“Has it always just been you here?”
Lou Mingxu turned his chair around, propped his arms on Zhou Yan's desk, and watched him eat.
“There have been two interns before, but right now it's just you and me.”
Zhou Yan stirred the rather dry instant noodles in their trendy Chinese-style packaging, then dug around the edge of his desk and found an ancient packet of vinegar and chili oil that looked as though it had been sitting there since the dawn of time. He tore them open and dumped both into the noodles.
“Do you live nearby?”
Lou Mingxu shook his head.
“No. I'm not from here.”
Zhou Yan raised an eyebrow, looking puzzled.
“Then did Lawyer Pei assign you here?”
“No. I chose it myself.”
“Then I'd advise you to stay downtown. You'll have access to more cases there, and the supervising lawyers have more experience than I do. You'll probably learn faster.”
Lou Mingxu hadn't expected him to say that.
After a moment's hesitation, he said, “But I want to give this place a try. You said you've had interns here before. If they could manage, I should be able to too.”
“They've all transferred away.”
“Do you not want to take me on?”
Zhou Yan inhaled a mouthful of chili oil and immediately started choking.
He frantically reached for his mug, only to discover it was empty.
Lou Mingxu handed him the glass of plain water he'd been drinking without hesitation.
Zhou Yan drained it in one go and finally recovered.
But he didn't respond to Lou Mingxu's question.
Maybe Lou Mingxu had guessed correctly.
Perhaps Zhou Yan simply didn't want an apprentice and didn't know how to say no.
Lou Mingxu had always been straightforward. He especially disliked beating around the bush and saying things he didn't mean.
Now that he suspected Zhou Yan didn't actually want him there, he decided to confirm it.
If that really was the case, he would respect Zhou Yan's wishes.
“If you don't want to take me on…”
“It's not that I don't want to. I'm just afraid you'll regret it later.”
“I won't regret it.”
Zhou Yan gave a very soft sigh.
He stood, lifted the curtain, and disappeared into the back room.
It was a small lounge with a large fabric sofa against one wall and a row of storage cabinets opposite it, filled with various everyday items.
Lou Mingxu watched as Zhou Yan took several little white pills from a bottle that looked like a vitamin supplement, swallowed them with some water, and then lay down on the sofa to rest.
Lou Mingxu sat in the office for half an hour.
Then a phone rang.
It wasn't his.
The ringtone was faint, muffled as though buried beneath something.
Eventually, he found an old-fashioned mobile phone underneath a mountain of messy case files.
It looked like a backup phone used solely for answering calls.
Zhou Yan came out of the back room, raised an eyebrow, and said,
“Quick. It's your turn to deal with a client.”
Lou Mingxu couldn't help thinking:
He was telling me to leave just a moment ago, and now he's already putting me to work?
The caller was a thirty-year-old woman.
She said she had fallen in love with and been living with a married woman two years older than her for nearly two years.
The woman's husband was a military serviceman.
She wanted to know whether living with a married woman for an extended period could constitute the crime of disrupting a military marriage.
Lou Mingxu frowned.
What the hell? Is this supposed to be a warm-up? I never studied lesbian relationships for the exam.
He had the call on speaker, so Zhou Yan could hear everything too.
Lou Mingxu shot him a helpless look.
Zhou Yan offered absolutely no useful hint.
Instead, he went to boil some water.
Lou Mingxu couldn't tell whether Zhou Yan was hoping to watch him make a fool of himself and give up on staying there, or whether he was simply that confident in his abilities.
Lou Mingxu took a deep breath and tried to keep the hand holding the phone from trembling.
“So when did you find out that her husband was a serviceman?”
“Two months ago,” the woman replied. “Before that, we never talked about her husband.”
Lou Mingxu thought for a moment.
“The crime of disrupting a military marriage requires you to know that the other person is the spouse of an active-duty service member, and objectively, you must have engaged in either cohabitation or marriage with that person.”
