On the way there, Qi Xi learned that the green-haired boy’s full name was Wu Kangqiang, and that he and his brother, Wu Jianqiang, didn’t live far away. After a ten-minute walk, she and Gu Yan were led to a shared rental unit in an urban village.
The place was cramped, the living conditions visibly poor. Wu Kangqiang looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry it’s such a mess. Give me a minute, I’ll go get the evidence.”
Despite looking every bit the delinquent, the anxiety and worry on his face whenever he mentioned his brother revealed a genuinely earnest heart underneath.
Perhaps sensing that Qi Xi and Gu Yan might have reservations, he added hurriedly, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything. My tattoo’s a sticker, not real, and I dyed my hair like this just for self-protection. I meant to pick a tough-looking color, but it came out green by mistake.”
He looked a bit sheepish as he continued. “The people living around here are a rough crowd, and with my brother’s situation, if I don’t look intimidating, I’m an easy target for getting robbed or stolen from. But I’m really not that bad, don’t be scared…”
Unfortunately, his explanation was cut off without mercy by Gu Yan, who looked at him with a flat expression. “It’s fine if you’re bad.” Gu Yan didn’t seem the least bit concerned about wounding the boy’s teenage pride. “You couldn’t beat me anyway.”
“…”
The look on Wu Kangqiang’s face was priceless, but since Gu Yan was, annoyingly, telling the truth, he had nothing to say back. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally just turned and went into the room. A moment later, he came back out carrying a large stack of papers. “This is everything.”
He set the materials down, looking a bit sheepish. “I’m going to go check on my brother. You two look through it, just call me if you need anything.”
With that, Wu Kangqiang turned and went back into the room.
Qi Xi and Gu Yan wasted no time. Without needing to discuss it, they naturally split the work and began reviewing the documents. But the more Qi Xi read, the deeper her frown grew. She turned to look at Gu Yan and found the same expression on his face.
By the time they’d gone through everything, one look between them was enough to confirm they’d reached the same conclusion—what Wu Kangqiang had called evidence didn’t amount to evidence at all.
“Aside from Wu Jianqiang’s photo, this work badge only has an ID number—there’s not even a company name on it, let alone any kind of official seal or anything with legal weight.”
“And these so-called time records—only Wu Jianqiang signed them. The supervisor’s signature line is completely blank…”
Qi Xi looked at the documents in frustration. “None of this is nearly enough to prove an employment relationship existed. Without that, the labor bureau won’t even open a case—there’s no way to file for workplace injury compensation.”
Gu Yan was frowning just as deeply. “And when applying for workplace injury recognition, the burden of proof for establishing the employment relationship falls on the person making the claim. Wu Jianqiang would have to prove it himself.”
When they explained this to Wu Kangqiang, who had come out of his brother’s room, his face fell into an expression of despair, pain, and helplessness. “So it’s still no good…”
Though clearly devastated, he made an effort to hold himself together. His eyes reddened as he glanced back toward the closed door. “If this accident hadn’t happened, my brother wouldn’t have ended up like this, and he never would have run into that lawyer who scammed him out of the money that was supposed to save his life…”
He was still a minor, and he couldn’t hold back the tears that finally spilled over. “When we ran into that fake lawyer, we lost the money we’d scraped and borrowed together, and on top of that, my brother’s hand got even worse. The hospital said if he didn’t get admitted for a second surgery soon, he’d lose the hand entirely.”
Though the boy carried himself like someone who’d grown up fast on the streets, he was still only seventeen, and his voice cracked as he continued. “At the time, I was so focused on figuring out how to get money to save my brother that I didn’t pay enough attention to my mom. I never imagined she’d do something like that. Honestly, it’s all my fault our family ended up like this…”
Gu Yan pressed his lips together. “What happened to your mother?”
“My mom heard about this kind of personal accident insurance—that if something sudden and unexpected happens to you, the insurance pays out. Less if you’re disabled, but if you die, it’s a lump sum, ten, twenty thousand or more. She wanted to raise money for my brother’s treatment, so she thought—if she died, the insurance company would pay us. That’s why she bought the policy.”
Before the boy said another word, Qi Xi and Gu Yan already had a sense of what was coming.
That sense was confirmed the moment he continued—
“After she bought the policy, she killed herself. So she wouldn’t hurt the value of our landlord’s property, she didn’t even do it at home—she found an old tree back at our hometown and hanged herself there. Before she did it, she called my brother to tell him where she’d kept the policy, told him to go find the insurance company and ask for the payout.”
The boy’s emotions began to break down, though he tried hard to hold them in, tears still streaming down his face. He shook his head, as if trying to shake the tears away, trying to mask his embarrassment.
At only seventeen, his voice already carried the weariness and bitterness of someone far older. “But who could’ve guessed—the insurance company said the policy hadn’t even taken effect yet, that there’s a waiting period before it becomes valid, and she died during that window, so the policy was worthless for her. And besides, they said personal accident insurance doesn’t cover every kind of death anyway—even if the policy had been active, they don’t pay out for suicide. So not only did the insurance company refuse to pay, they accused us of trying to commit insurance fraud.”
