With the verdict still pending, Wu Jie was naturally unsatisfied. She tangled with Cheng Yao a bit longer, squeezed cab fare for the round trip out of her, took a bit more advantage where she could, and only left, grumbling and reluctant, after Cheng Yao humbly reassured and promised her things.

Finally free, Cheng Yao let out a breath and sat in the courthouse lobby, staring blankly at the people coming and going through the door. Her recent workload hadn’t even been the heaviest she’d handled, and yet she felt inexplicably exhausted—deeply exhausted.

“Cheng Yao?”

Just as her mind was wandering, a man’s voice called out to her.

Cheng Yao turned, startled for a moment before recognizing him—it was Li Chengxuan from Jinzhuan Law Firm, whom she’d met before at Bao Rui’s gathering.

Li Chengxuan had a straightforward personality, and wasn’t bothered that she hadn’t recognized him right away. He greeted her warmly. “You’re here for a hearing too, huh?” He glanced at her. “You look pretty worn out—still working under Qian Heng, I take it?”

“Ugh, that Qian Heng, he’s never gone easy on the young ones,” Li Chengxuan said, clearly seizing the chance to poach her again. “Little Cheng, what I told you before still stands, alright? If you can’t take it anymore working under Qian Heng, you should think about coming to us. Sure, Jinzhuan brings in less revenue than Junheng, but our partners are way easier to work with than Qian Heng! You still have the business card I gave you, right?”

Cheng Yao just smiled. “I’ve kept it, I’ve kept it.”

Li Chengxuan pulled her along, complaining about Qian Heng a bit more, before excusing himself to rush off to his own hearing.

Cheng Yao smiled and didn’t think much of it—her mind was on other things, on her own future, on work, on her relationship, on the still-pending outcome of Wu Jie’s case.

Fortunately, the weight on Cheng Yao’s mind didn’t linger long. Three days later, Wu Jie’s case reached a verdict.

That premarital 100,000-yuan loan was recognized!

Just as Cheng Yao had predicted, while original documents did carry priority in evidence, and a copy alone could only serve as supplementary evidence—unable, on its own without other evidence, to establish the facts of a case—once a chain of evidence was formed, even with the original lost, a copy could still serve as key evidence for establishing facts.

In Wu Jie’s case, before he knew the original had gone missing, her husband had acknowledged this loan, and combined with the bank transfer records from the time, the existence of the loan could be inferred. Although after learning the original was lost, Wu Jie’s husband and his lawyer tried hard to deny the loan, they were unable to provide any evidence to support their claim, so the court ultimately did not accept it.

After weighing his options, Wu Jie’s ex-husband decided not to appeal. Once the appeal period expired, the first-instance judgment would take effect, and the case would be settled for good.

Holding the judgment, Cheng Yao finally let out a breath of relief. Though the loss of the original document had been an unprofessional lapse, at least the final outcome gave her something to show for it with Wu Jie.

Wu Jie, however, was clearly still unsatisfied. “Little Cheng, you made this kind of mistake, and you still want me to pay the full legal fee? That doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” Wu Jie hinted. “You lost my IOU—this can’t just end that simply, can it? Even if you can’t waive the whole fee, at least give me a discount. Besides, with all the shock I went through—handing you the original and having it get lost—don’t I deserve some kind of compensation for emotional distress?”

“Losing the original was my fault. But Auntie Wu, under the Lawyers Law, a lawyer is only liable for compensation if their fault actually caused the client a loss. I made sure losing the original didn’t affect the outcome of this case, so you haven’t suffered any loss because of it. I feel terrible about losing the original, but the work I put into this case wasn’t just about securing your premarital assets—a large part of it went into the marital property division, which took a great deal of time as well. I’m your representing attorney, but the contract is between you and our firm, and our firm has never waived legal fees under these circumstances. If you’d like to file a complaint with the bar association over my unprofessional conduct in losing the original, I’m willing to accept whatever criticism or penalty the association decides on.”

