was quite astonished. “I really didn’t expect the two of you to be so young—still college students, and already this sharp.”
Qian Wei also asked a question that had been on her mind for a while. “Even though our website has good momentum as a fledgling platform, it’s not yet at the point of high usage or wide coverage. I’m actually quite curious—how did you come to discover our platform, Attorney Cheng?”
“Ah, well, actually it wasn’t me who discovered it—it was another law firm downstairs from us.”
“Huh?” Qian Wei thought about it and had a vague recollection. “I did see a directory board in the lobby downstairs mentioning another law firm in this building. Something like… ‘Ruiyi Law Firm’?”
“Yes, that’s the one, Ruiyi.”
“Well, since they’ve noticed us too, maybe we should pay them a visit as well, and pitch our platform to them proactively—see if we might be able to work together?”
Attorney Cheng, however, shook his head, clearly reluctant to say more. “That firm is definitely not the kind of partner you’d want. Not only would cooperation be impossible—they’re actually your competitors.”
Lu Xun was a bit surprised too. “How do you mean?”
“You two haven’t worked yet, so you might not know this, but at law firms—especially small ones like mine—not every small firm is actually committed to providing good legal service. Some small firms are basically just a bunch of pettifogging lawyers who banded together to start a business. Some of the lawyers there aren’t genuinely dedicated to providing diligent legal service either—they’re more like opportunists. Especially in litigation work, they’ll milk both the plaintiff and the defendant. They’re not focused on actually solving clients’ problems—they’re focused on exploiting clients’ lack of legal knowledge, tricking them step by step into paying for legal services they don’t actually need.” Attorney Cheng took a sip of tea. “Let me give you an example. Ruiyi took on a loan dispute case a while back. Early in the year, the lender had given the borrower one hundred thousand yuan, but because it was handed over directly in cash with no transfer record, and because the two of them were on good terms, they hadn’t signed any IOU either, and there was no recorded conversation or anything else to serve as evidence. Now the lender wants his money back from the borrower, so he went to Ruiyi. Guess what legal advice Ruiyi gave him?”
“If there’s no evidence at all to prove the loan existed, then the plaintiff in a case like that wouldn’t be able to meet the burden of proof, and would bear the unfavorable consequences of failing to do so—meaning that if he sued, the court basically couldn’t support the plaintiff’s demand that the other party repay him. So the best approach would be for the plaintiff to first negotiate with the defendant, without tipping him off, and try to get him to sign a written loan agreement—only then would filing a lawsuit make more sense.”
Attorney Cheng nodded approvingly at Qian Wei’s answer. “Right—that’s something even a law school undergraduate would know. But Ruiyi told this lender to just go ahead and hire one of their lawyers to sue and recover the money directly.”
Lu Xun paused, then immediately understood. “Ruiyi’s lawyer must have known perfectly well that a lawsuit like that had no chance of success, but pushed the lender to sue anyway—probably to collect the attorney’s litigation fee? Once a suit is filed, they can charge based on the claimed amount of one hundred thousand, which earns far more than simply giving the person a legal opinion.”
“Yes, exactly that.” Attorney Cheng nodded. “This lender did indeed get an unfavorable ruling after filing suit, and only then did he realize what had happened. He came to me afterward through a friend’s introduction. And this isn’t an isolated case—that’s just how Ruiyi operates. They don’t care about their clients’ interests at all; all they want is to squeeze out the maximum possible fees, grabbing whatever they can get away with. They’re less like lawyers and more like profiteering businessmen chasing quick gains.” As he said this, Attorney Cheng’s tone grew quite indignant. “A lot of people in society these days have a poor impression of lawyers precisely because firms like Ruiyi have tarnished our reputation.”
“A firm like that doesn’t spend its time trying to improve its own professional competence—instead, they do everything they can to exploit lower-income clients’ lack of legal knowledge and fleece them mercilessly. But your platform lets a lot of their potential clients get free or low-cost professional consultations directly online. Take that lender from the earlier case, for instance—if he’d discovered your platform sooner and asked there first about how to handle his situation, he never would have been tricked into filing a pointless lawsuit.”
Lu Xun understood what Attorney Cheng was getting at. “So, by operating this platform, we’re eliminating the ground these predatory, deceptive legal services stand on. The more influence our platform gains, the more people use it, the smaller the space these firms have left to make their dirty money. So not only could they never become our partners—they’d actually see us as a thorn in their side. Is that it?”
“You young people catch on fast.” Attorney Cheng was clearly quite impressed with Lu Xun. “That’s exactly it. The reason I know about your platform is that one day, in the elevator, I overheard a few unscrupulous lawyers from Ruiyi cursing you out—saying that because of your platform, they’ve already lost several cases they had all but locked down. They were absolutely furious.”
The three of them chatted about a few other things, and then Attorney Cheng checked the time. “I’ve got a client coming in half an hour. Anyway, you two have my card—feel free to email me about anything related to our partnership. Truly, heroes rise young these days. Pity my little practice is too small, otherwise I’d definitely want to poach the two of you into my firm.”