0026 Malicious Third Party
Winter in Shanghai is like an uninvited guest, catching people off guard every year.
Qu Zhong woke up sick the next morning. The cause of illness: a seasonal cold.
She tried to get up, but felt dizzy, weak all over, and couldn't even stand up straight.
The attempt failed. She sniffed, quickly crawled back into bed, and sent Li Li a WeChat message: "Sister Li, I'm applying for some annual leave this year. Starting today, I'll take five days off before going back to work."
Without waiting for her reply, Qu Zhong put her phone back under her pillow and went back to sleep.
Because annual leave is a legal right of workers, although she used the word "application" in her message, it was actually a notification, and she knew that Li Li would definitely agree.
Qu Zhong had a wonderful time taking her annual leave the previous two years. She took seven days off in a row, including Saturdays and Sundays. She would always arrange to take the leave together with Feng Jing and Lin Qianqian and then travel to various places together.
This year, things are even worse; she took leave to recuperate from illness. As for Feng Jing and Lin Qianqian, they've both been busy with their own things this year. Even though the three of them are in Shanghai, they rarely have a chance to meet up for a meal. I guess those two will be dedicating their annual leave this year to cases and legal opinions.
I lay at home for five days in a daze, doing nothing and thinking about nothing. Once I recovered, everything would be back to normal.
This is Qu Zhong's idea.
Five days later, she had indeed recovered. She returned to being Qu Zhong, the criminal defense lawyer at Guanzheng, decisive and unique. Cases continued to come in, but they were no longer limited to District C, nor were they confined to Shanghai.
If we had to pinpoint a change, it would be that she and Zhai had lost all contact.
He didn't send her a single message, nor did he ever appear outside the SG office building, not even a chance encounter on the subway, not even once.
For a moment, Qu Zhong felt it was incredibly ironic.
When they were hooking up, he was the case handler for every single one of their cases, and the two of them would always run into each other in all sorts of unexpected situations.
At that time, Zhai was like a gentle breeze, like the air, like the strokes in her writing, pervasive and all-pervasive.
But now, they didn't even have a proper goodbye; it's as if he's vanished into thin air. Since that argument, the prosecutor she's encountered in every criminal case she's handled hasn't been him.
However, Qu Zhong didn't care; her life was filled with work. It was like she was back in her internship period, doing nothing but work and sleeping.
Now, however, her income has increased several times over. She often lies in bed checking her debit card balance, feeling as if she's truly becoming the renowned lawyer she aspires to be in Shanghai, just like the racing legend Su Rongqin. At this rate, she might be able to realize her dream of buying a house in Shanghai's main urban area in less than ten years.
On a typical afternoon, it was Qu Zhong's turn to be on duty at the C District Procuratorate. Unlike last time, there wasn't a single case that required her to witness and sign, so she could only sit in the duty room, resting her chin on her hand and staring blankly at the door.
The most agonizing thing about working at the procuratorate is the lack of Wi-Fi. Perhaps due to the confidential nature of prosecutors' work, they typically use CD-ROM drives for file transfer.
It's so boring.
Qu Zhong thought for a moment, then walked out and stopped in front of a wall next to the elevator with a very clear purpose.
There was a floor directory sign posted there. She saw the words "coffee shop" on the seventh floor.
This place is easy to find; it's right outside the elevator on the seventh floor.
The young woman at the coffee shop clearly remembered her; upon seeing Qu Zhong, she revealed two dimples in surprise: "You're on duty again?"
After spending several hours alone in the gloomy duty room, Qu Zhong finally heard a human voice, and her mood immediately lightened. She replied with a smile: "Okay, I'll buy a cup of coffee."
To everyone's surprise, the young girl looked troubled and said, "No, you can only buy our coffee with an internal card."
"Huh?" This inexplicable exclusionary rule caught Qu Zhong off guard. She widened her eyes and asked again, "Can't I use WeChat or Alipay?"
The little girl shook her head, seemingly feeling helpless for her: "There's nowhere to scan the code at all."
"..."
Well, there are so many rules and regulations within the system.
Qu Zhong returned empty-handed, secretly comforting himself that the coffee wasn't very good anyway, and that drinking it would only make it harder to sleep at night.
Not long after Qu Zhong left, another customer came into the coffee shop. Since they arrived so close together, the young girl assumed they had planned it.
"Prosecutor Zhai, what would you like to order today?"
Ever since Ying Zhai asked her to run an errand for him, the young woman had been asking around to find out who this handsome man was. After briefly describing his features, she learned his name and the department he worked for.
Zhai simply nodded to her and then looked towards the menu wall. His hesitant expression reminded the young girl of his first visit, when he asked her for recommendations.
So she bluntly asked, "Prosecutor Zhai, did you have a fight with your girlfriend?"
Upon hearing this, Zhai Shi's gaze shifted from the wall to her face, his expression puzzled by the unfamiliar term: "What girlfriend?"