Wu Jie tried to haggle over the fee a few more times, complaining and grumbling, alternating between crying poverty and flattering Cheng Yao, but in the end Cheng Yao turned her down every time, gently but firmly. Since she was the one at fault, Cheng Yao remained extremely patient and humble, but seeing that the price-cutting wasn’t working, Wu Jie grew furious and started attacking her instead. Cheng Yao took it all with good grace, continuing to apologize.

After hanging up, Cheng Yao thought the whole matter with Wu Jie was finally behind her. She never imagined that this woman, not content with just being petty, would refuse to stop until she’d gotten what she wanted.

Wu Jie showed up in the afternoon. Cheng Yao happened to be meeting with a client in her office at the time, when she heard a commotion break out in the main office area.

“Get your boss out here! You people at Junheng call yourselves professionals doing professional work—and look what happened! Look what kind of garbage your lawyer pulled! Losing my original IOU, and you still have the nerve to charge me the full fee without a cent off?” Wu Jie put on her full shrew act, loud and forceful, throwing a tantrum. “If this isn’t resolved for me, I’ll hang a banner outside your building tomorrow!”

Someone apparently tried to talk her down, but it had no effect at all—Wu Jie’s voice only got louder. “Who are you? What right do you have to talk to me? What misunderstanding? Hah, get that Cheng Yao of yours out here! Ask her to my face whether it’s a misunderstanding! Ask her whether she lost my original!”

With things having escalated this far, Cheng Yao had no way to avoid it. Under the startled gazes of the clients in the conference room, she pressed her lips together and walked out.

Seeing Cheng Yao, Wu Jie only grew more aggressive, her performance more exaggerated. “Is it because I’m not some client with hundreds of millions that you people at this firm are giving me such a slapdash lawyer?” She pointed at Cheng Yao. “What does she have going for her besides a pretty face? No brains in her head at all when it comes to actually doing the work. A firm as famous as yours—do you hire based on looks alone? How does trash like this even get into the legal profession? Backdoor connections?” Wu Jie’s attack turned vicious and indiscriminate. “Or is this just the standard quality at your firm?”

…

She kept ranting on about other things—though to be fair, a woman as sharp-tongued and unrefined as Wu Jie really had a talent for hitting where it hurt.

Cheng Yao’s relationship with Qian Heng had already put her on Li Meng’s bad side, and now, with this kind of low-level, unforgivable mistake of losing a client’s original evidence, Wu Jie’s outburst had reignited all the suppressed resentment and gossip among the staff.

Cheng Yao’s face burned, feeling the probing eyes from every direction—Li Meng’s contemptuous stare, and the vindictive, gratified look on the face of the intern who’d been scolded by Liang Yiran the other day.

In that moment, Cheng Yao felt utterly vulnerable, desperately in need of Qian Heng. But he wasn’t there—he and Bao Rui were still in Los Angeles, and even Tan Ying, who usually always had her back, was out at a hearing elsewhere.

In the wide-open office, though Wang Lu and a few others were trying hard to calm Wu Jie down, Cheng Yao, surrounded by all those probing looks, felt an utterly isolated helplessness—unable to defend herself, and with no way to explain.

Facing a scene like this, what could she even say in her own defense? Defend herself by claiming the IOU hadn’t gone missing? But it had.

There was nothing worse than having grievances and no way to voice them.

Cheng Yao’s chest tightened with bitterness, but she forced herself to speak through the humiliation. “Auntie Wu, this is on me for not handling it well. If there’s anything we need to discuss, let’s go to the conference room—”

“Who’s your auntie?” Wu Jie was worked up, and after all this commotion, no one at the manager level had come out yet, which only made her more irritable. Looking at Cheng Yao standing in front of her, she grew even angrier—she knew perfectly well Cheng Yao had no authority to waive the legal fee; this needed to escalate to the boss level.

“I can—”

Before Cheng Yao could finish her sentence, without warning, something hot was flung right at her. By the time she registered what had happened, she realized Wu Jie had grabbed a cup of tea off a nearby desk and thrown it at her.

Because of the height difference, the tea didn’t hit Cheng Yao’s face—it landed on her chest instead. Missing her face didn’t lessen her humiliation and embarrassment one bit. Getting scolded so viciously and treated this crudely in front of so many colleagues in the open office—even the thickest-skinned person would find it hard to stomach.

