First-Class Lawyer

The ambulance that had the word ‘EMERGENCY’ on it stopped outside the entrance to Tian Qin’s central hospital. The medical capsule slid smoothly into the intensive care unit. Dozens of transparent tubes were attached like spiderwebs into the pallid body of the person in the capsule, blood rushing in and out of them like the busy six o’clock peak hour traffic.

Toxins were flushed out, and the filtered blood was pumped back in. 

The values on the monitoring equipment fluctuated wildly, never staying within a safe threshold for more than a second. Alerts beeped and red indicator lights flashed non-stop on the screen. The danger of organ failure perpetually loomed over the room.

The Manson family were all sitting in the waiting area outside the emergency room, each with a sombre face that carried invisible pressure.

Compared to the nervous frowns of the medical staff, the man lying soundlessly in the capsule looked peaceful, as if oblivious to the critical condition he was in.

Indeed, George Manson was unaware of his present near-death state. He was now walking down a long, dark tunnel. A light shimmered in the far distance ahead, enticing him onwards in an unending walk. 

But there were really too many potholes in the tunnel.

Sometimes, as he walked, he would suddenly stumble into a dream. Like in his final moments, reviewing everything that he had experienced in the years of his life.

This time, he dreamt of himself as a child.

He reckoned he was five years old? Or was he seven years old? Not too old, either way.

It ought to be a social gathering that he had attended once. It was one of those days every year that the Manson family would invite all their business associates to a social gathering. Some were regular guests, and there were some that only appeared for the year, not to be seen in the next.

If the weather was good, there would be various activities to divert their attention. However, in George Manson’s dream, the weather likely wasn’t great as they were simply enjoying afternoon tea in the house.

The adult’s afternoon tea party wasn’t something that he, a mere kid, was entitled to take part in. However, his older brothers were.

After all, his oldest brother was a full thirty years older than him and had been involved in the business from a very young age. Or, it could also be due to him being the youngest, and thus their parents indulged him more. 

At that time, in the spirit of putting on a show, he had initially planned to stay in the study and pretend to do his homework. But he couldn’t stand it. He kept getting tempted by the other kids in the garden outside the window. As such, he didn’t manage to last more than a few minutes before scampering downstairs, dashing to the garden at the back.

Joe, Glenn, Zhao Zemu, and other familiar faces were in the garden. These families were frequent guests to the Manson’s social events, coming by almost every year. Joe’s family was big and powerful; their families were deeply connected with each other. Glenn’s family was gaining strong traction. Although the Zhao family was considered fairly new to the scene, they latched tight to the Manson family’s coattails and were quite good helpers…

Naturally, these were not things that little rascally boys like George Manson and the rest would consider. They played around raucously regardless of how well-connected they were. Joe and Zhao Zemu were both friends; Glenn often picked fights with him, but they had goldfish brains and would forget about their fights right after.

That day in the garden, it was still the dumbass Glenn who was stirring trouble. George Manson was egged into climbing a tree to pick the beautiful peacock fruit that hung from the top. What happened, in the end, was that Glenn had lured out a snake from some hole or other, using a hook to reel it up the tree trunk. 

George Manson had just reached the peacock fruit, and his soul was almost shocked out of his body by the snake beneath him; he lurched, falling headfirst down the tree.

Fortunately, that tree wasn’t tall and the surrounding area was cushioned with soft mud. He was caught by Joe as he fell to the ground, and the two kids tumbled in the mud together. Joe was rasher by nature. Once he got up, he immediately rolled up his sleeves and began to duke it out with Glenn. Whereas Zhao Zemu, on the other hand, was two years older than them and thus more level-headed. Seizing those seven inches of snake, he walked to the foot of the garden wall. He slammed a rock harshly down on it a couple of times, burying the snake back into the soil.

Shaking the blood off his hands, he turned his head back to look at George Manson, then he said, “That settles it. The snake’s gone.”

Even though that snake was actually very small and didn’t belong to a venomous species, Zhao Zemu’s actions deeply shocked George Manson. And when George Manson turned around, moved by Joe who had gotten a bloody nose in a fight for him, he in passing tossed an extra punch into the fray at Glenn, who similarly had a bloody nose. 

So this bunch of little rascals ended up being taken aside by two adults who were passing by. While wiping down their bloody faces, the boys were also sternly encouraged not to fight.

Those two were the beau ideal middle-aged couple; a man of talent and a woman of beauty. They looked scholarly, bearing the barest resemblance to businessmen.

