The AirPods Pro in Julia Han’s ears failed at canceling the loudness on Taipei’s Zhongshan South Road. It was a clash of sputtering scooter engines and hissing bus tyres on asphalt. As she found a way away exhaust fumes from a passing bus, she made a calculation. The distance from her current location, the NTU Hospital metro station, to 127 Bo’ai Road was 500 metres.

Through Julia’s right ear, Billy Yang’s voice was narrating instructions. She double tapped the bud in her left ear to hear her boss in stereo. In her mind’s eye, he came through crystal clear: He was sitting in his leather chair on the thirty-second floor of the Cathay Landmark Tower, his back turned to the door, looking out over the Xinyi District. Like an emperor surveying a grain market, Billy felt no hesitation in sweating his newest protégée to execute a time sensitive manoeuvre. Julia was on her way to the District Court to eyeball a probate amendment filed there only two hours earlier.

“Julia,” Billy was saying, “I need an update right now. At a private facility like Dr. Susanna’s, the lab work takes precisely ninety minutes. Maybe eighty if they’re using the in-house Roche analyser. And we are at minute twenty.”

Julia couldn’t answer immediately. She was running, flat out, along the crowded pavement. Eight vials from a blood draw, a complete metabolic panel, a coagulation screen, and a urine assay. In a regular public hospital, the processing would have taken several hours. But this was a high-profile client at the private clinic of the internationally renowned cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Susanna Vane. She took deep breaths through her nostrils and exhaled through rounded lips. It was the form she had practiced for ten months during her final year of law school.

Her friends used to joke that she was training for an Olympic triathlon instead of the bar exam. She had doubted herself then, and wondered if she was wasting time on formation drills instead of memorising corporate torts.

“Move!” she yelled at a sedan that wasn’t even in her path. She wasn’t doubting herself now. She was a first-year associate. There were dozens of elite graduates waiting to take her place. So she had to prove she was sharper, faster, and more ruthless than everyone else. Now she vaulted over a low concrete barrier.

“No—I meant… ” she gasped, catching up to her thoughts. “Nearly there.”

Her glutes, built up by squat racks and deadlifts, propelled her straight along the flat pavement of Bo’ai Road. She made a sharp turn, and dashed under the concrete awning of the District Court building. Finally, she turned around and used her back to smash open the double doors.

Billy’s voice dropped an octave, entirely calm as he was pushing her to her limit. “Mrs. Chen has arrived at an observation suite two doors down from Mr. Chen. Stalling the intake procedure is giving us the time we need. We know the clinic’s liability waiver is a twenty-page document. Mr. Chen thinks we are being consulted to review that document. But we only have so much time before he starts asking what the hold-up is.”

“And my job is to find out if Mrs. Chen can go ahead and check the DNR box or not,” Julia replied breathlessly. Her chest was heaving as she passed through the security checkpoint.

“Correct,” Billy replied. “If the will favors her, she signs the waiver and they stay married long enough to bleed him in divorce court. If the new will favors the yoga instructor, Mrs. Chen forces the clinic to cancel the procedure. Then, as her attorneys, we file for emergency asset freezing.”

Using her left hand, she yanked her tablet out of her briefcase. Billy’s priority, as always, was increasing a client’s escrow balance.

“I’m here at the Joint Service Centre,” Julia said. She walked over to a bored clerk standing behind the high mahogany barrier. “How much time do I have?”

“Eighty vials of blood are being analysed right now,” Billy replied. “You have sixty-five minutes.”

Eight vials. Julia caught the slip instantly, but she didn’t waste time correcting her boss. Eight vials. Sixty-five minutes.

She placed her tablet on the counter of the Filing Desk. The clerk looked as though he had been stamping government forms since the martial law era.

Julia ripped out her left earbud to hear the clerk say, “Closed for lunch. Return in one hour.” He didn’t even look up from his monitor. He appeared to be in the middle of an intriguing digital game.

Julia inhaled the air in the municipal building. She needed oxygen, but all she got was a stale mix of floor wax, damp umbrellas, and decades of bureaucratic stagnation. Through her right ear, Billy’s voice was steady.

