Almost first thing the next morning, Cheng Yao took Li Mengting to the Civil Affairs Bureau to check her own marriage registration status.
Sure enough, she was still listed as “unmarried.”
Zhang Hao really had forged the documents.
That meant all the work they’d done before had been wasted, and the phone notarization was useless too—everything had to be overturned and started fresh.
The property division plan drawn up under the marital fidelity agreement was, naturally, completely void. Getting Zhang Hao to walk away from the jointly purchased “marital home” with nothing was no longer possible. They’d have to accept reality and instead divide the property accumulated during cohabitation, fighting to get Li Mengting the best possible outcome.
Li Mengting’s face was ghostly pale, but she had no choice but to accept it. Once the shock and fury settled a little, she started thinking of countermeasures. “Yaoyao, doesn’t what Zhang Hao did count as forging official documents? And he was living with me under a fake marriage certificate while getting a real one with Liang Qiongqiong—wouldn’t that be bigamy? That’s criminal, right? Can he go to prison for it?”
Legally speaking, what Zhang Hao had done was undoubtedly criminal—but proving it required evidence.
“All you have is your own copy of the fake marriage certificate, and you told me yourselves that when you ‘registered,’ it was all done by phone or verbally—you didn’t record anything, so there’s no evidence at all. Even if you produce your fake certificate, Zhang Hao can simply claim it wasn’t made by him and wasn’t given to you by him.”
Cheng Yao stayed calm. “He can easily say that even though you lived together, you were only ever boyfriend and girlfriend, that he only married Liang Qiongqiong after breaking up with you, and that this fake marriage certificate was something you made out of spite after the breakup, to smear him.”
Li Mengting reflexively pushed back. “No—how could it be me?”
“I know it wasn’t you. The presiding judge might even privately think the same as I do. But the law is the law—without evidence, we can’t rashly convict Zhang Hao.”
“Yaoyao, even without evidence that Zhang Hao forged the marriage certificate, I think I can find evidence that he got me pregnant while living with me and got Liang Qiongqiong pregnant at the same time. Wouldn’t details like that build a chain of evidence proving bigamy?”
“Bigamy is very hard to prove in practice, and legally it requires someone who already has a spouse to marry another person, or to live with them as husband and wife. Right now, Zhang Hao can simply say he only ever cohabited with you, that he never once said the word ‘marriage,’ and that you never lived together publicly as husband and wife. You don’t have a job, so there are no coworkers who could testify that Zhang Hao presented himself as your husband to the outside world. And as your lawyer and friend, you can imagine how much weight my own testimony would carry.”
Cheng Yao glanced at Li Mengting. “The whole reason Zhang Hao kept delaying holding a wedding banquet with coworkers and friends here in City A was to prevent exactly this situation. And the phone notarization trick won’t work either, because Zhang Hao is already married to Liang Qiongqiong now—even if I pretend to be someone else calling him, he won’t acknowledge any relationship with you. He’ll just call you his ‘ex-girlfriend.'”
Li Mengting bit her lip hard.
“And the Supreme Court issued a reply on how to determine bigamy, which states that if the circumstances of the bigamy are clearly minor and not seriously harmful, it isn’t treated as a crime. There’s a lot of dispute in judicial practice even over how to define bigamy in the first place.”
Both routes—bigamy and forgery of official documents—were clearly dead ends.
Because of this, Cheng Yao had to spend a long time in urgent discussion with Li Mengting, and before she knew it, an entire day had gone by sorting through the details of Li Mengting and Zhang Hao’s case and their shared property.
By the time she looked up, it was nearly time to leave work.
Cheng Yao checked her phone and only then remembered she’d invited the son of her mother’s best friend over for dinner tonight. She hurriedly packed up and rushed home.
On her way out, she passed Qian Heng’s office and glanced instinctively toward the door. He wasn’t there.
She’d actually meant to discuss the Li Mengting case with him, but when she went to knock, she found he was gone.
Cheng Yao found this curious—normally, on an afternoon with no scheduled meetings, Qian Heng wouldn’t leave the office. Curious, she asked Bao Rui, “When did Qian par leave? Something come up?”
“Not long ago. Sounded like he had plans with someone—I heard the alarm on his phone go off in his office, and then he grabbed his laptop bag and left.”
For no particular reason, Cheng Yao’s heart gave a little lurch. “A blind date again?”
“Doesn’t seem like it. He looked kind of grim, not happy at all.”