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As a young boy, George Manson knew very little about them. Compared to their fame and reputation, he had a deeper impression of their smiles. 

Even if the couple’s faces were blurred in his dream, after all these years, he always remembered the little mole by the curve of the lady’s smiling eyes. She looked beautiful and gentle; he couldn’t make out the slightest indication of her age.

Regrettably, he never saw those two at any other social events afterwards.

Perhaps they weren’t keen on socialising, or perhaps they had fallen down on their luck, disappearing like a flash in the pan.

…He didn’t know why he was dreaming of these memory fragments from so long past. But now that it came back to him, he still had many tiny regrets in his life. 

Like those fair fingers who had pulled him from the sea…

Like this couple with beautiful eyes and gentle smiles…

Until today, he had yet to learn their names.

“Beep—” 

“Kidney failure—”

The electronic tone of the monitoring device blared sharply once again.

The nurses appeared a little anxious. The expressions on the doctor’s faces were dark.

“Keep trying. Once more.” 

“Come, on!”

—

The atmosphere at Southcross Law Firm these few days was a little queer. Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan both shared a part of the blame, primarily stemming from that annoying ‘internship preliminary assessment’.

When Yan Suizhi was hauled off to Yaba Island by Gu Yan, Fizz and the others had reminded them that the preliminary assessment had already been arranged. If Yan Suizhi was off on a business trip during this time, he would miss it for sure. After all, this type of assessment didn’t only take into account an intern’s level of preparedness, but also the participating lawyers’ available time. 

In essence, Yan Suizhi missed it.

And that was where the point of contention lay—whether or not he needed to take a make-up assessment upon his return.

The main person in charge of the preliminary assessment this time was Luke’s mentor, Hobbes. Possibly because he was similarly competing for the honour of the ‘First-Class Lawyer’, everything this old chum did seemed to target Gu Yan. He might have brushed it off if it was someone else’s intern, but precisely because it was Gu Yan’s intern, he took it with unusual seriousness.

“We can expend the effort once more to get a few friends to help out and design a small but elaborate case, allowing you the opportunity to comprehensively show your ability.” Hobbes looked extremely unapproachable when he had on a stern expression. Unlike Gu Yan’s brand of aloofness, it was instead a type of shrewdness and unaccommodating. 

Luke, Freida, Anna, and the other few interns were also present for this scene. Although Hobbes was speaking to Yan Suizhi, and his gaze fixed only on him, the others—Luke in particular—grew so anxious that they didn’t dare breathe too loudly.

Yan Suizhi, conversely, remained cool as a cucumber. He said in his head, ‘It’s too much trouble wasting such manpower and resources on me, I dare not accept this honour.’

“It’s nothing much, else it would be very unfair towards you,” Hobbes said. “Although it’s an assessment, it is also in its essence a way for you to hone your skills. You’re interns who have come to Southcross Law Firm; opportunities like these are hard to come by.”

In fact, when the matter of Yan Suizhi’s absence from the preliminary assessment had been discussed earlier, Fizz had shown the video recording of the bail hearing in Wine City to several of the assessing lawyers. The other interns had watched it too. 

After the video finished playing, Luke and the rest had their mouths agape.

The lawyers who had disapproved of the absence silently slapped themselves in the face and shut up in their shock, grading Yan Suizhi on the spot.

Of course, the firm also had rules stating that in the event of contingencies, the awardable points would be capped at 60, which was the maximum they could give to pull an intern across the passing line. That aside, those lawyers didn’t deduct a single point and gave a full 60 across the board.

Except for Hobbes. 

This lawyer who was notorious for being fastidious about authenticity seemed to have suddenly gone blind, as if once finishing and looking away from the video, refused to acknowledge it.

“Bail is only a minor part of the process. Can bail be the hallmark of a lawyer? How can a hearing that doesn’t have a single cross-examination be counted as a trial?” Hobbes refuted using this reasoning.

In short, he still claimed that Yan Suizhi lacked opportunity to hone his skills.

“If you continue to insist not to take a make-up assessment…” Hobebs’ words took a turn. 

It was as if he had deliberately laid out all the groundwork earlier, not truly with the intention to expend the time and resources to conduct a make-up assessment for Yan Suizhi, but to lead up to this point.

“Then, regrettably, I’m unable to convince myself to give you too high a grade.” Saying this, Hobbes shook his head with a frown, scoring him a ‘0’ in the chief reviewing assessor’s section of Yan Suizhi’s assessment form.

