When Gu Xuehan called Qi Xi into her office, Qi Xi assumed it was to assign some major case. After all this time working, both she and Gu Yan had gradually settled into their roles as proper lawyers, moving past the transition from student to professional, their skills sharpening across the board. Many earlier cases, ones they hadn’t been able to fully strategize on their own, had usually been led by Gu Xuehan, with Qi Xi and Gu Yan working together under her guidance.
But after this stretch of training, the team’s working dynamic had gradually shifted — for simpler cases, Gu Xuehan now handed them directly to either Qi Xi or Gu Yan to run independently, while she stepped back to oversee things at a higher level.
This time, though, Gu Xuehan had called both Qi Xi and Gu Yan in together.
So was this a complex, challenging case?
Qi Xi felt a flicker of excitement inside, already mentally rolling up her sleeves.
Though handling simpler cases meant less psychological pressure and stress, the growth and improvement that came with them wasn’t nearly as significant as what a complex, difficult case could offer.
But just as Qi Xi was getting her hopes up for a big case, Gu Xuehan’s next words left her disappointed—
“I called you two in not about a case. Both of you have handled your recent cases quite well — I read the case summaries you wrote afterward, and I was genuinely impressed.”
Gu Xuehan smiled. “This time, I’m calling you in simply because the Bar Association has given our firm another assignment.”
An assignment from the Bar Association?
“It’s about the legal-education promotional videos from before,” Gu Xuehan said, crossing her arms and pressing her lips together. “Your last two videos got a great response. Recently the Association has been looking into updated outreach formats — they’re currently planning a legal livestream event, aiming to move the consultation desk into a livestream format, using an ‘internet plus law’ approach to spread legal knowledge in a way that appeals more to young people.”
She took a sip of tea. “This event is going to involve nearly every mid-sized and larger firm in Rong City — Jingge, being a boutique firm, got selected too. Normally, this kind of internet livestream legal consultation calls for more senior lawyers to participate, but because the two of you did so well with the earlier promotional videos and gained some real traction, the Association feels having you two co-host a regular legal livestream segment would work better. So they asked me to check with you both first.”
This was an assignment specifically requested by the Bar Association, so there wasn’t really any strong reason to decline. More importantly, Qi Xi found herself genuinely eager to try this kind of livestreamed legal-education format.
Back in school, she’d participated in community legal outreach events, setting up booths in neighborhoods, handing out legal education flyers on campus — but that kind of in-person outreach could only ever reach a limited number of people. If they used a livestream format instead, wouldn’t the reach and impact be so much greater?
Qi Xi felt genuinely drawn to the idea. She turned to check with Gu Yan first, but he spoke up before she could.
“Look at you,” he said, glancing at her, “if you want to do it, I’ll go along with it.” He smiled. “My workload’s not that packed lately anyway.”
Seeing neither of them objected, Gu Xuehan finalized the decision on the spot. “Then I’ll let the Association know. Since your previous educational videos focused on relationships and marriage, this livestream segment will stick with that same theme. Given that the two of you are only engaged and not yet married, you might not have as much firsthand experience with marital law issues, so I’ll coordinate with the Association to keep the livestream’s Q&A topics focused on dating instead — things like legal disputes that come up in relationships, such as loan disputes between couples or cohabitation issues, that kind of thing.”
Gu Xuehan smiled. “I imagine that’s not a problem for either of you?”
Of course it wasn’t — legal disputes that could arise during dating were relatively straightforward compared to marriage, without the messier tangles of custody, elder support, or property division. They’d be much clearer-cut and easier to answer. With Qi Xi and Gu Yan working together on the livestream, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Having accepted the new assignment, Qi Xi was about to leave Gu Xuehan’s office with Gu Yan, but Gu Xuehan called her back just before she left—
“When you two first walked into my office, were you hoping I had some difficult, high-profile case for you to handle, and now you’re a little disappointed it’s just this livestream assignment from the Association?”
Qi Xi’s instinct was to deny it, but Gu Xuehan didn’t give her the chance.
She continued, “Actually, have you two ever thought about it — the cases have been getting easier and easier for you, haven’t they?”
