“Boss…”
Qian Heng sat at his desk, not even lifting his head. “There’s a package of materials at the front desk delivered by Bai Xingmeng—her own compilation of leads on joint marital assets. Go review it, then sort out anything of value. Also, take a good look at Bai Xingmeng and Xu Jun’s previous divorce judgment, especially the parts on property division. In an hour, Bai Xingmeng will come by for a brief meeting to discuss the next steps in litigation—get the conference room ready.”
Huh?
Cheng Yao had walked in bracing herself for retaliation, but instead, Qian Heng didn’t mention last night at all—just handed out work assignments as usual.
“Also, put together the current evidence catalog of Xu Jun’s hidden assets.”
Cheng Yao nodded, feeling deeply ashamed of herself—she really had judged him unfairly. A man like Qian Heng, who’d made partner, surely wouldn’t hold a grudge over a drunken new hire like that.
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to make amends. She glanced at Qian Heng’s handsome profile and volunteered, “Boss, do you need coffee? I can make some.”
“No need. Just do your own job well. Making coffee isn’t something you need to do.”
“It’s no trouble—at my last firm, I often helped make coffee for the other lawyers too.”
“I don’t think making coffee is something a female lawyer’s job should include. You’re here to do legal work, not administrative work. I don’t want you thinking that making coffee for a colleague or your boss makes you look friendly—it’s unprofessional.” Qian Heng finally looked up, his voice cold and detached, but his tone stern. “Do you see anyone asking a male lawyer to make coffee for others? In the legal workplace, men and women are equal. No gender is inherently more suited to assistive work like making coffee, printing, or scanning. Remember that.”
Ever since she’d started working, whether during her internship or at her previous firm, Cheng Yao had frequently been assigned such secretarial tasks. Honestly, deep down, she’d resented it—no one spends four years earning a law degree just to end up running errands at a firm.
She’d wanted to genuinely get involved in real cases, but over time, that initial reluctance had been worn down by reality. It was only now, hearing this from Qian Heng, that she realized she’d unconsciously come to accept this unspoken rule of the workplace—that women always had a harder time getting access to core work than men did.
“I’ll talk to Bao Rui and tell him to stop dumping this kind of secretarial work on you.”
Cheng Yao suddenly felt a wave of gratitude. Qian Heng’s temper and attitude left much to be desired, but the fact that he, as a man, could say such things—she genuinely respected him for it.
“Than—”
“Don’t think that pouring me a cup of coffee will make me overlook the fact that you’re a woman and therefore weak. That doesn’t work with me. My principle has always been: treat men like beasts of burden, treat women like men, and when there aren’t enough men, treat women like beasts of burden too.” Qian Heng smiled. “It’s a new era, after all—everyone’s talking about women’s rights, right? Special treatment for women is just another form of discrimination.”
“…”
“And if you’re making me coffee to apologize for last night, don’t bother.”
Cheng Yao’s face lit up, expecting to thank him for his generosity. But—
“That’s not something a cup of coffee can settle.” Qian Heng glanced at her. “Since we’re at the same firm, I won’t take this through legal channels—let’s settle it privately. I’ve already listed the direct financial losses and sent them to your email. Go check it.”
Cheng Yao was aghast. “You mean I have to pay you back?” She quickly tried to explain. “Boss, I was drunk last night—I honestly don’t even remember what I did. I had no control over my actions, whatever I did, I really wasn’t conscious of it…”
“How old are you?”
“Huh? Twenty-three.”
Qian Heng pressed his lips together. “Do you have any mental illness? Intermittent counts too.”
What kind of question was that?? Cheng Yao looked utterly baffled. “No.”
Qian Heng snorted. “Over eighteen years old, not someone incapable of recognizing your own actions due to mental illness, not meeting the definition of a person with limited capacity—then you’re responsible for your own conduct. Drunkenness isn’t a legal excuse to escape liability.”
“…”
Qian Heng waved a hand. “Get out.”
“…”
Just as Cheng Yao reached the door, she heard her esteemed boss add, “Read more books in your spare time. Stop staring at other people’s faces all day.”
Huh?
“My face is one hundred percent natural. You could stare at it ten thousand times and you still wouldn’t find any trace of surgery.”
“…”
“Wait.”
Cheng Yao: ?
“Go downstairs.”
“What for?”
“Dong Min is here. Go head her off—don’t let her come up to the office.”
“…”
What a wonderful errand.
Since she was going to owe him money regardless, Cheng Yao figured she might as well go all in: “Didn’t you just say women in the legal workplace should be doing professional work, not irrelevant nonsense like this…”
Qian Heng pulled a document from his desk and tossed it to her. “Then do something professional. This is a confidential document for a client—not suitable to mail. Deliver it to them in person. The address isn’t far, it’s in the office building across from us.” Qian Heng smiled. “And it happens to be on your way to head off Dong Min.”