The young girl remained straightforward and unwavering in her belief: "It's that very beautiful lawyer with a great figure."
As soon as he finished speaking, the girl noticed his brow furrow, as if he were lost in a brief recollection. He remained silent for a few seconds before emphasizing, "She's not my girlfriend."
Ah... The young girl felt she might have been meddling, so she coughed lightly and said, "Haha, sorry, I misunderstood. But she just came up to buy coffee, but she didn't get one because she didn't have a card."
"It's none of my business."
Zhai ultimately didn't order anything.
Like that lawyer, he came empty-handed and left empty-handed.
The young girl guessed that Prosecutor Zhai had probably been dumped, because the lawyer looked radiant and full of energy. Poor Prosecutor Zhai, on the other hand, looked haggard and listless, and his flimsy "It's none of my business" had no effect whatsoever.
...
Even after leaving the procuratorate, Qu Zhong's tasks for the day were far from over. In fact, the truly troublesome tasks were just beginning.
She's going on a blind date.
Yes, what she hates most, even at the cost of breaking ties with Qu Wanfeng, is blind dates.
The reason he agreed was because the man was introduced by a veteran lawyer in the firm. This lawyer was Su Rongqin's mentor back in the day, the driving god's teacher.
After hearing about it, Su Rongqin made a special trip to greet her: "I know you don't like it, but just consider it for work and give me some face."
For the sake of work, or to save face for him, any of the above reasons would be enough to make Qu Zhong leave.
Qu Zhong decided on the time and place. She chose this afternoon, and the location was a coffee shop on Songyuan Road near the C District Procuratorate.
Songyuan Road is lined with former residences of famous people as well as high-rise commercial buildings, where history and modernity blend harmoniously. Most notably, the road is adorned with ginkgo trees on both sides, their fan-shaped leaves creating a canopy that resembles a golden sea.
Qu Zhong always arrives early, but she never expected that this blind date would arrive even earlier than her.
She treated him as a customer, so smiling at him wasn't difficult. The challenge was that she couldn't get a word in edgewise throughout the entire conversation.
From the moment she sat down, the man kept talking to her about funds, securities, custody, and other such terms, as if he was trying very hard to demonstrate his professionalism and ability.
These financial terms were completely outside Qu Zhong's knowledge. She could only feign interest, sit up straight as if listening, and occasionally use empty monosyllabic words like "um" or "oh" to prove that she was indeed listening.
She didn't actually understand what he said at all.
She doesn't need to get it.
Qu Zhong doesn't like this type. Because she is a strong enough person herself, she doesn't need to worship men to gain a sense of being conquered and thus fall in love.
Furthermore, she was self-aware enough to know that if this man knew this, he certainly wouldn't be talking to her so eloquently.
Looking back on the day of my graduation thesis defense, all the other students in my group were meekly criticized. Only Qu Zhong, along with one of the defense committee members, argued for a full forty-eight minutes on whether the four elements or the three-tier system was superior in cases where the victim was at risk of falling into danger. Qu Zhong even silenced the defense committee member with a single sentence.
Although she ultimately received an excellent graduation thesis, her grade was four "excellent" and one "good." That "good," which rejected her, seemed to be telling her: beautiful women are attractive, but aggressively beautiful women are not.
After talking for a long time like a monologue, the man finally remembered to interact with Qu Zhong and asked her, "Ms. Qu, what type of woman do you like?"
Qu Zhong was only interested in ending this pointless meeting as soon as possible, so she blurted out, "Me? I like tall, handsome guys who don't talk much."
She deliberately mentioned traits that were the opposite of his, but her smile froze on her lips after she finished speaking.
The characteristics she described all pointed to the same person.
Zhai is.
The person who came to her mind was Zhai Shi.
Zhai was the one who fiercely told her, "We're finished."
Outside the transparent floor-to-ceiling windows, the evening lights on Songyuan Road suddenly flickered on. The ginkgo leaves rustled in the wind, like a malicious third party mocking them.
The name Zhai had a powerful aftereffect on her, like a refreshing breeze that sobers her up after a hangover; the sudden clarity restored all her senses.
The first sensation is pain, like water overflowing after a torrential rain, covering everything and filling the entire chest cavity.
Qu Zhong thought she didn't care about him at all. Only at this moment did she realize that she had completely lost him.
The man in front of her seemed oblivious to the impatience and sarcasm in her tone, continuing to chatter on and on, lost in his own world: "By the way, Miss Qu, would you like to see a movie? There's a new art film out that's got pretty good reviews. We can find a movie theater after dinner tonight..."
It was as if a blurred background had been manually created, blurring everything around him. She couldn't see his face clearly, and she couldn't hear a single word his mouth was saying.
Until he waved in front of her and asked again, "Miss Qu, do you want to?"
All business etiquette vanished in that moment. Qu Zhong glared at him fiercely, her anger directed at him, her sense of collective responsibility, and her intention to harm the innocent: "I don't want to."
In no mood.
She didn't miss him at all.
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