The Lawyer and the Story
“Don’t you hate him?” Wen Yiqian looked at the woman beside him.
“When he drove my mother to her death, I hated him with everything I had.” Jin Siqiao’s expression was complicated. “I swore I would never forgive him for as long as I lived.”
She let out a quiet breath. “But time does something to you. It wears things down without asking permission. Including that.”
“Now that he’s like this, if I don’t look after him, who will?”
“He causes trouble often, doesn’t he?” Wen Yiqian glanced at her.
“Yes.” A trace of weariness crossed her face. “Every time he does, I come in person to apologize.”
She turned to look at Wen Yiqian.
“So you came to apologize to me,” he said.
“I want you to drop the matter,” Jin Siqiao said directly. “Not pursue any charges.”
“That’s not really my decision to make. I’m not the police.” Wen Yiqian shook his head.
“I’m a lawyer.” A note of professional confidence entered her voice. “He has a documented mental illness. As long as the victim declines to press the issue, it can be resolved without much difficulty.”
She added, “I would cover all your medical expenses and compensate you thirty thousand yuan.”
Wen Yiqian looked at her for a moment. “I’ll be honest with you: I genuinely want that money.”
A self-mocking smile tugged at his mouth. “I’m embarrassingly broke right now. I dream about finding cash.”
“So you…” A flicker of cautious hope crossed Jin Siqiao’s face. “You’ll agree?”
“I won’t,” Wen Yiqian said, and looked up at the night sky.
“Why not?” Her expression cooled.
“Because…” He turned to face her and pressed a hand over his own chest. “Your father nearly killed me.”
Jin Siqiao’s expression went still. After a long pause, she stood and bowed deeply.
“I’m sorry. I apologize for what he did.”
Wen Yiqian, thin-skinned as he was, felt immediately awkward. “Please don’t do that.”
He thought for a moment. “If he’s this far gone, why not have him admitted somewhere? A psychiatric facility?”
“What’s the difference between that and prison?” Jin Siqiao said flatly.
“But what’s the point of fighting so hard for his freedom?” Wen Yiqian asked, genuinely puzzled. “He’s going to keep causing trouble. You can’t apologize your way out of it indefinitely.”
Jin Siqiao had no answer, but her expression didn’t soften.
There was no arguing someone out of a position they had reached through feeling rather than logic. A person as self-determined as her, once she had made up her mind, wasn’t going to be shifted by a few sentences from a stranger.
“I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Jin Siqiao said, with a slight bow. “If you won’t settle, we’ll resolve it through the courts.”
Wen Yiqian’s frown deepened slightly. The last thing he wanted was this matter going anywhere near a courtroom.
He had almost killed Jin Shuihua. If the man hadn’t been mentally unstable, the situation might already have looked very different. And in his panicked state that day, he hadn’t been careful. There were things a sharp enough person could find, if they went looking.
This woman, with her legal training and her stubborn streak, was exactly the kind of person who would go looking.
“You should know you don’t have much of a case,” he said.
“I won’t know that without trying.” She tilted her head slightly, something assured in her eyes. “It seems you don’t know lawyers very well.”
Her tone stayed measured. “Lawyers are people who will do whatever it takes to win.”
“Right and wrong don’t determine the outcome.”
“Whoever wins determines what justice looks like.”
For a moment the weight of her presence caught him off guard.
By the time he’d gathered himself, she had already turned to leave.
Wen Yiqian exhaled slowly, pressed his fingers to his temples, and closed his eyes.
“Wait,” he said.
Jin Siqiao stopped and looked back. “Something else?”
“I’ll agree to settle,” Wen Yiqian said, eyes still closed, his voice unhurried.
Jin Siqiao’s expression shifted. “Really?”
She came back. “How much do you want?”
“Nothing,” Wen Yiqian said. His eyes stayed shut.
“Then why…” Suspicion moved across her face.
“I find it interesting.” He opened his eyes slowly, a quiet curve settling at the corner of his mouth as he looked at her.
“What do you mean?” Jin Siqiao felt something shift in the air, though she couldn’t have said exactly what. His face hadn’t changed, but something about him suddenly felt different from a moment ago.
“Let me tell you a story,” Wen Yiqian said, in a voice that was slightly tired, slightly idle. “Today, your father initially went after that reporter, Xiao Yuan. But the moment he saw me, he switched targets completely and came after me with everything he had.”
“What are you getting at?” Jin Siqiao didn’t follow.
Wen Yiqian raised a finger to his lips and continued at his own pace. “At the time, I couldn’t work out what I had done to earn that kind of fixation.”
He paused. “Eventually, I figured it out. It’s because I’m too handsome.”
“That’s not funny,” Jin Siqiao said, her face flat, clearly taking it for a deflection.
“Then let me try something funnier.” Wen Yiqian snapped his fingers, his tone lifting. “Your father: a compulsive gambler, an abuser who drove your own mother to take her life. A man who, by any reasonable measure, has forfeited any claim to goodwill.”
“And yet, as the years passed, you let the hatred go. You didn’t just forgive him: you’ve been quietly sacrificing to protect him. Cleaning up every mess he makes. Going out of your way to spare him from being institutionalized.”
“You don’t strike me as someone born a saint.” The smile at his mouth was mild, almost gentle, but his eyes were watching her closely.
“What exactly are you implying?” Jin Siqiao’s expression hardened.
“I like making up stories,” Wen Yiqian said pleasantly. “Want to hear one?”
She said nothing.
He continued anyway. “I think everything you’ve done for your father isn’t purely about family. It looks more like guilt. Like you’re trying to pay something back.”
“And your father has a particular hatred of handsome men.”
“Put those two things together, and the story writes itself.”
(End of Chapter)