Chapter 39.2 “I’m already changing you, aren’t I?”

After Dai Qin left, only Bai Duanduan and Ji Lin were left, and it was at this point that the silent Ji Lin finally opened his mouth –

“Actually, you don’t have to say that.”

“Eh?”

Ji Lin pursed his lips, “There is no need for you to persuade Dai Qin, nor there is a need to convince Li Wanjun. Lawyers can change the outcome of negotiations, but they can’t change others. Saying these words is actually a waste of time in the end.”

Bai Duanduan’s professional knowledge was solid, her negotiation posture was strong, and her communication skills were excellent. She was young but experienced, responsive and thoughtful. From the boss’s point of view, Ji Lin had to admit that she was indeed worth every penny and even worth much more than that and because of this vague appreciation from a peer’s point of view, Ji Lin could not resist the urge to speak up and mention it.

Bai Duanduan was perfect, but still too idealistic as a lawyer. If she wants to be a top lawyer, she needs to learn to abandon her overzealous naivety and spend her time on productive things rather than trying to convince people.

“Adults can’t change their values. The older they get and the more senior they are, they become more entrenched and paranoid about things, and it becomes harder to change the difficulty of accepting new things and ideas for them. You’ll find later that you’d be better off delving into cases when you have all this time. Work won’t get you down, but presuming to change others and change society will.”

Ji Lin was not a man who liked to lecture, and he even felt that giving such advice to Bai Duanduan at that moment was ghostly and inexplicable, and for the first time, Ji Lin was a little unnatural. What he didn’t expect was that Bai Duanduan’s response to him was not a sudden realization of approval, but a strong disapproval instead—

“I don’t think it’s a waste of time.”

The girl with the gorgeous face in front of him raised her head, her eyes looked straight into Ji Lin’s eyes, looking serious and determined, “I work hard and put in the same amount of effort as anyone else would in the workplace in order to change others, to change society. Why do men keep squeezing women’s space in the workplace, while women have to be so harsh on other women? Is that right? It’s not.”

“The workplace is never easy for women. I’ve always felt that women who work and carry the burden of childbirth are great, but in real life, there are millions of girls like Dai Qin who carry a huge amount of guilt just because they are pregnant. If she was really the kind of woman who was vilified on Twitter for wanting to find a company to support her pregnant self, then she would not have blamed herself at all, because such a person is selfish and stupid and such a person would not live with any burdens, but on contrary Dai Qin is not like that.”

“She wants both a baby and a good job. She is a woman who wants to be proactive to make progress and pursue herself as well at the same time. And yet look how society and public opinion rewarded her? How did Li Wanjun despise her? Does she deserve to suffer all this just because she can’t do what Li Wanjun did and sacrifice herself completely?”

“She is indeed weak, and because of her weakness, she doesn’t even have a voice, and cannot even defend herself.” Bai Duanduan’s tone was calm, her eyes bright and composed, her tone still not intense, yet it carried a strength that was impossible to ignore, “And because of that, I need to work twice as hard to speak up for people like her, to speak out for them.”

Bai Duanduan looked into Ji Lin’s eyes, “Ji Lin, you’re a man, you can’t understand her, but I can. If there was no such harsh environment for women in the workplace, would she need to hide her pregnancy? She chose to hide it because of the oppressive external environment. She was forced to do so, but no one felt sympathy for her. Instead everyone thought that she should have stayed at home because she was pregnant and not come to the company to cause trouble, not to burden society, not to bother others.”

“But the problem is, Dai Qin has an old man and a young one immediately to look after. She is an ordinary person after all and she has to eat. She is not selfless, she does not have high moral character to be flawless, she is not perfect, and she cannot think completely for the company and the boss, but in this world, who does not have selfishness? Who doesn’t have a little something in their heart? In this case, the company is still the strong party and Dai Qin is still the weak party, and she deserves to be protected.”

“I know it’s naive, almost stupid, to try to change people, but I’ll keep trying. I don’t think it was a waste of time to talk to Li Wanjun, because if my words could make her think for a moment, maybe the working environment for pregnant women at Guifeng Communications could be a bit more friendly. And I also don’t think that talking with Dai Qin was a waste of time, because in case, and I mean just in case, she is able to listen and persevere and be brave in her future, won’t there be one more female planner in the workplace?”

“The Twitter opinion on Dai Qin is also quite unfriendly right now. Once someone speaks up for her, there are thousands of people coldly shouting ‘if the genders were switched and a man did what she did, just joined the job and took all sorts of sick leave after the probationary period, would you still be tolerant’?”

Bai Duanduan pursed her lips before continuing,”I really, really hate these kinds of words that seem to be cloaked in gender equality. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s surprising how many of the people who say it are girls and they don’t even want to think about it for a second. Sometimes this kind of talk completely brainwash women and they themselve put shackles on themselves.”

“Because there’s no such thing as a s3x switch. You can’t make a man give birth or breastfeed. The world is not equal for men and women, so how can you talk about s3xual transitions? Men and women have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s ridiculous to expect complete parity between the sexes in every way. But millions of little girls feel that every time they speak in this way, they are role models for the women of the new century and that they are all reasonable in their stance.”

Bai Duanduan raised her head and looked at Ji Lin, “I hate this opinion. I want to change such ideas. I want more voices. I want this society to become better and gentler, and I firmly believe that I have the power to change people, so I’m going to say a lot more words that may seem like nonsense to you, to waste time, even if the end result is disappointment and powerlessness.”

Speaking of this, Bai Duanduan suddenly smiled, her eyes dark and divine. She blinked at Ji Lin, her eyelashes fanned gently as her vermilion lips slightly opened, “Look, Ji Lin, in the past, would you talk to others about your experiences of coming through and persuade them not to waste their time?”

“I’m already changing you, aren’t I?”

At that instant, Ji Lin only felt like he had been struck in a trance.

Bai Duanduan was like a real deadly poison, or genetically targeted one to step on Ji Lin’s dead centre. She was not as gentle and docile as most girls. Even if her tone was mild, there was a vague aggressiveness in her eyes. Beautiful, sharp, dangerous, like a cold weapon with a hidden poison. This might have intimidated the average man, but Ji Lin’s heart was simply tumbling and boiling, strange emotions were rushing through his chest.

________________

Bai Duanduan and Ji Lin had this conversation in front of a huge screen in Guifeng Telecom’s office area. She didn’t expect that Dai Qin would stand silently behind the screen where both of them couldn’t see her.

Dai Qin bit her lip tightly and tried to suppress her voice. Because she found that there were slightly more documents, she was afraid that she would need more time to sort them out, so she turned around and wanted to inform Bai Duanduan and Ji Lin, but to her surprise, she heard such a thing.

There was no doubt that she was indeed weak. After such an incident, if it were not for her cousin Xue Wen who introduced her to the lawyer Bai Duanduan, she might still be crying, enduring the abuse of public opinion and accepting the decision to fire herself from Guifeng Communication without any resistance.

Since the incident, Dai Qin has been mourning in her heart. She has been immersed in the past, thinking, if only the child’s father hadn’t had an accident …… She has never thought nor even dared to think deeply about her future, only escaping and being negative, because of the attacks from the outside world and the contemptuous gaze of Li Wanjun and others in the company. Even Dai Qin herself had the lowest opinion about herself and had doubts about her self-identity. She only felt ashamed and embarrassed, and she numbly felt that she was really a useless and rotten person who deserved to be harassed and abused with mobile phone calling software for hiding her pregnancy.

And until now …… until she heard Bai Duanduan’s words, the pain and aggression she had suppressed in her heart finally seemed to have found an outlet to pour out.