Grassroots lawyers also have their day

At this moment, Pan Jinlian smiled at the panda-eyed man and said, "What do you want? If you want to file a lawsuit, turn right after you go out, there's a courthouse, and the judge will help you."

"I'm not going to court! I just want to chat with you and get some answers to my questions," the panda-eyed man said with a grin, then gave her a flirtatious wink. Provocation! Blatant provocation!

It's been said that when a man gets charming, women have nothing on him. The panda-eyed man in front of me is exactly that kind of guy—women have to step aside. Those alluring panda eyes, those thick, effeminate fingers, and that waist that keeps swaying while sitting in the chair…it's utterly disgusting!

Wang Chuan, who was standing to the side, shuddered and almost got goosebumps. Luckily, he hadn't eaten much that morning, or he would have thrown it all up.

"Why are you coming to us if you're not going to file a lawsuit? Answering questions is the teacher's job. I suggest you go back to elementary school and ask your elementary school teacher!" Pan Jinlian rolled her eyes at the other party, showing the kind of fierce and infuriating aloof person who wouldn't back down from a little firecracker.

"I just want to chat. I have some questions to ask!" The man with panda eyes stuck to him like a leech.

"It costs money to consult me," Pan Jinlian said impatiently.

"How much?" the panda-eyed man asked nonchalantly.

"It's 1,000 yuan per hour, with a minimum charge of 500 yuan. You'll need to pay 500 yuan upfront as a deposit, and any overpayment will be refunded while any underpayment is collected!" Pan Jinlian said, her tone indifferent.

"Holy crap, this is so expensive, are you robbing me?!" The panda-eyed man was startled, his feminine fear evident as his right pinky finger pointed at Pan Jinlian, trembling uncontrollably.

"Hey! How can you talk like that? Haven't you learned the Five Stresses, Four Beauties, and Three Loves? Watch your manners! You're a grown man, and I can tell you even went to elementary school, how come you have no manners at all!" Pan Jinlian immediately straightened up and glared at her.

"Fine, I can't afford to mess with them, but I won't ask you for advice! How can you do business like this? This is blatant robbery!" The panda-eyed man said, pulling out an A4 sheet of paper: "Give me a copy."

"Five yuan!" Pan Jinlian said, holding out her hand with an air of smugness.

"So expensive?" the panda-eyed man asked.

"It wasn't originally this expensive, one yuan per copy. But since you want me to make copies for you, shouldn't I charge you a labor fee?" Pan Jinlian said.

"Fine, you're something else. Here's the money!" The panda-eyed man slammed a dollar bill on the table menacingly: "...I'll make the copies myself!"

Wang Chuan and Zhang the Conman watched from the side, their eyes wide with astonishment. "This is how you do business!" they thought.

After the man with panda eyes left in the morning, Pan Jinlian cursed for a long time before calming down. After lunch, another customer came.

This time it was an old man who kept pestering Pan Jinlian to talk about his relationship problems with his wife and his desire for a divorce. Left with no other option, Pan Jinlian had to resort to her most drastic measure.

"Sir, please speak. I'm just a young, unmarried woman, a flower of the motherland. How could I possibly have any experience discussing your marital relationship and sex life with you? I really can't answer your questions. Please move on to another room..."

Pan Jinlian pointed to Zhang the conman who was giving legal advice to someone nearby and said, "Go find her, she's an expert in this field, I guarantee you'll be satisfied!"

The old man was displeased upon hearing this: "Aren't you a lawyer? You can't even solve this problem! And you call yourself a professional? That's ridiculous."

The old man grumbled as he headed off to Zhang the Conman.

Pan Jinlian muttered under her breath, "Like a painting? If it were a painting, it would be pasted on the wall!" Then she rolled her eyes at the old man's back.

The old man had just left when a middle-aged woman in her forties came in. Seeing that there were already people consulting at Zhang Da Hutou's table, and Wang Chuan was typing on the computer, she plopped down in front of Pan Jinlian.

"Young lady, I have a legal question to ask you. Could you help me answer it?" the middle-aged woman said earnestly.

"What legal issues do you need consultation on? Tell me!" Pan Jinlian asked expectantly, casually quoting a price: "Fifty dollars for half an hour of legal consultation. If you hire someone for a case, the consultation fee can be deducted from the lawyer's fee."

"What? You charge for this?!" The middle-aged woman's mouth dropped open. "Young lady, are there any free consultations?"

Pan Jinlian gave a professional smile and shook her head.

"Young lady, even buying vegetables involves bargaining. As the saying goes, small profits but quick turnover. You see, if you offer free consultations, you'll definitely have more customers, and your business might increase significantly..."

The middle-aged woman wanted to linger, but Pan Jinlian interrupted her: "Auntie, what are you saying? This isn't a vegetable market; we can't do that kind of low-profit, high-volume business here."

To put it another way, when you go to the hospital, you have to pay for an appointment regardless of whether you get any medication or not.

"Yes! Without registering, they won't let you see the doctor!"

"No matter how many stops you ride on the bus, do you have to pay for a ticket every time?"

"Yes, how novel! You have to buy a ticket to get on the bus; how can you ride a bus without a ticket!"

"If you go to see a therapist, and they just talk to you for a bit, don't you have to pay them too?"

"Hmm... I've never been there! But that seems to make sense..."

"Then why can you consult a lawyer for legal issues without paying?"

"Uh..." The middle-aged woman hadn't expected the pretty young woman opposite her to be so talkative. She was momentarily speechless, then said after a moment of silence, "This little girl, you almost led me astray. As the saying goes, 'Don't listen to the elders...'"

"...I'll live several more years!" Before the middle-aged woman could finish speaking, Pan Jinlian quickly interrupted, then smiled slightly, revealing her perfect eight teeth.

The middle-aged woman, angered by the rebuke, stood up and stormed out the door.

Throughout the day, the legal services office was bustling with people, much more so than the day before.

But despite being busy, no business was being done. Only one of Zhang Da Hu You's clients expressed interest in signing a contract and they agreed to meet at the law firm the next day to discuss it. Most of the other clients were just there to get free consultations.

Three other litigants who came to the Shijingshan Court to file cases were told by the judge in the case filing division that they only had one piece of evidence, so they went to the legal service office to make copies of their evidence.

(When filing a case, the plaintiff needs to submit the complaint and a number of copies of evidence to the court according to the number of defendants. In simpler terms, it is to provide evidence and a complaint in the form of N+1, where N is the number of defendants and 1 is the court.)

Wang Chuan's clients were only slightly better than Pan Ershixiong's, and he earned two hundred yuan for drafting lawsuits for them. Of course, the lawsuits were drafted by Wang Chuan and then revised by Zhang Dahuyou before being given to the clients.

Although Zhang the Great Conman hadn't passed the bar exam, she had worked in the industry for a long time. Even though she hadn't eaten pork, she had seen plenty of pigs run, so she had no problem drafting indictments for some simple cases.

In this respect, he is much better than Wang Chuan and others, which fully illustrates that being a lawyer is not something that can be done well just by studying hard and getting high scores; practice is the only standard to test everything.