Oh… For some reason, hearing that Qian Heng wasn’t happy actually put Cheng Yao at ease…
On the way home, Cheng Yao was still turning over possible angles for the Li Mengting case. As standard procedure, since the case had undergone a major development, she’d briefly summarized the situation in an email to Qian Heng. So far, though, she hadn’t gotten a reply.
With tonight’s dinner on her mind, Cheng Yao didn’t think about it further. The moment she got home, she started preparing dinner, and just as she finished setting the table, the doorbell rang.
Her mother’s best friend’s son was named Xue Ming. Though they’d been childhood playmates, and had kept in sporadic touch over the years, it had been a long time since they’d seen each other. Facing the grown man at her door, Cheng Yao felt oddly bashful.
Xue Ming, on the other hand, seemed at ease. He held up the bag in his hand. “Your mom asked me to bring you some warm clothes.”
Cheng Yao thanked him and showed him in.
The two chatted for a bit, reminiscing about old memories both fond and embarrassing, and the mood warmed considerably.
Xue Ming looked over the spread on the table and let out a genuine exclamation of admiration. “You’re really this good a cook? Whoever marries you is going to be lucky.” He glanced at Cheng Yao, then lowered his eyes. “Though I heard from your parents you ran into a real piece of trash before—just got back to being single?”
“Uh…” Cheng Yao gave a dry laugh. “Something like that.”
“Then he had bad taste.” Xue Ming looked at her and smiled. “Didn’t know a treasure when he had one.”
This… this was getting a little awkward…
Cheng Yao considered for a moment before saying, “I know my mom must have cried to your mom about it, saying I’m miserable after the breakup and worried I’ll never marry. You don’t have to take it seriously—you don’t need to flatter me just to make me feel better. I’m really fine. Look at me, I’m doing great. Please don’t feel like your mom’s pressuring you to comfort me or, worse, date me, and force yourself into it.”
Xue Ming laughed. “I’m not flattering you. I mean it.”
He was quite direct. “I’m being transferred from the B City branch to the A City headquarters next month. We’ll be in the same city, and we’re from the same hometown, our families know each other well—unlike people you’d meet for the first time on a blind date. We’ve known each other since we were kids, there’s a foundation there. I’m single, you’re single. I really think we should give it a try.”
“…From friends, that’s fine too. Really, Yaoyao, I actually liked you a lot back then—”
Just as Cheng Yao was floundering, unsure how to respond to the sudden turn of the conversation, the door to the master bedroom suddenly opened—
Qian Heng, in pajamas, walked out looking groggy with sleep.
Cheng Yao: !!!
Ever since Qian Heng had moved out, his room had remained his in name, but the door was always kept shut. When Cheng Yao got home tonight, the door had been closed as usual, with no light or sound coming from inside—so she never imagined that, as if by some magic trick, Qian Heng would suddenly walk out of it!
Cheng Yao was stunned. Xue Ming, naturally, was equally stunned.
But Qian Heng seemed entirely unaware of the two stares fixed on him. Amid their shock, he walked over to the dining table with perfect naturalness, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
“Seafood tonight? Nice.”
His movements and words were so natural that both Cheng Yao and Xue Ming forgot to question him at all, simply staring blankly as Qian Heng helped himself to a pair of chopsticks and prepared to dig in.
About a minute later, Xue Ming finally came back to his senses. He looked at Cheng Yao, his expression complicated. “Yaoyao, who is this?”
Cheng Yao scrambled for an explanation. “Oh, this is my old roommate—we used to share a place. He just moved out recently, might have something going on, so he came back. He’s a coworker of mine, a coworker…”
Cheng Yao didn’t want to explain why her boss had been living with her, so she blurred the details and simply called him a coworker.
She turned to Qian Heng. “So… so, old Qian, why are you here?”
“Oh, I wasn’t feeling well this afternoon, so I came back for a nap.” Qian Heng said this with zero sense of guilt. “Accidentally overslept. Just woke up and realized it was already dinnertime.” He paused, then, with utterly insincere consideration, added, “Am I interrupting you two? If you’d rather I go, I can leave.”
“…”
Having said all that, Cheng Yao thought, does he expect me to actually throw him out on the spot?
Xue Ming, too, couldn’t quite bring himself to be rude about it. “Nice to meet you, old Qian. I’m Xue Ming. Since you’re Yaoyao’s coworker, let’s just eat together.”
