45. Will you go?

Lu Siming finished telling everything he knew in one breath, then hurriedly looked up to see the other person's reaction.

But Mu Jia was sipping her matcha latte with her head down, so he could only stare at the top of her head.

The girl opposite him had jet-black hair with two cowlicks on the top of her head. He seemed to have heard from an old man when he was a child that people with two cowlicks were generally very upright.

"That's right," he gave a wry smile, "it seems so."

As cousins ​​who grew up together and continued to visit each other frequently, he always felt that they were very close. Until last night, he suddenly realized that she had so many things in her heart that they didn't know.

He also lowered his head and took a sip of his Americano. The ice in the coffee had melted a little, and a mild bitterness spread in his mouth.

Yes, what exactly constitutes a close relationship between people?

Does intimacy mean the absence of secrets?

Just like with Chu Chiyi, he once thought they were the closest of friends and brothers, but in fact, there were many things about him that he didn't know.

He didn't want to get involved in their complicated and messy relationship anymore.

But last night, in the hospital corridor, after Chu Chiyi finished telling him everything, he suddenly turned around and looked at him very seriously.

The man's beautiful phoenix eyes drooped slightly at the corners, and there was still a bluish tinge at the corner of his mouth, a result of his role as the instigator.

Lu Siming had never seen him look so downcast before, and was taken aback. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"……so what?"

"So please help me?" The next second, the other person continued to look down at him and said a title he had shamelessly coveted ten years ago, "Brother."

"Cough! Cough..." Lu Siming suddenly choked.

He was momentarily confused by the other person's "brother," but then he came to his senses, continued to put on a brave face, and said irritably, "Get lost! What's the use of using your honey trap on me?"

Just then, they heard Mu Jia on the other side suddenly laugh.

Lu Siming snapped out of his daze and asked in confusion, "What are you laughing at?"

"Laugh at him for being an idiot."

“Exactly!” he quickly chimed in. “I told him too that what you said back then was clearly just an excuse to reject someone’s confession, and he actually believed it for so many years!”

That's not what I meant.

"Huh?" Lu Siming paused, his hand stroking the handle of the coffee cup. "What's that?"

"My political skills were so bad back then, why would I study law?"

Lu Siming was taken aback again, looking at her for a while before saying, "Well... Jiajia, actually, you don't need to feel guilty towards him. I asked him about it yesterday, and he said that going to study law wasn't entirely because of you. So that guy isn't actually that love-struck..."

After the two of them had a heart-to-heart talk in the hospital corridor yesterday, he did ask, "Did you really apply to the University of Political Science and Law because of Mu Jia?"

His reflection was mirrored in the dark pupils of the man opposite him. After a few seconds, he heard him say, "Not entirely."

Half of it is because of her, and the other half is because of what she once said.

He had gotten used to it by then; Chu Jingkuo's creditors were like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, popping up one or two batches every now and then.

But on that occasion, a few people went to his grandparents' former residence, splashed red paint on the door, and even broke into the house, arbitrarily searching for valuables that could be used to pay off debts. While searching, they casually overturned the old people's memorial tablet on the ground.

He received a call from his neighbors and rushed over, just in time to see the scene: the old couple's memorial tablets were thrown on the ground, the inkstone that was originally on the table was overturned, and the edges of his grandfather's portrait were stained black with ink.

He couldn't hold back, rushed forward, and started fighting with the other person again.

On the same day, when they met, Mu Jia noticed the injury on his face. She didn't ask why, but couldn't help but casually remark, "Many things don't actually need to be solved with violence."

"Then what do we rely on?"

"Rely on the law? Or find the police?"

After saying that, she suddenly laughed. He wasn't a three-year-old child. Besides, she didn't even know the specific reason why he got into the fight, so why would he listen to her? So she paused for two seconds, then deliberately made a self-deprecating remark: "Although I know that's a cliché and old-fashioned explanation..."

He deliberately avoided using words like "illness" or "symptom," as if by not explicitly saying these words, he could pretend he wasn't sick.

Mu Jia shook her head: "I don't know either."

Mu Jia paused for a moment, lifting her gaze from the matcha latte in front of her. She suddenly curled the corners of her lips slightly: "Hasn't someone already checked for me?"

Lu Siming knew she was about to start dodging the issue and changing the subject again. He felt a little helpless, but under these circumstances, he couldn't press her any further.

"Well..." He sighed, preparing to change the subject, and glanced at Mu Jia's phone on the table. He had just sent her two lines of text.

One time, one place.

The time is the night after tomorrow, and the place is a place they all know.