“Still on minute twenty-five, Julia,” Billy reminded her. Then she heard the faint squeak of a leather executive chair tilting back.

Julia leaned forward, planting her face right into the small circular opening of the glass partition. Her voice dropped into that low, sharp register only exhausted, desperate lawyers possessed.

“Julia Han. Yang Nordhoff Wahad. We talked on the phone? File number 2026-TK-8841-B,” she said, as if stapling her words together. “It was filed at 11:00 by legal counsel for Vanguard Holdings.”

The clerk looked at Julia with a confused expression. Without checking his screen, he began tapping on his keyboard with a clack-clack-clack.

“It’s flagged, Miss Han,” the clerk said, still not looking at the screen. “Restricted access. Sealed probate amendment filed by the owner’s personal trustee. You need a direct judicial stamp to breach the seal.”

“I don’t need to breach it,” Julia smiled back. “I only need to know if the amendment names a beneficiary.”

“System doesn’t show the text of a sealed addendum to me,” the clerk replied. “For that you need the probate master’s physical seal on a disclosure exemption.”

“Exactly. Thank you. And is he in his office?”

“Third floor cafeteria,” the clerk replied, handing her a disclosure exemption form. “Enjoying his pork chop bento.”

Julia didn’t hear the end of the sentence. She scribbled in the file number, printed her name, filled in her firm’s address and phone numbers, and skated toward the stairwell.

“Billy,” she said. “As you heard, I’m approaching the probate master in the cafeteria.” She was taking the steps three at a time.

Two minutes later, Julia pushed through the double doors of the third-floor cafeteria. It smelled like boiled cabbage, instant coffee, and mid-morning ciggies. She recognised the man hunched over a styrofoam container in the far corner. Pork chops in rice with cabbage and carrots. No gravy.

Probate Master Lin.

Julia’s ear popped as Billy’s voice cut through.

“Minute thirty, Julia,” Billy urged. His tone was devoid of personal sympathy. “A nurse has received some of Mr. Chen’s lab results and she will wait five minutes to send them to Dr. Susanna’s tablet. The lab assistant will be walking a printout down the hall in ten minutes. We need that exemption right away.”

Julia didn’t bother answering. She glided across the floor with long strides and sat down beside Master Lin. The jolt caused his soup to splash over the rim of his spoon.

Lin choked on air. “What in the—”

“Master Lin, I’m Julia Han. Do you remember me? First year associate at Yang Nordhoff Wahad. Here for an urgent disclosure certification for Vanguard Holdings estate amendment. I need your emergency override stamp for a Section 14 asset verification. “

Lin squinted at her. “Young woman, you don’t come here during my lunch break without a writ of—”

Billy responded. “Julia, tell Master Lin you know he is up for the municipal review board’s senior advisory seat next month. It comes with a housing stipend in Xinyi District. And remind him his department’s backlog metrics have been dragging his evaluation down.”

Lin stopped chewing as Julia repeated word for word what Billy told her. She carefully placed the disclosure exemption form on the table.

“Tell Mr. Yang the backlog is due to automated system errors, not my office,” Lin said defensively. He scowled at the form.

“Of course it is,” Julia agreed, her voice softening. “Which is why our firm handles administrative petitions pro bono for senior civil servants. I promise, word from my boss’s mouth, that our tech team will clean up your department’s audit log by Sunday morning.”

Lin blinked slowly at Julia as he processed the trade. A prestigious law firm was handing him a coveted promotion.

Without another word, Lin reached into his breast pocket, pulled out his heavy brass-bound personal seal, and pressed it down onto the form. Thunk. Red ink splattered crisply across the margin, certifying the disclosure exception.

Julia lifted the paper and inspected the damp mark with a satisfied nod.

“Thank you, Master Lin,” Julia said. She walked back toward the stairwell.

“Billy,” she said. “As you heard, I have the stamp. I have the clearance.”

Billy sounded relieved. He said, “Good work, Counselor. Stay on the line.”

