Qi Xi soon got paid for her freelance legal translation work, paid off what she owed Gu Yan, and swiftly settled the remaining balance on the concert tickets, briskly securing the physical tickets.

Equally brisk was Gu Xuehan — the very next afternoon, she managed to carve out time to have Cheng Junliang come in to the firm—

“Since Gu Yan and Qi Xi have decided to take on your case, that makes you a client of the firm. As their supervising attorney, I wanted to meet with you and talk this through myself.”

Cheng Junliang hadn’t expected this to escalate all the way to a partner at the firm getting involved, and his face was a mix of terror and mortification.

Gu Xuehan was beautiful and commanding, and Cheng Junliang seemed almost unable to meet her eyes directly, his face flushing red, his speech stumbling. “H-hello, Lawyer Gu.”

“Gu Yan already went over the approach he had in mind with you, I assume.”

“Y-yes…”

Gu Xuehan gave a faint laugh. “That approach needs to be scrapped. You need to admit to your client that you lost the original promissory note.”

Cheng Junliang blinked, startled. “Admitting it actually leads to a better outcome?”

“No.” Gu Xuehan pressed her lips together. “Admitting you lost the original does mean taking on liability.”

Cheng Junliang looked lost. “Then…”

“Being a lawyer — especially as a newcomer like you — you’re allowed to not yet be sharp on the technical side, allowed to be inexperienced in handling situations. But the very first thing you must learn is accountability. That’s the most basic professional ethic a lawyer has.”

Gu Xuehan’s expression turned serious. “Losing the original document isn’t the frightening part. What’s frightening is being unwilling to take responsibility for it. Sure, you could try to dodge liability by exploiting a gap in the evidence — ordinary people might get away with that, but as lawyers, that’s not something we should be doing.”

She looked at Cheng Junliang. “This is where your career actually begins. If you can’t even own up to your own mistake, how are you supposed to handle all the various disputes and problems your clients will bring you? How will you carry the weight and responsibility of case after case? What gives you any right to earn a client’s trust?”

That single speech left Cheng Junliang’s face burning red — and Qi Xi felt no less ashamed. This whole scheme had, after all, been her clever idea in the first place, and hearing Gu Xuehan lay it out like this, she became increasingly aware of just how inappropriate it had been.

Cheng Junliang struggled for words but pushed on anyway: “It’s mainly… mainly that I really didn’t see another way out. I originally wanted to admit my mistake to my client and try to make it right, but she wouldn’t cooperate — she’s absolutely set on squeezing money out of me. If I admit now that I lost the note, she’ll definitely demand the full one hundred twenty thousand from me, and that’s just not a number I can handle…”

“Admitting a mistake doesn’t mean you have to shoulder responsibility for things beyond that mistake.” Gu Xuehan glanced at Qi Xi and Gu Yan. “As lawyers, all of you carry professional liability insurance. If negligence or fault on your part causes financial loss to a client, and you’re legally liable for compensation, that liability can be covered by the insurer. Our firm purchases this coverage for every lawyer and trainee lawyer who joins us; under normal circumstances, your firm should as well.”

The mention of professional liability insurance made Cheng Junliang’s eyes light up — but they quickly dimmed again. He mumbled, “But mine’s just a small firm, not very formal — I doubt they bought that for me…”

Gu Xuehan replied, unhurried: “Even if they didn’t buy it for a trainee lawyer, your supervising attorney will certainly have it. Even though your supervisor left this case entirely to you to handle, as a trainee lawyer you can’t practice independently — the engagement letter would still carry your supervisor’s signature. Which means, legally speaking, this is a case the two of you share jointly. As his assistant, if your negligence caused the original document to be lost, any resulting financial liability would very likely be covered by his professional insurance for the most part.”

Gu Xuehan blinked. “One hundred twenty thousand isn’t a huge sum. Under normal circumstances, professional liability insurance for lawyers can cover that in full. Even if the insurer’s assessment doesn’t cover the entire amount, whatever gap remains would be small — nowhere near needing something as drastic as taking out an online loan to cover it.”

Not just Cheng Junliang, but Qi Xi and Gu Yan too were caught off guard — none of them had thought along these lines at all, hadn’t even considered that lawyers carried professional liability insurance.

