Cheng Yao was about to say more, but Qian Heng grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “We need to talk. Properly.”

By the time Cheng Yao registered what was happening, the two of them were already out in the restaurant’s small outdoor garden.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Cheng Yao struggled to hold onto her composure. “We disagree on our life plans and our future. Breaking up spares us both.”

“I love you, Cheng Yao.”

“But you don’t want to get married.”

“I can change any other principle of mine for you, but not this—not being unmarried and childfree. I can’t change that.” Qian Heng frowned. Since they’d gotten together, he’d granted Cheng Yao nearly anything she asked for—except on this one issue, where he stood firm, unbudging. “Marriage really isn’t a good thing. Kids are a lot of trouble too.” Qian Heng genuinely couldn’t understand. “Why on earth would you want to get married and have kids?”

Cheng Yao was practically fuming. “Because these excellent genes of mine need to be passed on. If you don’t want to get married or have kids, no one’s forcing you. I’ll find better genes to marry and have kids with. Don’t worry, it won’t be you.”

Qian Heng’s face turned as black as coal. “Cheng Yao,” he said, darkly.

But Cheng Yao wasn’t backing down. “You have your bottom lines and your principles. I have mine too. You can’t sacrifice your no-marriage, no-kids stance for me, and I can’t go against my own heart and praise that stance either just for you. This is a conflict that can’t be reconciled. In the end, we’d break up anyway—so please don’t come looking for me again.” She looked straight into his eyes, saying each word deliberately. “Qian Heng, I’ll say it one more time: you’ve been dumped! I, Cheng Yao, don’t want you anymore! So please control yourself, and face reality!”

Having said her piece, without waiting to see his expression, Cheng Yao turned and walked away decisively. She couldn’t afford to stay—one more minute, and she was afraid her resolve would crack, and she’d end up going soft and reluctant to let go.

This time, Qian Heng didn’t chase after her. The girl in front of him had been beautiful and radiant, showing not the slightest hesitation standing up to him—and he had to admit, she was right. He couldn’t ask her to stay in a relationship doomed from the start. That would be selfish.

She wanted marriage. He couldn’t give it to her.

The dinner, thrown into an awkward mess by Qian Heng, left him gone but the suitcase of gifts behind for Cheng Yao.

At the table, Li Chengxuan couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “I have to ask—how did you even end up dating Qian Heng?”

“Momentary lapse in judgment.”

“Yeah, that tracks…”

“So what’s it like dating that menace, though?” Li Chengxuan was practically bursting with curiosity. “Not gonna lie, I’m dying to know—sounds kind of thrilling, honestly…”

“Take a few more detox pills.”

“For real though, he seemed pretty into you.” Li Chengxuan kept firing off questions. “Why’d you two break up? Who initiated it? Does he want you back? He looked pretty pitiful walking off just now—maybe give him another shot? Guy like that, he’s got it coming, let me teach you—pretend to agree to get back together, then cold-shoulder him, torture him, break him down hard!”

Li Chengxuan grew more and more animated. “He clearly wants to get back together, but from now on, if he wants to see you, he’ll have to go through me first, kiss up to me and everything—hah, guess even he has bad days now, so satisfying. If he comes looking for me, I’ll just… hehehe…”

“Ahem, ahem.”

It wasn’t until Gu Beiqing gave a pointed cough to interrupt his train of thought that Li Chengxuan finally stopped. “Anyway, enough about him. Let’s talk about our bright future—eat up, eat up!”

Li Chengxuan felt like everything was going his way lately. Ever since Cheng Yao joined Jinzhuan, he practically fell asleep smiling every night. This recruit had been an absolute masterstroke—not only had he poached Qian Heng’s own protégé, but his beloved girlfriend on top of that! Such a steal! Totally worth it!

Cheng Yao hadn’t disappointed him one bit—not only had she firmly turned down Qian Heng’s attempt to get back together, she’d also been merciless about pulling cases away from Junheng. In half a month at Jinzhuan, she’d pulled three cases away from Junheng like she was harvesting them for free, two worth tens of millions each, and one closer to a hundred million.

Li Chengxuan had heard some of the gossip about Cheng Yao too—that she’d only risen through Qian Heng’s connections, that she’d botched a case at Junheng and left in disgrace. But a lawyer shouldn’t put stock in rumors—seeing was believing. Cheng Yao wasn’t just good at pulling in cases—she was good at handling them too. All three cases, she’d handled excellently, with strategies that even Li Chengxuan hadn’t thought of right away. Beauty and skill, both well-earned.