Gu Xuehan looked between Qi Xi and Gu Yan. “The difficulty of the cases I’ve been assigning you has actually been steadily increasing to match your growing abilities, and the workload’s been ramping up with it too — like doing math problems. You start with single-digit addition and subtraction, gradually move to two digits, then three. Once you’ve mastered addition and subtraction, you move on to multiplication and division. You’ve naturally been advancing step by step this whole time. You might not notice your own progress day to day, but looking back, you’ll realize that, without even noticing, you’ve already mastered problems you couldn’t have solved before.”
“And someday, you might find that there’s no case left that still feels like a ‘big case’ to either of you anymore.”
…
After leaving Gu Xuehan’s office, Qi Xi was still turning her words over in her head.
She tugged excitedly at Gu Yan’s sleeve. “So does that mean we’re basically about to graduate from apprenticeship?”
Gu Yan looked a bit puzzled. “Why are you so excited? What do you want to do once you’ve ‘graduated’?”
Since they were still in the office, Qi Xi couldn’t get too carried away. She just leaned in close and murmured teasingly, “Once we’ve graduated, we’ll stick around Jingge a few more years building up experience, and then betray our mentor and go open our own husband-and-wife firm.”
Gu Yan froze for a second, looking utterly incredulous — and just as Qi Xi braced herself for him to scold her for being so ungrateful toward Gu Xuehan, she instead heard him say—
“Wait, you’re thinking exactly the same thing I am?” Gu Yan said, sounding thrilled. “Honestly, I’ve been wanting to strike out on my own once I’ve learned everything I can from my sister. Being someone’s subordinate is never as comfortable as being your own boss.”
Then he added, a little sheepishly, “Because my sister helped so much with your mom’s situation, I was worried you might have too rosy a view of her, so I didn’t want to bring this up at first. But since you’re already thinking the same thing, I feel a lot better about it. For now, we’ll keep learning everything we can from my sister — turn her own methods against her, so to speak — and once we go independent, we can even poach some of her clients…”
Qi Xi cut him off with an awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t that make us pretty ungrateful toward Attorney Gu?”
Honestly, she’d only been joking a moment ago!
But Gu Yan just laughed, completely unbothered. “My sister may have made partner, but she’s still just a senior partner at Jingge. A lawyer doesn’t become a senior partner and then stop needing challenges to keep growing — sometimes a little setback is exactly what makes you stronger.”
“…”
Gu Yan had clearly been dreaming up this plan for a while now, because he only grew more animated as he talked, eventually launching into a whole rundown of his ideas for their future firm’s organizational structure…
Qi Xi looked at Gu Yan, then glanced back toward Gu Xuehan’s office, seriously questioning whether these two were really biological siblings — but then, recalling how Gu Xuehan had wanted to save a video of Gu Yan’s infamous outburst at graduation just to mock him with it later, she decided that yes, they were definitely related after all.
Before long, though, Qi Xi and Gu Yan didn’t have time to think about their grand future plans of “betraying their mentor,” because the Bar Association staff picked them up right away and started briefing them on the livestream event—
“No need to be nervous — we’ve already been promoting it beforehand, so the audience joining your livestream will mostly be students. Most of the questions will probably be about legal issues that come up after breakups — just answer normally and you’ll be fine.”
The Association staffer happened to be the same one who’d worked with Qi Xi and Gu Yan on their earlier promotional videos, so they were already fairly familiar with each other. She gave them a few pointers, walked them through the livestream’s operating rules, and then began setting everything up for the broadcast.
Though the staffer had already told Qi Xi and Gu Yan their popularity from before was solid, once the stream actually went live and they saw well over a hundred thousand viewers flood in almost instantly, Qi Xi still felt a wave of nerves. Thankfully, it wasn’t a solo broadcast — she glanced over at Gu Yan sitting beside her, and though he clearly looked a little surprised by the scale of it too, the two of them exchanged a glance, and in each other’s eyes, Qi Xi saw reassurance and quiet support. She knew exactly how to read that look — somehow, whenever it came to work, she and Gu Yan had always been perfectly in sync. They exchanged a smile, and just like that, the nerves eased.
Honestly, when Qi Xi had first agreed to the livestream Q&A assignment, she’d expected there’d be some questions, but not this many. In reality, the number of people tuning in to ask questions was staggering—
“My ex-boyfriend and I dated for ten years and just broke up. Now he’s asking for the return of all the birthday and anniversary gifts he gave me over those ten years — does that count as a gift, legally?”