Speaking of his mother, the tears wouldn’t stop now. “My mom was just a rural woman, not much education, but she lived her whole life with integrity. She raised the two of us on her own, never touched a cent of dirty money. She wasn’t trying to scam anyone—she just didn’t understand, she had no idea. She thought that if she bought the insurance and then took her own life, it would all be legal, that the company would have to pay us. She thought her life was worth that much money.”
“If she’d actually known how to commit fraud, if she’d had that kind of awareness, why wouldn’t she have staged it to look like an accident? Why do it so openly, no disguise at all, just hang herself like that? My mom never caused anyone trouble her whole life. She never once tried to cheat anyone out of money. She genuinely believed her death could legally get us the money we needed.”
The more he talked, the more anguished he became. “The truth is, none of this was my brother’s fault. He was hurt, under a lot of stress. It was me—I should have paid more attention to my mom back then. When she asked me whether the insurance would pay out no matter how someone got hurt or died, I just brushed her off and said yes because I found it annoying. If I’d had the patience to explain it to her properly, my mom would still be alive. Our family would still be poor, sure, but at least we’d still be together, still be a family. Now what’s the difference between this and losing everyone?”
Qi Xi had always known, in the abstract, that the wealth gap in society was real. But this was the first time she’d truly confronted the idea of someone willing to give up their own life for an amount of money that, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t even that large. The shock of it left her with a deep sense of unease and grief.
Insurance fraud cases weren’t unheard of—people did sometimes take extreme measures for a large payout. But every story Qi Xi had ever heard involved a spouse having an affair or drowning in debt, taking out a large policy on their partner and then killing them, disguising it as an accident to collect the money.
This was the first time she’d heard of someone taking their own life for such a modest payout, hoping to use it to save the rest of the family.
So there really were people in this world who would kill themselves for a payout of just a few hundred thousand yuan.
And the most heartbreaking part of all was that this poor mother—marginalized by poverty, by a lack of systemic knowledge, by a lack of education—had sacrificed her own life for a death benefit she was never even going to receive.
When she took her own life, she must have been filled with hope, certain that her death would get her son the money he needed for treatment. She must have believed that offering up her life this way was meaningful.
But in reality, her death was worth nothing at all. Her act of tragic, devoted sacrifice had become, in the end, something like a cruel joke.
Everyone has a powerful survival instinct—so just how much courage must it have taken for the mother of Wu Kangqiang and Wu Jianqiang to overcome that instinct and go through with it?
And yet, in the face of reality, even a love that great could be crushed so easily.
She had given everything, and lost everything in return.
So this was how hard life could be, at the bottom of society.
Qi Xi looked around the cramped, run-down shared apartment, at the boy in front of her with his absurd green hair, sitting there in a state of dejection, his face streaked with dried tears—like someone who had been beaten down again and again by life, and had already grown used to the way misfortune kept striking without warning.
“Let me die, just let me die! I’m the one who should be dead! I’m the one who killed Mom! Me!”
Just then, from inside the room came Wu Jianqiang’s anguished, almost pleading wail, along with the dull thud of his head striking the wall—a sound that felt especially jarring in the small, cramped space.
Wu Kangqiang bolted into the room, almost by reflex. “Brother! Don’t talk like that!”
In his rush, he didn’t have time to shut the door, so from where they stood, Qi Xi and Gu Yan could see everything happening inside clearly.
The same Wu Jianqiang who had looked so menacing when he’d splashed Qi Xi with hot water earlier now looked pained and weak, all traces of that earlier ferocity gone. He looked utterly defeated and listless, his forehead red and swollen from where he’d struck it, his eyes unfocused and hollow, his throat producing nothing but a wretched, mournful groan.
“Kangqiang, if it weren’t for me… Mom wouldn’t have died. I’m a curse on this family, I’m useless. Why couldn’t I have been more careful operating that machine? Why am I so incompetent? I couldn’t even earn enough to give you two a decent life, and then this happened on top of it—I never even got to take proper care of Mom for a single day. All she got from having a son like me was worry after worry, nothing else, and now she’s just…”
Wu Jianqiang’s voice grew more and more choked, until finally, this grown man broke down into wracking sobs, striking his head against the wall again. “I’ve been dragging myself through every single day, honestly wishing I’d just die already. What use is someone like me alive? Lost a hand, can’t find work, just a burden to you. If I’d been capable enough to land a decent job back then, none of this would have happened, and Mom would still be fine…”
“Brother! Don’t say that! How can you call it being a burden—we’re family!” Wu Kangqiang’s voice broke too, and perhaps trying to soothe his brother, or perhaps simply speaking without thinking, he blurted out a lie.
He pointed toward the door, at Qi Xi and Gu Yan. “Brother! Look! These two are lawyers! They said this case has a real chance! We can fight for what we’re owed! We’re going to make sure that black-hearted factory owner pays for what he did! You can’t keep thinking about dying like this! If you die, how will you ever see them pay? How will you ever see them get what’s coming to them?”
At those words, Wu Jianqiang, who had been on the verge of losing control entirely, gradually began to calm down. He struggled up from the bed, staring at Qi Xi and Gu Yan, a flicker of something like hope returning to his eyes. “Lawyers, is that true?”
