The ginkgo biloba leaves outside the window, dyed with autumn but not yet yellow, are reflected by the early autumn afternoon sun, faintly revealing a trace of dark green veins, swaying with the wind.

Sunlight crept into the room through the cracks in the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the office walls and floors. Between the alternation of light and shadow, there are small dust visible to the naked eye, dancing and flying in the air.

The air in the room was a bit terrible, damp with a bit of unpleasant smoke smell, mixed with the smell of dust just after the printer had been working, a little choking.

Ling Li frowned, swallowed a few times of saliva, and finally endured the itch in her throat that she wanted to cough.

She was dressed in a gray suit, her jet-black hair was delicate and neat, and a pair of black-rimmed glasses covered most of her face.

At this time, she stood in front of an office desk in the center of the room, looking down at her toes, her clenched palms sweating slightly, and her calves began to sore.

She's been standing like this for five minutes.

And the man in his fifties behind the desk, with reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, frowned slightly and looked at the thick pile of materials in his hand, and he was quite engaged.

After a long while, he raised his head and saw that Ling Li was still standing in front of him, a little stunned: "You are sitting, what are you doing standing stupidly?" ”

Ling Li breathed a sigh of relief, thanked her, and pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Are you sure there is no possibility of reconciliation in this case?" The man picked up the teacup, blew a few tea leaves floating on the water, and took a few sips.

"Hardly, the opposing lawyer refuses to meet." Ling Li replied, helpless.

If she can reconcile, she doesn't have to stay up all night to check the information on CNKI, and with the qualifications of a layman, she almost made something similar to a small paper on a rice DNA test.

"With the neutrality of the judge, I shouldn't have expressed my opinion, but judging from the current situation, it is more difficult to turn the tables in the second instance."

The man said slowly, although he didn't hit the nail on the head that Ling Li would lose the lawsuit, he had basically made his attitude clear.

Ling Li suppressed a trace of disappointment in her heart, and her voice was calm: "Isn't my newly submitted evidence useless?" ”

The man smiled kindly: "In the case of new varieties of plants with intellectual property rights, there is a professional appraisal conclusion of the first instance, compared with your stack of things copied and pasted on the Internet, who do you say I believe?" ”

Ling Li was speechless, and she already knew the answer in her heart.

The man looked at her, knocked a cigarette out of the cigarette case again, and raised his eyes to ask for her opinion: "When you are old, your spirit is not good, and you have to rely on cigarettes to support you as soon as you read the papers, don't you mind?" ”

Ling Li pursed her lips and shook her head.

She has been a lawyer for a year, no, two years, and most of the cases have gone to the grassroots courts, compared with the grassroots judges who have a huge workload and are about to explode at any time, the attitude of Judge Xu of the High Court in front of her is really good.

It's just that she can also see that under his gentle expression, there is a bit of impatience hidden.

But she still didn't give up, took out a notepad from her bag and looked at it, cleared her throat, and began to hurry up to express her opinion: "Judge Xu, the male parent of the new plant variety involved in the case is C418 rice in 2007, and the female parent is ...... in 2013."

"Stop, Stop, Stop......"

Judge Xu was rummaging through the lighter with a cigarette in her mouth, and listened to Ling Li start to popularize the rice knowledge she had learned these days, and hurriedly interrupted her.

He took the cigarette from his mouth, rubbed his eyebrows that began to hurt, and said with a wry smile: "Lawyer Xiaoling, even if you go to the Chinese Academy of Sciences to engage in hybrid rice after you are self-taught, but now in this case, you mainly have to listen to the opinions of experts." ”

Ling Li opened her mouth and wanted to speak, but Judge Xu's heart was furious, and the alarm bell sounded in his head.

He was afraid that he would be treated as a blind law for an hour a week ago, so he hurriedly grabbed ahead of her and said: "I have accepted the evidence you submitted, and if you have any opinions, you should wait until the trial." ”

After speaking, he immediately stood up and stretched out his right hand to her: "The smooth opening and trial of every case is inseparable from the dedication and dedication of your lawyers, and I would like to express my gratitude to you on behalf of the members of the collegial panel." ”

This last string of polite words and the expression of "slow down and don't send" finally made Ling Li swallow the words that had come to her mouth.

She pulled the corners of her mouth and smiled, then shook hands and said goodbye.

