CHAPTER 67: CHAPTER 67: FACETS

She spoke at a moderate pace, her voice gentle, her points clear, with a faint smile on her face: "The common law system follows the ’strict liability principle,’ meaning that regardless of the breaching party’s intent, as long as a contract clause is violated causing damage to any party, the breaching party should bear the liability, without considering whether it was intentional or negligent. In cross-border agreements..."

Seeing Simon Forrester come in, she just nodded at him, and immediately refocused on the meeting.

Simon Forrester handed the phone to Rochelle Linwood, glanced at Sienna Thornton on the video gently reminding the person to alert the legal team to strengthen their understanding of the common law system, then turned and left the study.

Rochelle Linwood followed him out and politely said, "Mr. Forrester, I might need to borrow your study until dawn today."

"No problem," Simon Forrester nodded, "but why start a meeting in the middle of the night?"

"The original lawyer for this case couldn’t handle it and only mentioned handing it over to Lawyer Thornton this afternoon. Luckily, the time difference allows us to complete it before 5 PM Friday in New York."

Simon Forrester raised his eyebrows slightly disdainfully and chuckled: "Vantage Law Firm is ranked in the top three for its business capabilities; if a case can’t be handled, that’s one thing, but to dump it on a lawyer who is on sick leave under such time pressure?"

Rochelle Linwood also smiled, her smile tinged with helplessness but also pride: "It’s not that the lawyer on the case is incompetent, it’s just that this case is too special, involving a third-party liable party from a U.S. company, so it ultimately needed Lawyer Thornton, who is familiar with both common law and our domestic laws, to handle it."

She left it at that.

Simon Forrester’s gaze slipped through the slightly ajar door, looking at Sienna Thornton still calmly negotiating with others, thinking she still didn’t seem like the lawyer he had in mind.

He returned to his room, attempted to read, but couldn’t focus, constantly thinking of the various sides of Sienna Thornton.

Initially, appearing before him for the case, dressed professionally, swift and decisive;

After getting injured, quirky and sharp-tongued;

In Wrayhaven, sad, hesitant, and reserved;

The past few days, understanding, easy to get along with;

And now, a professional, yet gentle, non-aggressive international lawyer;

Simon Forrester instinctively reviewed all the time he had known Sienna Thornton. Her multifaceted nature made him feel as though he knew multiple Sienna Thorntons.

He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, and somewhat mysteriously, opened his phone’s search program, entering the keyword: Sienna Thornton...

The name "Sienna Thornton" is not particularly unique, so once searched, dozens of pages of related information popped up online.

Seeing the top entry was a name directory, Simon Forrester clicked in, first seeing a page of a popular online celebrity with the same name as Sienna Thornton.

He scrolled down and finally found an introduction about Sienna Thornton on the third card—

Occupation: Lawyer

Practice areas: International litigation or arbitration, non-contentious international legal services

Date of Birth: April 10, 1991

Nationality: Coria

Place of Birth: Wrayhaven County

Education: Doctor of Law from Harvard University

"Born in ’91?" A smile spread across Simon Forrester’s face, "Impressive to have studied so much so young..."

He scrolled further to "Career Experiences," and found that Sienna Thornton pursued both International Economics and Trade and Law as a dual major for her undergraduate at the University of Azure Harbor, and later focused on International Economic Law at Braden University for her graduate studies.

"Such a smart mind," Simon Forrester smiled, continuing to read further.

The final section, "Character Evaluation," was just a few lines, written as—

Lawyer Sienna Thornton is a Level Three lawyer specializing in international legal affairs at Vantage Law Firm. Having already obtained her Doctorate in Law from Harvard University before joining Vantage, she was directly promoted to Level Three upon her entry.

In her over a year of practice at Vantage, Lawyer Sienna Thornton has never lost a case, with a winning rate of 100%. Her defense style is often gentle, systematic, slow, yet surprisingly decisive at the final moment, dealing a harsh blow to opponents, earning her the nickname "Gentle Knife" in the industry.

"Gentle Knife?" The smile on Simon Forrester’s face widened, "These lawyers can really come up with any term."

He exited the entry and continued to scroll down, discovering several international trade dispute cases handled by Sienna Thornton that sparked significant attention, some of which were analyzed as classic cases.

He vaguely understood why Sienna Thornton decided to study International Economics for three years before pivoting to law—she had clearly aimed for an international focus from the start.

In his view, Sienna Thornton was undoubtedly smart, both intelligent and diligent.

Pages later, he found a thread titled "A Recap of the Beautiful Lawyers in the Legal Circle of 2017," where Sienna Thornton’s name appeared.

Simon Forrester clicked in to look.

The main post was a voting thread, asking everyone to vote for the standout beauty among ten new female lawyers in Brimfield. Unsurprisingly, Sienna Thornton overwhelmingly outshone the other nine female lawyers.

The ten beautiful female lawyers, with blue-background ID photos neatly lined up in the main post. Most of the people in the photos wore makeup, some even had eye makeup and contouring, and the photos were further enhanced with Photoshop for smoothing and lighting.

Only Sienna Thornton’s ID photo remained unedited, purely natural, with only grapefruit-colored lipstick applied. Her hair was softly tucked behind her ear, and the mole under her right eye was small and cute.

In the photo, she was smiling charmingly, with a very pure demeanor, completely different from the capable and mature image Simon Forrester saw when he first met her.

Simon Forrester’s gaze was instantly drawn to this tender photo, as if under a spell. He tried to save Sienna Thornton’s individual photo but couldn’t, so he took a screenshot of the entire page and cropped out just Sienna Thornton’s ID photo...

Exiting that thread, he continued flipping through pages, patiently leafing through more than twenty pages, finding no further mentions of Sienna Thornton, when he inadvertently stumbled upon a long-buried post...