Even though Qian Wei and Lu Xun were still only college students, Attorney Cheng clearly treated this partnership with great seriousness and sincerity—he insisted on walking them down to the lobby.

But the moment they got downstairs, Qian Wei was startled by a huge banner hanging outside the office building’s entrance.

Holding up the banner were several middle-aged people, around forty years old, their faces full of helplessness and outrage.

“Ruiyi Law Firm’s fraud lawyer Wang Yue has no professional ethics—he swindled us out of our money!”

The banner read in bold, glaring characters. Because hanging a banner outside an office building’s entrance would reflect badly on all the other companies in the building, the building’s security guards were negotiating with the group of middle-aged protesters. But before long, the anger these people had finally managed to calm down flared up again, even hotter than before.

They erupted in fury at a man in a sharp suit walking by. “Wang Yue! Give us back our money! You told us back then that we’d definitely win the case, gave us all kinds of guarantees, and look what happened! We lost completely! Pay us back our attorney’s fees!”

Qian Wei followed the sound and looked at the man in the suit. He was quite young, perhaps in his early thirties, with a slicked-back pompadour and glasses, giving off a slick, calculating air. He’d just happened to be walking through the entrance and was now heading straight for the elevator without looking sideways, clearly trying his best to ignore the protest banner.

One of the protesting middle-aged men finally broke through the security guards’ blockade and rushed toward Wang Yue. He grabbed onto Wang Yue’s hand with all his strength, his voice already tinged with pleading. “Give me back my money! That was money I was saving for my daughter’s college tuition! Didn’t you tell me we’d win? I don’t even care about winning or losing anymore—just give me back the attorney’s fees.”

Wang Yue, however, shook the man’s hand off roughly. “When did I ever guarantee you’d win?”

“Didn’t you say exactly that the first time we met? You even said if we didn’t win, you wouldn’t charge me any fee! Well, now we’ve lost, so give me back the ten thousand yuan in fees I paid you! My family really can’t afford to lose that money.”

“No lawyer can ever guarantee whether a case will win or lose—how could I possibly make a promise like that? Whether a lawsuit succeeds depends entirely on how the judge determines the facts and applies the law. I told you all this from the very beginning. Now you’re accusing me out of thin air of promising you’d definitely win—where’s your evidence? Do you have a recording?”

The middle-aged man was so furious his whole body was shaking. “How would I have thought to record it? But you clearly said that…”

Wang Yue shrugged. “You can eat carelessly, but you can’t talk carelessly. You’ve got no proof for any of this, so you can accuse me of whatever you like—this business about ‘refunding fees if we lose,’ I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’ve got our attorney retainer agreement in black and white, in duplicate, and it clearly states that every lawsuit carries a risk of losing, but I provided professional legal services, and that’s what gets charged—the fee isn’t refundable, written out in plain terms. You’ve got a copy too. Go home and read it carefully.”

That middle-aged man was just an ordinary person with no legal background, with no idea that a verbal promise, without any written record or recording to back it up, was essentially impossible to prove. And in daily life, many ordinary people overlook the binding power of a contract, signing away without reading it closely at all.

The final outcome, of course, was that there was nothing they could do. Under renewed blocking by several security guards, Wang Yue smoothed his hair back with considerable flair and prepared to step into the elevator. Before going in, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Attorney Cheng standing by the entrance. The two men were clearly not on good terms; he glanced at Attorney Cheng, sparing a bit of his attention for Qian Wei and Lu Xun as well, then walked off with a rather provocative smile.

Attorney Cheng’s face showed a look of disgust, but there was nothing to be done about it, and he could only sigh helplessly. He gave Qian Wei and Lu Xun a few more words of advice before politely taking his leave.

The middle-aged people who’d had nowhere to turn for justice had already been escorted out of the building by security. Standing outside now, they still held up their banner, but their faces were full of bewilderment—the money was gone, and there was no getting it back, no matter what.

On the way back to school, Qian Wei was still righteously indignant. “This is exactly the kind of thing that’s scariest—a rogue with an education. Is that even a lawyer? That’s pure thuggery! Where did all his legal training even go? Does he understand nothing about fairness and justice as legal principles? And the sheer nerve of him! An absolute disgrace to the legal profession!” Qian Wei tugged at Lu Xun’s sleeve, her heart burning with passion. “Lu Xun, we absolutely have to make this platform succeed! We have to spread it far and wide, so more people can enjoy this kind of public-interest online legal service, so they don’t have to fall for tricks by people like Wang Yue. I believe the better our platform does, the less room there’ll be for these low-end predatory firms to survive—charging high fees, terrible at their jobs, cheating clients—sooner or later, they’ll all go under!”