“…”
“What are you standing around for? Go.”
“…”
Cheng Yao left Qian Heng’s office, delivered the confidential materials to the client, and, acting as a decoy, successfully lured away Qian Heng’s blindly infatuated admirer Dong Min before returning to the office.
Fuming, Cheng Yao opened her email and saw the itemized compensation list that nearly made her faint. Besides the cost of cleaning the Bentley, there was even a charge for repairing an Ermenegildo Zegna custom-tailored suit jacket…
Being a meticulous lawyer, Qian Heng had attached receipts or official pricing information after every line item, proving the actual value of the loss and the associated costs. Staring at the long string of zeros after the suit’s price, Cheng Yao felt her vision go dark.
She’d only gone to a work dinner, not a blind date—why did he have to wear such an expensive suit to that?!?! Damn Qian Heng! Damn capitalism! Damn this morally bankrupt, wildly unequal society!
Cheng Yao channeled her fury into productivity and finished all the prep work needed for the afternoon meeting in record time.
For this meeting, Bai Xingmeng arrived right on time again. Her manager hadn’t come with her—today she’d come alone.
Qian Heng, professional as ever, briefed her on what Junheng had uncovered so far, getting straight to the point: “We now have a clear direction on Xu Jun’s hidden assets. We can file suit whenever you’re ready—just tell me when.”
Bai Xingmeng paused, then said decisively, “File now, immediately.”
“There are still two months before the statute of limitations expires. In theory, as long as we file within these two months, we’re fine.” Qian Heng took a sip of his coffee. “But Xu Jun’s Tuantuan Online is already in the process of going public, and it’s quite possible it’ll list on NASDAQ successfully within the next month. If you sue now, it will definitely disrupt his listing process, because once we file, I’ll apply for an equity freeze as a preservation measure. And once that preservation and litigation happen, he’ll be forced to disclose it during the listing process. An unresolved property redivision lawsuit would sit like a landmine buried inside his company—his investors will very likely reassess the company’s risk, causing significant negative impact, and possibly even affecting the listing itself.”
Bai Xingmeng’s expression remained unmoved. She simply watched Qian Heng quietly.
“If you’re willing to wait, then a month from now, once Tuantuan Online successfully lists on NASDAQ, you could sue then—and the assets subject to division could multiply several times over. In other words, if you file a month from now, my legal fees would also multiply several times.” Qian Heng pressed his lips together, his manner serious and composed. “But as a lawyer, I respect all of my client’s choices, and I’ll lay out every legal option currently available to us so that you can make the decision that’s most beneficial to you, fully informed.”
By all rights, this was an extremely attractive proposition—all Bai Xingmeng needed to do was hold off for a month. If Tuantuan Online successfully listed, the amount she could claim would be nowhere near comparable to what it would be now. And even if it failed to list within the month, filing suit later would still be an option.
Yet Bai Xingmeng’s answer took Cheng Yao by surprise—
Her tone was firm and unwavering. “I want to file now.”
“All right.” Qian Heng, sparing with his words, showed none of the ordinary person’s curiosity—he didn’t ask a single follow-up question, only turned to glance at Cheng Yao. “Cheng Yao, I have a video conference after this. Go over the evidence list with Ms. Bai.” Then he looked at Bai Xingmeng. “If you have anything else, feel free to discuss it directly with Lawyer Cheng. I’ll take my leave now.”
Cheng Yao was caught completely off guard by this arrangement. Up until now, whenever meeting clients, she’d always been in a subordinate role, not even needing to speak. This was her first case actively involved in at Junheng, and it was a case with an enormous amount at stake—yet now, here she was, having to face the client alone. And this client was no ordinary person—it was Bai Xingmeng, at the height of her fame.
Fortunately, just as Cheng Yao was racking her brain for something to say, Bai Xingmeng spoke first.
“Lawyer Cheng, do you think I’m being foolish?”
Bai Xingmeng’s question caught Cheng Yao off guard.
Fortunately, Bai Xingmeng wasn’t actually expecting an answer.
Very often, in a marital dispute, beyond seeking legal help, clients are also searching for an outlet to confide in.
“Lawyer Cheng, can you just talk with me for a bit? You’re a woman—I think you might understand how I feel better.” Bai Xingmeng smiled somewhat apologetically. “I know this will take up your time, and I’m willing to pay your consultation rate for it, but today, I don’t want to talk about cold, hard law. I just want to chat. I’m a celebrity—these private matters, I can’t open up about them to anyone in the industry.”
Cheng Yao nodded, understanding. Since becoming a lawyer, she’d genuinely experienced this many times. It was almost funny—so many clients, despite having close family and friends in their real lives, could never bring themselves to share their innermost feelings with them. Instead, it was only with a lawyer bound by a service contract that they were willing to let their guard down and pour everything out.
