But reality was not so kind—Gu Yan was no superman, and Gu Yan had not come.

The spot where Qi Xi had been splashed was already turning red at alarming speed, taking on the look of scalded skin, though thankfully it hadn’t broken open.

By the time Qi Xi had, in something close to panic, checked every part of her body that the unknown liquid had touched, and confirmed that apart from a mild burn on the hand she’d used to shield herself, nothing else was seriously wrong, she finally allowed herself to sag with relief.

Only then did she pick up the water bottle the man had thrown at her and carefully sniff it. No color, no smell—probably just water. Aside from the redness on her hand, there were no other symptoms.

Once she’d calmed down a little, Qi Xi called the police, and an officer soon arrived at the scene.

She gave a simple account of what had happened. “That’s everything. Would it be possible to pull the surrounding surveillance footage to identify him?”

The officer didn’t seem in any hurry. “You’re the lawyer on duty at the legal aid center, aren’t you? And you got splashed right as you walked out the door?”

Qi Xi didn’t understand why that mattered, but she nodded anyway. “Yes.”

Understanding dawned on the officer’s face, and he shrugged. “Then there’s no need to pull the footage.”

Qi Xi felt a flicker of disappointment. “Is the surveillance here broken?”

The legal aid center was located in the old part of the city, where much of the public infrastructure had aged without proper maintenance—plenty of the streetlights didn’t work either, so it wouldn’t have been unusual for the cameras to be out.

“No,” the officer shook his head. “The cameras work fine. But we don’t need them, because I already know who did it.”

“So… a repeat offender?”

“Mm. Name’s Wu Jianqiang. Lives in one of the shared rentals just around the corner from here. Lost a hand, never found work since, spends his days doing nothing. He’s always going on about how the legal aid center swindled him out of money, and he causes a scene every few days.”

Qi Xi was curious. “The legal aid center swindled him? What’s that about?”

The officer frowned. “There’s no such thing. He’s just a troublemaker trying to shake people down, most likely. He filed a report about it before, but when we asked him to specify exactly which lawyer at the center had cheated him, he couldn’t give us a straight answer—or the lawyer’s name he gave wasn’t even registered anywhere. There’s not a shred of evidence, just him insisting he’d been scammed out of money. How could we possibly open a case on that? He’s made a scene at the station over it more than once, accusing us of colluding with the judicial bureau and the lawyers, claiming there’s some improper deal going on, and he’s filed several complaints. But since we did everything by the book, none of it went anywhere, so he started harassing and taking revenge on the duty lawyers at the legal aid center himself. Every so often he shows up and throws something at them.”

The officer picked up the water bottle from the ground and sniffed it. “You got off easy, honestly—this is just hot water. Last time, he threw feces at one of the lawyers.”

“…”

Qi Xi glanced at the red, scalded back of her own hand and said, somewhat at a loss for words, “So he’s just allowed to keep doing this? Nothing’s being done?”

“We’d like to do something, but there’s not much we can do. First, every time it’s minor—nothing that amounts to a serious crime, no matter how you look at it.” The officer tapped the side of his head. “Second, there’s something not quite right with him up here. Good days and bad days—he’s got some kind of mental condition, and sometimes what he does, you just can’t hold him accountable for it.”

The officer looked Qi Xi over. “Don’t worry, we’ll contact his family and make sure they keep an eye on him. And you should be careful too—go rinse the affected area with cold water right away.”

**

After that unsettling incident, Qi Xi was still shaken, and between filing the police report and everything else, time had slipped away. Before she knew it, it was nearly time for her afternoon shift at the legal aid center. Forget about eating—she didn’t even have time to do anything for the minor burn besides rinse it with cold water.

Unable to help herself, Qi Xi posted a complaint about the day’s events on WeChat Moments, grabbed a quick bread roll, and headed straight back to the center to continue her shift.

Perhaps the police report had done some good, because she received no more harassing calls that afternoon. And soon enough, a steady stream of people came in for consultations, keeping Qi Xi so busy providing legal answers that she had no time left to dwell on anything else.