Because of this incident, Qian Wei threw herself even more wholeheartedly into her business plan, practically wanting to devote every hour of the day to the platform—until Liu Shiyun reminded her of something else.

“Qian Wei, how’s the rehearsal for your and Lu Xun’s scene coming along? In a couple of days, why don’t we all get together and run through the whole thing from start to finish?”

Since everyone was quite busy in daily life, it wasn’t practical to always call the entire cast together to rehearse, so in the end they’d split into small groups by scene—two or three people at a time rehearsing the parts involving their own scene partners, and later, everyone would gather at a set time to rehearse the scenes involving the whole cast, and then run through the entire play from beginning to end.

This time, Liu Shiyun was quite dedicated to the drama club activities. While Qian Wei and Lu Xun spent their time on the business, Liu Shiyun diligently went out to rehearse every day. Although a good number of her scenes were with Li Linlin, more often than not, it was her scenes with Qian Chuan. And every time, no matter how hard Liu Shiyun tried to hide it, Qian Wei could always sense a certain air of budding romance in the atmosphere.

“Anyway, I’m off to run lines with Qian Chuan first. You and Lu Xun should get moving too—even as supporting roles, you’ve still got a few key scenes.”

Qian Wei looked over Liu Shiyun, who was dressed in loose, comfortable athletic wear, and asked curiously, “Why aren’t you wearing that white knit dress you always call your ‘straight-man slayer’? Isn’t that your favorite outfit to wear out? Seems like it’s been a while since I’ve seen you in it—and those high heels of yours have been gathering dust for a while too. And you haven’t worn makeup in a while either.”

Liu Shiyun tossed her hair back. “Not wearing that anymore. Not ever, actually. Honestly, I never really liked dresses and heels in the first place. It’s the dead of winter—sure, dresses look nice, but your legs freeze! I’m worried I’ll end up with bad knees when I’m old. And don’t even get me started on heels—every time I put them on, it’s like walking on stilts, my whole gait gets unnatural, I can’t even run, it’s just uncomfortable all over.” Liu Shiyun stood with her hands on her hips; even in athletic wear, completely bare-faced, Qian Wei somehow felt she’d never looked more radiant. “I’m done serving other people. From now on, I’ll do whatever’s comfortable for me. I am who I am, a unique kind of firework!”

“Didn’t you used to say that not wearing dresses, not doing makeup, not wearing heels—that living too rough like that, no normal man would ever like it?”

“I, Liu Shiyun, am rich enough that I don’t need men to like me!” Liu Shiyun burst out laughing. “I could wake up every day just smiling at my bank balance. I’ve figured it out—I’m this wealthy, people should be calling me ‘daddy.’ Why should I still be worrying about how to please and flatter others? To hell with all that. If people don’t like me, they can just deal with it. If no man likes me, I’ll just like myself. Besides, daddy’s got money—rich people like us are never going to end up alone in old age. Worst case scenario, I’ll keep a hot young boy toy when I’m old. Living the good life!” She paused, then added, “And who knows, maybe someone out there’s exactly into this type? I’m not an ordinary person—I’m special. So it has to be a special man who’s worthy of me. If a normal man doesn’t see my worth, well, I don’t think much of them either. I don’t want to fake it anymore. Real love shouldn’t require pretending—it should mean being brave enough to just be yourself.”

With that, Liu Shiyun let out three hearty laughs and pushed the door open to leave. Qian Wei couldn’t help but laugh too.

It was good to see it—Liu Shiyun had gone back to being her endlessly confident self. Maybe she hadn’t even realized it, but like this, she was practically a little sun that never stopped shining—warm, passionate, genuine, full of magnetism, drawing people in without even trying, making them want to get closer to her.

Qian Wei didn’t point it out, but she was clearly aware of the way Qian Chuan’s gaze kept drifting toward Liu Shiyun. Even though the two of them still bickered constantly, there was naturally a certain atmosphere woven through their squabbling that left no room for anyone else to interject. Something interesting was clearly brewing between the two of them.

But Liu Shiyun’s little speech had indeed reminded Qian Wei of something. She grabbed Lu Xun, intending to head over to the drama club’s activity room together to rehearse their own scene.

But when the two of them pushed open the door to the activity room, they found no one inside at all. Qian Wei looked puzzled. “Liu Shiyun only just left—she said she was coming here to rehearse with Qian Chuan. So where is everyone?” She pulled out her phone. “Let me text and ask where they are.”

Lu Xun, however, took the phone right out of her hand. “Liu Shiyun and Qian Chuan are obviously together somewhere—just not rehearsing.”

Qian Wei blinked, then finally caught on.

“Besides, I don’t particularly want them here either.” Lu Xun stepped into the room and casually locked the door behind him. “This way, it’s just the two of us.”