Seeing the looks on their faces, Gu Xuehan understood immediately. She shot Gu Yan a somewhat exasperated look. “You probably felt awfully clever about that earlier scheme of yours, didn’t you? Why didn’t it occur to you to think of other options? Everyone makes mistakes — admitting fault and facing the consequences isn’t nearly as disastrous as you all think. High-risk professions like law and medicine come with liability insurance precisely as a safety net.”

Even so, Cheng Junliang still hesitated. “But… but I’m worried that if I tell my supervisor about this, I’ll lose my job. And if it comes to actually using his liability insurance, once a claim’s filed, won’t that affect his premiums going forward? I’m the one who dragged him into this, after all…”

This response made Gu Xuehan raise an eyebrow. “If you could redirect even a fraction of the guilt you feel toward your supervisor onto your actual client, you wouldn’t have been so eager to dodge responsibility in the first place.”

Gu Xuehan’s expression turned serious again as she looked at Cheng Junliang. “Regardless of how your client behaves going forward, or whether she intended to extort you from the start, the fact remains you lost the original note first, and you should still feel some remorse toward your client over that — because you can’t test a person’s character, and it was you who gave her the opening to try to extort you. But your supervisor isn’t blameless either. First, he never warned you about the risk, never told you that you absolutely must not accept a client’s original documents. Second, because he underestimated this case as too small and simple to matter, he never followed up on it, leaving it entirely to you, the trainee.”

Cheng Junliang was still visibly uneasy, fingers twisting nervously at his sleeve.

Gu Xuehan’s tone stayed calm, but her words carried real weight. “A supervising attorney is half a mentor — it’s their job to guide you. Every firm that operates on a commission structure has the supervisor taking a cut of the trainee’s case earnings. If they’re going to take a share of the money you bring in, don’t you think they should also share the responsibility? Since when does the world work any other way?”

Seeing Cheng Junliang’s continued hesitation, Gu Xuehan gave a knowing little laugh. “I know what you’re thinking — that this would mean crossing your boss. But a trainee lawyer should have a trainee lawyer’s sense of accountability, and a boss should have a boss’s sense of accountability too. Otherwise, what qualifies him to be a boss at all?”

Cheng Junliang seemed moved, finally working up the nerve to ask, “Then, Lawyer Gu, could you help me talk to him…?”

Since Gu Xuehan had decided to take on the case, she could, as his lawyer, have gone and spoken to his supervisor on his behalf as his newly acquired client. But to Qi Xi’s surprise, Gu Xuehan refused.

“No. This is something you need to go handle yourself first.”

Cheng Junliang’s face fell, sure enough.

“I know it’s hard. But being a lawyer, being a person — there are things in life you have to grit your teeth and do anyway, responsibilities you have to shoulder even when it’s mortifying. If you still want to keep this job, you should go inform your supervisor yourself first and talk it through with him. First, that shows him respect and genuine sincerity in owning your mistake. Second — have you considered that you might be treating your supervisor as an adversary before he’s even given you reason to? He may well, once he hears about it, choose to handle it exactly the way I would. You might not even need me to step in at all.”

Gu Xuehan spoke with real earnestness this time. “Cheng Junliang, since you chose to join that supervisor’s team, you should also respect and trust that team. Lawyers can resolve a great many disputes, but not every dispute — because relationships between people are inherently delicate. I’ll take this case, and I won’t charge for it — but only after you’ve talked to your supervisor yourself, and he’s refused to help.”

…

Faced with this final ultimatum, Cheng Junliang struggled, but under Gu Xuehan’s patient, thorough explanation, he finally found his resolve, deciding to face the first major mistake of his career head-on — to first come clean with his supervisor, and then work out together how to handle it.

**

Once Cheng Junliang left, Gu Xuehan didn’t let Qi Xi and Gu Yan leave the office right away.

Gu Xuehan tapped her fingers on the desk. “Immediately jumping to the fact that the other party has no proof Cheng Junliang lost the original note — that’s practically a professional reflex at this point. Sounds clever, looks like a clean way to dodge that one hundred twenty thousand.”

“But not everything in life can be solved with legal reasoning. The law is rigid; human nature isn’t. As lawyers, we need to stay wary of that — never reduce everything down to a legal case-analysis exercise. A truly good lawyer has to understand people, has to be able to empathize and step into a client’s shoes. So you two need to go out and experience life — the more you understand of human nature, the better.”