Compared to friends and family, they trusted the confidentiality clauses of a business contract more—the massive penalty for breach of confidentiality gave them more peace of mind.
Bai Xingmeng lowered her head. “Honestly, this marriage brought me so much pain. For him, I violated my talent contract, secretly marrying him while still under contract, and got punished by my company for it—paying a massive penalty, nearly getting blacklisted, my career almost destroyed.”
Cheng Yao, having followed Ling Yao’s Strategy, had seen articles about Bai Xingmeng’s career and gossip about her—it was true. She’d risen to fame overnight, only to be nearly blacklisted by her company at the height of her momentum, wasting four years—from twenty-three to twenty-six. Four years—the best years of youth for any ordinary woman, let alone a celebrity.
Bai Xingmeng’s tone turned self-mocking. “Maybe women really do turn foolish once they fall in love. Looking back now, Xu Jun probably never truly loved me from the very start. When we began dating, his company was still tiny, nothing like it is now. I genuinely loved him, but what did I get in return? Years and years of endless scandal.”
“Was it because of your management company’s restrictions that you couldn’t go public with the relationship?”
“Ha, I had the courage to marry him, flat-out violating my talent contract—did you think I’d be scared of going public with the relationship?” Bai Xingmeng laughed, a little forlorn. “It was him who didn’t want it public.”
Cheng Yao was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because half-hidden scandal generates more buzz.” Bai Xingmeng gave a bitter smile. “My image had always been squeaky clean throughout my career—I’d never had a scandal before. But being with him brought me the most scandal of my life. Because of promotional needs for film and TV projects, I’d have to play up chemistry with a male lead while also secretly dating him—and when the paparazzi found out, they painted me as a hypocrite playing both sides. I was so wronged and confused at the time—I’d been so careful, how did the paparazzi find out? It was only later I learned—all those leaks came from Xu Jun himself.”
Faced with Cheng Yao’s shock, Bai Xingmeng laughed bitterly. “Lawyer Cheng, think back—before the scandal between Xu Jun and me broke, had you ever heard of Tuantuan Online?”
Cheng Yao thought about it and shook her head—she genuinely had no memory of it. Her only knowledge of Tuantuan Online and Xu Jun came entirely from those years of dramatic, soap-opera-like scandal involving Bai Xingmeng.
“But once I was with him, Tuantuan Online became well known to everyone. The first time paparazzi broke news of our relationship, his site’s daily user count jumped by a million overnight. And with each new scandal that surfaced, the site’s traffic and user numbers just kept climbing.”
Now that she thought about it, it did seem to check out—Cheng Yao recalled that she herself had first registered on Tuantuan Online because of the Bai Xingmeng and Xu Jun scandal.
Bai Xingmeng paused. “May I ask, Lawyer Cheng—are you a registered user of Tuantuan Online?”
“Mm.”
“And how did you come to register?”
Cheng Yao felt a bit embarrassed. “At the time, someone leaked that Xu Jun had secretly used initials to declare his love for you on his site’s homepage. I was still in school then, bored, and like a lot of other netizens, I went to Tuantuan Online to check it out. And through that little detour, I discovered the site was actually really well made—full-featured, clean pages, no messy ads, a huge library on the literature site, lots of reading modes to choose from, pretty user-friendly. So I just ended up becoming a regular user.”
Bai Xingmeng gave a knowing look at Cheng Yao’s answer. “Right, exactly like that. A lot of people registered after that incident and became loyal users.”
She lowered her gaze. “Though our marriage fell apart, I have to admit, Xu Jun really is a capable man—his site’s design and planning really were excellent. But… there are plenty of talented men like him in the world. Very few, though, are as willing as he is to use any means necessary to get what they want.” Bai Xingmeng paused. “That leak—he orchestrated it himself.”
Cheng Yao was completely stunned.
“There was no subtle declaration of love at all—it was entirely a scene he staged himself. He deliberately altered the site’s homepage first, then had his own team leak it and hype it up.” Bai Xingmeng’s expression remained calm, though her voice trembled slightly. “From the very first day he met me, what he wanted was my traffic. He needed my popularity to bring life to his site, needed the buzz that scandal would generate.”
Bai Xingmeng laughed at herself. “Dating a female celebrity is better advertising than any ad campaign. Netizens would quickly dig up everything about him, and all he had to do was quietly stoke the fire behind the scenes—so efficient, saving his company on marketing costs while the effect was amplified infinitely, because the traffic it drove in were genuine consumers—the most active users on the internet.”
“He’s the smartest marketer there is—he knew that turning a company’s founder into an idolized celebrity was far more time- and cost-effective than promoting the company directly, and the results were so much better.” Bai Xingmeng bit her lip. “It was only much later that I finally understood—that this was the real reason he dated me, the real reason he married me.”