Undeliverable Acceptance Letter
Li Hui sat behind the large desk, the hazy silhouette of this southern city visible outside her window. The steel and concrete jungle shimmered faintly in the unique misty dampness of the plum rain season. The case files spread across her desk emitted a mixed scent of paper and ink, a smell she had grown accustomed to over the past fifteen years. She was now Lawyer Li, known for her calm demeanor and rigorous logic, particularly adept at handling "minor cases" involving procedural justice. No one knew that the starting point of her chosen path stemmed from an acceptance letter that had never reached her hands.
That was the summer twenty years ago, filled with the noisy chirping of cicadas and sweltering, humid air. Eighteen-year-old Li Hui was still that country girl with a ponytail and tanned skin, waiting with a heart full of joy for fate's verdict. She clearly remembered her estimated score, enough to secure her a place at the best normal university in the provincial capital. It was her only hope, and the only hope for her impoverished family, to escape the confines of their rural background.
However, fate's mail never arrived. What came instead was the news that the girl from the same village, whose score was far lower than hers but whose father was an official of some rank in town, was flaunting the acceptance letter from that very normal university, celebrating with a three-day continuous feast. Li Hui's world collapsed at that moment. She went to the town post office to inquire, raised a fuss at the county admissions office, only to receive vague, cold officialese: "Your admission information cannot be found in the system," "Perhaps you remembered your score incorrectly," "Just focus on repeating the year, there's always next year."
It was a Kafkaesque absurdity. You are certain something belongs to you, you can almost touch its shape, feel its warmth, yet all signposts leading to it have been quietly erased. The system tells you it never existed. You stand like an intruder before your rightful place, blocked by invisible walls and silent rules.
"Next year" did not bring the anticipated turnaround. The pressure of repeating the year, the family's poverty, and that lingering doubt coiled around her like a venomous snake. She took the college entrance exam again, her score still good, but the dream university was now an unattainable illusion. She was assigned to a vocational college in a remote city, studying accounting, a subject she had no interest in.
Life felt like a derailed train, bumping along through unfamiliar scenery. After graduation, she drifted between factories and companies in several small cities, doing tedious accounting work for meager wages. She learned silence, learned to bury the resentment and humiliation deep within her heart. Only late at night, she would occasionally dream of that stifling summer, of that undeliverable acceptance letter, falling repeatedly in her dreams like a scorched piece of paper.
The turning point came seven years later. At a chance class reunion, after a few drinks, someone unintentionally mentioned the girl who had "replaced" her at university back then. It was said that the "lucky one," due to her poor foundation in the major, did not pursue a teaching career after graduation but relied on family connections to get a cushy job in a public institution. More crucially, a distant relative who had worked in the county education system, hazy with drink, revealed a name – the name of a key person responsible for admission files back then – along with a mumbled phrase: "That girl, what a pity, the Li family's..."
That sentence struck Li Hui like lightning, splitting open memories sealed for years. She began frantically gathering information, asking around, piecing together fragments of the truth from that summer twenty years ago like a detective. The process was difficult and humiliating. She faced an invisible, deeply intertwined network of connections, evasive glances, and hesitant prevarications. Every setback made her feel more acutely the powerlessness of an individual against a vast, rigid system.
She finally confirmed the cruel fact: her file had been tampered with; her name, her score, her life, had been easily swapped for someone else's that summer. The reason? Merely because the other girl's father knew someone important, while she had nothing.
At that moment, Li Hui didn't cry. Years of suppressed anger and grievance strangely transformed into a cold determination. She quit her job, used all her savings, moved to the provincial capital, rented a room devoid of sunlight, and began teaching herself law.
This was another arduous battle. She worked odd jobs in small restaurants during the day to survive, and studied thick law books and case files late into the night and early morning. Countless times, she thought of giving up. The peeling walls of her rented room seemed a metaphor for her life. But whenever despair set in, that stifling summer, that stolen acceptance letter, would emerge like a ghost, spurring her on. She wanted more than just an "explanation" or "justice"; she wanted to reclaim her stolen dignity and strength, she wanted to understand and ultimately wield the very "rules" that had once shut her out.
Three years later, she miraculously passed the judicial examination. The moment she received her lawyer's practicing certificate, her fingers trembled slightly. She didn't choose to return to her hometown for "revenge"—that seemed too cheap, too narrow. She stayed in the big city and opened a small law firm.
Her first case was a worker's compensation claim for a migrant worker. The case was complex, and the opposing company, relying on its "background," created numerous obstacles. Li Hui, like a tireless hound, gathered evidence, researched statutes, and communicated repeatedly with the opposing lawyer and the judge. Her almost obsessive tenacity gave even experienced opponents headaches. In the end, she won the case, securing the rightful compensation for the nearly hopeless migrant worker.
Since then, she has taken on many similar cases: labor disputes, eviction compensation, consumer rights... all struggles of ordinary people who appear so small and helpless against powerful institutions or capital, so much like herself twenty years ago. She rarely charged high fees, sometimes even offering pro bono services. Some called her foolish, ignorant of the legal profession's "rules of survival."
Only Li Hui knew that every time she helped these helpless individuals secure a shred of fairness, it was solace for the younger self whose future had been stolen. In a hidden corner of her office filing cabinet, there was a yellowed, blank sample of an acceptance letter. She had managed to obtain it later – an old version from the normal university she never got to attend.
She would occasionally stare at it, lost in thought. That stolen summer had forever altered the trajectory of her life. She didn't become a nurturing educator but a fighter hacking through the thorns in the legal jungle for the weak. Was this destiny's black humor?
The rain outside gradually stopped, and the setting sun struggled through the clouds, casting a faint golden edge on the city. Li Hui gathered her files, stood up, and walked to the window. She knew that blatant cases of impersonation like the one she experienced might be increasingly rare in today's more transparent and regulated society. But the subtle injustices hidden beneath the rules, the chasms created by differences in background, resources, and information asymmetry, still loomed like giant shadows over the paths of many ordinary people striving to get ahead.
Her battle was far from over. That undeliverable acceptance letter was both an eternal pain in her heart and a guiding light for her journey forward. It reminded her that procedures might be cold, but the heart pursuing justice must remain warm. In this rapidly spinning, bizarre era, someone has to be willing to light a lamp of law for the forgotten corners, for the faint cries, even if that light sometimes seems so insignificant.