“Here, Cheng Yao, wipe it off quick.” A group of people scrambled to pull Wu Jie away, and Wang Lu handed Cheng Yao some tissues.

It was right then that the closed office door finally opened, and Liang Yiran walked out, looking as though she had no idea what had happened.

“What’s going on?” Her face showed puzzled confusion, and she lowered her voice. “I was just on a conference call, I heard commotion out here—what happened?” She looked at Cheng Yao with apparent surprise, then immediately raised her voice. “Who did this to Cheng Yao? If a client’s making a scene, shouldn’t someone call the police?”

Cheng Yao wasn’t buying Liang Yiran’s story about the conference call one bit. The false expression on her face made it obvious she’d been sitting in her office, deliberately waiting for the situation to spiral out of control like this. But she performed the role perfectly—right now, she looked exactly like a boss protecting her employee, strong and authoritative.

“Junheng is not a wet market, where throwing a tantrum gets you whatever you want. Legal services are professional services—not something you haggle over like a bunch of scallions at the market. If you’re unhappy with our service and don’t want to pay the legal fee, feel free to sue us—we welcome it. But if you’re trying to skip out on payment in bad faith, that’s foolishness in front of professionals. Whoever refuses to pay our legal fees, we will sue them to the end.”

Liang Yiran’s speech did calm Wu Jie down, though of course she wasn’t about to give up.

“Then ask your employee whether she lost my original evidence?! With a work attitude like that, don’t I have the right to question it? Shouldn’t you owe me compensation?”

…

Playing the part of a competent, fair-minded boss, Liang Yiran asked Wu Jie a series of questions, forcing everyone present to listen once again to the whole story of Cheng Yao losing the original IOU.

“Attorney Cheng won this case, and it caused you no loss whatsoever, so by rights we shouldn’t owe you any compensation or refund any legal fees. But losing the original document was indeed our failing—though it isn’t Cheng Yao’s fault.” Liang Yiran declared magnanimously. “This should fall on me. Since Cheng Yao is a lawyer under my supervision, and although she personally handled this case, I should have been overseeing things more closely. When something like this happens, I, as her mentor, can’t escape responsibility—and honestly, the loss of the original also points to a flaw in how we manage client evidence internally at Junheng. So to express our apology for falling short of professional standards, I will personally reimburse your legal fee out of my own pocket.”

Hearing that the legal fee could be waived, Wu Jie’s mood immediately eased. “Well, even if the lawyer working under you is useless, I can see you’re the one with real ability and reason.” She glanced at Cheng Yao a few times. “See, some young people just aren’t up to it—ginger gets spicier with age. Look at how reasonable your boss is, how steady she handles things—not like you, losing evidence and still clutching onto every last cent, not willing to give an inch, useless at the actual work but sharp as a tack when it comes to money…”

Wu Jie left triumphant, a smile already forming on her face, though she kept muttering criticism of Cheng Yao under her breath as she followed another associate lawyer, sent by Liang Yiran, to process the fee refund.

Liang Yiran’s speech had, on the surface, both protected Cheng Yao and demonstrated a strong sense of the bigger picture, resolving the conflict by sacrificing herself. Cheng Yao didn’t even need to think about it to know that everyone at the firm would now think even more highly of Liang Yiran—while her own reputation would probably only keep sinking.

Dating Qian Heng, riding his excellent caseload and getting to show off her skills while under him—but the moment she switched teams to a new boss, either she got no cases at all, or she couldn’t even handle a small case like Wu Jie’s without losing the original evidence and having the client come make a scene…

None of these details alone might have been enough to make people jump to conclusions, but taken together, they painted a very different picture—that she had no real ability, that she’d only gotten good results by clinging to someone powerful, and the moment she was on her own, she immediately reverted to her true, unremarkable form.

“Cheng Yao, wipe off the tea and come to my office.”

Liang Yiran’s tone was gentle, but Cheng Yao knew that what awaited her would be anything but mild.