By the time her shift ended, the judicial bureau’s liaison had her sign for the day’s duty stipend, and because there was still an elderly woman waiting in line for advice, Qi Xi deliberately stayed a bit later than usual.

Only after she’d answered everyone’s questions and left the center did Qi Xi finally have time to pick up her phone.

As expected, her Moments post was flooded with comments of concern, and her private messages were full of people checking in on her—Zhao Yiran, several former male classmates who used to pursue her, even a few members from club activities she hadn’t kept in touch with in years.

But not Gu Yan.

So many people cared, and yet Gu Yan wasn’t among them.

Gu Yan hadn’t left a single comment on her Moments post, hadn’t sent her a private message either.

Qi Xi told herself, maybe Gu Yan simply hadn’t seen it.

But when a thought needs that much self-comforting, it usually means there’s no real peace to be found.

More likely, Gu Yan had seen it—he just didn’t care.

She didn’t want to admit it, but Qi Xi knew that was probably closer to the truth.

And why should he? What obligation did Gu Yan have to worry about her? He had the girl he liked, and they’d finally gotten together. At this hour, after work, he was probably off on a date.

Qi Xi felt a pang of loss, and something close to sadness. The burn mark on the back of her hand had faded from red, but the sting of the burn still lingered.

She kicked a pebble on the ground, checked the map on her phone, and decided to find the nearest pharmacy for some burn ointment.

So Qi Xi walked with her head down, following the map’s directions, not noticing anything unusual at first. The pharmacy wasn’t in a commercial district or near office towers—this was the old part of town, and the road soon narrowed into a cramped alley with hardly anyone around. That was exactly why the furtive footsteps trailing behind her became so noticeable.

Qi Xi forced herself to keep her racing heart in check. She deliberately quickened her pace and turned a corner a few times, and sure enough, the footsteps behind her sped up to match.

That confirmed it.

Someone was following her.

**

Thinking back on the string of incidents she’d faced recently, Qi Xi’s sense of alarm and panic spiked to its highest point, but she forced herself not to lose her composure.

Right now, her priority was to get out of this quiet stretch of road and back to the main street as quickly as possible.

At first, Qi Xi tried to stay calm, pretending she hadn’t noticed anything wrong behind her. Afraid of provoking whoever was following her, she kept her pace steady, trying to slowly loop her way back to the main road.

In a roadside mirror, Qi Xi caught a glimpse of the person behind her. He wasn’t especially short, and he was well-built—dressed in black from head to toe, a black baseball cap and a face mask, one hand shoved in his pocket. That pocket bulged with something, and his hand rested right against it, as if he were hiding a weapon he could pull out at any moment. His other hand bore a tattoo, giving him the look of someone from the rough side of the streets, not to be trifled with. Beneath the black cap, his hair peeked out—dyed green.

Though she kept telling herself to stay calm and steady, her emotions were impossible to fully control. Every second of being followed felt like a disaster in the making. Qi Xi was terrified, and without meaning to, she quickened her steps—and sure enough, the man behind her sped up too.

It seemed her intent to run had given her away.

Fortunately, Qi Xi was already close to the main road where the legal aid center stood. She stopped worrying about anything else and simply ran for her life, no longer aware of whether the man behind her had caught up or not.

She fled blindly, with everything she had—until she collided with someone.

Did the stalker have accomplices?

The person who caught her was tall, and strong—strong enough that, in order to restrain her, he’d already gripped her shoulders. Qi Xi was too frightened to open her eyes. She kept her head down and pushed with all her strength, hoping to shove past whoever was blocking her escape.

The person seemed unable to control her flailing panic either, and after a moment of what seemed like helplessness, switched from gripping her shoulders to simply wrapping his arms around her, to stop her from running.

Just before she could struggle further, she heard his voice—

“Qi Xi, it’s me.”

Was that Gu Yan’s voice?

Qi Xi thought she might be hallucinating from sheer panic. But a few seconds later, as the dizziness and the burning in her throat from running eased, the arms holding her were still there—strong, but without any hostility.

Trembling, Qi Xi finally opened her eyes, and there was Gu Yan.

She felt a little dazed, and something like a shiver of emotion ran through her.

Gu Yan had come. In the end, he had come.

