Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

"July 12 through August 20. Set those pages aside for now."

Lü Hang pushed across a stack of printed pages. The corners were curled and the ink hadn't fully dried; it left a black smear on his fingertip.

Shen Zhixia pulled the pages toward her. Hurricane Express station attendance sheets—nineteen pages, forty-one people. Each line held a rider's name and employee ID, followed by three columns: clock-in time, online hours, orders that day.

She turned to page seven and pressed her pen against the middle rows.

"July 18, the storm. These five clocked in at 6:40 a.m., then were marked late at 8:40."

"The late marks are station penalties. They have nothing to do with the platform." Lü Hang unscrewed his thermos; steam rose. "President Han's view is that the 'late' and 'absence' entries on these pages, plus a few riders' shift records for that day, shouldn't be kept."

She set down her pen.

"'Shouldn't be kept'—what does that mean?"

"Delete them, or mark them as missing data." Lü Hang said it evenly. "This batch goes out as the final version today and gets delivered to the Arbitration Commission tomorrow morning. You just need to check it over. It's light work."

The top line of page seven read Ma Jianjun, an employee ID beginning with A. That day he clocked in at 6:40, and the penalty column listed a thirty-yuan deduction. She turned further. The same name appeared four times on this page; he'd been fined four times.

"Who's the client?"

"The platform." Lü Hang glanced at her. "This material is because a few riders are making a wage complaint. The platform wants its paperwork ready first."

"Who's representing the riders?"

"Nobody yet."

"Then once those lines are deleted, there'll be even less of anybody on their side." She flipped back to page seven and pressed her fingertip against the clock-in column. "Who did the scheduling for July 18?"

"The station's scheduling clerk."

"Is the scheduling clerk platform staff?"

Lü Hang looked at her for two seconds. "Contracted."

"Contracted scheduling, and the fines come out of the riders' pay." She pushed the pages back half an inch. "If I sign this page, those three months of wages stop being my business."

Her nail pressed into the edge of the form. One month at Hengzheng: the first week memorizing the employee handbook, the second week running documents with Lü Hang—always the same sort of errand: printing, binding, checking page numbers. She'd thought "checking page numbers" sounded like the safest task. On the day she joined the firm, she'd bought the cheapest drink at the convenience store downstairs, sat by the flowerbed, and told her father in heaven: Dad, I got in.

She pulled the handover form out from underneath. Below the words "Data Verified Correct" was a signature line.

"Cut those rows and the rest doesn't mean anything," she said. "Those pages are the station setting their shifts. If the schedule's there, the fines are there, the deducted money's there—that's what managing people means. Delete it and the platform can say exactly what it wants: they were free to take orders, nobody managed anybody, wages are paid per order, not per hour."

"That's the client's business."

"The stamp on it is Hengzheng's." She pressed the pen tip against the signature line without signing. "Once this goes to the Arbitration Commission, it goes under the firm's name. If the riders go back later and request the logs and the numbers don't match, who takes the fall?"

"I didn't tell you to delete everything." Lü Hang capped his thermos. "Mark it as missing data. A system issue. Not your issue."

"Those labels would be in my handwriting. Then they become my issue."

Lü Hang's smile lost half its shape. He leaned back in his chair; it creaked.

"Shen Zhixia, you're a trainee lawyer. A trainee lawyer's job is to do the work, not to evaluate it."

"I'm not evaluating. I'm saying I won't sign."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-four."

"Shen Qian's daughter." He paused after saying it, as if checking her face for a reaction. "That explains it."

Her hands, resting on her knees, tightened.

"You knew my father?"

"In this line of work, more people know him than know me." Lü Hang stood and put the attendance sheets back into the document envelope; the pages rustled. "Let me give you a piece of advice: decide before eight tomorrow morning. If you want to make a living in this profession, the first lesson isn't knowing the law. It's knowing who pays you."

The door clicked shut.

She was alone in the meeting room, along with the unsigned handover form on the table. She picked up the pen and held the tip over the signature line for a long time.

When she was fifteen, two people had come to the house and knocked, then handed her a piece of paper. Her mother was too ill to get out of bed that year, so she was the one who signed; the pen tip shook and left two crooked lines on the page. That night her father spread a photocopy of the test report across the dinner table and pointed at it page by page: I signed it, but I didn't write the report. She hadn't understood then. Later he pleaded guilty, was sentenced to three years, his license was revoked, and a year after his release he was gone. She understood it even less. She kept that photocopy at the bottom of a box, the edges worn soft from being handled.

The pen tip hovered for half a minute. Then she put the pen down.

She turned the handover form over. The back was blank. On it she wrote: I made no modification or deletion to the original attendance data, and I do not confirm the above "verified correct" conclusion. She signed it, wrote the date, then took two photos with her phone—one of the front, one of the back. After that she left the form on the table, placed squarely.

She stood by the window for two minutes, the hot water in her paper cup sloshing back and forth. Her phone lit up. A message from Tang Guo: My livestream gained three thousand followers tonight. Come out for skewers? She didn't reply. She placed the phone face down on the windowsill.

"Little Shen."

Someone called from the far end of the corridor. Han Chongli came toward her in a navy suit, a thin booklet in his hand, not walking fast, as if he'd just come down from a meeting. He stopped two paces away and smiled first.