The moment she turned around, she saw Judge Xu's tense shoulders sinking slightly, and her expression as if facing a great enemy dissipated, and a trace of bitterness appeared in her heart.

It seems that this lawsuit is another losing word.

In the bottom of her heart, if she loses this time, it will become the twenty-fifth lawsuit she has lost after officially practicing law.

Twenty-five consecutive defeats, this number is auspicious, exactly the same age as her.

With a sigh, he walked lightly to the door, and was about to go out, when he suddenly froze.

Ling Li stood in place for a second or two, turned her face and frowned slightly, and said to Judge Xu, who was still rummaging through things, "The lighter is stuck in the groove under the computer screen. ”

He looked up at her when he heard the voice: "Huh? ”

According to the words, I flipped over the position that Ling Li said, and sure enough, the dark lighter and the black desktop were integrated, and they were almost invisible.

Grabbing the lighter and lighting the cigarette, Judge Xu took a deep breath, and smiled at Ling Li between swallowing the clouds and spitting out the fog: "Thank you, see you in court, Xiao Ling." ”

Ling Li bowed slightly, but did not leave immediately. The expression on his face seemed to be struggling, as if he was making some difficult decision.

The desk in front of her is very large, and it can catch up with the three big ones in her small cubicle, but the table is full of books, files, laws, cups, cigarettes, and tea, really...... Like a small garbage heap.

Ling Li pushed her glasses, hesitated again and again, and finally said: "Your desk is too messy, it will affect your work efficiency, let's let your assistant clean up." ”

Judge Xu was stunned for a moment before laughing.

This little rookie doesn't do anything, and he still cares about the cleanliness of his office......

Shaking his head and sighing, Judge Xu's eyes filled with a trace of unbearability.

This child is a good child, diligent, honest and humble, but it's a pity that he was a little stupid, and he didn't meet a good master to guide him.

From his position as a referee in the middle, he should have watched coldly, but this little lawyer was confused, and he couldn't help but give some advice at any time in his eyes, "Who am I and where am I?" in his eyes.

"Xiao Ling, you are too easy to get entangled in the details and ignore the essential issues. Now you can either find a reason that can convince the collegial panel to conduct a second appraisal, or you can find an authoritative expert witness to fight in the ring, at least to form a situation of equal strength, in order to have a glimmer of hope. ”

Ling Li listened to his words, thought for a few seconds, let out a somewhat dumbfounded "oh", and turned to leave.

The sound of her footsteps faded away, and Xiao Zhang, the judge's assistant next door, ran over with a secret poke, grabbed the door frame and poked half of his body in.

"Mr. Xu, is she finally gone? Last time I read you the rules of evidence in civil procedure for an hour, and this time I came to the biology class? ”

His face was full of schadenfreude.

Judge Xu held a cigarette in his hand and glared at him fiercely: "See? This is the little lawyer who doesn't care about the master and won't be coquettish. Usually I educate you, you still talk back, and I don't look at the losses of other children who have no one to hurt! ”

Xiao Zhang hurriedly ran in, holding his face with both hands and making a delicate flower: "Mr. Xu, I must often be coquettish and cute, don't leave me alone!" ”

Judge Xu kicked him on the calf and said angrily: "Don't look for me if you have a disease, I'm not a veterinarian!" ”

There is still a few hundred meters from the court office building to the main gate.

Ling Li hugged the file bag, frowned and walked slowly, still thinking about the case in her head.

She understood Judge Xu's words, and she knew that the basis for the other party's victory in the first instance was the appraisal conclusion.

If you want to turn the tables, you must first invalidate the appraisal conclusion.

However, even if she could make some reasons for the collegial panel to agree to the second appraisal, she was afraid that the conclusion would be the same as that of the first trial, which would be even more unfavorable to her own side, and she would waste the appraisal fee.

This case of new plant varieties with intellectual property rights, the second instance of the case reached the Provincial High Court, which sounds very lofty, but in fact, the subject matter is not large, worthy of 1.3 million.

In this case, a large seed company sued a small company for privately breeding and selling their patented hybrid rice. However, the small company said that it was selling its own improved rice, not the products of the large company, so a dispute arose.

In the first instance, the boss of the small company did not know how many layers of relationships he had tossed and turned to find Ling Li's master, Zhu Jinchuan, to appear in court, but the court commissioned the conclusion of judicial appraisal that the two kinds of rice were identical, thus nailing the facts of the case to the death, and the small company lost the case without accident.

