The workload at law firms was too heavy—most partners simply didn’t have the patience to coach an associate this thoroughly. Simply pointing out problems in an associate’s work, giving feedback, was already rare enough. Someone like Qian Heng, who would go into this much detail with an associate on legal principle and professional ethics, was practically an extinct breed.
Of course, that wasn’t hard to understand either. Partners were busy, and given their hourly billing rates, spending time on an associate simply wasn’t worth it in the strictest sense. Plus, in this line of work, plenty of newcomers quit halfway through. Those who stuck it out often jumped ship to another firm. Turnover was extremely high in the early years of practice—why bother mentoring someone hand by hand? The return on investment was simply too poor.
Bai Xingmeng had projected weakness and fragility in her marriage every chance she got—and yet in reality, she’d been the one in control, the one who profited from it.
Qian Heng was sharp-tongued and short-tempered, as if every extra word out of your mouth cost him money, cold and utterly lacking in warmth—and yet, in the end, when Cheng Yao had botched the case, he hadn’t abandoned her.
Thinking of all this, the way Cheng Yao looked at Qian Heng shifted.
She herself wasn’t aware that she was gazing at him with the wet, wide eyes of a puppy—innocent, pitiful, utterly trusting, utterly dependent, eyes fixed only on him.
Puppy eyes—it wasn’t as if Qian Heng had never heard the term before. Wu Jun always said that once someone looked at you like that, once you felt fully relied upon by them, you found it impossible to refuse them anything. The old Qian Heng had scoffed at this—what was so hard about refusing that? Cave in after a couple of looks and how were you supposed to make partner?
And yet, being looked at like this by Cheng Yao now, Qian Heng felt something distinctly off about himself. Wu Jun had never mentioned that this puppy-eyed look would feel this… coquettish.
Qian Heng cleared his throat and looked away. “Anything else you want to ask?”
Cheng Yao thought it over and asked, earnestly, “Boss, can I ask—why are you willing to help me like this?”
Qian Heng glared at her. “When did I ever say I’d help you?”
Cheng Yao blinked, startled. “Aren’t you going to help resolve the whole business of Bai Xingmeng using and framing me?”
“When did I say that?” Qian Heng looked away. “I’m just using this as an opportunity to teach you a lesson. What I want to resolve is the negative impact Bai Xingmeng has caused Junheng, and to collect the legal fees owed. When did I say anything about helping you personally?” He cleared his throat. “So stop looking at me like that.”
Qian Heng had expected this response would leave Cheng Yao looking disappointed, dejected, or crushed—but instead, she simply broke into a smile. “No, you’ll definitely help me.” Behind her, it was as if an invisible tail wagged eagerly. She fixed her bright eyes on him. “I believe in you, boss. You’re a good person.”
“Don’t try flattering me with a high hat. It won’t work.”
“So will you help me or not?”
“No.”
“Really not?”
“No.”
“Help me out, boss! Please!”
“Shut up, one more word and I really won’t help you!”
Cheng Yao smiled sweetly and sipped her virgin cocktail, looking at Qian Heng with an expression like she was giving thanks to some great creator.
Qian Heng cleared his throat and said, feigning nonchalance, “Well, since you’ve humbled yourself this much, I suppose I could reluctantly agree to help you this once. Mainly because… what you’ve been through this time reminds me a lot of something I went through early in my own career.”
Cheng Yao blinked, only then realizing what Qian Heng meant.
His first appearance in the public eye had come from a wealthy businessman’s divorce case that made him famous overnight—the philandering businessman had walked away almost entirely unscathed, and his ex-wife had gone online to denounce him, exposing Qian Heng along with him. Massive media coverage followed, and Qian Heng, cast as the villain aiding and abetting evil, had been dragged through the mud by public opinion, cursed out like a dog.
So when Qian Heng was first starting out, he too must have endured this kind of online abuse and personal attacks, just like Cheng Yao now.
Now, with the situation reversed, seeing Cheng Yao made him think of his younger self?
“Did some senior attorney give you this kind of guidance back then too?”
Qian Heng pressed his beautiful lips together. “Of course not. Do you think there are many people in this world as noble and enlightened as I am?”
Though Qian Heng said it lightly, Cheng Yao found herself, unaccountably, feeling sorry for him.
She couldn’t imagine—if she hadn’t had Qian Heng’s guidance and instruction, and had encountered a situation like this on her very first case as a practicing attorney, made a mistake like this, been attacked by public opinion like this—would she still have had it in her to keep going as a lawyer?
She’d been fortunate enough to have Qian Heng’s guidance, while back then, facing this same kind of situation, he’d had no one beside him at all.