Only—aside from her case-handling style… though most of the time Cheng Yao was warm and approachable with clients, gentle yet firm, very much her own style, Li Chengxuan noticed that, without quite realizing it, she’d started unconsciously picking up some of Qian Heng’s mannerisms…

“Attorney Cheng, I think I might have wronged my husband. He told me, and last night he tearfully explained to me that it’s just an innocent friendship with that person. Watching him like that, I think he was telling the truth. We probably don’t need to keep gathering evidence of an affair… Even though it’s rare, I do still believe there can be innocent friendships between men and women.”

“Innocent friendship between a man and a woman?” Cheng Yao said, expressionless. “That only happens between elderly couples. Anything else, forget it. Calm down and keep gathering your evidence properly.”

…

“Attorney Cheng, I only consulted for half an hour, and you’re charging me for that? At my old firm, consultations like this were always free!”

“Free ‘trial sessions’ at a spa, ‘zero-cost’ package tours, so-called ‘free tastings’—are those things really free?” Cheng Yao glanced at the person. “If you actually go for a ‘free’ experience without paying, you won’t come out of it without spending money. No lawyer offers services for free—the moment something’s labeled ‘free,’ the cost you’ll pay down the line is only bigger. Would you rather pay for this half-hour consultation now, or pay ten times as much later?”

…

Not long into her time at Jinzhuan, Cheng Yao had no idea she’d already become something of a minor celebrity in Municipality A’s legal circles.

One day, having just finished a hearing and about to leave, she overheard a conversation at a stairwell landing.

“You guys know about Cheng Yao at Jinzhuan?”

“Hm?”

“Used to be at Junheng, trained personally by Qian Heng.”

“Oh, her, I know her. Just saw her a minute ago, actually—she had a hearing here. Gorgeous, looks like a celebrity.”

“Of course she’s gorgeous—she’s Qian Heng’s ex-girlfriend!”

“Wait, seriously?!”

“Yeah, Qian Heng was absolutely crazy about her. I’ve got a junior who interned at Junheng—she said ever since Cheng Yao left, Qian Heng’s face has been dark as a storm cloud every day. Before she left, some case’s original evidence went inexplicably missing—it got resolved eventually, but Qian Heng’s been insisting on getting to the bottom of exactly how it disappeared.”

“Not just a pretty face, but her case work’s impressive too—I was chatting with Judge Zhang yesterday, and he couldn’t stop praising her. Said this young lawyer’s dogged, sharp, thinks clearly, real logical—goes into court hard, cornered some senior lawyer in his forties so bad he couldn’t get a word in…”

“People used to think she only got results at Junheng because of Qian Heng—but now she’s at Jinzhuan, no backing, no connections, and she’s doing even better. Guess it’s real talent after all.”

“Kind of want to get to know her…”

“You’re playing with fire, man. You’d dare go after Qian Heng’s woman? You tired of living?”

“Didn’t they break up?!”

“My junior told me—last time they had a Junheng dinner, she caught a glimpse of Qian Heng’s phone lock screen, and it’s still a photo of Cheng Yao. You really think you can go chase her down without Qian Heng coming after you? And besides, she’s already been with Qian Heng—you think she’d even look twice at you?”

The group of lawyers kept gossiping about something else, but Cheng Yao had stopped paying attention. She didn’t linger—she walked straight past the stairwell, down through the lobby, and pushed open the courthouse doors, stepping out into the mild winter sunlight outside.

Bathed in the sun, she deliberately pushed thoughts of Qian Heng out of her mind, focusing only on work—and right now, she was finally, slowly, starting to prove herself. In that moment, Cheng Yao felt a surge of satisfaction and contentment welling up inside her.

Without Qian Heng, she could still do well on her own—she could still shine. She had no interest in being anyone’s shadow.

While things were going smoothly for Li Chengxuan, Qian Heng’s life had turned into one setback after another.

Cheng Yao had resigned, her desk sat completely empty, and he felt a matching emptiness inside his own chest. The firm had brought on a few new hires these past few days, and office manager Sister Zhu had originally arranged for one of them to take Cheng Yao’s old seat—but Qian Heng had it reassigned. Cheng Yao was gone, but somehow it felt like no one else could fill that space.

Still, what Tan Ying had told him left him on alert. Cheng Yao wasn’t the type to make a rookie mistake like losing an original document. Something had to be off.

Tan Ying went over it with him again and again. “It just went missing, no explanation. Cheng Yao left it on her desk for a few hours—we went out for lunch, and by the time we got back, it was gone. We both searched everywhere, checked the security footage at the entrance too—no one from outside came in during our lunch break…”

“What about people inside the firm?” Qian Heng zeroed in immediately. “So did anyone go in?”

