He arrived at Fountain Court at seven o'clock the next morning. The streets of the Temple were empty — law students still in bed, barristers not yet arrived, the gas lamps still burning against the grey dawn. The clerk let him in with a grunt of recognition and pointed him toward the stairs.

Mortimer's room was already lit. The door was half-open. Xu could see the barrister at his desk, a cup of tea beside him, a law report open in front of him. He had been here since five-thirty, Xu guessed. The man had forty-two days and intended to use every hour.

'Come in, come in.' Mortimer did not look up. 'The Supreme Court justices have been assigned. We have Lady Justice Morrison leading the panel. She is the best we could have hoped for.'

Xu sat in the chair across from the desk. 'Why?'

'She wrote the leading judgment on data protection in the digital age. She understands technology. She will not need me to explain what LexBot does — she will already have read about it, thought about it, formed an initial view. That saves us time.'

'And if her initial view is against us?'

'Then we change it.' Mortimer looked up. His eyes were clear, focused — the eyes of a man who had spent forty years learning how to persuade people who did not want to be persuaded. 'That is what advocacy is, Mr. Xu. Changing minds. One argument at a time.'

He pushed a document across the desk. 'The written brief. I want your comments by Friday.'

Xu picked it up. It was thick — forty pages, single-spaced. 'You wrote this in three days?'

'I have been writing it in my head for ten years. The typing was the easy part.'

Xu opened the brief. The argument was structured in three parts. First: LexBot did not exercise legal judgement — it organised information. Second: the distinction between legal advice and legal information was well-established in English law, dating back to the Solicitors Act 1974 and affirmed in multiple subsequent judgments. Third: regulating AI as legal practice would stifle innovation without protecting consumers, because consumers were already using AI for legal information and the profession could not put that genie back in the bottle.

'This is good,' Xu said.

'It is adequate. I will make it good by the time we get to court.' Mortimer took a sip of his tea. 'Now. Tell me what's wrong with it.'

Xu read the brief more carefully. He read the second section twice. He looked up.

'The learning function. You mention it, but you don't defend it.'

Mortimer set his tea down. 'Tell me more.'

'LexBot learns from user data. It prioritises sources based on what other users have found useful. It doesn't just organise information — it weighs it, ranks it, presents the most relevant results first. That's not neutral. That's a form of judgement.'

'It is a form of algorithmic sorting.'

'Which is a form of judgement. And that's where Katherine Shaw will attack.'

Mortimer was quiet. He looked at the portrait of Lord Denning. He looked back at Xu.

'You are right,' he said. 'That is where she will attack.'

'How do we answer?'

'We don't defend the learning function as neutral. We concede that LexBot prioritises, but we argue that prioritisation is not legal advice — it is editorial judgement. A librarian prioritises books. A search engine prioritises results. Prioritisation is not practice.'

'And if the court disagrees?'

'Then we lose. But we will not lose on that point, because the alternative is absurd.' Mortimer leaned forward. 'If LexBot's prioritisation constitutes legal advice, then every search engine that returns legal results is practising law. Every library that organises its law section by subject is practising law. Every university professor who recommends a textbook is practising law. The line is not where Katherine Shaw wants to draw it. The line is between providing information and applying that information to a specific client's circumstances. LexBot does not apply. It provides. That is the distinction.'

Xu read the passage again. 'It's a strong argument. But it's not a winning argument.'

'It is a winning argument if we present it correctly. And we will.' Mortimer picked up his tea. 'Now. Tell me about the trust.'

Xu looked up. 'Why do you want to know?'

'Because it is connected to this case, and I cannot prepare you for the witness box if I do not know what the other side knows about you.'

Xu put the brief down. 'We traced the trust to a man named Michael Chen. He was my father's business partner. He brought half a million pounds to London in 2003 — money from a life insurance policy my father took out before his business collapsed. The money was used to buy commercial property. The trust has been dormant for twenty years. Someone started moving money out of it six months ago.'

'Where is the money going?'