While being chased, Qi Xi hadn’t thought to cry—but the instant she saw Gu Yan, her eyes stung, welling up with something between relief and hurt she couldn’t quite suppress.

It was also then, pressed close against his chest, that she heard his heartbeat through her left ear, pounding far faster than normal, along with the faint sound of his breath, still ragged from running.

Whether it was her own nerves or the effect of his racing pulse, Qi Xi’s own heart began to pound violently too. She pressed a hand to her chest, as if trying to hold the unruly thing in place.

She spoke, still a little breathless. “Someone was following me, chasing me.”

“It’s alright, I’m here.” Gu Yan’s voice was steady, but his expression showed he was far from happy. He glanced at her. “Wait here for me.”

The man who’d been trailing Qi Xi had apparently fled the moment Gu Yan appeared, vanishing without a trace.

Still shaken, Qi Xi did as she was told and waited where she stood, while Gu Yan ran off toward a nearby alley. Not long after, she saw him reappear at the mouth of the alley, dragging someone along by the collar—the very same man who had been following her.

The stalker who had seemed so intimidatingly built to Qi Xi now looked considerably less impressive in Gu Yan’s grip. The man struggled, but Gu Yan was clearly strong—he’d subdued his squirming with just one hand.

Gu Yan even had the composure to speak, his manner as calm and natural as if he’d caught hold of a stalk of scallion rather than a grown man. His voice was cool and collected as he spoke to Qi Xi. “Don’t worry. Caught him.”

His tone toward the captured stalker was a different matter entirely—not friendly at all. He wrenched the man’s arm and yanked off the cap and mask—

“Why were you following—”

But before Gu Yan could finish his question, he found himself staring at the man’s face, momentarily stunned.

Not just Gu Yan—even Qi Xi was caught off guard.

The person who had been following her had an extremely young, even boyish face, covered in acne, topped with hair dyed an unfortunate shade of green—the very picture of a teenage delinquent.

Gu Yan frowned. “How old are you? Are you even an adult?”

“A few more days and I will be!” The boy’s voice, once he opened his mouth, cracked with the unmistakable pitch of puberty. His eyes were timid, at odds with his sturdy build. “I’m sorry, I—I wasn’t trying to do anything bad…”

Perhaps emboldened by Gu Yan’s presence, Qi Xi looked at him and demanded, “Then why dress like that? Sneaking around, obviously chasing after me!”

“I wore the cap because I messed up dyeing my hair—it was supposed to be brown, but the hairdresser grabbed the wrong dye and it came out green. If I don’t cover it up, walking around with a head of green hair is basically like wearing a cuckold’s hat. And the mask is because I’ve been breaking out really badly lately…”

The boy looked at Gu Yan pitifully. “Could you let go of my hand?” He glanced at Qi Xi. “I—I have something to give her.”

Only then did Gu Yan notice the bulge in the boy’s pocket. Without releasing his grip, he reached into the pocket himself and pulled out what was inside.

It turned out to be a bottle of iodine, a box of adhesive bandages, and a tube of burn ointment.

Not the weapon Qi Xi had imagined at all.

Qi Xi let out a breath of relief, but Gu Yan’s frown only deepened, his guard still up. “How did you know she was burned?”

The green-haired boy looked embarrassed. “Because it was my brother who did it.”

So the person who’d inexplicably splashed her with hot water was this boy’s brother?

The boy turned to Qi Xi. “I’m sorry. My brother’s always believed our whole family got ruined by the legal aid center. He has bipolar disorder—every time it flares up, he either harasses the duty phone at the center or camps outside the door. Sometimes he just curses at whoever’s on duty, sometimes he actually attacks people… I just got a call from the police station and found out he’d had an episode and run off again. When I heard you’d been burned, I felt really bad, so I bought these to give to you…”

Qi Xi finally understood. “Then why didn’t you just say so directly? Sneaking around behind me like that, I thought you were some kind of criminal.”