"I thought you looked familiar. You're Shen Qian's daughter."

"President Han."

"More than twenty years ago, at that provincial public-interest legal seminar, your father sat one row in front of me." He switched the booklet to his other hand. "His notes were denser than anyone else's. In the evenings he dragged people into debates until midnight. When that business happened, I was worried for him too."

Two people passed them in the corridor, both slowing half a step.

Shen Zhixia shifted the scalding paper cup into her other hand. "When you were worried, whose side were you on?"

Han Chongli looked at her, his smile not flickering. "On the side of the law."

The elevator dinged. He started toward it, then turned back after two steps.

"The firm will write your internship performance truthfully in the evaluation," he said. "You're still young. There's still time to start over somewhere else."

The elevator doors closed, and the corridor went quiet. She stood there, the water in her cup no longer hot. The work group on her phone kept pinging: someone sent the afternoon's meeting minutes, someone replied with a "noted" emoji. None of the messages mentioned her.

"Shen Zhixia, HR."

By the time Cao Min met her at the meeting room door, she was already holding the form. "Ten minutes. Small Meeting Room No. 3."

A kraft paper envelope sat on the table. Cao Min turned the form around to show her.

"Your internship agreement ends today. The stated reason is refusal to follow work assignments, a serious violation of internship management rules. Look it over and sign if there's no problem."

"Which assignment did I refuse?"

"You know perfectly well." Cao Min lowered her voice and glanced toward the door. "Little Shen, I'm just working for a paycheck too. Before you leave today, turn in your work badge and access card to me. Don't touch anything on the computer; we'll wipe it. As for the internship evaluation... the firm won't issue one for now."

"What about my wages?"

"Paid by the day through today. Finance will calculate it." Cao Min pushed the pen toward her. "Whether you sign today or tomorrow, the result is the same."

"Do I hand over the materials for the Arbitration Commission case too?"

Cao Min paused. "That's not my responsibility."

"I want written notice of termination."

"It'll be emailed to your school email and copied to you." Cao Min hesitated a few seconds, then added something she shouldn't have. "Your matter won't be talked about outside the firm."

She understood half of what that meant.

Back in the open office, her seat was in the last row, next to the printer. A month's worth of things took less than ten minutes to pack: a fountain pen with a scratch on the cap, left behind by her father; a white mug; half a pad of sticky notes. Her work badge, access card, and the firm-issued notebook were laid out on the desk—none of them could leave with her.

A head popped over the partition: Qiu Tong, who'd joined the same round as her.

"They're saying you got caught deleting attendance records?"

"I didn't delete anything."

"Oh." Qiu Tong ducked back. A few seconds later she popped up again, her voice even lower. "I added you on WeChat. If you find another firm and they're hiring, I'll ask for you."

"Okay."

"So... did you really delete them?"

Shen Zhixia tucked the last pen into her pocket. "I didn't touch a single page of that attendance sheet."

Qiu Tong stared at her for a moment, nodded, and disappeared back behind the partition. The printer behind her clicked and spat out two pages.

The cardboard box was from the front desk's A4 paper supply, printed on all sides with the Hengzheng name and the same "Heng" in seal script. She carried it down the gray-carpeted corridor, past glass-partitioned offices packed one beside the next, each door bearing a name. The office at the east end had a gold nameplate: Senior Partner Lu Jibai. She walked beneath that nameplate, the box blocking half her view, and saw nothing.

At the gate, she swiped her card. Red light. The security guard came out from behind the booth, pressed the door button for her, and said nothing.

Outside, it was raining. Rain hammered the steps and splashed up in white spray. She stood at the edge of the awning, holding the box against her chest as a makeshift umbrella, water seeping up through the seams at the bottom. A row of cars was parked below the steps. A doorman held an umbrella to escort a client into a car, its canopy angled carefully—not toward her.

A delivery rider in a yellow raincoat rode past the steps, the box on his rear rack covered with plastic sheeting, water dripping from its corners. He stopped at the intersection ahead to wait for the light, reached into his raincoat and pulled out his phone for a glance, then shoved it back. While the light was still red, he yanked his hood up. The instant it changed, he shot into the rain and was soon swallowed by the spray.

She took out her phone and checked her balance: 3,920 yuan. Rent was 1,800, due next Wednesday. Zhi'an's materials fee was 360. Her phone bill and internet were still unpaid. She calculated it once, calculated it again, and after the third time she stopped.

A voice call from Tang Guo came in, and she answered.

"Where are you? It's pouring outside."

"Something came up at the firm. I'm downstairs waiting for a car."

"What's wrong with your voice?"

"The wind."

The other end was silent for two seconds. "All right. There's skewers tonight. I'll save you one."

The call ended. She typed to Zhi'an: Working late at the firm tonight. Make yourself some noodles.

Sent.

Her phone buzzed again. An unknown number. Two lines.

"Municipal No. 2 Hospital, ER, third floor. Attorney Shen, can you come?"

No signature. The last word was: Ma.

She read those two lines three times. At the top of page seven of the attendance sheet, the name that had clocked in at 6:40 in the storm and had four fines in the penalty column: Ma Jianjun.

Among the people she knew, there was no other Ma.

Rain ran down her wrist. The subway station was on the left; Municipal No. 2 Hospital was on the right. She stood on the steps for two seconds, then went right.