Qian Heng knew he shouldn’t. He picked up his phone, set it down, picked it up again — the minutes ticked by one by one, and by the time he came to his senses, he’d already dialed Cheng Yao’s number.
Cheng Yao answered groggily. “Hello?” She had just been going over a case file and had dozed off face-down on the desk without realizing it.
Over the phone, the words nearly burst out of Qian Heng, his voice low and magnetic, carrying a hint of reproach. “Fell asleep face-down again? Don’t sleep like that next time, it’s easy to catch a cold.”
He seemed to realize only after he’d said it that this wasn’t appropriate. The two of them fell silent for a moment before Cheng Yao finally couldn’t hold back any longer. “What is it?”
“You took on Chen Linli’s case?”
“Mm.”
“Don’t take this case.”
“Why not?”
“Cheng Yao, this case is more trouble than you think. Chen Linli’s situation is very hard to turn around even at the second instance, and against me you have even less of a chance — if you take this case, you’re bound to lose.” Qian Heng’s voice was even and measured, though a hint of emotion still leaked through at the edges. “The amount in dispute isn’t small, and your client already went through nearly every well-known family lawyer in A City for the first instance — she’s absolutely set on the Kaili equity, to the point of being obsessive about it, extremely difficult to deal with. If you lose the second instance, she won’t let you off easy.” Qian Heng paused. “You just switched to Golden Brick — you need to build up your own reputation and track record. I know you want to make a name for yourself quickly, but this case isn’t the right fit. If you lose, it’ll only hurt your future résumé. Becoming a well-known lawyer isn’t something you can achieve in one leap either — better to start with something simpler and build up steadily.” He paused again, his voice becoming slightly unnatural. “I happen to have some case leads that would suit you well. My time is limited anyway, and I don’t take on cases with such small amounts in dispute — I could pass them along to you…”
“Qian Heng.” Cheng Yao’s tone stayed calm. “We’ve broken up. Keep your cases for the lawyers at your own firm.”
There was silence on the other end for a moment before Cheng Yao heard his voice again. “It’s fine if you don’t want those cases, but Chen Linli isn’t as simple as you think. Huang Ran told me how she calculatingly landed Zhang Kai step by step. Zhang Kai used to have a childhood friend who was a much better match for him socially, and she just wormed her way in and stole him — pretty resourceful. Got pregnant first, and since Zhang Kai’s family is fairly traditional, that’s how she got her foot in the door.”
“Qian Heng, you’re the one who taught me never to trust a client’s story. Huang Ran and Chen Linli have had a tense mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship this whole time, and now that Zhang Kai and Zhang Ran — the two people who could smooth things over between them — are both gone, what good could she possibly have to say about Chen Linli?”
“That’s obviously just Huang Ran’s side of the story. I’m just pointing out that Chen Linli has her own reasons for choosing you as her counsel.”
Qian Heng’s words were oblique, but Cheng Yao caught his meaning almost instantly. “You mean she’s trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m your ex-girlfriend?” She let out a small laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not naive. She was actually quite upfront about it and told me exactly what she was thinking. Rest assured, I won’t be trying to plead with you privately just because of anything that happened between us.”
Qian Heng’s voice sounded a bit muffled. “I know you wouldn’t.”
“So what’s left to say? I’ve already left Qianheng — does your reach as a partner really extend into every other firm’s business too?”
“But you don’t need to plead with me privately for me to still be influenced by you.”
“I…” That single line from Qian Heng landed like a punch straight to her heart. Cheng Yao seemed to freeze up, gripping the phone helplessly, having completely lost track of what she was supposed to say next.
“If you’re determined to take this case, I can’t stop you.” Qian Heng paused for a long moment before continuing. “Then be a little worse to me.” He paused again. “Otherwise, your client’s goal will have been achieved.”
Cheng Yao hung up the phone, her heart still pounding fiercely. She felt a tangled mess of bitterness, a flutter of something, and frustration all at once.
What kind of man was Qian Heng, honestly?! Saying something like that with such a straight face! And even worse — declaring so confidently that she couldn’t win this case!
Cheng Yao’s emotions were a mess, a knot of frustration sitting heavy in her chest. She was determined to knock some of that arrogance out of him! The situation was unfavorable, sure, but it wasn’t a lost cause. There was still something to work with in the death certificates of Zhang Kai and Zhang Ran alone — it would just be troublesome, and would probably require an investigation in Turkey to gather evidence. Fortunately, plenty of people had witnessed the hot air balloon accident, and among them had been a Chinese tour group, so quite a few Chinese nationals had witnessed the accident firsthand, and a few kind-hearted compatriots had even helped get the injured to the hospital. They must all be back home in China by now.
If she could find these witnesses, lock down their testimony, and try to overturn the previously established time of death — while cross-border evidence-gathering would be complicated, it wasn’t necessarily impossible.
