In late spring in Jiangcheng, inside a cage woven from cooking smoke, Xu Zhixia washed vegetables in cold water, lying low for three years.
Who could have guessed that she had once been a brilliant star in the law school, with legal principles at her command and her edge sheathed, destined to wear a lawyer’s robe and uphold justice? But then her closest friend betrayed her. A single accusation of “academic fraud” dragged her from the heights into the mire. She was expelled from her school, her future destroyed, and she eventually took refuge in a restaurant kitchen, finding solace in books amid the clatter of pots and pans as she waited quietly for the winds to change.
Then an unprovoked act of bullying shattered the silence. The instant she raised her eyes, a cold glint pierced the haze, and the edge she had kept hidden for three years flashed out, silencing the uproar around her. Just then, Shen Jingchen arrived through the smoke. He was the shining moon above the legal world. Using a summons as his invitation and the courtroom as his playing field, he challenged her: “I’ll be your opponent in this case.”
And so the winds of change rose. She stood up from the dust, bringing with her the thunder she had kept hidden for three years. She sailed across seas of hardship on the vessel of legal principles and made justice sing on the strings of the law. From petty malicious lawsuits in the streets to a trillion-yuan battle of wits over capital, and then to a climactic cross-border showdown, she proceeded with care, unraveling the conspiracy that had framed her and tearing away the mask that concealed the truth about capital.
Shen Jingchen, too, went from a distant rival across the board to a companion at her side, weathering wind and snow with her. The smoke of daily life could not dim her pride, and the long night could not hide her starlight. When the snow of injustice finally melted and justice rose like the sun, the woman who had once washed away her worldly ambitions by the stove had already returned with her sword in hand, ready to write a legend of perseverance, glory, and devotion through the seasons of the law.