Gu Xuehan smiled at this point. “You’re both still young — you should be meeting all kinds of people. As it happens, the Lawyers Association is running an event soon, and each firm needs to send one man and one woman. Go this afternoon, the two of you — I’ll clear it with the office. Getting out there, building good relationships with the Association staff — can’t hurt.”

The Association really did organize plenty of annual events — Constitution Day publicity, lawyer outreach programs, community legal education, that sort of thing. Qi Xi was actually happy to take part. She just hadn’t expected that this particular event would have nothing to do with any of that.

When Qi Xi and Gu Yan arrived at the Association that afternoon for the briefing, hearing the assignment the staff had laid out, she felt her head start to spin—

“For this project we need to film several legal-education promotional videos, including case-reenactment segments, and each firm needs to provide some ‘extras’ for these. So, gathered here as we are, we’ll form pairs by firm. Each pair will get a complete case script, and we’ll film everything into short videos for public distribution. Please use your free time to memorize your lines and rehearse — we’ll schedule filming according to progress.”

Qi Xi assumed this would be a fairly standard legal-education activity, but once she got her hands on the script, she was floored.

Some firms had been assigned “extras” for a housing lease dispute, others for a private lending dispute, and Qi Xi and Gu Yan…

Qi Xi and Gu Yan got a marital and romantic dispute — and the sheer range of elements and legal issues packed into it left Qi Xi utterly stunned.

The gist ran roughly like this: a wealthy young man relentlessly pursued a beautiful woman, showering her daily with confessions, gifts, and constant attention, even offering to add her name to his property and let their future children take her surname if she agreed to date and marry him. Touched, she still turned him down. Devastated, and having drunk himself into false courage before the confession, he lost all control while blackout drunk and assaulted her. Afterward, wracked with guilt, he begged on his knees for forgiveness, and through a mix of manipulation and pressure eventually got her to agree to “date” him, and she went on to marry him. After the marriage, though, she grew close to a neighbor over time; he responded with repeated domestic violence, and things only settled down after she gave birth to a child — but then…

Qi Xi didn’t even need to guess. Flipping ahead through the script summary confirmed exactly what she suspected: the child turned out to belong to the neighbor, so the husband sued for divorce, demanding damages for emotional distress, and the two fought bitterly over custody and child support. In the end, consumed by resentment born of love, the husband stabbed the wife to death and faced the full consequences of the law.

…

Apparently in the interest of relatability and shareability, this melodramatic, over-the-top plot came paired with cringe-inducing dialogue, and the script even specified exaggerated physical gestures the actors were meant to perform…

Just as Qi Xi sat there dumbstruck, an Association staff member came over, eyes full of warmth. “You two are from the joint firm, right? There’s also a neighbor character in this script — we’ll have another lawyer cameo for that role, but the real focus is on the wife and husband leads. You two need to really bring it.”

Qi Xi struggled to protest. “Could we possibly swap for a different script? This one’s really complicated — we might be too young to pull off that kind of tone…”

“No, no, this script was hand-written by our director over three sleepless nights — it blends civil disputes, criminal elements, and public security penalty issues all together. She had one specific requirement: she wanted good-looking actors for it. You two have the best looks among all the extras this round — the director personally requested you two for the roles. You’ll play the wife.”

The staff member smiled, turning to Gu Yan with a warm, approving look. “And you’ll be the husband.”

The “husband,” not having read the script yet and with no idea what he was actually walking into, gave the Association staff member a calm, easy nod.

“Gu Yan, I really think you should read the script before agreeing to this…”

Perhaps too young and naive to take it seriously, Gu Yan seemed thoroughly unbothered. “How hard can it be? It’s just a case reenactment — we can just go through the motions. We can’t afford to offend the Association anyway, and if we do a good job with a script their director wrote herself, it’ll definitely reflect well on the firm.”

…

A quarter of an hour later, Gu Yan sat glaring at the script, looking like he wanted to die.

“I can’t do this.”

Qi Xi tried to reason with him kindly. “We really can’t afford to offend the Association. This is the director’s pet project, a priority for them — let’s just rehearse first, they’ll come by for the run-through soon.”

Gu Yan stared at the script, already looking utterly defeated.

That defeat came through in full during the rehearsal—

“Xiaoya, I like you.”

Gu Yan looked at Qi Xi, his voice flat and dry. “Just give in to me already. Otherwise, woman, you’re playing with fire — I’ve got a whole ancestral bloodline here I’m offering you, don’t be ungrateful.”