“Huh? Why lock the door?”

Lu Xun said, entirely serious, “There are quite a few embarrassing lines in the scenes we’re rehearsing today. If someone happened to burst in right while we’re running lines and saw it, that would really ruin my image. As long as the door’s unlocked, I’ll be worried someone might walk in, and I won’t be able to get into character, and I won’t be able to give my best performance.”

“…Fine.”

“Alright, let’s get started then.”

Qian Wei flipped through the script. “We’ve got over a dozen scenes together in total. We don’t have much time this afternoon, so how about we pick out the most important ones first?”

“Mm.” Lu Xun nodded and unfolded his own copy of the script, already marked up with a highlighter. “I’ve already picked them out. These few are the more substantial scenes—let’s start with these.”

Qian Wei took it and looked it over. “Huh? Why are all these lines so mushy? What’s this—’I want to kiss you a hundred times,’ ‘won’t you give me a kiss’…”

In the first scene Lu Xun had marked, the male second lead was still caught up in his feelings for the heroine, so as the vicious second female lead, Qian Wei would need to seduce and tease him as aggressively as possible—the lines were all rather blunt and forward. Qian Wei looked at the dialogue, blushing a little. “How am I supposed to say something like this out loud…”

“Let’s skip this one for now and move to the next scene, and we’ll come back to it once I’ve gotten more into character.” But when Qian Wei flipped to the next scene Lu Xun had marked, she was momentarily dumbfounded to find it was, once again, a flirtatious back-and-forth between the male and female second leads. She flipped again—the next one was another teasing scene as well.

“Lu Xun! Did you just mark every single embarrassing scene in the whole script with a highlighter?!”

Lu Xun’s expression stayed perfectly composed, and his tone was even more solemnly righteous. “Do you know what the biggest challenge is for an actor, aside from acting ability itself? It’s the lines. A lot of actors trip up on memorizing dialogue—some lines are just too long or too awkward to say naturally. I picked out these particular scenes precisely because the dialogue is so embarrassing and mushy, the kind of thing you’d rarely say in real life, which makes it hard to memorize—so naturally these scenes are more difficult to perform. Since our time is limited, obviously we should start with the harder scenes first. Once we’ve got the tough ones down, the easier ones will just take a quick run-through.”

“…” Qian Wei thought to herself: I really fell for that one.

Fortunately, as Qian Wei kept flipping through, she finally found a scene where the dialogue was at least a little less embarrassing.

“How about we start with this one!”

Lu Xun glanced at it, cleared his throat, and said with total seriousness, “I feel like this scene doesn’t have as much tension as the others. Can’t we switch to a different one first?”

Qian Wei was insistent. “No. This one. No negotiating.”

Lu Xun, though a bit displeased, finally pressed his lips together and accepted starting with this scene.

This scene showed the male and female second leads’ relationship deepening into the honeymoon phase of a new romance—the two of them curled up together on the male second lead’s couch, feeding each other snacks, chatting about the latest TV drama and whispering sweet nothings.

“Let’s run the lines first.” Qian Wei cleared her throat and picked up the script.

She read out the tooth-achingly sweet dialogue. “A-Heng, why do you think, in this drama, no one ever cherishes the girl who’s too strong?”

Lu Xun’s face turned a little red, but he still managed to recite the overwrought line in a perfectly composed voice. “If it were you, I’d definitely see through your pretending to be tough, and cherish you for it.”

“…”

Meeting Qian Wei’s complicated look, Lu Xun glanced at her lightly, urging her on with his eyes to keep going.

Qian Wei had no choice but to keep twisting her emotions into character. “If it were you, there’s no way I could stay strong.”

“Why not?”

“Because in front of you, I can’t help but want to depend on someone, can’t help but become soft. It’s like all my armor just falls away on its own whenever I’m with you.”

Having gotten past her initial embarrassment, and continuing to follow the script, Qian Wei found herself gradually slipping into the role.

The two of them finally settled into running the scene properly, in earnest.

…

“So how much do you like me, then?”

Lu Xun was quiet for a moment before fixing his eyes on Qian Wei’s. “A lot. So much that I need to hear you say goodnight before I can fall asleep peacefully; so much that I dream about you every single night; so much that I wake up naturally, early every morning, just so I can go see you sooner; so much that, for the first time in my life, I nearly forgot who I was, all because of another person.”

Qian Wei froze, then looked down to check the script again, to make sure. “Huh? That’s not in the script anywhere… you…”

Before she could finish, she felt the faintly cool touch of Lu Xun’s lips against her own.

“That wasn’t a line.” He kissed her again, looking a little flustered and embarrassed. “Sorry. Seeing you, I forgot we were even acting.”