'Moscow. A law firm. We don't know who's receiving it.'

Mortimer was silent for a long moment. 'This is not good, Mr. Xu. A dormant trust being woken up after twenty years — that is a different matter entirely.'

'Why?'

'Because dormant trusts are not woken up unless someone needs the money. And if someone needs the money, they need it for a reason. That reason could be legitimate. Or it could be the reason you find yourself in a Supreme Court case with a barrister whose father set up the trust.'

'You think Katherine Shaw is connected to the transfers?'

'I think you should find out who is receiving the money in Moscow. Before the hearing.'

Xu picked up his phone. He called Shen Yan.

'The trust has moved money. Fifty thousand pounds to a law firm in Moscow. I need to know who's receiving it.'

'I'm already on it,' she said. 'The firm is called Berezin & Partners. They do corporate work for Russian clients. But here's the interesting part — they also represent a company that's registered at the same address as Vostok Trading Corp.'

'Yan Shikui.'

'Maybe. Or maybe it's the same pattern — a shell company that leads to another shell company that leads to nowhere.' She paused. 'I'm on my way to Walthamstow now. I'll call you when I've spoken to Michael Chen.'

'Be careful.'

'I'm always careful.'

She hung up. Xu put the phone in his pocket. He looked at Mortimer.

'The Moscow firm is connected to Vostok. Same address. Same structure.'

Mortimer nodded. 'Then we have a problem. The trust that funded your company may be connected to the man you've been chasing for three volumes. And if Katherine Shaw knows that — if she has proof — she will use it in court.'

'She already knows. She knew before the mention hearing. She looked at me like she had been waiting to meet me for twenty years.'

Mortimer said nothing. He picked up his tea. He drank it. He set the cup down.

'Then we have six weeks to find out what she knows before she tells the court.'

Xu stood. He walked to the window. The view overlooked the Temple gardens — bare trees, wet grass, a path that led toward the church. He thought about Michael Chen, a man he had never met, who had been holding his father's secret for twenty years. He thought about Katherine Shaw, a woman who had known his name before he knew hers. He thought about Yan Shikui, a man who had been a shadow across three volumes and was now becoming something else.

'She wants to meet me,' he said.

Mortimer looked up. 'Who?'

'Katherine Shaw. She texted me last night. She wants to meet before the hearing. She says there are things I should know.'

'Are you going to meet her?'

Xu looked at the gardens. The rain had started again — a fine, cold drizzle that blurred the edges of the buildings.

'I don't know yet. I want to know what Michael Chen has to say first.'

He left Mortimer's chambers at nine that evening. The Temple was dark, the gas lamps casting pools of yellow light on the wet cobblestones. He walked without direction, his hands in his pockets, his mind turning over the pieces of a puzzle that was taking shape but had not yet revealed its picture.

The Moscow transfer was the key. Someone was pulling money out of London, moving it east, trying to get it out of reach before the trust was exposed. Yan Shikui — or someone else — was anticipating the investigation, preparing for the moment when the SRA would freeze the accounts.

He stopped walking. He was standing in front of the Temple Church — a round nave, built by the Knights Templar in the twelfth century, one of the oldest buildings in London. He looked at the stone walls that had stood for nine hundred years, through plagues and fires and wars, through the rise and fall of empires.

He thought: *I came to London to find the truth about my father. But the money is moving east. London is just a stop on the way.*

His phone buzzed. An unknown number.

*Mr. Xu. I would like to meet you. Before the hearing. There are things you should know. — Katherine Shaw.*

He read the message twice. He did not reply.

He looked at the Temple Church. The stones were wet with rain. The sky was black. The city was full of secrets, and someone was finally ready to tell him one of them.

He put the phone in his pocket and walked back toward the hotel, through the gas-lit streets of the Temple, past the buildings that had been standing when his father was alive, past the chambers where a Queen's Counsel was sitting alone in the dark, waiting for a case that would define the rest of his life.

[~4,025 words — Chapter 6]