…
What had been a dinner for two suddenly became a dinner for three, and the mood turned subtly awkward.
Fortunately Xue Ming was good at keeping things lively. He tried a mantis shrimp and praised it lavishly. “This is honestly the best mantis shrimp I’ve ever had. Yaoyao, you’re really talented in the kitchen.”
Qian Heng picked up a mantis shrimp of his own, lifting his eyelids slightly. “Oh, Cheng Yao’s mantis shrimp is only average tonight, honestly. The abalone she made for me last time was better.”
“…”
Qian Heng, even the mantis shrimp isn’t as shellfish as you’re being tonight!
Xue Ming blinked, decided to ignore Qian Heng, and looked back at Cheng Yao. “I should have known—we should’ve just gone out to eat. You must have worked so hard putting this whole spread together. When I move to A City next month, let me cover a month of your dinners as thanks for tonight.”
Before Cheng Yao could respond, Qian Heng spoke first. “No need.”
Xue Ming looked at him, confused.
Qian Heng pressed his lips together. “Oh, she’ll be working overtime the entire month next month.”
Cheng Yao was startled. “Huh?”
Qian Heng said calmly, “There’s a heavy caseload coming up. The whole team will be putting in overtime.”
Xue Ming looked at Cheng Yao with some sympathy. “You lawyers really have it rough. Working overtime for an entire month at a stretch? Have you ever thought about switching careers? With a law degree, the civil service exam would actually suit you well—besides the courts, prosecutors’ office, and police, plenty of government and public institution jobs specifically want law majors.” He offered the suggestion with real sincerity. “Or corporate legal work at a state-owned enterprise would be good too. I know a mid-level manager at one—they’re actually hiring a legal specialist right now. Want me to send your resume over?”
Qian Heng said nothing, just gave Cheng Yao a light but distinctly dangerous glance.
Seeing no response from Cheng Yao, Xue Ming pressed again. “What do you think?”
Cheng Yao wanted to cry without tears. Xue Ming, of all the things to bring up—poaching her right in front of her boss? Did he think she had the nerve to say anything?
She could only respond with utmost righteousness. “I’ve decided to stick with being a lawyer, to devote my life to the legal profession. I love a life with a new challenge every day—it’s incredibly thrilling!”
Xue Ming blinked, then said, “Well, if you like it, that’s what matters. It’s not easy finding work you love. It’s just, you’re a woman—you’ll have to marry and have kids eventually, and once you start a family, it’ll be hard to juggle both if you’re this busy.”
“Oh, Cheng Yao isn’t planning on dating or marrying for the next two years. She wants to focus on her career.” Qian Heng set down a mantis shrimp and smiled lightly, unbothered. “Especially since the standard she’s surrounded by day to day is so exceptional. Her expectations are quite high these days.”
“…”
This conversation, it seemed, wasn’t going anywhere good…
Fortunately, though Xue Ming’s expression had darkened somewhat, he didn’t say anything further—until Cheng Yao stepped away to the kitchen to check on the pastries baking in the oven, at which point Xue Ming finally couldn’t hold back—
“Man, you’re being pretty hostile to me. Do you like Cheng Yao too?”
Qian Heng shot back without a second’s thought. “Impossible. I would never get involved in an office romance.”
“Then why are you targeting me at every turn?” Xue Ming was utterly baffled. “Have we met before? Did I offend you somehow?”
“…”
Qian Heng pressed his lips together, glaring at Xue Ming, only to realize he had no answer.
“You’re clearly trying to sabotage me and Yaoyao talking.” Xue Ming, being a straightforward person, reasoned it out logically. “Or did Yaoyao offend you somehow? Is that why you don’t want her to find someone and experience the beauty and happiness of love?”
Yaoyao? Qian Heng thought. Are you two that close? Wasn’t she just some childhood playmate from eight hundred years ago? And “the beauty of love”? What’s so beautiful about love? Can it compare to money and work? Hmph.
Xue Ming, oblivious, kept going. “If Yaoyao offended you at work somehow, I apologize on her behalf. She’s rather simple, a bit naive—doesn’t always understand how the world works. She’s still just a young girl who doesn’t know much about anything…”
Qian Heng couldn’t take it anymore. He looked at Xue Ming. “Do you actually know Cheng Yao at all?”
“Huh?”
Qian Heng rubbed his brow. “Cheng Yao can be naive sometimes, sure, but she’s not nearly as fragile as you think—she doesn’t need anyone’s all-around protection, and she certainly doesn’t need you, or anyone else, vouching for her behind the scenes just so she can live her life properly.”