Just as Cheng Yao was mulling this over, a call from Qin Qin shattered the calm.
“Yao Yao, get over here now! My boss took an entire bottle of sleeping pills!” There was a lot of noise around Qin Qin. “Thank god I went to see her tonight about a work thing — I’m at the hospital now, but I didn’t bring enough cash. Can you come?”
Without a second thought, Cheng Yao grabbed her bag and rushed to the hospital.
Fortunately, they’d caught it in time — the doctors had done an emergency stomach pump on Chen Linli, and she was no longer in any life-threatening danger.
By the time Cheng Yao arrived, Chen Linli was lying alone in her hospital room, and outside the door was Qin Qin, poking at a boxed meal.
“Why did she suddenly do something like this?”
Qin Qin’s voice sounded muffled. “Today was supposed to be Zhang Kai’s birthday.”
For a moment, Cheng Yao didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected Chen Linli to choose this particular day to attempt suicide.
“She’d only just been admitted, and somehow her mother-in-law already found out — she’s already online trashing her, saying she’s just putting on a show.” Qin Qin looked pained. “God knows I really did just happen to have something to ask her about, couldn’t reach her by phone, and by sheer coincidence decided to stop by in person. If I hadn’t gone today, she wouldn’t have had a single family member by her side, and she really would have died just like that! If she genuinely cared that much about the inheritance, who would risk their own life to put on a show like that?”
Cheng Yao glanced into the hospital room at Chen Linli, pale-faced and still unconscious, and suddenly felt a flicker of curiosity. “How… how was her relationship with Zhang Kai?”
Actually, Cheng Yao wasn’t particularly interested in the state of Chen Linli and Zhang Kai’s relationship — ever since the Bai Xingmeng case, she’d made a habit of keeping her distance from clients emotionally, focusing only on the legal side of things. Qian Heng had always taught her that those emotional factors didn’t have much bearing on a case.
Qin Qin rolled her eyes, exasperated. “You’ve clearly been influenced by those reports too, thinking she married Zhang Kai for impure motives.”
Cheng Yao felt a little embarrassed. Even though she kept reminding herself not to make assumptions and to stay neutral, people are emotional creatures, and it was hard not to be swayed by public opinion at least a little.
Qin Qin glanced at the person in the hospital bed. “Honestly, when I first met the two of them as a couple, I thought exactly what everyone else did — that this woman obviously married him for the money! She’s this gorgeous, and you can look up what Zhang Kai looked like online — 160 centimeters tall, 180 pounds, small eyes, flat nose bridge, receding hairline — standing next to Chen Linli, it was like a real-life Beauty and the Beast. Then I found out Chen Linli’s family was poor, Zhang Kai’s family was well-off, and his business, Kaili, had gotten huge. He used to have a childhood friend who would’ve been a much better match for him, and Chen Linli went and stole him away, apparently. After learning all that, I figured Chen Linli even more clearly — the type who grew up poor and was desperate for a good life, and it made total sense that her mother-in-law didn’t like her.”
“But then I found out that wasn’t the case at all. Chen Linli genuinely, deeply loved Zhang Kai — you’d know it if you’d seen the way she used to look at him. That kind of love and admiration isn’t something you can fake.” Qin Qin sighed. “And the more time I spent around them, the more I realized Zhang Kai really was a good person — gentle, generous, funny, and even though he was the boss, he never acted superior, very well-mannered, broad-minded, incredibly knowledgeable about whatever industry you brought up, but humble about it. And he really treated Chen Linli well, very thoughtful, knew how to care for her. As for that childhood friend, Zhang Kai only ever thought of her as a little sister — there was never any ‘stealing him away.'”
“And here’s the thing — Chen Linli isn’t just beautiful, she’s incredibly capable. Zhang Kai was the nominal founder of Kaili, but the person who actually built the company up was Chen Linli. Zhang Kai was too gentle for it, more like a scholarly, refined intellectual, not cut out for business — whereas Chen Linli was tough and decisive in negotiations.” Qin Qin sighed, clearly moved. “Kaili got to where it is today basically because of her. People say she married into money, but that’s not it — with her ability, even without marrying Zhang Kai, she could have gone and raised investment on her own and still succeeded. It’s only now that Kaili is stable that she stepped back and took on a nominal director role, just handling HR and admin.”
Cheng Yao felt a small pang in her chest — she knew what it was like to be dismissed because of her looks; it wasn’t something she’d never experienced herself.
Qin Qin still had work to attend to, so after she left, Cheng Yao stayed behind to look after Chen Linli. Looking at her lovely profile, Cheng Yao’s thoughts felt tangled.
Chen Linli woke up in the evening.