“Based on what you've told me, you now meet both the subjective and objective requirements. If her husband obtains evidence that you've been living together and decides to bring a lawsuit, there's a possibility the court could find you guilty of disrupting a military marriage.”
“But that's what I don't understand.”
The woman became increasingly agitated.
“I'm not even a man. Even if someone photographed us holding hands and living together, so what? If the Civil Code doesn't recognize our relationship in the first place, why should the law use its provisions to judge us?”
She sounded less like someone seeking legal advice and more like someone looking for an outlet for her anger.
She went on to insist that she and the married woman were truly in love, while the married woman and her husband had only met through an arranged introduction. They had no feelings for each other and had only gotten married because their families pressured them.
At first, Lou Mingxu tried to advise her to be careful.
“It would be safer to wait until she gets divorced before you start living together.”
But the more they talked, the clearer it became that the woman wasn't interested in hearing anything she didn't want to hear.
All she wanted was a lawyer who could help her avoid legal risks.
And then things got even more outrageous.
The two women were planning to use donor sperm to have a child.
Afterward, they intended to cut the father out of the child's life entirely.
That was taking things a little too far.
Lou Mingxu had no idea what else to say.
“Well, how about the three of you sit down together and work out how you're going to make this arrangement work?”
There was a long pause on the other end.
Then the woman snapped,
“Are you sick?”
Just like that, on his very first day as an intern, Lou Mingxu received a complaint for being sarcastic toward a client.
Zhou Yan got a few words from the firm's management as well.
Lou Mingxu was indignant.
“How was I being sarcastic?”
“What else would you call it?”
Zhou Yan pulled a packet of Nescafé instant coffee from his desk drawer and emptied it into a disposable paper cup.
He did this because he couldn't be bothered to wash mugs.
“I was obviously giving her sincere advice.”
As he spoke, Lou Mingxu picked up the kettle and poured boiling water into Zhou Yan's disposable cup.
Unfortunately, he poured with a little too much force.
The rim tilted sideways.
The entire cup of coffee ended up on Zhou Yan's thigh.
Zhou Yan leapt out of his chair.
He grabbed his trousers and shook the fabric several times, sucking air sharply through his teeth.
Hiss—
Lou Mingxu was startled too.
He hurriedly grabbed tissues and began blotting at Zhou Yan's pants.
Of course, Zhou Yan happened to be wearing pale-colored jeans that day.
The dark coffee stain spread across his thigh like spilled ink.
The pants were beyond saving.
Ruined.
Zhou Yan wiped the coffee off his desk and let out a long, heavy sigh.
The helpless look in his eyes seemed to say:
Can you actually manage to do anything right?
Lou Mingxu stared at Zhou Yan's thigh.
“I'm really sorry.”
“Fifteen yuan for a pair.”
Zhou Yan glanced at him.
“I'll deduct it from your salary.”
“…”
The atmosphere in the office became somewhat awkward.
Lou Mingxu turned on the computer and casually looked through some materials left behind by previous interns.
Zhou Yan hadn't assigned him anything else.
He was bored.
So he gathered up the case files scattered across the desk, bound them neatly, and put them into the bookcase.
The bookcase was tiny, with only eight compartments. It was obviously cheap—the wooden boards were barely thicker than cardboard. If you put too much inside, the whole thing warped.
Lou Mingxu dragged it against the wall and stood it upright.
Then he pushed a small refrigerator against its side.
That way, the bookcase was less likely to collapse, and they gained a little more walking space in the office.
After mopping the floor, Lou Mingxu cleared away the trash from the desks.
When he was finished, he wanted to wash his hands.
“Is there a bathroom here?”
Zhou Yan pointed outside.
Lou Mingxu was stunned.
He hadn't noticed any public restrooms along the road when he'd arrived.
A disturbing image flashed through his mind—Zhou Yan standing outside the office and relieving himself in public.
Lou Mingxu frowned.
“You mean you just pee out there by the main road? Isn't that a little uncivilized?”
“…”
Zhou Yan stared at him.