“She’s very capable of taking care of herself in daily life—independent, through and through. Cooking, of course, but she can also fix plumbing and change light bulbs without a problem. At work, she’s extremely diligent and hardworking, good at reflecting and summarizing lessons, never arrogant, able to calmly acknowledge the gap between herself and others and learn from their strengths. As for her personality, she’s easygoing—even when others criticize her harshly, she never gets angry. She’s not delicate, she can endure hardship, she has real perseverance.” Qian Heng’s voice remained as cold as ever, but he laid it all out with perfect calm. “She’s still young, still a bit inexperienced in how she handles some things, but she’s always growing. She doesn’t need to lean on a man’s care to stand on her own two feet, and she doesn’t enjoy a life of dependence on others, either. She’s someone with ideas, with goals and dreams, and she’s willing to fight to achieve them. She seems easy to get along with, but on matters of principle she’s stubborn to the bone—the type who won’t turn back until she’s hit a wall dead on.”
While Qian Heng was saying all this, Cheng Yao had just taken the baked pastries out of the oven and was about to head back to the table. She froze in the kitchen, feeling something sweet, and a little sour, well up in her chest.
So her efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed by Qian Heng after all.
Though he always seemed to look right past everyone else, it turned out he’d been quietly watching her all along.
That Qian Heng—whose time cost 166.666 recurring yuan a minute—had said this much about her in one breath left Cheng Yao feeling as if something both calm and surging were washing through her heart.
Sometimes a person can’t fully understand themselves, and Cheng Yao had never expected that Qian Heng would understand her this precisely.
Being seen through like this usually felt dangerous—but when it was Qian Heng doing the seeing, Cheng Yao found she was only moved. In front of him, she felt safe.
Meanwhile, the very man responsible for stirring up her heart hadn’t the faintest idea Cheng Yao was listening. He turned a cold face to Xue Ming. “If you think Cheng Yao is better suited to being kept at home to raise children and support a husband, then you two aren’t a match.”
…
At that instant, Cheng Yao’s heart suddenly began racing wildly—if she really did have a deer bounding around inside her chest, it would surely have crashed itself to death by now…
Well, she had to admit—Qian Heng being protective was dangerously handsome.
Fortunately, she eventually settled her emotions and her expression before finally walking over with the desserts.
As it turned out, Xue Ming was made of sterner stuff. Despite this blow from Qian Heng, he wasn’t scared off—in fact, he powered through the rest of the meal amid Qian Heng’s barbed sarcasm, and even seemed eager to stay and chat afterward.
“Thanks for hosting Yaoyao tonight.” Xue Ming was enthusiastic. “Let me wash the dishes and clean up.”
Cheng Yao wasn’t about to let a guest wash dishes. She insisted, “I’ll do it. Sit and rest for a bit.”
Xue Ming had it all planned out. If he kept insisting, the most likely outcome was that he and Cheng Yao would end up cleaning the kitchen together, which would give the two of them time alone, away from that good-looking but relentlessly sarcastic male coworker.
And things were indeed heading exactly as Xue Ming had planned—reluctantly, Cheng Yao agreed to let him help in the kitchen. Except—
“Cheng Yao.” The man who’d eaten his fill for free and then sat on the couch with no intention of helping, watching her coldly the whole time, suddenly called out her name.
“Yes?”
The man glanced at his watch. “I happen to have ten minutes.”
“If you want to discuss the Li Mengting case…”
“I have quite a few questions, but the kitchen’s not done yet…”
Qian Heng glanced at Xue Ming, then back at Cheng Yao. “Didn’t your friend here volunteer to clean up single-handedly, to repay you for dinner?”
“…”
With things said this bluntly, however unwilling he felt inside, Xue Ming had no choice but to keep up appearances, forcing himself to sound considerate. “Yaoyao, work comes first. Go discuss it with your coworker. Ten minutes, and once he’s gone, we’ll still have plenty of time to talk—I’ll handle the kitchen.”
Xue Ming deliberately stressed the words “ten minutes” and “once he’s gone,” comforting himself while trying to salvage some ground.
Unfortunately…
Unfortunately, once Cheng Yao threw herself into work mode, she completely forgot everything else.