All the interns, “…”

They all turned their heads towards Yan Suizhi. The atmosphere in the conference room instantly pressed down heavily. It was as if they were visiting his grave. 

Seeing that Yan Suizhi still looked as uncaring as before, Freida thought that he hadn’t understood the perilous situation he was in. She reminded him in a very soft whisper, “The weightage of the chief assessor is higher than that of the other lawyers. The only one whose weightage matches his is your own mentor, but your mentor is Lawyer Gu. And from what I know, Lawyer Gu has never given a score above 70 points, particularly so for the people under him. In your present situation, unless Lawyer Gu makes an exception and gives you an unprecedented 90 points, no one can save you.”

With sullen faces and frantic nods, Luke and the others stressed the severity of the situation to Yan Suizhi whilst Hobbes was out of sight.

“Let me break it down for you,” Freida said, “you either have to apologise to him and let him give you another chance, or you have to grovel to Lawyer Gu… I think the difficulty of the former is a bit less, the latter is probably hell-mode, unlikely to work even if you dunk two kilograms of magic potion over him.”

Luke thought about it before saying, “As for my mentor… He’ll probably still need a kilogram.” 

Everyone, “…”

Hobbes went into a small glass room to replenish half a cup of coffee. When he came back, he propped his arms on the table. He took a slow sip of his coffee, then spoke to Yan Suizhi, “So what do you think about the score I gave you? I feel that it’s very reasonable.”

“…”

The box lid for my First-Class Lawyer medallion is about to squash this old codger. 

Yan Suizhi gave a polite smile and was about to open his mouth when Hobbes decided he hadn’t had enough, cutting in, “If you skip out on a chance to hone your skills in an assessment, can anyone guarantee that you won’t be humiliated in court in the future?”

“Me.”

A low-pitched, melodious voice rang from the door of the discussion room, just in time to respond to Hobbes’ words.

Stunned, the interns turned their heads and saw the supposed ‘hell-mode’ Lawyer Gu standing at the door. He spoke to Hobbes with a cold expression, “I have just submitted his assessment score. After tabulating all the lawyers, including you and I, the final score is 68 points, which is sufficient to pass.” 

Freida gave a tiny gasp. “Holy moly, 68? How many points did he have to give for this score?”

Luke wiped his face. “Stop counting. 100.”

Everyone, “…”

Yan Suizhi, “???” 

Did this student wake up on the wrong side of the bed today, transforming from pettymint essence into peppermint candy?

Hobbes was unable to contain his expression. He thought that he had a good understanding of Gu Yan’s temper, who usually stayed out of such matters. His plan was to nip off this intern’s arrogance and arrange an individual make-up assessment. The case wouldn’t be as complicated as before and there would be limited opportunity for the intern to show off his skill. If he just rallied once more, then Yan Suizhi’s scores would look quite ugly. And it would be justifiably ugly, which could also implicate Gu Yan by association.

But he had never expected that things would turn out this way.

“My intern has some other business, so I’ll take him away first.” With this, Gu Yan nodded at Yan Suizhi, indicating that he could leave the conference room. 

Despite having defended his intern, the lawyer’s expression was still glacial when looking towards his intern a heartbeat later—just as if those 100 points had nothing to do with him.

Everyone was dumbfounded, completely unable to react.

Yan Suizhi nodded at Hobbes with a smile and followed Gu Yan out the door back to his office.

He had assumed that the so-called business was just an excuse that Gu Yan had pulled out of thin air to extricate him, but he didn’t expect that once he stepped into the office, Gu Yan would really throw him proper work. 

“What’s this?” Yan Suizhi froze.

“A Notice of Commission,” Gu Yan said.

This answer caused Yan Suizhi to grow even more perplexed. If someone wanted to authorise a Notice of Commission, they’d engage a distinguished lawyer like you. What is it being given to me for? He couldn’t help but lower his head to skim through it.

It really was a Notice of Commission, sent from the Legal Aid Bureau, an organisation specialised in helping suspects arrange lawyers. 

They were the ones who had assigned the previous case involving Joshua Dale to Gu Yan. And this time…

Yan Suizhi scanned the name of the lawyer addressed on the Notice of Commission. It really wasn’t for Gu Yan, but Ruan Ye.

“…” Could they have misprinted it?

However, the client wasn’t an unfamiliar name to Yan Suizhi. It was Chen Zhang.