On the way home, the wind picked up. Spring had arrived, and everything looked calm, almost beautifully so.
That afternoon, a coworker let slip that two of the new hires had been seen by the river, walking hand in hand. The office drifted through the rest of the day on gossip and laughter. The older colleagues began reminiscing about their school days, and I found myself quietly envying them, and quietly wishing those two well.
What I envied was not love at first sight. It was that they were still so young and already had stable jobs.
I once had that kind of stability too. But not everyone is given the right, or the freedom, to choose to keep walking on that path. In a fast-moving age like this, to have both love and bread at the same time is no small thing. It is rare enough to feel almost like luck.
When I listened to Professor Luo Xiang explain criminal law theory, something in me lit up. After watching The World Between Us, my dream of becoming a lawyer only grew firmer. And after reading the defense statement in the Cui Yingjie case, I truly stepped onto the road of criminal defense, one step at a time.
With justice in my eyes and heat in my chest, all the ugliness around me seemed insignificant before a dream. Once you recognize the one thing you want, you go forward without hesitation.
I still remember the first time I read a criminal case file. I went through every corner of it, even the page numbers, one by one. My theoretical foundation was still weak then, and I had little practical experience, but sheer conviction carried me. I did the work well. Later, I took part in more and more criminal cases, and each time I drafted a defense statement or legal opinion, my mentor gave me approval. I would secretly feel happy about it for days.
Especially when analyzing a specific case, I would sometimes feel as if I were holding a sword, capable of cutting down every evil thing in the world. Even now, I do not think that version of myself was naive. It was the first time I had truly felt the pull, the force, the charm of criminal defense. And so I kept riding forward across that battlefield of words.
There was one passage that struck me more deeply than any other:
You must go through every kind of suffering, carry the thickest books, sit for the hardest exams, endure the lowest employment rates. More importantly, you must undergo a spiritual remaking. Law is work for adults; if your childhood is not destroyed quickly, how can you truly mature? Law is the enterprise of rulers; if your commoner mentality is not destroyed, how can you enter the ranks of leaders? Law is the science that studies the evil side of human nature; if you do not confront evil deeply, how can you ever fully understand justice?
In the vast legal profession, I am ordinary. Yet when facing evil and defending justice, I cannot help but feel immense.
From the very beginning, I knew this would be a difficult road—painfully difficult. I still remember a bar association training session. One senior lawyer, who happened to be an alumnus from my school, said something that stayed with me: if you do not have even a little idealism, you cannot keep going as a lawyer.
Because there was love in my heart, and a sense of justice too, I had never been afraid of whatever hardships might wait ahead.
Then, as I came out of the subway, it suddenly began to rain.
I still had a stretch to walk before getting home, and as always, I let myself sink into the quiet of the night. Before leaving work, I had been told that next week I would be sent back to where I started.
The news hit like a bolt from a clear sky. I could neither sleep nor eat in peace.
There is no god in my heart, so I could only ask myself: did I take the wrong road?
I did not answer. I did not know the answer, and I was afraid of knowing it.
Life is endlessly ironic, isn’t it? Those who want to plunge into the sea cannot get to the sea. Those who want to climb the mountain cannot get to the mountain. Somehow luck always takes our dreams and pushes them toward someone else.
I still remember what I wrote in my journal the first time a dream of mine shattered:
18:39. Back at the law firm. The criminal case files on my desk were waiting for me in silence.
It felt as if they were saying goodbye too, so I gathered them up and returned them to my mentor’s office.
What was never mine, I returned piece by piece. What was mine, I packed up and took away piece by piece. Just like that, I had to say farewell to the desk I had dreamed of, before I had even sat there for two full days.
It was then that I suddenly understood a line I once read: some dreams are shattered in haste before there is even time to realize them.
If only there had been a choice. If only I had known earlier... But there are no ifs.
Yu Hua was right: never believe suffering is somehow worth it. Suffering is only suffering. It does not bring success. It is not something worth pursuing. We temper our will only because suffering cannot always be avoided.
As I stuffed a drawer of office supplies into my backpack and lowered the screen of my computer, I understood what this moment meant: once again, my dream had been profaned, trampled underfoot.
Because I am base enough, I have no right to chase a dream. No matter how hard I try, I am nothing but a clown making a spectacle of myself.
How false does a smile have to be before it can belong in this world?
What I felt today was, in truth, very similar to what I felt then.
Each hardship leaves a new layer of callus over the heart. After enough of them, the callus simply grows thicker. So yes, today hurt badly—but not with the same violent force as before.
“There must have been a lot of suffering behind a child this sensible.” I finally understand why that sentence once moved me so deeply.
Dreams are like wings. They are broken mercilessly, then they heal, then they are broken again, then heal again—over and over, thousands upon thousands of times. Perhaps one day they will become like an eagle’s wings, stronger and harder after every recovery. Or perhaps one day there will be no courage left to fly at all.
Truth and justice do exist—but only within the range of artillery.
If one is as small as an ant, then one can never shake a tree. One can only rise and sink within one’s own tiny world.
I do not know where I am going.
But I am already on the road.