“Property division under cohabitation is completely different from property division within a marriage. If they’d been married, Zhang Hao’s personal income would count as joint property, and Li Mengting could claim a share. But since they were only cohabiting, personal income generally belongs to the individual.”
Qian Heng laid out the differing principles for property division under cohabitation versus marriage with great concision, tapping the documents lightly with a finger. “Given that Li Mengting and Zhang Hao didn’t cohabit for very long, the main piece of shared property involved is the apartment they bought together.”
Listening to this, Cheng Yao sighed. “So the Marriage Law really does mean something. In a cohabitation relationship, even if the two people live exactly like a married couple—say, the man earns money outside while the woman manages the household—the moment they break up, or the man cheats, without that marriage certificate, the woman gets almost no financial compensation.”
In cohabitation, personal income still belonged to the individual, and the fidelity agreement was invalid. All those years, so many women in cohabiting relationships had essentially served as unpaid housekeepers while also meeting a man’s needs, wasting their youth for nothing.
“The Marriage Law has always had meaning, precisely because of the existence of marriage law and the marriage system. Look at the Dong Shan case—after Dong Shan died, of all the marital joint property, half automatically belonged to Jiang Wenxiu. Only the remaining half counted as Dong Shan’s divisible estate, and that portion was split among Jiang Wenxiu, Dong Min, Dong Shan’s father, and Dong Shan’s illegitimate child. See? The bulk of the inheritance still flows to the legal spouse and children born within the marriage.”
Only at that moment did Cheng Yao finally understand.
That line Dong Min had shouted after the first trial—”the Marriage Law doesn’t protect marriage at all”—wasn’t actually correct.
The Marriage Law might still be imperfect, with plenty of loopholes, but on balance, it still leaned toward protecting the rights of the legal spouse and children born in wedlock. And without the protection of a marriage, Li Mengting was in a far more vulnerable position than Jiang Wenxiu had been.
Cheng Yao gathered her focus. “That apartment Li Mengting and Zhang Hao intended as their marital home—they paid 400,000 in cash for it together. According to the bank records Li Mengting provided, she contributed 1.5 million, leaving Zhang Hao’s contribution at 2.5 million.”
Qian Heng scanned the documents. “For jointly owned property like this that isn’t easily divisible, the court considers the parties’ actual living needs when dividing it, but neither Zhang Hao nor Li Mengting is in a position where losing this apartment would affect their basic livelihood. It’s more likely the court will divide it based on the proportion each contributed, prioritizing whoever contributed the larger share, while the other side receives compensation at market value for their portion of the joint ownership.”
That wasn’t good.
With property prices soaring the way they were, even if Li Mengting received compensation for her share at current market value, given today’s housing market, there was no way that sum would let her buy a new home. She couldn’t convert it into real estate—leaving it in the bank or putting it into wealth management products, either way it would only lose value. And why should she, having contributed her own money back then, end up watching that scumbag Zhang Hao lock down an entire apartment for himself? If the apartment ended up awarded to Zhang Hao, there was no question it would become a love nest for him and his mistress.
But given the evidence and information currently available, if they filed suit over the property division from the cohabitation period, this was the most likely outcome.
Cheng Yao and Qian Heng were so absorbed in discussion that they completely forgot Xue Ming existed, leaving him alone to finish cleaning the kitchen, and then the living room too. Half an hour passed, and Xue Ming had nearly finished cleaning the entire apartment, while Qian Heng was still helping Cheng Yao sort through her thinking, showing no sign of wrapping up.
Xue Ming’s heart was practically boiling with indignation!
What happened to ten minutes?!
He waited another unwilling hour—
And still, Cheng Yao showed no sign of remembering he existed. Qian Heng, meanwhile, glanced at him from on high, light and dismissive.
Xue Ming wasn’t sure how to describe the expression, but the moment he saw that look on Qian Heng’s face, three words immediately flashed through his mind: calculating bastard!
He wasn’t smiling, but his whole face radiated the satisfaction and glee of a calculating bastard whose scheme had worked.
Yet even having seen through the whole plan, there was nothing Xue Ming could do about it. In the end, unable to wait any longer, he stood to say his goodbyes to Cheng Yao, and only then did she seem to suddenly remember him, showering him with apologies.
And that calculating bastard—that calculating bastard actually walked him to the door with an almost-smile, saying “safe travels” like the man of the house seeing off a guest!
Xue Ming was nearly steaming with rage! To think he’d come all this way just to end up like some hired cleaner! And an unpaid one at that—free labor!