After settling the dog in her own room, Cheng Yao, wanting to make up for it, prepared a bit of fruit for Qian Heng before bed.

Without the dog around, Qian Heng went right back to being aloof and imperious.

Cheng Yao handed him a peeled apple. He glanced at it once and said, “Cut it into small pieces.”

“…”

Cheng Yao sliced the apple and handed it over again. Qian Heng gave another huff.

“Smaller.”

“…”

Forget it, Cheng Yao thought. The dog business really had been her fault first, so if he wanted to nitpick, let him nitpick. Cheng Yao, endure it and the storm will pass; take one step back and the sky opens wide!

In the end, Cheng Yao swallowed her pride and finally managed to soothe Qian Heng’s exalted mood.

“Right, I received Xu Jun’s new settlement proposal tonight,” said Qian Heng, thoroughly satisfied now, finally turning to business.

“That fast?”

Qian Heng gave a short laugh. “Their Nasdaq listing is at the most critical stage. If a lawsuit and an asset freeze come out—or even just the risk of one—it would be fatal. The SEC would absolutely require Xu Jun to disclose it, which could very well cause investors to pull out. Best case, the listing gets delayed; worst case, it collapses entirely. On top of that, there’s a domestic internet company in the same space as Tuantuan Online, Kanxun TV, about to submit its own listing application to the SEC soon. Whoever gets there first will be the one the capital markets rush to embrace. Xu Jun understands all of this perfectly well.”

“So how are the terms on the new settlement? Especially generous?”

Qian Heng didn’t seem to care. “No need to look at it. Bai Xingmeng won’t agree. Just wait, and tomorrow tell the other side that this new settlement proposal still isn’t acceptable.”

“Then…”

“Sleep.” Qian Heng finished the last slice of apple and stood, unilaterally ending the conversation. “No talking about work before bed.”

Cheng Yao couldn’t help muttering, “You’re the one who brought up work first. Talk about a double standard…”

“That’s what happens when I’m the boss.” Qian Heng looked down at Cheng Yao and smiled faintly. “Cheng Yao, you may not realize this, but being the boss means I get to do whatever I want.”

…

Cheng Yao once again silently swore to herself that the day she became a partner, the first thing she’d do was smash Qian Heng’s smug head in.

You dream at night what you dwell on by day. In her dream, Cheng Yao grabbed Qian Heng and beat him up over and over. Probably from sheer exhaustion, plus the lingering effects of her cold, she overslept the next morning—and only woke when Megatron came bouncing onto her.

By the time she’d washed up and gotten the dog settled and rushed to the firm, it was already nine thirty.

A full half hour late.

Luckily she didn’t run into Qian Heng, and she slipped to her desk thinking no one had noticed.

Tan Ying was thoughtful enough to fill her in: “Actually you didn’t need to rush today—Qian isn’t in. A client had some urgent matter, and he just left for the airport.”

Before Cheng Yao could even breathe a sigh of relief, Tan Ying went on, “Of course, since he already knows you were late, being half an hour late or being late the whole morning amounts to the same thing.”

Cheng Yao: !!!

Tan Ying sighed. “He came looking for you first thing, seemed like he wanted to assign you some work, and when he found out you weren’t in, he left you a note.”

Cheng Yao looked down and finally spotted a minimalist-style sticky note on her desk. Qian Heng’s handwriting was beautiful, forceful and vigorous—but this was not the time to admire it.

“I’ve already spoken with Attorney Xu Jun and rejected the new settlement proposal. Get the supplementary evidence on Bao Rui’s partial assets organized and submitted to the court. Late again this morning—full attendance bonus docked.”

…

Cheng Yao thought through tears that it would have been perfect if not for that last line.

Just after Cheng Yao finished handing off part of the supplementary evidence with Bao Rui, she suddenly got a visit from Bai Xingmeng.

“Miss Bai?”

Bai Xingmeng, wearing sunglasses, spoke with a slight catch in her voice. “Attorney Cheng, please help me!”

Moved by sympathy for what Bai Xingmeng had gone through, Cheng Yao found herself caught up in her distress and brought her into a conference room.

“Don’t worry, take your time, what happened?”

“After Xu Jun found out I rejected the settlement, he’s already sent people to find me. Tuantuan Online’s listing is at a critical stage, and he wants me to take the settlement money and drop the suit so I don’t get in the way of him cashing in on the IPO.”