“I went on a blind date and things went well with the woman. My family gave her family the 88,000 yuan betrothal gift she asked for, but now she’s changed her mind and won’t marry me. Can I get that money back?”
“I found out, after the fact, that I was the ‘other woman’ — turns out he was already married and his wife was pregnant when it happened. She’s had to get an abortion because of this. Can she sue this scumbag for damages?”
…
Having prepared for exactly this kind of scenario, Qi Xi answered smoothly and confidently—
“Small gifts given during a relationship are generally treated as unconditional gifts, and can’t be reclaimed. But larger-value items — like a house or a car, especially when it can reasonably be inferred that the gift was made with marriage in mind — would typically be classified as a conditional gift. If the relationship ends, large gifts like that would need to be returned. Betrothal gifts work similarly — since the purpose of a betrothal gift is to facilitate marriage, if the marriage falls through due to one party’s actions, the gift can generally be reclaimed.”
“If it can be proven that a woman was unknowingly involved with a married man, and that this led to her pregnancy and subsequent abortion, she may be entitled to compensation, and can also request that the man issue a public apology through a newspaper notice.”
…
The livestream ran for two hours total. After the first hour and a half of alternating between Qi Xi and Gu Yan answering pre-submitted questions, the last half hour shifted into an open Q&A session meant to build a closer connection with the audience — still limited to legal topics, but open to broader discussions about relationship-related legal confusion.
Sure enough, once they hit that segment, the atmosphere in the chat picked up considerably. Qi Xi answered a handful of questions from young female viewers about relationship confusion, and then, somehow, the conversation suddenly turned toward her personally.
“Big sis, you’re so pretty, you must have a boyfriend, right? I’m curious though — since you study law, and you’ve got such sharp reasoning and quick wit, if you ever ran into a conflict in a relationship, you could totally just whip out the law to protect yourself without missing a beat. Doesn’t that put pressure on your boyfriend, dating someone like that? Does he ever feel overshadowed or intimidated being with you?”
The girl asking the question sounded genuinely troubled. “I study law too, but because my grades are better than my boyfriend’s, he’s been saying lately that being with me feels too exhausting, and wants to break up…”
Qi Xi was about to offer some comforting words in response, but Gu Yan spoke up first.
He glanced at Qi Xi. “As far as I know, her boyfriend doesn’t feel any pressure at all. He doesn’t think she’s overbearing — he just thinks she’s outstanding, and because of that, he wants to become someone worthy of standing beside her, so he keeps working hard to become better himself.”
Gu Yan’s expression stayed neutral, his voice calm, but what he said was pointed and sincere. “So if your boyfriend says you’re ‘too outstanding’ and wants to break up over it, there are really only two possibilities: either he’s just using that as an excuse — most likely because his feelings have already faded, or he’s found someone else, and wants to end things but can’t find any real fault with you, so he’s blaming your excellence instead. Or, he genuinely means it — but in that case, it just proves he’s not worth your time, because if a man truly loves a woman, he wants her to keep growing and improving alongside him, not to hold herself back just to match his own pace.”
Gu Yan glanced at Qi Xi again and smiled. “So my advice would be: find yourself a boyfriend who’s just as outstanding as you are instead.”
Gu Yan hadn’t spelled anything out directly — he’d just glanced lightly at Qi Xi a couple of times — but Qi Xi still felt her face warm slightly. The two of them were already engaged, and yet this vague, roundabout confession happening live in the middle of a legal Q&A stream still managed to make her feel bashful and a little shy.
His answer earned plenty of praise in the chat, but it also sparked even more curiosity—
“Can we ask what the lawyer’s boyfriend does for a living? What field is he in? So curious!”
“Curious too +1”
“Kind of want to know more, ngl.”
“Aw, that’s such a shame — I honestly thought the lawyer sister and lawyer brother in this stream had such great chemistry, felt so shippable, and now it turns out sister already has a boyfriend…”
“Wait, does the lawyer brother in the stream know the sister’s boyfriend, by any chance? Sounds like maybe they’re already acquainted? Can we get some tea on what kind of guy he is?”
“Since we’re already asking — can I ask if the lawyer brother is single? You two are honestly the top-tier good-looking pair in the legal world right now!”
…
This time, again, Gu Yan jumped in to answer before Qi Xi could.
