Zeng Keqin put away the agreement, stood up, and extended her hand. "Pleasure working with you."
Luo Qian shook her hand with a complicated expression.
Back at the firm, Chen Kaiheng was on the phone in the office, sounding like he was arguing—his voice loud enough to be heard through the whole floor.
Qi Yan across from her, however, seemed unfazed.
She handed him the case closure report. "Senior Qi, please take a look."
Qi Yan adjusted his glasses, glanced over it, circled three spots with a red pen, and pushed it back. "Change the commas to semicolons here, use a semicolon here, and indent two characters at the beginning of each paragraph."
Zeng Keqin, usually confident in her document formatting, was taken aback. She made a mental note and finally said, "Thank you, Senior Qi."
Qi Yan didn't respond and continued organizing files.
On the day the money arrived, Luo Qian sent Zeng Keqin a message.
"Thank you, Lawyer Zeng. I won't believe in pie-in-the-sky promises anymore."
Zeng Keqin looked at the message, smiled faintly, and replied: "Good."
She felt an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.
*
Shen Jingbai returned from his half-month business trip, bringing two large bags of local specialties. He placed them on the desk and told everyone to take one.
Zeng Keqin grabbed a bag of preserved fruit, opened it, and popped one in. It was cloyingly sweet with a hint of sourness.
"Good?"
Shen Jingbai chuckled.
"Good."
Zeng Keqin hesitated, then offered one to him.
Shen Jingbai shook his head. "I don't like sweets. I heard you independently completed a case?"
Zeng Keqin, with the fruit bulging in her left cheek, said, "Mainly thanks to Brother Kai's help. I couldn't have done it alone."
Over these days, she'd discovered that though Chen Kaiheng seemed unreliable, he always hit the nail on the head when it came to cases—striking at the core. This sharpness was exactly what she needed to learn.
Shen Jingbai looked at her warmly. "You have great insight. Even without Lawyer Chen's help, you would have finished quickly."
Chen Kaiheng dropped a huge pile of file bags heavily on the desk. "Stop discussing all that! I'm swamped! Keqin, if you have time to chat, help me organize these files. And you, Old Shen, how many times have I told you? Don't take those cases with little pay and lots of work. I used to be a top-tier lawyer. My fees are high!"
Shen Jingbai smiled and replied, "Alright, alright. Next time, I'll find you cases with lots of pay and little work."
Chen Kaiheng muttered, "That's more like it."
"Lawyer Shen, I'll get to work then."
"Mm."
Day after day.
Zeng Keqin woke up at six without fail and returned to the dorm after ten at night. Sometimes she missed the last bus and had to crash at a budget hotel near the firm.
The dark circles under her eyes grew heavier, and her tired face couldn't be hidden even by lipstick.
As Wang Chunyue put it: "Qinqin, you're now up earlier than the roosters and sleep later than the cats. A pure workhorse."
She would just smile it off.
One day, Shen Jingbai walked out of his office with a sticky note and handed it to Zeng Keqin. "Keqin, go look into this case first. The client has a meeting scheduled for nine tomorrow morning. I can't make it."
"Okay, Lawyer Shen."
Zeng Keqin took the note, which had an address and contact information.
The next day, she left early and even took a taxi to avoid being late, but got caught in traffic. She arrived at nine-thirty.
The client, a middle-aged woman in her forties, sat in the café looking annoyed.
"We agreed on nine. Look at the time now."
"I'm sorry, sorry. Traffic held me up."
Zeng Keqin was out of breath, her hair disheveled from running, looking a bit disheveled.
"Traffic is no excuse. If you couldn't make it, you should have told me earlier. I have other things to do. Will you compensate for the delay?"
The woman stood up and headed for the door. "Forget it. Another day."
"Could you please give me another chance..."
"I said another day."
The woman left without looking back.
Zeng Keqin stood at the door, biting her lip.
She saw her reflection in the glass window: for the sake of time, she had thrown on a T-shirt, her hair was messy, her eyes dull, her face lifeless—completely out of place among the polished crowd.
Back at the firm, Shen Jingbai was on the phone in the hallway. When he saw her return, he ended the call and asked, "How did it go?"
Zeng Keqin lowered her head guiltily. "I was late. The client said another day."