Sure enough, once inside the office, Liang Yiran dropped the softness. She glanced at Cheng Yao. “I know you and Qian Heng are in the honeymoon phase of your relationship, and with him away lately your state of mind might not be great, but I hope you’ll keep your love life and your work separate, and not let your personal emotions affect your job.” Liang Yiran’s tone even carried an air of heartfelt concern. “For a woman, love is important, of course, but letting yourself become consumed by it does you no good in the long run…”

Cheng Yao suppressed her anger and humiliation. “I haven’t let my relationship distract me from work,” she said, word by word. “And I don’t think we should have caved and waived the legal fee for Wu Jie just to smooth things over. We’re lawyers—what matters is contract, law, and principle, not backing down the moment a client throws a tantrum. As for this case, I have a clear conscience—the outcome secured her the maximum possible benefit. Now that you’ve personally refunded the legal fee, it only makes it look like I botched the case entirely.”

Liang Yiran took a sip of tea. “But you did lose her original document—you’re the responsible party. I don’t want Wu Jie making a scene at the firm indefinitely, hurting your reputation and disrupting everyone else’s work in the office. Besides, if this had really escalated, under our disciplinary system, you as the responsible party would have faced consequences.”

Cheng Yao met Liang Yiran’s eyes. “Whatever I actually did wrong, I’m willing to accept the consequences for it. But I don’t want to be forced to admit fault for something I didn’t do wrong. This whole thing with the missing IOU is genuinely bizarre. If we’re going to talk about discipline, then let’s investigate this properly.”

Facing Cheng Yao’s pushback, Liang Yiran remained subtly cutting. “You say the loss is bizarre, but Cheng Yao, we’re lawyers—lawyers speak with evidence, otherwise it’s just shirking responsibility.”

Cheng Yao had her own suspicions building, but without evidence, it was all useless anyway. Junheng only had a camera at the entrance to monitor who came and went from the firm—there was no coverage inside the office itself. Right now, this was an impasse she had no way to break through. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Liang Yiran’s tone grew a bit heavier. “I know you and Qian Heng are dating, but you should still keep a level head, separate the role of girlfriend from that of employee, and not think that having Qian Heng means you can do whatever you want. At Junheng, first and foremost you’re our employee, and you still need to take your work seriously.” She paused, then glanced lightly at Cheng Yao. “A woman should focus on becoming excellent herself, on building her career—not on constantly thinking about marriage.”

The dig was obvious, and Cheng Yao bit her lip hard, fists clenched.

“Cheng Yao, I’m a few years older than you—here’s some advice. An excellent man will never want to marry a woman who isn’t excellent enough.”

The implication was impossible to miss. Liang Yiran’s tone was like that of a wise older sister—to any third party who didn’t know better, it might have sounded sincere, even generous, offering unreserved guidance to a junior. But Cheng Yao knew better.

The mockery and malice in Liang Yiran’s eyes had reached a point where she barely bothered hiding it anymore. She stopped just short of saying it outright—

You thought Qian Heng would marry you? Keep dreaming.

In that moment, Cheng Yao’s shame, humiliation, embarrassment, and frustration reached their peak. The disagreement over marriage between her and Qian Heng had finally been laid bare by Liang Yiran, thrown at her like an insult she had no way to escape.

If Qian Heng held firm on his stance against marriage and children, could she really just keep dating him forever, tucked away at Junheng? A year or two, sure. But seven or eight years? Ten, twenty years?

Setting aside the mockery from others, open or veiled, could she herself really keep suppressing her true feelings indefinitely, giving up marriage and children to accommodate him?

Cheng Yao had originally thought she could. But the day before yesterday, when Lin Fengjuan had brought Hanhan, now successfully through surgery, to thank her, and Cheng Yao had held that soft, adorable baby in her arms, she’d known she could no longer lie to herself.

She liked children.

She really did.

Even if she wasn’t thinking about it now, someday in the future, she would still want a child of her own—soft and round, with bright eyes and chubby little hands.

She also wanted a stable, warm marriage.

On this point, she and Qian Heng were fundamentally, irreconcilably opposed.