She had lived for two thousand years and wanted nothing more than to be an ordinary lawyer, until the day the owner of the coffee shop downstairs complained about the renovation.
“Owner of apartment 1701? I’m not a tenant. I just happened to buy that whole floor.”
The property manager across from her froze for three seconds, then hurriedly apologized. The client forgot to cry. “Lawyer Shen, you… just happened to buy a whole floor?”
Shen Juan took a sip of cold tea. “Mm. It saves me the trouble of moving.”
She thought she could just keep drifting through life like this.
Until the law firm was targeted for a hostile takeover. The other side announced they would gain control by the end of the month, and the administrative director was frantic. She pulled out an old, yellowed address book and made a call.
“Tell Chen Zhengyang that the favor his great-grandfather owed in Shanxi in the twenty-third year of Guangxu is due.”
The next day, the acquisition was called off, and a billionaire issued a public apology.
The owner of the coffee shop downstairs came up with a new drink, smiling innocently. “Miss Shen, would you like to try some? I pickled the osmanthus myself.”
She looked into his eyes. They were the kind of eyes that had seen bloodshed.
“Boss Gu,” she said, setting down her cup, “is business at your shop not very good?”
“It’s all right.”
“Then why do you have so much free time?”
He looked at her earnestly. “Because I happen to want to pursue you.”
Later, he searched every record he could find, only to discover she had no birth certificate or record of her birth. In an old photograph from 1947, she stood in a university classroom, looking exactly as she did today.
“Who are you, really?”
Beneath the moonlight, she smiled, and two thousand years of time shone in that smile.
“My name is Shen Juan. Juan, as in weary. I’ve lived a long time, and I’m a little tired.”
She had lived for two thousand years and seen dynasties rise and fall, and all the joys and sorrows of the human world.
All she wanted was to quietly work a job in a society governed by law.