Not only did Gu Yan fail entirely to capture the character’s supposed dark, obsessive charisma, his confession came out with zero emotion whatsoever — sounding more like he was collecting a debt.

Hearing this deadpan delivery of the line, Qi Xi couldn’t hold it together at all, breaking down into helpless laughter.

“No, no, no! Cut! Cut!” Qi Xi couldn’t stop herself, calling a halt to Gu Yan’s soulless performance loudly. “This won’t work at all. The character’s supposed to be someone consumed with obsessive love — the emotion needs to be so much more! The Association staff already said the script’s lines were written by their director, kept pretty bare-bones, but as the actor, you can absolutely expand on it, add your own flourish! Like during the confession, you need to fill out the language more, really pour deep, passionate feeling into it, and when you’re supposed to be consumed with love, you need to genuinely put yourself in that headspace of desperate, obsessive longing and pain!”

Gu Yan looked at Qi Xi with a flat, exasperated expression, as if she were a lost cause. “So what am I supposed to add?”

To his credit, Gu Yan really could memorize that convoluted, melodramatic dialogue instantly — the issue was just that his delivery had absolutely no heart in it!

“I know it’s an assignment from the Association, but performing it like this definitely won’t pass. Tell you what, Gu Yan — try putting yourself into it. Didn’t you like a girl before and never manage to win her over? I know you’re obviously nowhere near as extreme as this character, but couldn’t you at least relate a little to that pain of loving someone you can’t have?”

Qi Xi blinked. “So when you’re doing the confession, channel how you actually feel about her — think of me as her. If you were confessing to her for real, what would you actually want to say, beyond just ‘I like you’? Would you really say it in such a flat, empty tone?”

At this, Qi Xi paused. “Sorry, I forgot to check — do you still like her?”

Ever since Qi Xi had first brought up the girl Gu Yan liked, he’d lowered his gaze and gone quiet — and it wasn’t until she asked this question directly that he finally looked up.

He looked straight into Qi Xi’s eyes.

Just as she started to think he wasn’t going to answer, Gu Yan spoke—

“Still do.”

His voice came out somewhat soft. After saying it, he turned his head away, looking elsewhere, as if unable to face Qi Xi — or more accurately, unable to face himself.

In that moment, Gu Yan’s expression stayed composed and understated as ever, but there was a faint, small furrow between his brows — well hidden, but Qi Xi still caught the trace of quiet dejection at its edges.

It made sense that he’d feel that way.

Hopelessly still in love with someone, even knowing she didn’t feel the same.

Qi Xi had never experienced anything like that herself, but in that moment, looking at Gu Yan’s expression — faintly hazy, like distant mountains veiled in mist — she felt an unexpected pang of envy, almost jealousy.

What girl. What incredible luck.

Never even dated him for a single day, and Gu Yan was still this devoted.

Qi Xi took a deep breath, shook off the chaotic tangle of thoughts in her head, and looked back at Gu Yan. “Okay, think of me as her. Let’s try again.”

She hadn’t expected Gu Yan to actually throw himself into it this time — but when he lifted his eyes to hers, and held her gaze, and only her gaze, Qi Xi suddenly felt a flicker of unease.

She hadn’t been prepared to meet Gu Yan’s eyes like this.

“I like you. Even if all I can do is watch you quietly, stay by your side quietly. Even knowing you don’t like me, I still want to be near you. Even wanting to stay away from you, even telling myself to start a new life — somehow I can never forget you. You’re always there in front of me, no matter what.”

Gu Yan’s tone stayed even, with barely any emotion showing through — only in that last line did a faint trace of youthful, helpless feeling slip in.

She didn’t know why, but being looked at like that, hearing such a plain, direct confession, Qi Xi’s heart suddenly started pounding.

It felt like Gu Yan was actually confessing to her.

Back at graduation, when she’d mistakenly believed she’d received a confession letter from Gu Yan, she hadn’t really felt much of anything. But right now, she suddenly found herself flustered, at a complete loss—

So this was what it felt like to be confessed to by Gu Yan.

So this was what Gu Yan’s confession, in person, actually looked like.

And there was actually someone out there who could turn Gu Yan down.

An indescribable feeling welled up in Qi Xi’s chest — something damp like spring rain, mixed with the stifling, restless heat of early summer approaching.