Cdrama seldom has legal drama, which is one of my favorite genres, and this drama is an underrated gem. It is a multifaceted public service drama full of subtle messages cleverly woven without ramming them down viewers' throats. There are life skills and legal points on rape, domestic violence, and child custody for abused wives. It's enlightening and engaging, with an excellent script and an equally excellent performance from its cast.
Spoilers alert.
The theme was sex assault in terms of life skills.
The plot evolves around a rape report and three main characters: the victim, the perpetrator, and the lawyer.
ZhouXun played the cool, calm, collected, ethical, and elite lawyer whose client is the perpetrator, a playboy tycoon. A role acted flawlessly by Liu Yi Jun as the elegant, eloquent, enigmatic, and egotistical boss. Jelly Lin was the conflicted, complicated, confusing, and imperfectly imperfect victim who kept changing her testimony.
The story started with a scene of a woman, petrified and terrified, sitting in a bathtub while below the apartment, a man was anxiously waiting. He had earlier seen her sleeping on a couch at a drinking banquet. He watched helplessly, waited, and waited. He didn't attempt to call the police anonymously; somebody else did. Juxtaposed was another scene of another drinking banquet,where the lawyer was facing a threatening and belligerent client when her assistant barged into the room, acting drunk to force the client into drinking with him. Thus, the lawyer could escape safely. It is a study of the enormous difference between people who have or do not have life skills of critical assessment, critical thinking, and creative thinking on the spot in critical situations.
___The core of the story started with a rape report by an anonymous third party. The police came, and investigations were started. The victim and perpetrator statements were recorded. It was revealed that the victim did not refuse and did not resist. No utterance of "No, stop, I don’t want "and similar spoken words to that effect The operative words here were REFUSAL and RESISTED for the legal system to operate to help victims. Without those SPOKEN words, it’s misconstrued as consent,  thus becoming a daunting onus for the victim to prove otherwise. If one does not help oneself first, nobody can, not even the law.
A major stumbling block was the victim's lack of life skills in critical thinking in critical situations. At the banquet, she had to lie down as she was too dizzy. That was the way out of that room, by making the excuse that she wanted to vomit and then making a getaway. The second chance was when she regained consciousness; she should have said no and wanted to go home as she was too tired, but quickly escaped. He could not chase after her as he was in a bathrobe. Her creative thinking on the spot was weak and feeble.
The most relevant and salient points were conveyed and woven into the arguments between the female policewoman and her male supervisors, the interrogations of the victim, and testimonies from co-workers and other employees of the company.
The perpetrator had baited her with a quick promotion to a high-paying job mere months after hiring her, which others took years to achieve. This provokes greed and ego in her and in others with jealousy, envy, and unfairness. A job that entailed working with the boss alone at night Most people would conjure up the dangerous conjecture of having an affair with the boss. A job that necessitated going to parties, functions, and drinking banquets. This aroused negative connotations of a suspicious girlfriend rather than a lowly assistant. She also accepted gifts of branded and expensive clothes, bags, and shoes. This awakens her avarice and triggers her vanity. For others, it’s substantiated evidence that she was having an affair with the boss. The living accommodation provided was a luxurious apartment, which her roommate took years to achieve as a top merit worker. Acquiescence and accepting them meant the victim was pliable to touching, hand-holding, or, in short, sexual harassment. Red flags were everywhere. Her life skills in critical assessment were practically nil.
Another limitation was her weak interpersonal skills, for she made no attempts to make friends with co-workers or the bodyguard who saved her from sexual harassment from their boss. Another of her downsides was her poor cultivation of friends, resulting in a lack of friends to help her. During one of the interrogation sessions, she admitted she had misgivings about that promotion. She lacked friends to support or refute those apprehensions and provide emotional and mental support. Friends to discuss and share doubts, fears, insecurities, and problems. To exchange views and experiences to widen and broaden perspectives, thereby enhancing problem-solving skills with a logical, analytical mindset. Friendship cannot be underestimated, as it's essential for everyone to make, keep, and have friends.
In an eye-opening scene after a talk with the lawyer, the victim finally plucked up the courage to change her testimony. At the end, the lawyer had to give up her license to change sides to fight for the victim as a friend. It's an unexpected, unbelievable, and unrealistic twist. It is the writer's way of saying; it’s tantamount to an impossible mission for a lawyer to win a case for an imperfect victim when circumstantial and substituted evidence were against her. Once a bait is taken, it becomes the fault of the victim. The legal system is too weak to handle such cases. Only a friend with knowledge of the law can win a defamation suit.
To summarize, it is preferable to avoid and prevent work-related pitfalls by learning and practicing some life skills. Otherwise, one may be crippled for life.