“The courthouse across the street has a bathroom. Go use that.”
“Oh.”
Lou Mingxu sighed in relief.
“You scared me.”
The facilities at the grassroots-level courthouse were beyond anything Lou Mingxu had imagined.
As he passed the civil court, he glanced inside.
Half the curtains were hanging, while the other half had fallen down.
Two out of the three fluorescent lights were broken.
The jury benches along the side looked as though they were eligible for disability certification themselves. Some were missing legs, others had broken arms, and they were piled together at crooked angles with a thick layer of dust covering the backs.
The mediation room next door was even worse.
The seats for both the plaintiff and defendant were plastic stools—the exact kind you'd see at a late-night street food stall fifteen years ago.
Sky blue.
Hard plastic.
In short, just like Zhou Yan's office, the entire place seemed dedicated to demonstrating four words: Destitute and run-down.
People always said that people should strive for higher ground, while water naturally flows downhill.
Lou Mingxu simply couldn't understand what Zhou Yan had gone through to willingly leave a famous law firm and come to this godforsaken place, settling into a life so ordinary that he could see the end of it at a glance.
Hadn't Zhou Yan once written to him about working hard, becoming a highly respected criminal defense lawyer like his mentor, and fighting for justice?
What had happened to those ideals?
Didn't they count anymore?
When Lou Mingxu left the courthouse, he spotted Zhou Yan squatting outside the office in the distance, playing with a black-and-white cow-patterned cat.
“What happened to this cat?”
Once Lou Mingxu got a proper look at its face, he recoiled slightly.
It was ugly.
It had a center-parted fringe, perpetually narrowed eyes, and a tuft of black fur beneath its nose that made its expression look inexplicably lecherous.
Zhou Yan immediately covered the cat's ears and turned around to scold him.
“How can you say something like that in front of it?”
Lou Mingxu was perfectly unapologetic.
“It can't understand you.”
“How could it not?”
Zhou Yan turned back to the cat.
“Xiaomi, shake hands.”
He opened his palm.
Xiaomi obediently placed its right paw in his hand.
“Other paw.”
The cat switched to its left paw.
“Spin.”
Xiaomi obediently spun in a circle.
Zhou Yan tried several more commands.
The cat followed every one of them obediently, cooperating with astonishing enthusiasm.
It was like a college student fresh out of military training.
Actually, it was better than a college student.
It could even tell left from right.
Lou Mingxu gave his objective assessment.
“It's definitely smart. But the looks…”
He considered the cat carefully.
“I can give it five points at most.”
“Out of ten?”
“Out of a hundred.”
Zhou Yan rolled his eyes.
“You've appointed yourself an evaluator now?”
The cat was clearly very well fed.
Its belly was round and plump, so much so that it probably had trouble reaching its own backside to clean itself.
When Zhou Yan teased it with a feather toy, the cat simply flopped onto the ground.
But the moment Zhou Yan produced a tube of cat treat, it sprang back to its feet, tilted its head, and rubbed ingratiatingly against Zhou Yan's calf.
Maybe it really could understand human speech.
When Lou Mingxu tentatively reached out to touch its ears, Xiaomi immediately swatted him.
A little after five in the evening, Zhou Yan urged Lou Mingxu to hurry up and pack.
He was ready to lock up and go home.
Lou Mingxu's luggage was still at the hotel downtown.
While waiting for a ride-hailing driver to accept his request, he searched for hotels around the area as well.
Until he found a suitable apartment, he'd have to make do with hotels.
The hotels here were much cheaper—roughly half the price of those downtown.
Most were budget accommodations, and the facilities and cleanliness were predictably mediocre.
Lou Mingxu sorted them by price from highest to lowest and found a resort hotel near the tourist attraction.
It looked fairly stylish and cozy.
But when he went to pay, he noticed that his account balance had dropped to just over seven thousand yuan.
Ever since Lou Mingxu turned eighteen, Lou Zhen had stopped paying child support.
Lou Mingxu's monthly allowance had plummeted.