In the face of a man’s last shred of hope, Qi Xi found she couldn’t bring herself to offer a rejection or a denial.
And yet the weight of making a promise like that was enormous.
Qi Xi suddenly felt uncertain, hesitant.
“Yes. It’s true.”
In the end, it was Gu Yan’s voice that broke the long, uncomfortable silence Qi Xi had found so unbearable.
His expression was calm, projecting a sense of reassurance and trust. In a steady voice, he told Wu Jianqiang, “We’ll do everything we can. So please, don’t give up.”
There was a certainty in Gu Yan’s voice, the kind that came with the quiet authority of his profession. He was like an anchor that made people feel safe, keeping a ship steady and secure on a vast, uncertain sea.
The unease and fear that had been building in Qi Xi’s chest slowly faded, replaced by a growing sense of conviction—faith in the legal profession, and in her responsibility as a lawyer to protect the vulnerable.
She nodded at Wu Jianqiang and Wu Kangqiang with the same steady resolve. “We’ll do our best.”
**
After learning more about the general circumstances of the workplace accident and going over a few more details, Qi Xi and Gu Yan finally took their leave of Wu Jianqiang and Wu Kangqiang.
As for what had happened that afternoon—Wu Jianqiang did offer an apology, though Qi Xi understood it was only because he felt obligated to, having attacked an innocent woman. Deep down, he clearly still harbored suspicion and distrust toward lawyers as a group, and the way he looked at Gu Yan and Qi Xi still carried a note of wariness.
“If I hadn’t told him we could help him apply for free legal aid representation through our firm, he probably would have decided we were scammers too and thrown us out.”
Qi Xi let out a breath, then looked over at Gu Yan. “But why were you willing to take this case? Based on the evidence we have right now, it’s going to be very hard to win.” She admitted honestly, “Actually, I was torn too—I wasn’t sure if taking this case was even the right call. The facts of the case aren’t complicated, but the difficulty is in gathering evidence, and I’m worried I won’t handle it well…”
That was the truth. The case carried too much weight for the people involved—she was afraid of failing and having to face them afterward, afraid that their emotional volatility might end up affecting her career or reputation down the line.
Qi Xi wasn’t sure what it was about Gu Yan, but she felt safe confiding in him this way. She lowered her head, a little lost. “Am I being a terrible person, always thinking about things this selfishly?”
“No. That’s not selfish—that’s just a normal person’s caution.” Gu Yan’s voice was steady. “Being able to think about protecting yourself is, in itself, part of being a good lawyer.”
Qi Xi looked up. There wasn’t a trace of hesitation or anxiety in Gu Yan’s manner, and she found herself curious. “Do you already have some kind of plan? Are you feeling confident about this case?”
But to her surprise, Gu Yan shook his head. “I haven’t figured anything out yet.”
His tone stayed even. “But I think—it’s a bit like being a doctor. A lot of patients really do have extremely difficult, rare conditions, where surgery carries enormous risk, and there’s a real chance the patient could die on the table. That’s why a lot of critically ill patients get turned away by hospitals—no doctor wants to take on that kind of risk, worried that if the surgery fails, the family will cause a scene, or worse, that there’ll be some kind of backlash, even threats of violence.”
“But for the patient, that might be their last hope.”
Gu Yan looked into Qi Xi’s eyes as he continued. “It’s the same with Wu Jianqiang. His case is simple in nature, but the evidence is badly compromised—the odds of losing are high. He has no money to pay legal fees, his emotional state is unstable, and he’s already attacked a lawyer more than once. It’s unlikely anyone would be willing to take his case pro bono.”
“We might be his last hope.” Though it was a significant decision, Gu Yan’s tone stayed light. “A lot of doctors with real integrity—not just skilled, but genuinely compassionate—are willing to take the risk of operating on high-risk patients. Because who knows? Maybe the surgery succeeds.”
That was it exactly!
From the very start of getting involved in this case, even though logic told Qi Xi that staying away would have been the wiser choice, something inside her had kept pulling her to see it through. She hadn’t been able to put a name to that inner drive—but hearing Gu Yan put it into words, she realized that was precisely it.
He’d managed to articulate, more clearly and vividly than she ever could, the feeling she hadn’t been able to describe herself.
Qi Xi looked at Gu Yan and found herself smiling too. “At least being a lawyer means less pressure than being a doctor. If we lose a case, the client doesn’t lose their life. But if a doctor’s surgery fails, the cost is a human life.”
Gu Yan nodded in agreement. “Having a sense of self-preservation is good, sure, but if every single thing you do gets tied down by an excess of caution, isn’t that a bit like putting the cart before the horse? You can’t avoid ever starting something just to avoid the possibility of it ending badly.”
Gu Yan’s words were plain, without any flourish, but somehow, hearing them left Qi Xi feeling steadier inside, as if she’d been filled with new resolve.
On her own, she might have felt a flicker of fear. But now, with Gu Yan standing beside her, it felt a bit like watching a horror movie with someone else—the story was just as frightening as before, but somehow, the fear itself felt far less overwhelming.
Then… let’s give it a try!