Gu Yan finally released his grip on the boy, who rubbed his wrist, shooting Gu Yan a resentful but wordless look, muttering under his breath, “How is he even this strong…”

He stretched his limbs, then rubbed his nose and mumbled, “I was trying to decide whether to tell you, because I was scared you’d come after me. You’re lawyers—you’re already smarter and more capable than us. My brother’s the one who splashed you, and if I came out and it turned out to be walking into a trap, and you made me pay for it, what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t sure. Last time, one of the lawyers latched onto me and wouldn’t let go until I promised to pay for damages… so I just kept following you, trying to figure out what to do.”

The boy glanced up at Gu Yan, still a little shaken. “And who knew you had an accomplice like this—I thought you’d called him to beat me up. That’s why I ran when I saw him…”

Hearing all this, Qi Xi understood something too—she’d been wary and afraid of him, but he’d likely been just as wary and afraid of her.

Looking at the boy’s clothes, they were clearly hand-me-downs—the pants didn’t fit right, too short to even cover his ankles. Combined with the state of his brother, it was clear their family circumstances weren’t good. His brother’s episodes probably came in waves, and though the boy was young, he’d likely already had to clean up plenty of messes his brother left behind.

Relieved that it had all been a false alarm, Qi Xi felt much better. She waved her hand. “I’m fine, nothing serious. I won’t make you pay for anything.”

Hearing this, the boy visibly relaxed. “Then keep the burn ointment. Sorry again.”

With that, he scratched his head and turned to leave.

That should have been the end of it, but almost without meaning to, Qi Xi called out to stop him—

“Your brother said a lawyer from the legal aid center scammed him. What exactly happened there?”

She couldn’t quite let it go.

What had actually happened to this boy’s brother?

Even though the state had set up legal aid centers, and even though Qi Xi herself had spent the whole day fielding a steady stream of consultations, there were still countless people out there who couldn’t even manage to ask for the legal help they needed.

The boy seemed surprised, but he stopped and lowered his head. “About half a year ago, my brother was working at a factory when a piece of machinery malfunctioned and took off his hand. His coworkers rushed him and the severed hand to the hospital, and they managed to stitch it back on. It should have healed fine.”

“So what happened after that…”

At the mention of it, something like resentment crossed the boy’s young face. “That garbage factory never even had him properly insured. When it happened, they just tried to dodge all responsibility—no workplace injury compensation, nothing. They gave us two thousand yuan total and refused to acknowledge anything more. My brother was stuck in bed, and our family’s savings were already gone from paying for my dad’s cancer treatment years ago. I was still in school, and my mom’s health wasn’t good either. My brother saw there was no money left to keep him in the hospital, so he checked himself out and recovered at home before he was even properly healed…”

His eyes reddened as he continued. “My brother figured he was young, the doctors had stitched it up fine, it would heal on its own. But only a few days after he got home, the wound got infected. Treating it would cost a lot more money, and he heard from other workers that he could hire a lawyer to sue for workplace injury compensation, so he had me help him to the legal aid center. There, we ran into a lawyer who said if we paid an upfront legal fee, he could get my brother hundreds of thousands in compensation. My brother believed him, signed a contract, scraped together and borrowed ten thousand yuan to pay the fee—and then that lawyer just took the money and disappeared. When we went back to the legal aid center for an explanation, not only did they ignore us, they threw us out, saying no such person existed there…”

His voice sank further. “We tried other lawyers after that. We were even willing to pay a fee, we just wanted some kind of justice. But every one of them, after hearing the details, shook their heads and said we couldn’t win, because my brother had no evidence left to hold onto.”

Listening to all this, Qi Xi felt something didn’t add up. “Given your family’s situation, you shouldn’t have needed to find a lawyer on your own at all—you would have qualified for a free legal aid lawyer. First, there’d be no fee at all. Second, if you’d actually gotten a lawyer through proper channels, the aid center would never have treated you like that.”

“That’s exactly why my brother hates that center so much. He started camping outside the door every day, hoping to catch that lawyer, but he never ran into him again. And then my mom… something happened to her too… My brother’s hand couldn’t be saved either, they had to amputate. That hit him hard, and ever since, he hasn’t been right in the head. You know the rest—when he has an episode, he attacks any lawyer he sees. I know none of you did anything wrong, but once he’s in that state, he’s not thinking straight.”

