Early the next morning, Shen Mingying came back to Ruan Yu’s apartment. With the attentiveness of a devoted partner, she confiscated Ruan Yu’s phone, bundled her sleepless friend into bed, and went out to the living room to call her contacts in the legal industry.

The situation had spiraled out of control. The public storm had now shifted largely away from “Xie Shiren” — the real problem was the author of that lengthy Weibo post, “Su Cheng.” This person had had a grudge against Ruan Yu for a couple of years, and it was plain to see they had seized on the incident to stir up trouble. The previous night the two of them had decided: they would pursue legal action.

Ruan Yu slept for three hours, then got up and went to the kitchen to make brunch — pasta with vegetable soup. As she was carrying the plates out, Shen Mingying looked up, bright-eyed: “I’ve made contact — it’s Zhikun Law Firm, right here in Hang Shi. The lawyer’s electronic business card has been sent to your email.”

“Good,” Ruan Yu said — then set down the plates, glanced at her phone, and the next second her expression changed entirely. “Is the world really that small?”

Or was Hang Shi just that small?

Shen Mingying asked what was wrong.

Ruan Yu held up her phone, face all scrunched together. “This person is my blind date from the other day.”

Just two days ago, Liu Mao had messaged her on WeChat to ask if the trouble from that evening had been sorted out. She hadn’t been planning to pursue anything further with him, and didn’t want to make things complicated, so she had lied and said yes.

Shen Mingying clicked her tongue for a good while, then asked, “So what do we do? The case summary has already been sent over.”

What else could they do? They had gone through several layers of personal connections just to arrange this introduction — to say they were switching lawyers now would be mortifying for everyone in between.

Besides, according to Shen Mingying’s contacts, Zhikun was the finest law firm in Hang Shi, and Liu Mao’s area of practice aligned perfectly with what they needed. She couldn’t throw away the best available option over a small lie.

Ruan Yu sniffled. “We’ll go with it. I’ll reach out to him.”

When Liu Mao picked up the call, he was clearly taken aback. But he seemed perceptive enough — he didn’t call out the lie, and moved past it with natural ease.

After a few exchanges, he said, “Miss Ruan, whenever you’re free, let’s meet in person.”

Whether or not he had other thoughts about it, this really wasn’t something that could be worked out over the phone. Ruan Yu agreed and said she was available at any time.

Liu Mao seemed to be checking his schedule. After a brief pause: “I have a court hearing today. Would tomorrow morning at ten work, at the firm?”

“That works. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”

“You can take the key defamatory records from the online platforms to a notary office and have them preserved as digital evidence — I’ll walk you through it remotely. Also, for the time being, please don’t let on to anyone that you’re planning to file suit. We don’t want to tip anyone off. Any evidence you haven’t made public yet should stay that way too. If we’re going to litigate, we can’t show our hand too early.”

He spoke about his work without a trace of hesitation, thorough and methodical, and Ruan Yu found herself reassured with each point he made. Especially that final we — it gave her a genuine sense of being in safe hands.

She said, “Understood. Thank you, Attorney Liu.”

Liu Mao said, “Of course,” then another call came in and he let her go, switching over: “Huaisong? Any issues with the documents I sent you last time?”

The following morning at eight o’clock, Ruan Yu lingered at her vanity table in a state of mild despair.

She had barely slept in days. Going without makeup felt wrong given the state of her under-eyes, but a full face of makeup felt like it might send the wrong message to Liu Mao. He was still technically her blind date — the dynamic was just a touch delicate — and today she wanted this to be purely professional.

After a few minutes of deliberation, she settled for a light base, gathered the stack of documents Liu Mao had asked her to prepare, and headed out.

She had just reached the entryway when her phone rang — it was him.

His voice carried a faint note of apology. “Miss Ruan, I’m sorry — I may have a friend joining us shortly.”

“A friend?” Ruan Yu didn’t follow at first, and assumed she was about to be stood up.

“The senior partner I mentioned the other night — the one based overseas. He happens to be in the country, and he says he’s very interested in intellectual property matters. He’d like to be involved in the case.”