“Inside the firm…” Tan Ying thought about it. “I think… only Partner Liang went in.”

Qian Heng pressed his lips together. After Tan Ying left, he went and pulled the security footage from the firm’s entrance himself. Based on the timeframe Tan Ying had described, he reviewed it several times over: after Cheng Yao, Tan Ying, and the others left for lunch, the office had been empty, until about ten minutes later, when Liang Yiran hurried into Junheng, then hurried back out again shortly after.

Qian Heng didn’t bother being subtle. He walked straight into Liang Yiran’s office. “Explain to me what happened with that case of Cheng Yao’s—the one with the missing original.”

Liang Yiran blinked, then looked up, her expression bewildered. “Explain what? That case—it was my failure of oversight, not paying enough attention to her state of mind. I should have reminded her to be more careful, which is why I already personally refunded the client’s legal fee.”

“I went through the case file. There was nothing wrong with how she handled it—whether the IOU was lost or not made no difference to the outcome. As a partner, I object to indulging a client’s tantrum like that. I don’t think we should have refunded the fee at all. As the supervising attorney, when a team member goes through something like this, the more appropriate move is to back your employee more forcefully, not placate the client.”

Liang Yiran looked a bit embarrassed, her tone turning aggrieved. “But you didn’t see that client—she was relentless, so annoying, cursing left and right the whole time…”

Qian Heng’s expression stayed calm, and cold. “Liang Yiran, you’re a partner. When something happens to a team member, externally it’s the partner’s job to shield them. Deal with the outside pressure first, sort out internal accountability after. Do I really need to explain that to you?”

Before Liang Yiran had even processed the sting of that, Qian Heng’s voice cut in again. “That original document she lost—did you take it?”

Qian Heng’s expression was icy, and Liang Yiran instinctively panicked, quickly denying it. “How could I possibly? Why would I do something like that? Qian Heng, I know you like Cheng Yao, but accusing me of this with zero fairness, just to defend her—isn’t that going a bit far?”

Qian Heng said nothing in response, only pulling up a photo he’d taken of the security footage on his phone and placing it in front of her. “I checked the timeline. From the last time Cheng Yao saw the original document to when she discovered it was missing, there’s only a window of a few hours. Someone’s usually near her desk too—the only opportunity was during the lunch break when she and the others went out to eat.”

Qian Heng’s eyes fixed on Liang Yiran. “She’s young, a little scatterbrained sometimes, but I’m not stupid. During that window, you were the only one who went in and out of the office.”

Liang Yiran pressed her lips together. “That case was Cheng Yao’s alone to handle. I never got involved—I never even saw her response materials, let alone touched them.” Her expression stayed composed, but her heart was sinking fast.

Qian Heng wasn’t normally an aggressive person, but he’d never pushed anyone this hard either. Liang Yiran hadn’t expected he would go this far for Cheng Yao’s sake. She’d assumed that no matter what, her standing would always outrank Cheng Yao’s—she was the accomplished, newly-minted partner bringing in revenue for Junheng, while Cheng Yao was just the defeated ex-girlfriend who’d already backed out of the running. Even without anything romantic developing between them, they’d still be colleagues and collaborators for the foreseeable future—why would he push it to a confrontation over something this small? Some things were better left alone, she thought—it was already water under the bridge, what was the point of digging it up?

“Maybe my handling of it wasn’t perfect. I’ll be more careful next time,” Liang Yiran said, softening, forcing a smile. “But it’s already resolved and closed now, no need to stir things up further. And don’t read too much into this with me—how could I possibly take the original IOU?”

“Everything about Cheng Yao is worth my attention. She was transferred from my team to yours—it was my trust in your professional ability that made that transfer happen. I’m responsible for whatever she’s had to deal with on your team.” Qian Heng’s expression turned serious as he looked at Liang Yiran. “I’ll ask you one last time. Did you take the original document?”

“I didn’t.” Liang Yiran was getting angry too now—angry at Qian Heng’s obliviousness, his stubbornness, and his inability to let go of his old feelings for someone else. For the first time, she lost her composure a little. “Qian Heng, I know you’re not happy about the breakup, but you can’t take that anger out on me. Cheng Yao resigned because she messed up handling a case and couldn’t stay at Junheng anymore—that’s not on me, that’s a problem with her ability!” Her face flushed with a mix of anger and hurt. “You’re a senior lawyer too—everything requires evidence, that’s what you always say. If there’s anything you need me to help verify, I’ll cooperate. I’ll clear my own name!”

