“Resolved.” Adrian answered casually as he clocked out, offering no further explanation despite the startled and suspicious looks directed at him.
He pushed open the front doors of Blackwood & Reed Law Firm, and the noise of the city immediately washed over him.
Cars moved steadily along the road, bicycles crowded the sidewalks, storefront signs glowed beneath the fading afternoon light, and everywhere he looked were little reminders that he was now living in 2002 rather than the world he remembered.
Adrian did not linger.
He unlocked the bicycle he had parked outside, climbed on, and started riding home because there was something far more interesting waiting for him than the reactions of his coworkers.
He wanted to test the skill the system had just given him.
Once Adrian disappeared down the street, the lawyers still standing in the lobby finally began talking.
“He really solved the case from Room 103 that quickly?” One of the female attorneys looked toward the entrance through which Adrian had just left and frowned thoughtfully.
“Does anyone else think Attorney Cole seems a little different today?” Another lawyer considered it for a moment.
“His temperament does seem different, although if you look closely, nothing about him has actually changed.” Someone nearby laughed.
“Whatever happened, I know one person who definitely didn’t expect Adrian to solve that consultation.” Nobody needed to ask who he meant.
Most of the lawyers at Blackwood & Reed disliked Marcus Hale almost as much as Adrian did.
Marcus had risen into management largely because of his connections and yet behaved as though his position were proof of exceptional ability, while his favorite pastime seemed to be interfering with everyone beneath him.
The fact that Adrian had successfully completed a consultation Marcus had clearly intended to use against him made the situation particularly amusing.
One of the lawyers grinned.
“I’d like to see Hale’s face when he finds out.” Almost as if summoned by those words, Marcus’s irritated voice came from behind them.
“What are all of you standing around laughing about?
Is this a law firm or a social club?” The lawyers turned and saw Marcus approaching the time clock, glaring at them as though they had committed some serious professional offense.
One of them rolled his eyes.
“Our shift is over.” Marcus’s expression darkened immediately.
He was about to reprimand the man when another lawyer suddenly smiled.
“Congratulations, Team Leader Hale.
Someone on your team just completed another special consultation.” Marcus paused.
“A special consultation?” His confusion lasted only a moment before something occurred to him.
“Adrian?” There had only been one unusual consultation assigned within his team that afternoon, but Marcus had chosen that particular case precisely because he believed it was almost impossible to resolve satisfactorily.
The client in Room 103 wanted a divorce without surrendering any meaningful share of his property, which was the kind of demand lawyers hated because the desired outcome and the legally realistic outcome were nowhere near each other.
Several attorneys had already spoken to the man, and every conversation had ended with the client leaving angry and dissatisfied.
Marcus had expected Adrian to spend days struggling with the case before eventually admitting that there was nothing he could do.
Yet now everyone was saying it had already been completed.
“He actually settled it?” The disbelief on Marcus’s face became obvious.
At that moment, Emily Parker walked out of the finance office after finishing her own shift, and Marcus immediately stopped her.
“Emily, did Adrian finish the consultation from Room 103?” Emily glanced at him before nodding.
“Yes.
The client signed off on the consultation.” Marcus’s expression stiffened.
“He actually accepted the solution?” “Yes.” Marcus still seemed unwilling to believe it.
“Was the client just tired of going through different lawyers and finally decided to settle for whatever Adrian gave him?” Emily shook her head.
“No.
He was extremely satisfied.
He originally wanted to add another twenty thousand to the fee, but that wasn’t allowed under the firm’s rules, so he eventually paid nine hundred and ninety-nine instead.” For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then one of the lawyers whistled.
“Nearly a thousand for one consultation?
That’s not bad at all.” Another laughed.
“I barely made twenty-eight hundred last month.
He earned a third of that in an hour.” Someone else deliberately looked toward Marcus.
“Looks like Team Leader Hale has a pretty capable attorney working under him.” The surrounding lawyers immediately understood what he was doing, and several smiles appeared.
Marcus’s face darkened further.
He had intended to make things difficult for Adrian, yet instead of embarrassing him, he had handed him a successful case and a respectable performance record.
The result was the exact opposite of what Marcus had wanted.
“Why are all of you still standing around if your shifts are over?” His irritated tone only made the others more amused.
“Fine, fine.
We’re leaving.” “Let’s get dinner.” “We can congratulate Adrian tomorrow.” The group gradually dispersed, leaving Marcus standing alone beside the time clock with an unpleasant expression.
He remained there for several moments before silently comforting himself.
It was only one consultation.
Nothing important.