Cheng Yao felt a particular pang of sympathy, a bittersweet ache rising in her heart on his behalf. “Back then, with so many people cursing you, how did you get through it?”
Qian Heng blinked, somewhat surprised. “Why would I need to ‘get through’ it?”
“Huh?”
Qian Heng’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Every media outlet that ran a story targeting me, and everyone online who cursed me the hardest—I sued every single one of them. Thanks to them cursing me, I ended up collecting a total of over six hundred thousand in settlement damages.”
“S-six hundred thousand??”
Qian Heng nodded. “Not a huge amount, but it was just enough to cover the renovation of the five bathrooms in my villa at the time.”
“…”
Six hundred thousand for renovating five bathrooms—so a whole year of her own killing herself at work didn’t even add up to one of Qian Heng’s bathrooms…
In an instant, all the sympathy and pity Cheng Yao had been feeling for Qian Heng evaporated into thin air. She suddenly felt sorry for herself instead—truly earning cabbage wages while worrying herself sick over affairs worth a fortune.
Still, one way or another, Cheng Yao felt a certain sense of relief and understanding dawn on her.
“So your nickname was also something people slandered you with unfairly.”
Qian Heng narrowed his eyes dangerously. “What nickname?”
Cheng Yao realized she’d let something slip. She stammered, trying to cover, “Just… just that people in the industry say you’re… um… vicious, or something…”
“‘The scourge of the profession’?”
Cheng Yao waved her hands frantically, trying to distance herself. “I don’t know anything about it! I never said that! It has nothing to do with me!”
Qian Heng gave a disdainful snort. “A bunch of mindless mobs, with nothing to say on the legal merits, so they attack me behind my back instead.”
So did that mean…?
Cheng Yao looked up. “So that wealthy businessman’s case you handled—it also had some hidden truth to it, just like Bai Xingmeng’s case, didn’t it?”
“Hm?”
“I mean, even though to the public it looked like the businessman had wronged his wife in the marriage and she’d suffered unfair treatment, actually, in truth, the businessman was the one whose rights needed protecting, just like Xu Jun. Even though in most marriages both sides probably have issues, the bigger problem wasn’t with the businessman—maybe even the affair was something the ex-wife fabricated online to smear him.” Cheng Yao spoke with an air of confident analysis. “After all, there’s so much resentment toward the wealthy in society these days…”
“Cheng Yao, it’s a shame you became a lawyer.”
“Huh?”
Qian Heng’s expression carried a note of teasing. “You’d have made a great novelist.”
“…”
“How could every single divorce case possibly have a twist like Bai Xingmeng’s?” Qian Heng took a sip of his drink. At some point he’d undone a button of his white shirt, and a few strands of hair, usually so neatly combed, now fell loosely across his broad forehead, lending him a touch of lazy sensuality. He swirled the glass in his hand, glancing at Cheng Yao with a careless air. “Cheng Yao, there was nothing special about that one.”
Cheng Yao found herself momentarily dazed. Some people, the less deliberate they tried to be, the more magnetic every little gesture of theirs became—like Qian Heng right now.
He was handsome, but with a carelessness that seemed unaware of his own good looks, and somehow that made it even more dangerous, even more devastating.
“Cheng Yao?”
It was only when Qian Heng frowned and called her name that she snapped back to attention, suddenly flustered—luckily the bar’s dim, warm lighting hid her flushed face.
Cheng Yao’s mind was a bit scrambled, and she blurted out, without thinking, in her usual fawning manner, “So the public really is blind after all—you were clearly helping a victim of a bad marriage assert her rights, and yet the world turned around and called you a scourge! I knew my boss couldn’t possibly be like that!”
Qian Heng blinked, then suddenly laughed. “Cheng Yao, I told you—there was nothing special about that case. The businessman really did cheat. The ex-wife really was innocent. Everything she exposed was true, she wasn’t deliberately spinning the narrative.”
Cheng Yao looked baffled. “Oh, so…”
Qian Heng looked at Cheng Yao, his tone carrying a hint of mischief. “So, unfortunately, your boss really is exactly that—the scourge of the profession.”
“Then why take on a case like that at all, if you could already predict that winning it would get you cursed once it came to light?”
Qian Heng gave her a look like she was hopeless. “The fee was good.”
He set his empty glass down on the bar counter. “You’re paying.”
???
Cheng Yao was stunned. “Boss, you’re the one who called me out for a drink in the middle of the night! Why am I paying?”
Qian Heng raised an eyebrow. “I asked you out for a drink. Did I say I was treating you?”
“…”
“I’ve spent at least half an hour talking to you just now. Counting the round trip, that’s a full hour. I didn’t charge you my hourly rate—you should be thanking your lucky stars just to cover the drinks.”