At that, Qian Heng fell silent. Liang Yiran let out a breath of relief, and just as she was about to find a new topic to smooth things over, she heard him speak again—

“So you’re saying you never even touched that response file?”

Liang Yiran answered without a second thought. “That’s right.”

“You’re willing to cooperate to clear your name?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s do a fingerprint test.” Qian Heng’s tone was flat. “Since you never touched it, there shouldn’t be any of your fingerprints on the case file. I know someone who does this kind of testing—let me know when you’re free, and we’ll go together.”

Liang Yiran stared at him in disbelief. “You’d go this far for her? Treating me like some criminal suspect? Qian Heng, whatever the outcome, do you realize that the moment you make this request of me, things between us are over? There’s no going back to a normal working relationship after this. Have you thought about the consequences?”

In that moment, hurt, jealousy, resentment, and fury all crashed over Liang Yiran at once, her heart churning with bitterness. “Did Cheng Yao say something to you? She’d never have anything good to say about me!”

Qian Heng pressed his lips together. “She’s not that kind of person.”

“Then what kind of person is she?! Is she really that perfect in your eyes? Qian Heng, how long have you even known her—not even a year? But us—how long have we known each other? Eight years, all the way from university until now. Does that mean these eight years don’t measure up to her few months?!” Liang Yiran stared at him, all the grievance and bitterness she’d carried since joining Junheng finally spilling out. “And that timeline for when the original went missing—that’s all based purely on Cheng Yao’s word, isn’t it? Have you ever considered she might be lying to you? That maybe she didn’t really last see the original when she claims she did, and didn’t really discover it missing when she claims she did? Maybe she genuinely lost it herself, and was too afraid of getting blamed, so she instinctively pushed the responsibility elsewhere?”

Just as Liang Yiran thought she’d finally gotten through to him, Qian Heng paused, then said, very quietly, very lightly, “You may be my classmate of eight years, but she’s my woman. A man’s most basic principle is to trust his woman when it matters.” He looked straight at Liang Yiran. “I trust Cheng Yao. Unconditionally.”

That single sentence was like a fuse, finally igniting the explosives stored in Liang Yiran’s heart. She could no longer maintain her calm facade—she completely lost control.

“Fine, it was me! I just couldn’t stand the sight of her!” Her voice turned sharp, her expression twisted with barely-contained resentment. “What’s so great about her, that you’re this fixated on her? You two already broke up, and you’re still going out of your way to protect her? Just because she’s young and pretty? Qian Heng, I never thought you’d be this shallow! So you’re just like every other man—only after something new and fresh…”

“It was me who pursued her. Liang Yiran, show her some respect.”

“You two already broke up! Qian Heng! You broke up! What’s so great about her?! Come on, tell me!”

“What’s great about her, I know, and that’s enough. I don’t need to explain it to you—she doesn’t need you to like her either. It’s enough that I like her.”

Liang Yiran was nearly in tears. “Qian Heng, is your heart made of stone? Do you have any idea how I—”

“I don’t want to know.” Qian Heng cut her off, utterly without warmth. “Liang Yiran, since you’ve admitted to taking the original document, even though it didn’t affect the outcome of the case, what you did was completely unprofessional. Especially as a member of Junheng, using tactics like this against a subordinate lawyer under your own supervision is entirely unbecoming of a partner’s conduct.”

“You should resign.”

Liang Yiran could hardly believe her ears. “What did you say?”

“Resign on your own. Apologize to the client, explain what actually happened, and return the original IOU. I’ll send out a notice through the firm’s group email explaining how this was handled.”

By this point, Liang Yiran had also gone cold with composure. She smiled coldly. “Qian Heng, if I deny it now, you have no evidence at all. You have no way to force me into a fingerprint test either…”

“I recorded it.” Qian Heng’s voice was cold. “Every word since I walked into this office. I recorded all of it.”

Liang Yiran’s face went pale. “You never trusted me from the start. You’d already decided I was the suspect before you even walked in.” She looked at Qian Heng. “Do you understand what an internal notice like that would do? It would destroy my reputation across the entire legal community in Municipality A—it would end my career!”

“A flaw in a case, over the course of a lawyer’s whole career, won’t destroy that career. Stubborn refusal to change will.” Qian Heng glanced at her once more. “Apologize, undo the damage, correct yourself properly, and never let it happen again. Liang Yiran, you still have a long road ahead in this profession. Think it over carefully.”