Adrian had simply gotten lucky with a civil dispute.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed as another thought occurred to him.
Hadn’t Adrian been asking for more serious cases?
Then Marcus would give him one.
Civil disputes were forgiving enough that an unconventional suggestion and a cooperative client could sometimes produce a good result, but criminal cases were different.
A poorly handled criminal matter could damage a lawyer’s reputation or even destroy a career, and unlike a difficult consultation, success could not be manufactured by saying something clever at the right moment.
Coincidentally, a legal aid organization had recently sent the firm a criminal case that offered very little money while promising plenty of tedious work.
Marcus smiled to himself.
“If you want a real case that badly, Adrian, I’ll give you one.” He was already curious to see how the young lawyer would handle it.
At six in the evening, Adrian arrived at Maplewood Apartments and unlocked the door to Unit 404.
The moment he switched on the light, a cramped rental apartment of barely thirty square meters came into view.
Adrian looked around.
“Tsk.
Pretty much the same as my old life.” The apartment was simple enough that there was almost nothing worth describing: a small living area, an equally small kitchen, aging furniture, and barely enough room for one person to live comfortably.
Adrian was not particularly bothered by it.
In both worlds, he had grown up without much support.
His mother had died giving birth to him, while his father had passed away when Adrian was still young, leaving him to struggle through most of life on his own.
Everything he had achieved in his previous life had come from years of stubborn effort, so living in a shabby apartment hardly qualified as a hardship.
The memories briefly left him distracted, but Adrian quickly pushed them aside and summoned the system interface.
[Current Gratitude Coins: 10] [Talent Skill: Culinary Arts Lv.
1 — 0/10] He had earned the coins from Daniel’s consultation, and since there was little reason to hoard them before understanding how the system worked, Adrian immediately invested all ten into Culinary Arts.
[10 Gratitude Coins Consumed] [Culinary Arts Lv.
1 — 0/10] [Upgrade Complete] [Culinary Arts Lv.
2 — 0/20] Adrian studied the notification with interest before dismissing it and walking into the kitchen.
There was only one sensible way to test a cooking skill.
He opened the refrigerator, gathered whatever ingredients he had available, and turned on the stove.
The difference became obvious almost immediately.
Adrian had been an average cook before gaining the skill, capable of feeding himself without poisoning anyone but certainly not someone who belonged in a professional kitchen.
Now, however, every movement felt strangely natural.
His knife moved with effortless precision, ingredient preparation required almost no conscious thought, and even controlling the heat of the pan felt as intuitive as moving his own fingers.
He prepared several dishes simply to test different techniques, and before long, the small apartment that had previously felt cold and lifeless was filled with the sounds and aromas of cooking.
When everything was finished, Adrian carried the steaming dishes to the table, washed his hands, and sat down.
He took the first bite and raised an eyebrow.
The flavor was considerably better than anything he had expected himself to produce.
After trying several more dishes, he finally nodded in satisfaction.
“This would probably be good enough for a reasonably popular restaurant.” That conclusion also told him something useful about the system.
If Level 2 already corresponded to competent professional cooking, then the system’s standards were considerably higher than he had initially assumed.
Ordinary people with basic kitchen experience might not even qualify for Level 1, while the highest attainable levels could potentially represent genuine mastery.
Adrian leaned back in his chair after finishing his meal.
Unfortunately, Culinary Arts was not particularly useful to his legal career.
According to the information provided by the system, civil cases primarily rewarded Gratitude Coins, while the chance of obtaining a talent skill was relatively low.
Receiving Culinary Arts from Daniel had simply been good luck.
Criminal cases worked differently.
Their Gratitude Coin rewards were less impressive, but the probability of obtaining useful talent skills was significantly higher.
That made Adrian’s next objective obvious.
“I should take a criminal case when I get the opportunity, then start thinking seriously about leaving Blackwood & Reed.” He had no intention of spending the rest of his career working beneath Marcus Hale.
With the knowledge and professional experience he had carried over from his previous life, combined with whatever advantages the system eventually provided, building his own practice was far more attractive.
If everything went well, there was no reason he could not eventually build a nationally recognized law firm rather than remain an employee forever.
Having settled on that long-term goal, Adrian looked down at the table.
Most of the food he had prepared was still untouched.
His enthusiasm for testing Culinary Arts had apparently exceeded his appetite.
He gathered the remaining dishes and carried them toward the battered refrigerator, only to discover that it was already crowded with leftovers.
After rearranging several containers, he barely managed to fit everything inside.
“I made way too much.” Throwing perfectly good food away felt wasteful, but Adrian obviously could not eat all of it himself.