Bai Xingmeng was still visibly unsettled, her voice tinged with anxiety. “He has my contact information—because I refused him, he’s already called me more than a dozen times, very aggressively, threatening and intimidating me over the phone, insisting I accept the settlement, asking me how much money I actually want. I really don’t know what to do…”

“I’m not suing him now to extort him. I just want a fair ruling.”

Cheng Yao thought back on the unfair treatment Bai Xingmeng had suffered in the marriage and genuinely felt for her. “Threats and intimidation are completely illegal. Have you reported this to the police?”

Bai Xingmeng looked helpless. “If calling the police would help, I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.”

“I’m afraid of him. When we were married, he used to do this all the time—if I didn’t agree to something, he’d use every method to force me until I gave in, sometimes even controlling my freedom. He’s a complete control freak! Now I don’t even want to speak to him. It took me so long, so much pain, to finally get out of the shadow of that terrible marriage. Attorney Cheng, I don’t want to go back there!”

Bai Xingmeng’s voice was pained, pleading. “Attorney Cheng, I’m begging you, please help me. I really don’t have the courage to face him directly. Could you please take all his private calls for me from now on, act as a buffer? Can I give him your contact information?”

Cheng Yao instinctively glanced toward Qian Heng’s office. “I’m not senior enough to handle direct outside communications. I’m afraid you’d need to talk to Attorney Qian about this, but he’s not in right now…”

“If asking Attorney Qian would work, I’d have already asked him.” Bai Xingmeng sounded like she was about to cry. “Attorney Qian said he’s only responsible for matters within the scope of legal services, and won’t waste time on anything else. I’m not asking you to make any decisions for me, and it’s not about the case at all. I just don’t dare, don’t want, to hear Xu Jun’s voice. He’s not only controlling, he likes to stalk people too. I live in fear every day now, terrified he’ll show up at a film set one day. So I just want to trouble you to be a go-between, to pass along my attitude and my wishes to him—tell him to leave me alone, stop pestering me, and let the legal ruling decide everything. Please, Attorney Cheng, I’m begging you!”

Such a cold response—it really did sound like something Qian Heng would say.

He was always sparing with his words, as if he thought single syllables were sacred and every extra word a waste, mechanically providing legal services strictly according to the representation agreement, never considering the client’s psychological state, never caring about the pain and torment someone else was going through.

Cheng Yao found Qian Heng’s face rising unbidden in her mind—so handsome, and so cold, so utterly unfeeling.

Cheng Yao wanted to become as formidably capable a lawyer as Qian Heng, but she did not want to become a lawyer as icy and devoid of human warmth as he was.

She sympathized with Bai Xingmeng, and she had a strong sense of justice. She was only passing along Bai Xingmeng’s personal wishes on her behalf—it had nothing to do with the actual progress or substance of the case. It was such a small favor. Cheng Yao thought it over and finally nodded. “Alright, I’ll help negotiate on your behalf and warn him not to harass you anymore.”

She and Qian Heng were, in the end, different people. What Cheng Yao wanted wasn’t to be a lawyer who was professionally strong but coldly rational—she wanted people to one day say her name and call her “the conscience of the profession.”

So in the end, she thought it over and nodded. “Alright.”

Cheng Yao hadn’t expected Xu Jun’s call to come so quickly.

Almost the moment Bai Xingmeng sent him her number—while Bai Xingmeng was still sitting across from her, hadn’t even left yet—Xu Jun called.

Cheng Yao put it on speaker.

“Attorney Cheng, my ex-wife said I should just contact you. She said if I could convince you, she’d agree to talk with me about settling and dropping the suit.”

Cheng Yao looked at Bai Xingmeng, a little stunned.

Bai Xingmeng pressed her hands together pleadingly and scribbled an explanation on a piece of paper: “I was afraid he wouldn’t stop harassing me, so I made up an excuse.” She kept making pleading gestures at Cheng Yao at the same time.

Fine. Cheng Yao understood now—Bai Xingmeng, in this marriage, simply had no courage to say no to Xu Jun, subconsciously didn’t dare defy him, and so had thrown this role of playing the bad guy onto her.

Though she felt somewhat railroaded into it, and it was all a bit awkward, Cheng Yao thought of the pain Bai Xingmeng had been through, all their heart-to-heart conversations, and decided to see it through.

