Grassroots lawyers also have their day

In the early spring in the north, the weather is still chilly despite the warming trend. It's just past the Lantern Festival, and the migrant workers from Beijing have already returned with their bags and luggage to start what they see as a promising life as corporate slaves.

The village no longer has the figures of Cuihua, Erni, and Gousheng wrapped in thick cotton-padded coats, but the high-rise buildings have seen the addition of Mary, Lily, and Andy in business attire.

In fact, what lies before these migrant workers in Beijing is not just the present hardship, but also... the hardship of day and night to come. Poetry and distant places are destined to belong only to a few.

In a damp and chilly basement room of less than ten square meters in an old residential area near Peking University, besides a cheap suitcase and a set of fake military bedding bought from a roadside military supply store, the only valuable household appliance was a second-hand small electric heater (a necessity in early spring, as the two radiators at the base of the wall were said to never get hot), not counting the second-hand Lenovo laptop on the bed and the no-name brand induction cooker and cookware left by the previous resident.

"Today is February 28, 2006, a new beginning in your life."

You sit on a coveted school district apartment in Beijing, and your laptop uses a system custom-designed for you by Bill Gates. Every day, you travel in and out of the city in a multi-million dollar vehicle—the subway.

Ma Huateng (Pony Ma) is humbly providing you with instant messaging services. Occasionally, you'll even engage in financial cooperation with Jack Ma's trillion-dollar companies, and China Mobile will send you monthly text messages to report on its work.

Wang Chuan, you're only 24 years old. As a migrant worker in Beijing, you receive such treatment. Don't you feel proud?

Although the basement was damp and chilly, wasn't that the same as a small town in Jiangnan at this time? Being in the capital but enjoying the climate of Jiangnan, what kind of treatment is this!

Hey! I'm talking to you! Don't take your good fortune for granted! Don't forget that hundreds of millions of Black people in Africa are starving and have never ridden a subway! Remember, you're an ambitious young person with dreams!

A handsome young man sat cross-legged on the hard bed in the basement, pointing to the opposite side and earnestly lecturing her... Opposite her was a gleaming mirror.

He paused for a moment, glanced down at the small black mole on his chest, then looked up at himself in the mirror with a sincere expression and said, "Ambitious young man! ... Don't forget, you are an ambitious young man with lofty aspirations! I have high hopes for you!" He emphasized the word "ambitious" with particular emphasis.

Today is Wang Chuan's twelfth day in the capital. The basement he lives in was rented by a fellow villager who used to work there. The fellow villager failed to realize his dream of living in the capital and went south to Guangdong Province, so the landlord rented the basement to him.

When he first got off the train, like most people who came to Beijing to pursue their dreams, he was full of ambition but penniless, relying entirely on his passion and dreams to keep him going.

Thinking about the Legal Professional Qualification Certificate he received early last year in his suitcase, his confidence soared to 200%. It was as if he was about to become a respected top lawyer in the capital, with shining hair, being chauffeured in luxury cars, collecting huge sums of lawyer fees every day.

With so many top-tier law firms and large law firms in the capital, he figured he should have a place there, and getting a well-paid (around 5,000 yuan) assistant position shouldn't be a problem—that was his thought before arriving in the capital. However… after several rounds of interviews, reality slapped him hard in the face, leaving him bewildered.

What's that saying again: Ideals are lofty, but reality is harsh!

The first law firm I interviewed with was a medium-sized firm with about fifty employees. On the day of the interview, over a hundred eager job seekers showed up; the scene was even more spectacular than a job fair organized by the county government.

Wang Chuan, dressed casually, was seated in the last row of the conference room. After waiting for more than half an hour, only about twenty applicants with full-time postgraduate degrees were retained to prepare for the second round of interviews.

He didn't even get a chance to introduce himself. As he walked out of the law firm's beautiful glass doors, he felt like a monkey, with the law firm behind him acting as the monkey trainer. His heart was filled with resentment, hatred, envy, and helplessness.

The second interview was with a well-known large law firm. When the beautiful and capable HR specialist learned that he had graduated from Peking University with a self-taught bachelor's degree and had little experience and family background, she inadvertently revealed a look of disdain.

As he walked out of the 5A-grade office building, the HR specialist's voice still echoed in his ears: "Sorry, we are a large international firm that only hires law graduates from top-tier universities such as China University of Political Science and Law, Peking University, Renmin University of China, and Tsinghua University." They didn't even bother to collect his resume; they simply returned it to him.

The third law firm I interviewed with was a small firm next to a court. The interview was held on the first floor of a residential building. The building had a door facing the street, and there was a simple sign for the law firm hanging at the entrance. It didn't look very high-end.

The person who interviewed him this time was the director of the law firm. The director asked him what his future plans were. Wang Chuan had read a few articles about lawyers taking a specialized path, so he naturally told the director that he wanted to find a law firm with a specialized focus to practice in, and did not want to be a jack-of-all-trades lawyer.

The law firm director across from him initially looked quite normal, but after hearing what he said, his face gradually darkened, and he said only one sentence before GAME OVER: We are the all-purpose law firm you mentioned!

Awkward! So incredibly awkward! Wang Chuan's face froze; he didn't know how to respond. Undoubtedly, the interview was a failure once again.

This is a bit like saying something short in front of a short person, or saying something deceitful in front of a pockmarked person. If the other person doesn't get up to comfort you, that's already considered polite.

Wang Chuan didn't go for the interview at the top-tier firm, not because he was self-aware, but because they... simply didn't give him a chance.

As he was praising himself in front of the mirror, his phone rang. This Nokia 3210 had been faithfully with him for three and a half years; the back cover was worn faded, but he hadn't bought a new one to save money. He had bought it from a secondhand phone shop on the roadside while studying for his self-study exams.

How do secondhand stores get their phones? Well, almost everyone on Earth knows. Of course, their biggest advantage is their low price.

"Hello, who is this?" Wang Chuan asked cautiously after answering the call, seeing that the caller ID showed a landline number.

"Chuan'er, it's me! Da Pang." A hearty laugh came from the phone.

"Ugh! I thought it was a law firm recruiting and calling me. What a waste of my excitement!" Wang Chuan deflated like a punctured balloon and collapsed onto the bed. He'd been racking his brains these past few days trying to find a law firm for his internship.

"What's up? Just say it. If you want to borrow money, I'm broke right now. I can only give you 50 cents at most. If you want to mooch a meal, I can give you an induction cooker. I can't help you with anything else!" Wang Chuan said weakly, lying on the bed.