CH 2

Chapter 2

"I'm a human being and won't look down on you, but some rules need to be made clear."

Ning Wan reached out a finger, tapped on her desk, and put on an old-fashioned expression. "A newbie here needs to be obedient and be able to read the room."1

Fu Zheng glanced at her. "Oh?"

That didn't seem like a very obedient attitude, but Ning Wan felt that she couldn't just say that out loud. She coughed, too lazy to be euphemistic, and simply went straight to the point: "Simply put, if I dig a hole, you fill it; when I eat meat, you drink soup; If I go east, you can't go west."

"I know you may have some form of background or connections at home. However, if the head office of our law firm is Beijing, then Yue Lan, this community lawyer office, is a remote wilderness. As the saying goes, the sky is high and the emperor is far away; I am your father, and if you are disobedient, I will beat you thoroughly three times a day." 2

Having finished speaking, Ning Wan looked at Fu Zheng kindly. "You have just returned from the United States, and may not be familiar with this saying, but in order to survive in the workplace, I suggest you meditate on it and memorize it in detail."

The longer she spoke, the worse Fu Zheng's face was looking. He could generally be considered a young master with a background, who in the face of such provocation might have turned about on the spot and slammed the door.

Alas, the young master was quite resilient. He took another look at Ning Wan and finally nodded. Although his face was still cold, his tone was already very calm. "OK." He smiled, then said slowly, "But I won't need to call you my teacher. I believe that I can handle this job with my own abilities, without anyone to guide me."

In his tone was not only rumination, but a faint overtone of ridicule.

Alright then, this is war.

Just as Ning Wan was trying to scrounge up some trouble for Fu Zheng, trouble came to the door.

"Don't you know to wash your mouth out with soap before letting these words out your mouth? Are you even still speaking human?"

"I'm fine, but you oughtta use some toilet cleaner on yours, bitch!"

"Cunt!"

"Dead hussy!"

...

Two fire-filled female voices approached Ning Wan's office. Accompanied by all sorts of beautiful insults, an enormous shadow loomed closer, and by the time she arrived at the office door, Ning Wan could see clearly that these were two middle-aged women wrestling each other.

"Your mother, let go your dirty-ass hands! Only cheap bastards grab onto other people's hair!"

"Don't talk about mothers with your dirty mouth! Since you're so filial, why don't you die and ascend to heaven with your own?"

...

The two women both looked like they were in their forties, and were cursing and fighting each other. You grab my hair, I scratch your face, you kick my thigh, and I twist your arm, that sort of thing. Since they had scuffled the whole way, their faces were covered with blood marks from their nails, their hair was loose and their clothes were messy.

This scene was fairly common in community disputes. If one had to pinpoint something special about this particular incident, it was that one of them was using only one hand to fight. In the other, she held a rooster. She was protecting the chicken like her own child, preferring to let a blow land on herself rather than allow the chicken to be the slightest bit hurt.

In comparison to Ning Wan's calm demeanor, Fu Zheng was not calm at all. It was obviously his first time seeing this sort of scene, and his entire body was frozen. At the moment, he was simply staring and frowning at the scene before him in disbelief. Then out of the corner of her eye, Ning Wan saw him decisively taking out his mobile phone and pressing '11' on the dial pad...

Just as he was about to press 0, she stopped him. "Are you calling the police?"

Fu Zheng nodded, "Yes." He glanced at the two women still wrestling in the office, then coldly over at Ning Wan. "Isn't it too much to just watch the excitement like you're doing?"

"Your alarm is really unnecessary." Ning Wan overlooked his dig and smiled. "Mediation of such neighborhood disputes is one of the jobs of us community lawyers."

Fu Zheng frowned, "How is it possible to mediate something like this?"

"What do you mean, 'something like this'? The residents of our community are just plain straightforward folks with strong hands-on skills."

"..."

"Anyway, see for yourself, don't they just have minor injuries? Can it even really be called fighting? Leave the police alone, don't waste their resources. "

Upon finishing that sentence, Ning Wan sighed at Fu Zheng. "Well, weren't you pretty confident in yourself just now? You told me you could handle the job all on your lonesome. You didn't need a teacher, right? This case is all yours."

"..."

Fu Zheng's face turned black, just as expected. Refusing to give up, he tried to stop the scuffle. Unfortunately, as soon as he opened his mouth his voice was completely drowned out by the two middle-aged women.

He sent Ning Wan a cold look. "There is no way to mediate, because there is no way to stop them."

She knew he would say that without even having to think about it. How could a young master like him possibly know how to mediate such trivial neighborhood legal disputes? Frankly, it looked like it was this man's first time even seeing a live chicken.

And as if this particular live chicken was afraid that Fu Zheng wasn't looking at him enough, he actually broke free from his mistress' arms during the scuffle and flew down. In his fright, he rushed all the way over to Fu Zheng...

At that moment a symphony of destiny rang out in Ning Wan's mind, a clear indication of Fu Zheng's rough fate. From initially being cold and proud, his expression soon turned to despair and death just as she had expected, for--

Perhaps as the only male in the office, he had triggered the rooster's aggression against one of its own sex. It began to chase Fu Zheng, pecking all the way. Fu Zheng had long legs and large strides, but due to the small space in the office, he could hardly flee, and several tiny holes had already been pecked into his expensive suit pants. On the smooth fabric, a few elegant chicken feathers had appeared. And now...

Probably from overstimulation, the chicken had become incontinent. As it gave chase to Fu Zheng, pecking the whole way, the attack of chicken excrement came like a nuclear bomb. The despair on Fu Zheng's face was getting stronger and stronger. He didn't even need to speak. "I want to die" was written all over his face.

Didn't you just swear that you were competent enough to handle community work? Weren't you so confident and proud? Yet now you want to die? To herself, Ning Wan thought, it's not even time yet for you to really want to die!

She shook her head. Although she could stand by and continue watching Fu Zheng make a fool of herself, Ning Wan was finally unable to bear it. She rushed over, caught the chicken cleanly, then took her hair tie out from her pocket and tied its' feet together.

Picking up the chicken, she glanced at Fu Zheng, sighed, and said with a heavy heart, "Broaden your horizons and learn a little from Teacher Ning."

To Fu Zheng's shock, she brushed back her hair, then turned and pulled out a loudspeaker from the drawer of her desk and flipped the switch. In an instant, her loud voice rang through the whole office--

"Attention everyone! Attention everyone! Please hold for a moment! Lawyer Ning has something to say! Lawyer Ning has something to say!"

The loudspeaker was just too good at its job, or perhaps Ning Wan's tone was just too demonic. The two women who were just scuffling together really did stopped yelling, and in that high decibel volume of noise, had to take their hands off each other to put them over their ears.

Ning Wan lowered her loudspeaker and glanced at Fu Zheng. "Look, that worked great, didn't it?"

"..."

Ignoring his reaction, she put the horn down and quickly walked between the two women to prevent them from lunging at each other again. Her tone gentle, she said, "My two aunties, you must be so thirsty. Please, drink something first."

Saying so, she glanced at Fu Zheng. Unfortunately, he made no response. She had to look at him again. This time, Fu Zheng reacted, saying unhappily, "What are you looking at me for? Showing off that you got people separated? "

Ning Wan almost got angry. This man had a clever, handsome face, but how could he be so ignorant and blind? "I see you have no points in your heart?3" She took a deep breath, gave up hinting, and snarled. "Go and pour tea!"

"..."