The boy’s story didn’t sound made up, but it still didn’t add up logically.

“That’s not possible…”

Just as Qi Xi was about to press further, Gu Yan cut in. He looked at the boy and asked, “The lawyer you first met with—it wasn’t inside the legal aid center, was it?”

The boy looked puzzled. “It was right outside the door—does that matter? He was in a suit and tie, and the moment he saw me and my brother, he asked if we needed legal help. He even took us to a coffee shop next door to talk, handed us his business card right away. The card really did say he was a lawyer from the legal aid center.”

Gu Yan had only asked one question, but Qi Xi wasn’t slow—she caught on almost instantly.

What the boy and his brother had run into was almost certainly a con artist posing as a legal aid lawyer. These scammers often dressed themselves up in suits to look like successful lawyers, then lingered around legal aid centers, courthouses, even police stations—anywhere they might find desperate clients or family members grasping at any straw for legal help. They preyed on people’s urgency, hinting that they had connections to sway the courts, exaggerating the odds of winning or the effectiveness of their representation, reading their marks and tailoring their pitch to promise a quick fix to whatever crisis the person was facing.

Gu Yan pressed the boy for a few more details, and sure enough, his answers matched exactly what Qi Xi had suspected.

Qi Xi now understood completely. “You ran into a con man, not an actual practicing lawyer. The business card was fake too, and so was the name on it. That’s why when you went to file a complaint with the card, neither the bar association nor the judicial bureau nor the legal aid center could do anything—there was no such person to find.”

Once Qi Xi finished explaining, Gu Yan looked at the boy. “Go home and explain all this clearly to your brother. Tell him to stop harassing the legal aid center and attacking the duty lawyers. We’re not what he thinks we are.”

As Gu Yan and Qi Xi laid it all out, understanding dawned on the boy’s face—but it was quickly followed by a wave of dejection. “Neither my brother nor I ever got much schooling. After what happened to him, and then my mom… I stopped going to school too. My grades weren’t great to begin with, I’m not that smart. When we went to the bar association and the judicial bureau, we couldn’t even explain what had happened properly. If you two hadn’t laid it out like this, I’d still think that guy just had connections and pull, and that the bar association was covering for him…”

Perhaps because he worked in this profession himself and carried some sense of professional pride, Gu Yan’s expression darkened as he listened.

Then, abruptly, he took hold of Qi Xi’s hand and held it out in front of the boy. “Look at this yourself. What did your brother think he was doing, attacking her? Aside from being a lawyer, she’s just an ordinary young woman. What kind of man takes his own helplessness out on someone else?”

The boy’s face flushed with embarrassment. He looked at Qi Xi, red-faced. “I’m sorry. But my brother, at the time, he really…” He trailed off, then shoved the burn ointment into Qi Xi’s hands. “Just take it, counselor. Consider it my apology. I—I need to get to work. I’m heading out.”

With that, the boy pulled his cap and mask back on, checked the time, and hurried off in a rush.

Once he was gone, Qi Xi finally remembered to thank Gu Yan. “Thank you so much. If you hadn’t shown up, I would have been terrified out of my mind.” She wasn’t sure why, but she felt a knot of nervous unease in her chest. “But why were you here in the first place?”

Gu Yan cleared his throat and looked away, his expression settling back into its usual calm composure. “Oh, I happened to be passing through on some errand.”

There wasn’t a soul around on the street now. Just the two of them, walking side by side, the wind occasionally stirring the leaves, which rustled to its rhythm—an unpredictable cadence, both anticipating and dreading the next gust.

“Don’t you get a duty stipend? Since I was in the area anyway, I figured I’d swing by the legal aid center.” Gu Yan’s voice scattered slightly on the wind. “Did you read the notes on legal aid procedures I sent you last night?”

“Mm, I read them.”

That familiar, uncontrollable flutter stirred in Qi Xi’s chest again.

Gu Yan pressed his lips together. “I spent a long time writing that.”

He added, “Normally that would come with a consultation fee.”

Qi Xi was momentarily speechless.

Just as she opened her mouth to respond, Gu Yan spoke first, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “I won’t charge you the consultation fee. You can just buy me dinner instead.”