And Zhu Jinchuan, as a lawyer in the first echelon of the province's intellectual property field, happened to have a patent dispute of 50 million yuan in his hand, and he didn't want to waste time on this case with little profit, so he handed over the second instance to her.

She wanted to struggle for a while, but she didn't have the skills to do so.

It's been the twenty-fifth, and it's still not improving.

Although it is said that she is used to losing, she is used to losing, but every time she loses, her mood will inevitably be depressed, and the little self-confidence she has left will be eroded again.

Ling Li remembered Zhu Jinchuan's admonition when she first entered the law firm.

He said at that time: "The specialization of lawyers must be the direction of the future, you first become a salaried lawyer for a few months, get in touch with various types of cases, and then we will talk about the next major selection when you have a little foundation." ”

As a result, she received a fixed salary of 3,000 yuan a month from a salaried lawyer, and worked on all kinds of small cases assigned to her by her master, but she never won a single case.

Even if it is a divorce case that is too small to be small, the agreement is prepared and waiting for mediation, but the other party is caught with the mistress and illegitimate child, and the party is almost out of the house.

The more she loses, the more she loses, the more she loses, and even asks her client to pull her hair and ask her if she colluded with the other party to lose the lawsuit, not only did she make enough ugliness, but also made the master lose face enough, no wonder Zhu Jinchuan didn't give her a good face more and more.

A year has passed, and he has never mentioned the career plan he said at the beginning, and his talk to her has become more and more brief.

And she is becoming more and more confused about how she should continue to work as a lawyer.

Ling Li frowned, a little depressed, and the phone in her backpack suddenly rang.

Looking at the familiar number on the mobile phone screen, her heart tightened, her fingertips trembled slightly and she almost couldn't hold the fuselage steadily, and after a few seconds, she stabilized her mind and connected the phone, and carefully "hey".

A young and crisp female voice came from the opposite side: "Hello, are you Ling Li?" ”

Ling Li held her breath and replied, "Yes, what's the matter?" ”

The voice on the other side was brisk: "This is the First Criminal Division of the Provincial High Court, Zhong Chengheng's appeal case for the crime of releasing dangerous substances, and the second-instance trial time has been set,"

Ling Li suddenly turned his head and looked at the trial building standing not far away.

Next to the marble pillar on the left side of the main entrance of the building, hangs the "Funan Provincial High People's Court". The national emblem hanging above the gate was crimson and solemn, and the color as strong as blood pierced her eyes.

My heart ached, my ears thumped, and the world around me could no longer be seen or heard.

And the man's face seemed to appear in front of him again.

The eyebrows are thick and dark, the bridge of the nose is straight, and the upper eyelids are slightly drooping, but they can't hide a pair of bright and sharp eyes.

Nine years ago, he sat across from her, with a faint smile on his lips, and handed her a book with his long arms outstretched.

"You're Xiaoli?" He said, "I heard that you like plants, and this book of Otto's Hand-Drawn Colorful Plant Atlas is good and can be used as a botanical enlightenment." ”

That book has long been torn to pieces by her, and her originally happy family has long been shattered.

Zhong Chengheng, the name of the demon, suddenly appeared again unexpectedly, forcing her to return to the moment when she lost everything.

"Hello? Feed? Are you listening? The girl's voice on the phone brought her thoughts back, and gradually, the temperature returned to cold fingertips.

Ling Li took a deep breath of cool air and replied softly, "I'm listening." ”

The girl continued, speaking very quickly: "At nine o'clock in the morning of November 29, Zhong Chengheng's case was openly tried in the No. 1 trial court of the Provincial High Court. ”

"Okay, I got it." She replied lightly, and hung up a few seconds later.

In eight years, he was sentenced to death four times, but he is still alive. And her relatives have long been turned into a handful of loess, leaving her alone in this world to live alone.

Finally, is it the day again? The cycle is endless.

I don't know if this judgment can make the wicked fall under the law and let the deceased rest in peace?

Ling Li looked up at the clear blue sky, trying to hold back her tears and not fall.

Finally dealing with the negative emotions, she took off her glasses and wiped them clean, put them back on again, and slowly moved towards the gate of the courthouse.

No matter how painful the memories are, they are already in the past. Now she has to rely on her own strength to survive in this huge city.