“…”
Qian Heng said lightly, “And besides, you know how few people in this world get the chance to buy me a drink?”
“…”
He checked his watch. “November 29th, 2018, 9:39 p.m.”
“Huh?”
Qian Heng patted Cheng Yao on the shoulder. “I suggest you remember this precious, memorable moment.”
“…”
So much for the public being blind! The eyes of the people were clearly razor-sharp!
Scourge! He really was a scourge!
In the end, Cheng Yao paid for the drinks with tears practically welling up.
Counting Gu Beiqing’s tab too, just a few drinks had cost over a thousand yuan. Whatever gratitude toward Qian Heng had been rising in her heart drifted away right along with the cash leaving her wallet…
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
After paying, faced with this sudden question from Qian Heng, Cheng Yao nodded instinctively. “I do…”
Before she could finish her next sentence—”but I’ve never actually driven on the road”—something was tossed into her hands by Qian Heng.
Cheng Yao looked down to find it was a car key.
“Here’s your chance to drive a Bentley. Do a good job.”
“But boss, my driving skills…”
Qian Heng was perfectly unbothered. “Looking at you, I can already tell your driving isn’t great, but from here to where we live, it’s a straight shot the whole way. Only ten minutes’ drive, one traffic light, and at this hour there’s almost no traffic on this road at all. How badly could you possibly do?”
“Why don’t we just call a designated driver instead? I’ll cover the cost!”
“Cheng Yao, I’ve already wasted enough time tonight. I don’t have the patience to wait around for a driver.” Qian Heng rubbed his temples. “Drive, or get fired. Pick one.”
“…”
In the end, Cheng Yao caved under Qian Heng’s tyrannical pressure and, trembling, took hold of the Bentley’s steering wheel.
Five minutes later—
Qian Heng, sitting in the passenger seat, stared out the window with a completely flat expression. “Cheng Yao, the man on the scooter next to us just passed us.”
Cheng Yao’s palms were drenched in sweat, terrified of scratching or denting Qian Heng’s Bentley, her eyes locked dead ahead, not daring to even turn her head as she tried to talk her way out of it. “Boss, that man’s young and strong, and don’t underestimate scooters—the technology now lets them accelerate in like a second, they’re actually quite fast.”
“Hm, that tricycle over there just passed us too.”
“Pedaling a tricycle is manual labor—maybe he’s an amateur athlete.”
“That grandpa on the bicycle behind us just passed us too.”
Cheng Yao gritted her teeth and pressed on. “Grandpa’s still going strong in his old age…”
“That jogger is about to catch up to us too.”
“People who jog long-term have top-tier muscle strength and explosive power.”
Qian Heng turned his head, expressionless, and pointed out the window. “Then explain to me why the disabled beggar on the street corner is also walking faster than us right now.”
“…”
“Cheng Yao, what exactly do you mean by driving a Bentley at ten kilometers an hour?” Qian Heng glanced down at his watch. “This is normally a ten-minute drive at regular speed. You’ve already been driving for twenty minutes. Are you planning to spend the whole night in this car with me?”
“Boss, there’s a kind of danger called speeding, and a kind of safety called waiting…”
“…”
No matter how much sarcasm Qian Heng threw her way, Cheng Yao held firm at ten kilometers an hour, unwavering. If she sped up and dinged the Bentley, she’d probably have to sell everything she owned just to cover it…
Qian Heng looked utterly done with life. “Next time I let you drive, my name isn’t Qian anymore.”
“There’s still a long way to go, why don’t we chat?” Cheng Yao said after driving a while, gradually getting a feel for it, wanting to lighten the mood—and also, honestly, out of genuine curiosity. “Boss, when you were first starting out, you must have gone through an inexperienced phase too, right? How did you usually handle your own honest mistakes back then?”
Cheng Yao actually somewhat regretted having offended Qian Heng in the past. Now she really wanted to repair their relationship, and she figured chatting about old times with the boss, reminiscing, should be an easy way to find common ground and close the distance between them fast!
Unfortunately, Cheng Yao had calculated everything except for one thing—
Qian Heng didn’t even need to think about it before answering flatly, “No experience with that kind of thing.”
Cheng Yao: ?
Qian Heng smiled, arrogant. “I’ve never once made an honest mistake.”
“…”
As if that weren’t enough, he twisted the knife further. “Honestly, before this whole Bai Xingmeng business, I couldn’t even have imagined anyone making a mistake like that.”
“…”
Fine, fine, Cheng Yao screamed internally. Boss, I actually thought I could bond with you—that was my crime!
I’ll shut up!
Qian Heng could talk a conversation to death, and Cheng Yao could drive a car to death.
And so the two of them sat quietly in the Bentley, cruising home safe and sound at a steady ten kilometers an hour.