“I have a lot of sincerity here. In that marriage, I admit I had problems too—I was too focused on my career—but now…”

Back when he’d made his assets look like losses to give his ex-wife less in the divorce, why hadn’t it occurred to him that he was planting a landmine, making a mistake?

Men—they truly never repent until their own interests are genuinely on the line. Only then do their selfish heads bow.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Xu, but there’s no point telling me this. Let’s leave the specifics to the law. I hope you’ll also stop disturbing my client privately—and especially, please don’t threaten or intimidate her.”

“Threaten? Intimidate? I never—”

Cheng Yao didn’t want to get tangled up with Xu Jun any further, didn’t want to hear his excuses, restated once more that everything should be left to the law, and firmly hung up.

Bai Xingmeng thanked Cheng Yao profusely before finally leaving.

Sure enough, Xu Jun didn’t give up—he called more than a dozen more times, but Cheng Yao didn’t pick up again.

What Cheng Yao hadn’t expected was that when Xu Jun couldn’t reach her by phone, he’d come straight to the firm to corner her.

“Attorney Cheng, please, I need to see my ex-wife face to face, it’s truly urgent! I believe talking in person is the only way to solve this!”

“Mr. Xu, I’ve said what needs to be said. I hope you can control your emotions.”

Unfortunately, Cheng Yao’s polite, distant response didn’t discourage him. A CEO of a company about to go public actually clung to Cheng Yao, pestering her relentlessly. Left with no choice, she made an excuse about the restroom and slipped out through the office building’s back door.

But she’d underestimated him after all. By the time she walked out of the subway station, she saw through the glass doors that Xu Jun had been following behind her.

Bai Xingmeng had been right—he really would stoop to stalking to get what he wanted.

In college, Cheng Yao had once had an obsessive suitor—a stalker. She’d endured being followed like that for nearly a whole year, and it was only with Gu Beiqing’s protection that she’d finally shaken him off. But that feeling of disgust and unease, of being stuck to like a leech, was something she’d never forget in this lifetime.

She hadn’t expected to experience it again.

“Attorney Cheng!”

Xu Jun stopped tailing her at a distance and, seeing her come to a halt, caught up.

“I really hope to see Bai Xingmeng. I admit I shouldn’t have hidden assets during the divorce, and there were things I didn’t do right in the marriage—but Bai Xingmeng was also at fault. I hope we can talk openly, each give some ground, and reach a win-win.”

How could this man be so shameless?!

“Mr. Xu, things have come this far and you still want to shift the blame onto Miss Bai? Still think she’s at fault? Fine—she is at fault. Her biggest mistake was falling in love with you!” In that moment, Cheng Yao’s lingering fear from being followed and her sense of righteous anger on Bai Xingmeng’s behalf tangled together, leaving her no room for composure. “Forgive my bluntness, Mr. Xu, but if your company’s listing fails, that will be entirely your own doing! Given your attitude right now, I will absolutely not let you see Miss Bai.”

Cheng Yao straightened her back and glared at Xu Jun. “Stop following me. If you have that much time, go reflect on the mistakes you made in this marriage instead. Follow me again, and I’ll call the police.”

She finished speaking, made sure Xu Jun wasn’t following anymore, and kept walking.

Whether or not Xu Jun was still haunting her somehow, that night, while Cheng Yao curled up in bed with Megatron scrolling Weibo, she came across him again.

Xu Jun had always had a strong online presence because of Tuantuan Online and the rumors linking him to Bai Xingmeng, but this was different—someone had exposed the fact that he had really been married to Bai Xingmeng, and even leaked details of how he’d concealed divisible assets during the divorce.

This was a case that had only just been filed. Cheng Yao was certain neither she nor Qian Heng had leaked so much as a hint of information to the outside world. She had no idea who could be so resourceful as to dig up even these details.

The exposé shot straight to the top of the trending topics, its popularity unprecedented.

Cheng Yao skimmed the comments underneath and, seeing Xu Jun getting slammed on all sides, felt somewhat relieved.

But before she fell asleep with an easy mind, she never imagined that, just one night later, a new piece of news would appear, its buzz completely eclipsing the story of Xu Jun and Bai Xingmeng’s marriage.

Xu Jun had killed himself.