Chapter 5 — The Return of Attorney S

Hardship? You call this hardship? Because you wanted to spare Nien Dao from being fired, you drugged me and systematically dismantled my professional future? Is that what you define as hardship? I slammed the phone onto the desk and took a deep breath. There was no rush. The best part of the show was yet to come.

Three days later, word spread through the legal community like wildfire: Nien Dao had been sued by a client seeking two hundred million in damages for professional negligence. Nien Dao went hysterical. She could not possibly afford such a sum. She pleaded with Dien Chi for a solution, but even he was helpless. They had only recently returned to the country, their foundations were shallow, and their connections were limited. Furthermore, the maternal family of the former husband of the woman who held the lawsuit was an ancient, deeply entrenched local dynasty. To offend them meant that in this city’s legal circles, Nien Dao would struggle to take even half a step without facing insurmountable obstacles.

One week later, an even greater shockwave hit. The Bar Association officially opened an investigation into Nien Dao’s legal license. The reason: suspicion of using illicit methods to misappropriate another’s professional work in a case three years prior. The whistleblower was anonymous, but the evidence was agonizingly detailed. It included the original, complete draft of the trial defense from that year, created by “Tri Du” exactly two weeks before Nien Dao ever laid eyes on it. It included the internal project logs of the Thinh Hang law firm, which showed the original lead counsel was Tri Du, only to be swapped to Nien Dao under the suspicious pretext of the original attorney’s “health concerns.” It even included a receipt for a prescription drug purchase—the very paralytic agent Dien Chi had procured from a pharmacy three years ago to silence my vocal cords. These were pieces of evidence I had painstakingly collected for three years. Bit by bit, detail by detail. I had been waiting precisely for this day.

After the news of the investigation broke, Nien Dao suffered a complete breakdown. At first, she posted a lengthy, desperate message on social media, claiming she was being “maliciously framed” by someone “envious of her success.” No one commented. No one liked it. Three days later, she deleted it. Then, she came for me. Not by phone, but by storming directly into the lobby of my law firm. Hu could not stop her. When she burst into my office, her makeup was a ghost of its former precision; dark circles shadowed her eyes, her lips were chapped, and her hair was a tangled mess.

“Tri Du!” She stood before me, her chest heaving with jagged, violent breaths. “You were the one who reported me, weren’t you?”

I set my pen down and leveled my gaze at her. “Counselor Nien, please, have a seat.”

“I won’t sit!” Her voice cracked into a sharp, shrill pitch. “Answer me! Was it you?!”

“It was.” My voice was steady, utterly calm.

Nien Dao froze. Perhaps she never expected me to admit it with such chilling frankness. “You… how could you?! That all happened three years ago!”

“Does the passage of three years negate the truth of the act?”

“I…”

“Nien Dao,” I stood up, “three years ago, you used my defense to win a case, rode my work to a promotion, stole my boyfriend, and fled abroad. Did you honestly believe that after three years, you could simply turn the page?”

Her lips trembled. “It was Dien Chi… he was the one who drugged you, not me…”

“He provided the drug, but you accepted the case. You utilized the documents. You claimed the glory.” I took a step toward her. “Did you even ask a single time back then why I had suddenly lost my voice? Did you never once suspect that something was terribly wrong?”

She stumbled back. “I… I didn’t know he would use drugs…”

“You didn’t know?” I pulled a screenshot from my drawer and placed it before her. It was a message she had sent Dien Chi three years ago: “Dien Chi, how long does the drug last? Don’t leave any lasting damage, otherwise it will be hard to clean up.”

Nien Dao’s face drained of all color. She stared at the screenshot, her mouth agape, unable to emit a sound. How ironic. Three years ago, I had been the one speechless, unable to make a sound.

“That message,” I whispered, “is also part of the Bar Association’s evidence file.”

Nien Dao’s knees buckled. She clung to the edge of the desk, her knuckles turning bone-white. “Tri Du… what will it take for you to let me go?”

“Let you go?” I looked at her. “Nien Dao, three years ago, when you sent me that message saying ‘thank you for your sacrifice,’ did you ever think about letting me go?”

She fell silent, tears streaming down her face. I felt not a flicker of hesitation.

“The Bar Association’s final determination will arrive in about two weeks. If the violations are confirmed, your license will be permanently revoked.”

“No…” She shook her head. “No… Without my license, I am nothing…”

“And when you destroyed my license, did you once consider that I might also become nothing?”

She collapsed into a chair, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking violently. I stood over her, looking down. Three years ago, I had sat on the floor exactly like this—mute, sobbing without a sound, yet entirely unseen.

“Leave,” I said. “I am very busy.”

Hu entered to escort her out. Once the door clicked shut, I returned to my chair. My fingers trembled slightly. It was not because of pity.