Chapter 233 - 136: Discussion

Could he really bear the consequences of influencing the judicial direction of the entire Qingwu Province for personal gain?

When Lin Yue finally understood, her face filled with shock. She stared at him in disbelief.

"Are you serious?"

She understood what he meant.

It was nothing less than flipping the table—bringing this whole matter out into the open.

Some things are as light as a feather until you put them on the scales. But once you do, they weigh more than a ton!

"Lanhua Law Firm hasn’t left us any way out."

Xu De shook his head and began to carefully analyze their current situation.

"If the firm wants to grow, whether now or in the future..."

"Securing classic cases is a must. Without them, we can never become a major law firm!"

For a law firm to develop and grow, besides recruiting top lawyers and maintaining a steady stream of cases, these kinds of accolades were also essential. They were like political capital.

Especially when it came to securing a classic criminal case!

But it was obvious.

Lanhua Law Firm lorded over every lawyer in Qingwu Province.

Once you reached a certain level, they would likely crush you and then absorb the pieces.

"If we can’t get the case now, we’ll have even less of a chance in the future."

Xu De spoke again. "Lanhua is ruthless... Maybe they’re just used to being tyrants. In any case, if we refuse to be assimilated this time, then later... even if we have another case worthy of selection, who’s to say they won’t try to sabotage us behind the scenes?"

Hearing this, Lin Yue opened her mouth, but no words came out.

A giant in any industry has only two modes of expansion: assimilate or annihilate.

In the future, it would be the same for dictionary and game developers. You either take the money and get absorbed quietly, or, once they realize you’re not going to cooperate, they just crush you.

There is no third option.

If Xu De refused to cooperate and withdrew from this selection, Feng Ji wouldn’t just let it go.

On the contrary, he would be extremely displeased.

"That’s the arrogance of those in power."

The bank card spun in Xu De’s hand, his fingerprints tracing its smooth surface. A sudden, profound calm washed over him.

’The arrogance of those in power...’ The phrase echoed in Lin Yue’s mind. After a long moment, she took a deep breath and asked:

"So..."

"You mean..."

"We land one solid punch now so we don’t have to take a hundred later."

Xu De’s hand suddenly clenched, gripping the bank card tightly.

"Whether Houde has any future path for growth... depends entirely on whether we can make Lanhua Law Firm hurt enough to be wary of us."

As he spoke, he suddenly paused. After a moment of thought, he looked up at Lin Yue.

"What about Prosecutor Huang and Judge Zhang?"

"We can’t drag them into this. I’ll go and explain things to them."

There’s a story from history.

A negotiator was sent to parley with an enemy. During the talks, he was backstabbed by his own side. A general back home used the negotiations as a cover to launch a surprise attack, advancing unopposed.

As a result, the negotiator was nearly killed by the enemy and only managed to escape at the cost of his immediate family’s lives.

Afterward, he developed a feud with the general, a lifelong hatred so deep he wanted to kill him.

In this scenario, Huang Shi and Zhang Bingxin were the negotiators.

"They’re still at the reception center," Lin Yue said.

"Good."

Xu De nodded. "Let’s go to the reception center and find them."

With that, the two slowly got up, took a deep breath, and went back to their rooms to get dressed.

Xu De casually threw on a down jacket.

Lin Yue, who was sensitive to the cold, bundled herself up until she looked like a penguin. She wore a coffee-colored scarf around her neck, a white hand-knit hat on her head, and a white trench coat.

She looked like she had wrapped herself in a comforter... a walking comforter.

She also looked just like a penguin.

After they were both dressed, Xu De saw her in the living room and froze, at a loss for words.

Lin Yue jutted her chin out, looking at him with dissatisfaction.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing. I just... really admire the True Monarch’s fashion sense."

Xu De averted his gaze, tossed out the comment, and started walking toward the door.

Lin Yue huffed and followed him with quick little steps.

CREAK~

The moment they stepped out of the hotel, a biting wind scraped against their faces, their skin instantly turning ice-cold. A chill snaked through the gaps in their clothing and down their backs.

Outside the hotel, it was snowing. Dreary gray snowflakes fell, accumulating in a thin layer on the ground.

Passersby moved quickly and in silence, their footsteps leaving trails of black prints on the paper-white ground, like drops of ink spilled on a page.

A gust of wind blew a few snowflakes onto Xu De’s eyelashes.

Xu De let out a breath, a visible white plume appearing before him. He said:

"It’s snowing."

Beside him, Lin Yue nodded. Her voice was muffled from inside her scarf.

"It’s normal for it to snow in mid-January."

Xu De nodded.

His mind drifted, and he suddenly thought of the two scavenger children in Lusen City.

Winter was cruelest to the homeless. In 2003, the system wasn’t fully developed yet, and every winter there were cases of people freezing to death before official aid could reach them.

Just as he was thinking this, Lin Yue suddenly poked him in the waist.

Xu De snapped out of it and looked at her quizzically. "Hm?"

"Are you cold?"

Lin Yue struggled to lift her head, as if her clothes were crushing her like training weights. Her voice came out muffled from behind her scarf.

"Cold," Xu De nodded.

To be honest, though, he’d grown up being cold. He was long used to this kind of temperature.

"Here."

Lin Yue tugged at her impossibly long scarf. She unwound a few loops from around her neck and handed the other end to him. She held on to the left side, gesturing for him to wrap the right side around himself.