Episode Summary
The interns receive their scores from the first task, with Ren Jiatong and Jiang Chen tying for first place while others fail completely. A malicious video of Ren goes viral, threatening her job. The group is assigned a high-stakes translation task for a merger, where Ren and Jiang discover a fatal flaw in the contract that makes the deal worthless. They rally the team to prioritize protecting the client over meeting the deadline.
Spoiler Alert
The Rookie Grind and The Scoreboard
Zhou An watches the fresh meat grind away at their desks. It gives him flashbacks to his own rookie days. He remembers the panic. He remembers the nightmares. It’s a rite of passage. Song Yifan has his eye on Ren Jiatong. He knows about her little showdown with the Nuanchao legal team. She looks quiet, but she’s tough.
The deadline pressure is real. Guo Xiaoyu starts last but finishes first. Li Ke messes up and sends his email to the wrong address. Classic rookie mistake. Then there’s Huang Yue. She is getting harassed by "Uncle" via text and calls. It ruins her focus. She submits a mess of a draft right at the buzzer. Everyone else survives the night, but nobody sleeps well.
The Morning After
The scores drop the next morning. It’s a tie at the top. Ren Jiatong and Jiang Chen both snag thirty points. Guo Xiaoyu surprises everyone with twenty. Wang Lu gets a safe ten. The rest? Li Ke, Huang Yue, and Yan Fei all get a big fat zero.
The top two aren't happy about sharing the throne. Ren and Jiang start arguing their cases immediately. They cite statutes. They throw precedents at each other. Song Yifan and Bai Xiao even disagree on who won. Song points out a technicality. Ren Jiatong would have taken the solo win if she organized her arguments better.
Wang Lu is salty about Guo Xiaoyu beating him. Song Yifan explains why. Guo wrote for the client, not for a law professor. Her advice was readable. Song even admits he watches her legal videos online, though he catches her making mistakes there too.
Feedback and Sabotage
Song Yifan sends out the detailed evaluations. Ren has a lawyer’s brain. Jiang is a research machine. Guo is readable but shallow. Li Ke is sloppy. Yan Fei is weak. Huang Yue is a disaster.
The mood is heavy. Then a user named "Sherry" pops up in the group chat asking for help with a medical case. Ren Jiatong jumps on it. She crushes the research. Surprise, "Sherry" is actually Bai Xiao.
But things get ugly outside the office. "Uncle" decides to clear the path for Huang Yue. He takes the footage of Ren Jiatong arguing with the Nuanchao lawyers. He edits it maliciously. He posts it on Weibo. It goes viral. Ren is suddenly public enemy number one. She asks Zhou An if she’s fired. He tells her to keep her head down while the partners decide her fate. Huang Yue feels guilty. She wants to confess. Uncle tells her to shut up and be an adult.
The Billion Dollar Translation
No time to cry. Zhou An drops the second task. It’s a massive translation job. A Chinese client wants to buy "Ke'en," a foreign unicorn company, for their semiconductor patents. The other side is represented by the top-tier firm "James."
The teams are set. Jiang and Li on part one. Wang and Yan on part two. Ren, Guo, and Huang get the biggest chunk. Ren and Jiang have to finalize everything.
It looks like a standard rush job until Ren spots a rat. The deal is for the patents. But the documents show the key patent is already exclusively licensed to a third company called Kenst. If the client buys this company, they get nothing. It’s a trap set by the opposing lawyers.
The Stand
Huang Yue and Guo Xiaoyu just want to finish the translation. They don't want to rock the boat. Li Ke is too busy panicking about his score. But Ren and Jiang are on the same wavelength. They realize the client is walking into a fire pit.
They call a team meeting. Most of the interns just want to hit the deadline. Ren puts her foot down. She insists they flag the issue. She offers to take the blame for the delay. Jiang backs her up. They force the team to redo the work and highlight the trap. It’s a long night. By the end, it’s just the three of them left in the office, tired but right.