Julia bounded down the stairs and handed the stamped disclosure exemption form to the filing clerk. He scanned the clearance code on the form to log it into the system.

At the same time, Billy was adding Julia to a conference call with Mrs. Chen.

Their client’s voice came through, seemingly unbothered by the certain chaos unfolding over her life. “Yes, Billy.”

Julia pressed her earbuds firmly into her ears as she read directly from the screen the filing clerk was showing her. She used her chest to press her briefcase against the cold counter.

“Ma’am,” Julia said, “The amendment, I’m reading it right now.”

She didn’t see the full text of the trust because Master Lin’s stamp only allowed her to look at Section 14. It was flagged in the system because the primary asset allocation clause was amended. Julia searched for the name of the proposed new asset owner. Bad news.

For a while, the only sound in Julia’s ear was the static of anticipated disappointment.

“Thank you, Ms. Han,” Mrs. Chen said. Her tone was measured. “Does the amendment provide for me, or is the owner of the yoga studio about to inherit a multi-billion dollar asset structure?”

Julia was already outside and in the back of a waiting taxi. As she slid across the faux-leather seat, she tucked the certification into her briefcase. She gestured down the street and the taxi driver took off as slowly as he could.

“Our office has confirmed that a codicil was filed at 11:00,” Julia said. “And from what I have seen, it strips your spousal survivorship rights. Trustee control of the holdco will go directly to your husband’s children. All five of them.”

“I knew it,” said a deflated Mrs. Chen in a near whisper. “She’s pregnant. With twins, or he has one other child I don’t know about. And he’s using them to lock me out of his will. Freaking brilliant work.”

A pause followed on the line. It was a long, heavy silence.

Billy’s voice cut to translate the situation for his client. “Under your prenuptial agreement, Mrs. Chen, the survivorship trust protected you and your offspring. We can argue that the medical liability waiver for your husband’s cosmetic procedure was used to distract you from the amendment filing. Withhold your proxy consent, and we will demand an emergency corporate review based on your husband’s erratic asset-shifting. We put forth that he is unduly influenced and could at any moment disinherit his three children from his marriage to you. Now, because the amendment is in a physical queue, we have time to block the final seal. Usually, this would take several weeks. But I happen to know that a massive filing backlog at the District Court is being cleared ahead of an administrative shakeup. So we have four business days.”

Mrs. Chen replied, “Dr. Susanna and her team passed by my door. It looks like they are getting ready to do the final pre-op meeting with him. Please tell her that my signature is withheld.”

A few seconds passed. “Message delivered,” Billy said softly. Julia knew that Billy’s executive assistant was making the call.

“Forget the return trip to the office, Julia,” Billy commanded. “I’ve prepared the emergency injunction ex parte myself. It is compiling into a PDF. As soon as it’s ready, I’m sending it to your tablet. Print it, bind it, and place it on the High Court duty judge’s desk by 15:00. I’m calling to give him a heads up right now.”

Julia swiped up on her left earbud to disconnect the call. She leaned forward to look at the digital map on the taxi’s dashboard. They were three blocks away from the High Court, which was right next door to the District Court. She had to go back. Only three blocks?

“Driver,” Julia smiled, leaning forward. “Pull over, please.”

She couldn’t wait for him to crawl through a lunch time traffic maelstrom. She needed to get to a print shop on Chongqing South Road. If she was lucky, there would only be a dozen other frazzled lawyers waiting for emergency copies. Julia pressed a $1000 NTD note into the driver’s hand, threw the door handle, and tumbled out into a humid drizzle.

Her tablet bleeped in her briefcase. She retrieved it to download a 10 MB PDF file: INJNCTN_EXPRTE_VNGRD_REV_FINAL.pdf

Julia dropped the tablet back into her briefcase and clutched it tightly to her chest. She took a deep breath and exploded into a sprint. Pedestrians ducked and wobbled as the twenty-three-year-old lawyer breezed past like a middle-distance runner kicking into the final turn.

This was no ordinary document she was carrying. It was an emperor’s execution order.