“Actually, strictly speaking, she doesn’t have a boyfriend — she has a fiancé,” he said with a smile. “Same profession, also a lawyer. As for me? I’m not single. I’m engaged.”
His self-disclosure, unsurprisingly, sent the chat into another wave of chaos—
“Wait, seriously? Both of you are engaged? You law students get engaged this early?”
“Of course the good-looking ones get snatched up fast, sob.”
“Wait??? Has no one else connected the dots??? Sister’s engaged, brother’s engaged, sister’s fiancé also studies law — someone tell me I’m not the only one putting this together?”
“Now that you mention it, that is pretty suspicious…”
Gu Yan answered these comments just as bluntly and directly as before: “Yes. Thank you all for the well wishes — we really are engaged.”
At this point, even more than the chat itself, Qi Xi’s head was full of question marks.
She glanced over at Gu Yan’s perfectly composed expression and honestly didn’t even know where to begin.
Who’s congratulating you exactly?? Since when did you announce something because other people congratulated you first — talk about putting the cart before the horse! Or did you just want an excuse to announce it yourself?! Sneaky man!
Though internally she was fuming about it, Qi Xi wasn’t actually all that mad — and by now, the chat really had turned into a stream of genuine congratulations.
Gu Yan looked like he’d been wanting to make this announcement for a while now. He sincerely thanked everyone for their well-wishes, then, with a perfectly straight face, added emphatically—
“Since we’re both taken and already engaged, please don’t mistake our intentions — and please, no more comments under our earlier legal-education videos asking for either of our contact information.”
“Also, since we’re both lawyers, arguing with either of us is not something the average person can win — so it’s probably best to find someone who’s an even match for you.” Gu Yan looked perfectly earnest. “We never argue. Alright, moving on to the next relationship question.”
By now, Qi Xi had it all figured out — Gu Yan had deliberately used this moment to announce their engagement, because this morning he’d apparently gone back and read through the comments under their old promotional videos and noticed how many people had been asking for Qi Xi’s contact information. He hadn’t said anything about it at the time, but clearly, he’d been quietly stewing over it — and now he’d finally come to eliminate the competition.
Though the stream quickly returned to its regular Q&A format after that, once Qi Xi and Gu Yan finally went offline, Qi Xi idly scrolled through some posts online and discovered that their earlier legal-education videos had resurfaced again—
“Well, now that I know these two are engaged, this video hits so much funnier.”
“No wonder I always felt like they had such good chemistry — turns out they really were together the whole time…”
…
Beyond the widely-discussed educational videos, Zhao Yiran also tipped Qi Xi off that she and Gu Yan had gone viral once again on Rongda University’s campus forum—
“Whoa! Remember Gu Yan from the law school? He’s actually with Qi Xi now — the same Qi Xi who publicly swore at graduation she’d never be with him!”
“Senior Qi Xi: ‘Even if every last man on earth died, I still wouldn’t be with you, Gu Yan.’ And now… total 180!”
“Feels like these two really did the whole enemies-to-lovers thing!”
“Right?? I always felt like something was going on between them — the way Qi Xi used to look at Gu Yan always seemed off, like there was this weird intensity to it, almost like she was determined to bring him down somehow. Looking at another guy like that always seemed suspicious to me — no wonder they ended up together!”
…
Embarrassingly, Gu Yan found out about this thread too — and not only did he read it himself, he insisted on reading the comments out loud too.
While reading, he teased Qi Xi mercilessly: “See? The crowd’s got sharp eyes. Everyone already noticed how weird you used to look at me.”
Qi Xi was practically fuming. She puffed her cheeks out, trying hard to defend herself: “I was trying to psych you out! That’s why I looked at you like that — to intimidate you into second place! I wanted to be number one! Back then, all I cared about was studying! You were just an obstacle I had to eliminate on my way to first place!”
“And now? What am I in your eyes now?”
“Now…” Qi Xi looked at Gu Yan’s gentle expression in front of her, leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the mouth, and declared grandly, “Now I’ve decided to make room for you in my eyes! Since you were so annoying, always stealing first place and getting my attention — well, from now on, first place is officially mine.”
Gu Yan blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“You, obviously. That old first place of yours now belongs to me — so doesn’t that make me first place now?”
Right — Gu Yan nodded. Everything he had, all the good things in his life, his time, his heart — all of it truly did belong to Qi Xi now.