His mother, Tang Yingzi, had once been financially well-off.
She had originally made her fortune through a beauty salon. Once she'd started making money, she went wild with investments.
She opened large supermarkets and cinemas, along with various cafés and bubble-tea shops whose names even Lou Mingxu couldn't remember.
Then came the three years of the pandemic.
One investment after another went under, and most of the money she'd put into the stock market disappeared as well.
The young, handsome men who had once clustered around Tang Yingzi, calling her baby and honey every other sentence, vanished just as quietly as migrating birds changing seasons.
One day at the dinner table, Tang Yingzi solemnly announced to Lou Mingxu that the family was drowning in debt.
She didn't have any money left to give him.
Then she asked whether he wanted to go ask Lou Zhen for some money, or go to his grandfather and ask for a little spending money.
Lou Mingxu had never been particularly close to either of them.
Tang Yingzi had never been accepted by the Lou family as a proper daughter-in-law, and by extension, Lou Mingxu had never been particularly welcome either.
So Lou Mingxu hardened his heart.
Faced with the choice, he chose to be the lowliest of the low.
He went out and got himself a job.
The seven thousand or so yuan in his bank account represented every penny he'd managed to save since starting university.
After thinking about it, he changed his hotel reservation from the five-star resort to a budget hotel.
Law firms in small county towns didn't get many cases.
But the cases they did get covered just about everything.
Over the next few days, Lou Mingxu followed Zhou Yan around and learned how to operate the printer, send and receive documents, revise legal paperwork, and run errands for judges by delivering summonses.
Technically, many of these things were supposed to be handled by judges or court clerks.
But the legal profession was brutally competitive.
If you weren't willing to do something, there was always someone else who was.
Whoever got the summons delivered to the defendant first could get the case scheduled first.
So, in order to get their clients into court sooner, lawyers sometimes delivered summonses themselves.
For cases where there wasn't much dispute, some lawyers would even help judges draft judgments.
It was an unspoken understanding between judges and lawyers.
One day, Zhou Yan slipped out of the office again without saying a word, leaving Lou Mingxu alone to clean the place and handle any visitors.
“Hey.”
Someone suddenly patted Lou Mingxu on the back.
He turned around.
“Ah, Sister Shanshan.”
Qiao Yushan was Zhou Yan's cousin.
She was a dermatologist at a large secondary hospital and was tall, elegant, and striking.
She'd visited once before, bringing Zhou Yan seasonal fruit and some homemade snacks from her family.
She'd shared quite a lot with Lou Mingxu, too.
He'd thought she was very friendly, so he was always happy to see her.
“Where's Zhou Yan?” Qiao Yushan asked.
Lou Mingxu rested both hands on the mop.
“I honestly don't know. He only left a little while ago.”
“He left without telling you?”
“Yeah. He got a phone call and went out.”
In truth, Lou Mingxu and Zhou Yan had barely spoken over the past few days.
Lou Mingxu could tell that Zhou Yan didn't particularly want to deal with him.
It was as though Zhou Yan saw him as an inconvenient burden who'd been dumped on his doorstep.
So aside from whatever communication was necessary for work, Lou Mingxu rarely initiated conversation.
He certainly never asked where Zhou Yan was going.
“Oh…”
Qiao Yushan's voice softened, as though she were weighing something.
Then she quickly added,
“In that case, let me ask you about something first. You two are working on cases together now anyway, so it should be the same whether I talk to you or him, right?”
Lou Mingxu had eaten plenty of the food Qiao Yushan had brought him before.
He owed her one.
“Sure. Tell me what's going on. If there's anything I can help you with, I'll do my best.”
Qiao Yushan explained that a close friend's younger brother had been taken away by the police.
The reason was suspicion of sexual assault.
“Huh?”
Lou Mingxu frowned.
He'd encountered the term countless times while studying case law, but hearing those words in connection with an actual person still felt surreal.
“Where did it happen?”
Qiao Yushan answered,
“At the other person's home.”
Comments