Then a memory surfaced.
There were two young brothers who often wandered through the neighborhood collecting bottles, cardboard, and anything else they could sell for a little money.
They had no parents looking after them, and the Adrian of this world had occasionally given them food when he encountered them.
The coincidence made Adrian pause.
In his previous life, there had been two children much like them living near his neighborhood as well.
He had fed those boys several times before they suddenly disappeared one day, and he had never learned what eventually happened to them.
Apparently, this world had its own version of them.
Adrian remembered two dirty-faced children grinning whenever they saw him carrying food and decided there was no reason to let his leftovers go to waste.
“I’ll bring some to them tomorrow morning.” With that decided, he went to wash up and prepare for bed.
While standing in front of the bathroom mirror, however, another person suddenly entered his thoughts.
Daniel Hart.
Considering how much time had passed since the consultation, Daniel should already have returned home.
Adrian raised an eyebrow as he remembered their conversation.
“I wonder how that discussion with his wife is going.” At that exact moment, Daniel Hart was lying comfortably on the sofa in the spacious living room of his villa, watching television while waiting.
Eventually, the front door opened.
Daniel turned his head and saw an attractive woman in her thirties enter the house.
Vanessa Hart.
His wife.
She barely acknowledged him when she walked inside, although the faint smile in her eyes made it obvious that she was in an excellent mood.
Vanessa had spent much of the day imagining what would happen once the divorce was finalized.
With the money she expected from the settlement, she could finally leave Daniel behind and live however she pleased without depending on anyone or worrying about his opinion.
Just thinking about receiving millions from the divorce was enough to improve her mood.
When she finally looked toward Daniel, however, she deliberately suppressed her excitement and replaced it with a colder expression.
She reached into her handbag, removed a document, and tossed it onto the table in front of him.
“This is the agreement my lawyer prepared.
The property division is already very fair, and if you show it to another attorney, they’ll tell you that this is probably the best arrangement you’re going to get.” She folded her arms.
“Once you sign it, we can choose a date and go to the Civil Registry Office to finalize the divorce.” Daniel felt anger immediately rise in his chest.
Fair?
Apparently taking a substantial portion of everything he had worked for and leaving with another man now qualified as fair.
His first instinct was to curse at her, but Adrian’s words from the afternoon suddenly returned to him.
Daniel looked down at the agreement again.
Then he smiled.
Vanessa frowned when he picked up the document, but before she could say anything, Daniel tore it in half, folded the pieces together, and tore them again.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m telling you right now, that agreement is already my biggest concession.
If you think you’re going to—” “I’m not getting divorced.” Vanessa stopped speaking.
For several seconds, she simply stared at him.
“What?” Daniel leaned back against the sofa with a surprisingly relaxed expression.
“I said I’m not getting divorced.” Her brows drew together.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” “Nothing complicated.
I thought about everything today and realized that I still love you, so I don’t want our marriage to end.” Daniel managed to say it with a smile, although there was not the slightest trace of affection in his eyes.
Vanessa was completely baffled.
Only yesterday, Daniel had looked at her as though he would gladly watch her disappear from the face of the earth, yet now he was sitting on the sofa claiming that he still loved her.
She narrowed her eyes.
“What kind of game are you playing?” “No game.
I love my wife, and I’ve decided that divorce would be a mistake.” Vanessa continued studying him, trying to determine what he was planning.
Then another thought occurred to her.
If Daniel had actually lost his nerve and wanted to reconcile, perhaps she could still take advantage of that.
Her expression softened slightly.
“Well, if you really mean that, there’s a pair of earrings I’ve been looking at recently.
Since you’re suddenly so concerned about our marriage, maybe you could—” “No money.” Vanessa stared at him.
Daniel continued smiling.
She hesitated before trying again.
“There’s also a handbag I wanted.
It isn’t even that expensive, so—” “Still no money.” The softness vanished from Vanessa’s face.
“What the hell is wrong with you?
If you’re trying to make this difficult, just sign the divorce agreement and stop wasting both of our time.” Daniel shook his head.
“I can’t do that.” “Why not?” His smile became noticeably more cheerful.
“Because I’ve decided I’m definitely not divorcing you.” Vanessa stared at him with growing irritation, while Daniel felt better than he had in weeks.
No divorce meant no immediate settlement, and no unrestricted spending meant she could no longer continue living exactly as she had before while waiting to walk away with his money.
Whatever she asked him for, his answer could remain wonderfully simple.
Daniel leaned comfortably against the sofa and smiled at his increasingly furious wife.
“Vanessa, I told you already.
I love you.”