He asked hesitantly, "Will you... will you go?"

Will she still keep Chu Chiyi's invitation?

Mu Jia looked at him, suddenly smiled, and then stood up. "Brother, my vacation is almost over."

Lu Siming looked up at her, and for a moment, he felt as if she was talking about the holiday, but then again, she wasn't.

He suddenly grabbed Mu Jia's arm: "Jiajia, aren't you surprised?"

What's so surprising?

"The things he carried on his shoulders."

"Surprised." She nodded, and after a while, Lu Siming suddenly heard her say, "But when I think about it being him, I don't feel so surprised anymore."

Today is Monday. As soon as Chu Chiyi arrived at the law firm, he received a message from Han Liping asking him to come upstairs.

He left his office and went up the stairs to the twenty-fifth floor.

He knocked lightly twice on the frosted glass door of the partner's office and heard someone inside say, "Come in."

He originally thought that Han Liping contacted him early this morning because of the incident where he deliberately caused a car accident last weekend and made the news.

Unexpectedly, when he opened the door, he saw that Han Liping did not show any displeasure. Instead, he greeted him with a smile, "Chiyi, sit down."

"Thank you, teacher." He smiled and sat down.

Even though several years have passed since graduation, Chu Chiyi still habitually addresses Han Liping as "teacher."

During his undergraduate studies, Han Liping was the instructor for his major's course on civil and commercial economic law. He was also his advisor during his master's studies.

Chu Chiyi began interning at Liheng starting in his junior year of college.

During his second year of master's studies, Liheng, as the most influential firm in Pinghai and even the northern region, took on a private equity fund contract dispute case with a huge amount of money involved and social impact.

The case involves a staggering 8 billion yuan and affects over 2,000 high-net-worth investors and dozens of institutions nationwide.

In this case, the private equity firm involved colluded with related companies to conduct illegal credit enhancement and sales under procedural violations.

A year later, the company collapsed, accounts receivable collection failed, the stock price of the group involved plummeted, bonds defaulted, and investors' funds were all misappropriated for real estate and overseas acquisitions. This triggered a class-action lawsuit by senior investors and a chain of pursuits.

The case had a huge social impact and was once referred to by the media and the public as the "billion-dollar 'rare earth notes' default case".

The clients represented by Liheng are these senior investors, who are the plaintiffs in the case.

Han Liping made him his assistant and involved him in the case.

During his involvement in the agency, he studied recent cases of the Supreme People's Court and the "Nine Civil Cases Summary," and wrote a "Legal Opinion on Applying the 'Substance Over Form' Principle to Penetrate and Examine the Essence of Transactions in Financial Disputes," which detailed the need to penetrate multiple layers of nesting and directly pursue the joint liability of the ultimate financing party and the malicious manager.

This opinion was ultimately submitted to the court by Han Liping as a core attachment to the legal opinion, influencing the panel's reasoning for the trial and even being partially cited by the judge in court.

During the court hearing, Chu Chiyi proposed a method for verifying the authenticity of "blockchain evidence" and submitted a well-designed evidence collection plan. The plan ultimately revealed that all of the plaintiff's evidence documents were generated on the same day by the same device and uploaded to the blockchain simultaneously. This directly exposed the opposing party's trick of using high-tech methods to disguise an old scam.

After winning the case, Li Heng's reputation soared in both the financial and legal circles, making him incredibly famous. He, too, gained recognition within these circles for his part in the case.

He was still a student at the time, and everyone in the industry thought he was exceptionally talented, a rising star in the industry.

What they didn't know was that he got involved in the case because he desperately needed money to pay off all the debts he owed Pei Lan so he could redeem his grandparents' house.

Chu Chiyi came to his senses and saw Han Liping personally pour him a cup of tea using the purple clay tea set on the table.

The teacup landed steadily in front of him, controlled by the long walnut wood tongs. Through the rising steam, he could see the teacher opposite him smiling kindly at him.

“In recent years, more and more domestic companies have been engaging in overseas business activities, so Liheng is also preparing to set up a dedicated overseas business department.” Teacher Han looked at him and got straight to the point: “Get ready, you’ll be setting off in a few days to go and learn. After you’ve finished your studies, come back and take over this new department. New things should be left to young people to lead.”

Chu Chiyi paused for a moment, and after a few seconds, asked subconsciously, "Where to?"

"USA."

How long will it take?

"One or two years?" Han Liping didn't seem entirely sure either.

Seeing his silence, Teacher Han smiled and said, "After you come back, you will be the new partner of Liheng."