Ruan Yu let out a quiet breath of relief. She’d thought it was something serious.

“That’s perfectly fine,” she said, and to put him at ease, added with a smile, “Two partners involved at once — that can only be a good thing for me.”

“Yes, well…” Liu Mao sounded hesitant.

“What is it?”

A slightly awkward laugh came from his end. “The thing is, strictly speaking, he hasn’t sat the domestic bar exam, so he isn’t licensed to practice here.”

Ah. That explained the apology. He was worried that bringing along a colleague who wasn’t officially qualified might come across as unprofessional.

It did sound a little unusual, though. If this so-called financial backer didn’t even hold a domestic license, was he simply coming along to watch?

“If you’d rather we didn’t—”

“Not at all,” Ruan Yu said immediately.

One look at the situation and it was obvious: Liu Mao was in an awkward spot. If he could have simply turned away a senior partner, he wouldn’t have needed to apologize to her.

She wasn’t going to make things harder for him.

“We’ll see you shortly then.”

“See you shortly.”

After hanging up, Ruan Yu put on her shoes and stepped out, pulling the door closed behind her. As she turned back to lock it, she caught a glance at the calendar on the white wall: May 11th.

The date snagged on something in her mind — strangely familiar. She turned it over for the entire taxi ride before it came back to her.

The diary.

That day in the attic of the old house, the first page she had opened — it had begun: May eleventh, sunny. I ran into Xu Huaisong three times today.

She exhaled softly, looking out the taxi window.

Ten years ago on this date, her whole world had revolved around Xu Huaisong. Ten years later on this same date, here she was running around dealing with a lawsuit that had its roots in him too.

Maybe she’d been an angel in a past life, and when she fell, she’d landed on Xu Huaisong — and was still paying off the debt.

She was still quietly marveling at this when her gaze drifted to a set of bold characters in the window: Zhikun Law Firm.

The building was a freestanding structure, clean-lined and leaning toward Scandinavian in style — whoever had designed it had apparently been committed to a certain aesthetic of cool minimalism, because the effect was almost aggressively restrained.

She stepped out of the taxi, gave her name at the front desk, and was led upstairs to the third floor.

The young man escorting her noticed she’d been quiet the whole way and smiled pleasantly: “First time here, Miss Ruan? Our firm isn’t as serious as it might seem — it’s just unfamiliar, so it feels a bit stiff. Come a few more times and you’ll feel right at home.”

Ruan Yu gave a small cough and said under her breath, “I’m not really hoping to come more than once…”

“…” Fair enough.

Chen Hui scratched the back of his head, a little embarrassed. “You’re quite funny, Miss Ruan.” At the top of the staircase he gestured ahead. “Straight to the end, then the room on the left. If you need anything, just find me — my name is Chen, you can call me Xiao Chen.”

Ruan Yu thanked him, walked to the meeting room, and knocked three times out of courtesy.

“Come in” — that sounded like Liu Mao’s voice.

She pressed down the handle and entered. Liu Mao stood quickly from an armchair upholstered in brown leather, smiling as he came forward. “Miss Ruan.”

Ruan Yu greeted him as “Attorney Liu,” and let her gaze sweep the room — landing on the other armchair nearby.

Someone else was already seated there.

Whoever it was didn’t seem inclined to stand, and was bent over a set of documents, back turned to her, showing only the back of their head.

Yet at a single glance, Ruan Yu felt a shock of inexplicable recognition — the same strange, drifting sensation she had felt when she had noticed the date on the calendar that morning.

Someone whose back of their head alone was enough to unsettle her?

She paused, and before she could make sense of it, her heartbeat had already begun to quicken beyond her control.

Liu Mao’s voice cut into her thoughts at exactly the right moment. Following her gaze, he seemed to realize his lapse as host. “Ah, let me introduce—”

The person in the armchair seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second, then rose and turned around.

Ruan Yu’s eyes followed the movement — and when they landed on the face before her, the heart that had already been sounding warnings gave one final, violent lurch, and she stood completely frozen to the spot.