Cheng Yao was sitting beside her. “Why did you want to die?” Cheng Yao chose her words carefully. “It’s been a while since the accident — I thought you might be starting to come to terms with it.”
Chen Linli’s expression turned bleak. “Lawyer Cheng, you’re still young — you don’t understand what it feels like to lose all meaning in life. When the person you love most is gone, you can never truly come to terms with it. Yes, it’s been more than half a year since the accident, and choosing to try to end my life now probably does look exactly like my mother-in-law says — like I’m putting on a show. But actually, when the most important person in your life dies right in front of you, at first there’s mostly just numbness and a dull ache — a lot of the emotion is delayed. After coming back to China, I could still keep handling Kaili’s affairs, still go to work every day right on schedule, like nothing about my life had really changed. But sometimes all it takes is a single moment, and suddenly you realize — the people you loved, your husband and your child, are gone forever.”
“Can you imagine? This morning, I caught myself instinctively about to go buy Kai a birthday cake from the bakery he liked, and then…” Chen Linli finally couldn’t hold it together any longer, and the tears kept falling. “And then it suddenly hit me — there’s no more birthday. Never again. Kai is dead. He’s dead. Ran is dead too.”
Faced with a woman who had lost both her husband and her child, Cheng Yao felt that any words of comfort would be hollow, so she simply handed over a tissue.
Outside the window, the sky hung heavy and gray, as if gathering itself for rain.
“Can I ask why you want Kaili so badly?”
This wasn’t a question Cheng Yao would normally care about — she usually just took on a client’s instructions, understood what they wanted, and worked to achieve it. But this time, she had a faint sense that understanding why Chen Linli wanted this might actually be the key to the whole case.
Chen Linli’s voice caught. “Because Kaili is the company Kai and I built up together, step by step, with our own hands. He’s gone, Ran’s gone too — Kaili is the last thing we have left. In my heart, I think of Kaili as another form of them living on.”
“Then why not just let your mother-in-law have it?”
“I don’t feel any hostility toward her. I’ve always wanted to build a good relationship with her, but her prejudice against me runs too deep, and with Kai and Ran gone, I have no way of getting close to her at all. She doesn’t understand how a business runs, doesn’t understand what Kaili means to me — she always thought I was only with Kai for the money. If she got the equity, she’d sell it off immediately, and might even go out of her way to oppose everything I do just to spite me. There are already plenty of people circling Kaili right now, looking to swoop in and take it over. If my mother-in-law gets equity, and a few minor shareholders defect to her side, I might lose my controlling stake, and then Kaili would just be fish on someone else’s chopping block.”
“I’m not fighting for the appeal because I want the inheritance. Money doesn’t matter that much to me — I have two working hands and legs, I’m still young, I can always earn money. But Kaili is the last thing Kai left me. If my mother-in-law gets a portion of the equity and it eventually lets outside capital in, then there’s no telling what will happen to Kaili’s future. I have feelings for Kaili — outside capital doesn’t. If they get into management, they won’t care at all about Kaili’s long-term development, they’ll only care about short-term gains, pump up the stock price and dump it, then walk away without looking back. I’ve watched that kind of short-term maneuvering destroy I don’t know how many startups that could have gone the distance if given the chance, and I absolutely will not let that happen to Kaili.” Pain crossed Chen Linli’s face. “That’s mine and Kai’s life’s work!”
So that was it.
In that moment, Cheng Yao felt an almost visceral understanding of Chen Linli’s decision. And in that same moment, a vague new approach began to take shape in her mind…
Chen Linli looked embarrassed about her own loss of composure. “I’m sorry, Lawyer Cheng, you must think less of me. I know killing yourself is a coward’s way out, but I couldn’t hold it in today, it was just too painful. I’ve lost everything — even though you haven’t said it, I know overturning the first-instance ruling and keeping all of Kaili’s equity is an extremely long shot, and you don’t need to feel pressured about this case, I know myself what the outcome is likely to be.” Chen Linli said painfully, “If I’d just died along with Kai and Ran when we were thrown out of that balloon, maybe that would have been better… They’re both gone, and now I still have to fight my mother-in-law in court — that’s not something Kai would ever have wanted to see…”
“No.” Cheng Yao suddenly cut her off, staring straight at Chen Linli, her eyes bright, as if she were glowing from within. “You can’t die. You need to stay and keep running Kaili properly.” She smiled at Chen Linli. “My whole approach up to now has been wrong. But now I know exactly what to do.”
“Please don’t worry. I’ll help you. There’s still hope for keeping the Kaili equity undivided.” Cheng Yao took Chen Linli’s hand. “Trust me.”
For some reason, the young woman in front of her seemed to carry a kind of reassuring, steadying power. She was still so young, and outsiders often said her looks outshone her ability — but a businesswoman’s instincts told Chen Linli that Cheng Yao was someone she could rely on.