It was May, and the peak of summer. The meeting room hummed with air conditioning. Yet the blood in her entire body rushed with sudden, tremendous heat — a dizzying warmth that climbed straight to her head.

Like the floodgates of a great dam being thrown open without warning, a torrent pouring through her all at once.

Their eyes met through a layer of charged air, and she felt as though she had been burned — her fingers slipped, and the translucent document folder in her arms clattered open and scattered everything to the floor.

Those thin lips. Those level brows. Those deep-set eyes.

Xu Huaisong?

How could it be Xu Huaisong?

The senior partner Liu Mao had mentioned was Xu Huaisong?

Three devastating questions hit her one after another, square in the chest — Ruan Yu nearly rubbed her eyes. Fortunately Liu Mao crouching to collect the folder reminded her to act. She bent down quickly, slightly dazed. “I’m sorry — I’ll get those myself.”

Liu Mao, for his part, was also a little at a loss. He hadn’t even managed to finish his introduction — what on earth was happening between these two?

Ruan Yu gathered the papers with her head down, her eyes wandering — landing on a pair of gleaming leather shoes not far away, the sense that the other person’s gaze was resting on the crown of her head making her feel as though her scalp might actually singe.

Surely it wasn’t actually Xu Huaisong? She’d been too deep in her novel and her imagination was playing tricks on her?

He had been gone for eight years, hadn’t he?

Clinging to that shred of hope, she gathered the papers and stood. Liu Mao straightened too, looking between them with evident puzzlement. “Do the two of you know each other?”

Xu Huaisong’s gaze had shifted away from Ruan Yu, and he was just about to open his mouth when she got there first: “No — no, we don’t…”

She said it, then seemed to lose some confidence. Her eyes dropped slightly — which was why she didn’t catch the faint lift of Xu Huaisong’s brow.

In the silence that followed, she heard his reply from beneath her gaze: “Mm. We don’t.”

Even his voice was exactly as she remembered…

Ruan Yu was barely breathing. Liu Mao, doing his best to dissolve the inexplicably awkward atmosphere, turned to her with a smile: “In that case — this is Xu Huaisong, a partner at our firm.”

She tightened her grip on the document folder and looked up, giving the man across from her a polite nod. “Hello.”

Liu Mao turned to introduce Ruan Yu: “And this is the client in this matter, Miss Ruan.”

Xu Huaisong gave a nod. “Hello.”

Given the peculiar energy between the two of them, a handshake was probably not appropriate. Liu Mao had no idea what to make of any of it, and simply gestured for them to sit.

Ruan Yu made her way to the armchair, feeling as though her feet weren’t quite touching the ground.

In the years when she’d still harbored a remnant of feeling for Xu Huaisong, she had once or twice allowed herself to imagine what it might look like if they were to meet again after all this time. A street drifting with fallen petals, perhaps. Or a crowded amusement park. Or a beach where sea met sky.

Romantic. Vivid. Saturated with every shade of something wonderful.

Never anything like this.

Her — a twenty-six-year-old woman decidedly past the bloom of girlhood — dressed carelessly in a white t-shirt and jeans, clutching a folder full of documents recording every single fantasy she had ever had about this man, from the physical to the spiritual, and on the verge of engaging in a deep and legally rigorous discussion about those very fantasies — with the man himself.

This was, by any measure, catastrophically embarrassing.

At the moment she was about to lower herself into the armchair, Ruan Yu snapped abruptly upright. Both Xu Huaisong and Liu Mao, already seated, looked up at her.

She pushed down the chaos rioting in her chest. Clutching her documents, she looked down at them both, and with the air of someone making a principled stand, announced: “Attorneys — there is a saying: where mercy is possible, show mercy. Let it go, and the winds will calm; step back, and the sea grows wide; to save a single life outweighs seven years of virtue…”

Xu Huaisong’s brow lifted again. Behind those gold-rimmed glasses, the look in his eyes deepened — and then, just as quickly, eased.

Ruan Yu pressed on, scraping the bottom of her resolve, her voice convincing no one: “What I mean is — I’ve suddenly decided I don’t want to file suit after all…”