Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 103 : The Gate

She only picked up on the third ring.

The three stacks of receipts on the long table were still unbound, the pen cap had rolled to the corner, the desk lamp was still on. She'd been asleep at the table for less than an hour, the separate ledger right there by her hand.

"Airport stopped someone." Zhou Yu's voice came through with airport announcements layered behind it. "That eleven-digit number—do you have it on you?"

She dug through her bag. The photocopy was clipped to the first page of the housing case file copy: Minanli Property's account opening summary, the reserved phone number printed neatly in its row. She cinched the plastic bag shut.

"Got it."

"Bring it. Nothing else."

The taxi took the outer ring road. The driver asked if she wanted the departures level or arrivals; she said departures. The morning news was reading the weather. Halfway through, she looked down and counted the meter: forty-seven, fifty-three, sixty-four. She stared at the number for a moment, then thought about the five hundred thousand in that account. Twenty-four thousand per household, one hundred and five households, 2.52 million. Five hundred thousand didn't even cover the fraction.

The automatic doors at departures slid open and cold air hit her. Three lines at the check-in counters, flight numbers scrolling up the display board. Zhou Yu stood near the pillar, a kraft paper envelope in his hand, dark circles under his eyes.

He led her through two corridors and stopped in a side hallway off the outbound hall. At the end of the hallway was a duty room, separated by a pane of glass. Inside sat a man in his early fifties, hair neatly combed, shirt collar unbuttoned one notch.

On the table sat an open luggage case. Beside it lay a ring of keys. The longest was a silver car key, threaded onto a polished leather cord.

A gloved officer lifted a stack of courier waybill stubs from the case—edges curled, two indentations from a rubber band.

"The top one," Zhou Yu said.

It was pulled out and laid flat on the counter. The sender's phone number, eleven digits, printed inside the little pre-printed box on the waybill—slightly off-register. She pushed the photocopy across from her end. The officer placed the two pages side by side, compared them, photographed them with his phone.

"That page came out of a bank printer," Zhou Yu said. "The machine on the sixth floor and this suitcase are on the same thread as of today."

She nodded. The case also held a stack of certification documents printed in a foreign language, two envelopes from different companies, a phone sealed in an evidence bag. She touched none of it.

The hallway smelled of freshly mopped floor. Standing there, she thought of the night Tang Guo got locked out—the key turning, someone at the top of the stairs looking down. That night she'd had only a phone in her hand. Today, she had one more page: paper printed by a bank.

A police officer in navy uniform spoke to her in a lowered voice: the man had swiped his ID at the gate this morning, an alert popped up on the screen, and the duty officer escorted him to this room.

"He says he bought a ticket," the officer added.

Zhou Yu glanced toward the glass. "Around six this morning, the bank returned that entire foreign exchange settlement. Five hundred thousand, back into Hongkun's account. That account was frozen last night—the money came back into its own house, and there's a seal on the door."

[Thud. This money never left.]

The line from the day-before-yesterday recording—"send a small test amount first"—echoed in her ears again. That money had lain at the receiving point overnight, then crept back into its own home.

"Fast," she said. "How long do remittance returns usually take?"

"Three days. Today, six hours."

"Why."

Zhou Yu pressed the folded edge of the kraft envelope. "The settlement form goes back to the remitting bank, the remitting bank returns it to the remitter. That route takes three days." He said, "Today it took six hours. Someone pulled the form up the queue."

She remembered last night's line—"Money doesn't know roads; it knows people"—and stopped thinking further.

The man behind the glass looked up and glanced toward the hallway. His gaze rested on her briefly, then dropped to the keys on the table, then withdrew. The phone on the desk corner was face-down. He hadn't touched the water in his cup. She stood without moving her feet.

The man Shi Lei had seen downstairs at Wanshun Building last November—the one with the keys hanging around his neck. She'd memorized it.

The gloved officer pulled another sheet from the case lid's inner pocket: a printed itinerary. Same flight, September 2, economy class, issued August 24—two days before that tax filing form.

"Whose is this."

"Zheng Hongbin." Zhou Yu watched the officer seal the paper in an evidence bag. "Minanli Property's legal representative. Bought his exit route on August 24. I need a copy."

She noted the name and date. An announcement played overhead, reading a flight number, the final syllable rising then falling away.

On the way out, Zhou Yu asked, "You see it?"

"I saw it. The key ring."

"The border alert only has one number. Zheng's ticket—I'll look into it." He switched the envelope to his left hand. "A team from the branch bureau is going to the sixth floor this morning to put up seals. Don't go. The roster of one thousand and forty-two households is attached. The branch assigned a unit."

"Those three entities are frozen. The outflow is cut at three points." He paused. "Other routes—I haven't seen them yet. Not seeing them doesn't mean they're not there."

The ride back to Old Town was packed. She stood, and on her phone she typed "Zheng Hongbin" and "September 2" twice. Realized she'd typed it too many times. Deleted once.

The smell of scallion oil climbed from the stairwell. When she pushed open the second-floor door, He Xiufen was flipping something in the pan, the range hood humming.

Tang Guo sat in the front room, her phone stand packed in her bag, the fill light off.

"No lights today." She slid an A4 sheet over. It was ruled horizontally into a grid—one household per cell, unit number and landlord's surname. As of now, twenty-five cells had something: eleven said "Key," nine said "Deposit Receipt," five said "Written Note." Two cells remained blank.

"'Key' means the landlord handed over the spare and won't change the lock. 'Deposit Receipt' means the tenant dug the receipt from the bottom of a trunk and it's photographed for the file—one was pressed in a household register, one was in the lining of an old wallet." Tang Guo tapped the cells with her knuckle. "'Written Note' means the landlord wrote it himself, with a fingerprint: no cutting water or power, no eviction pressure, no rent increase before the judgment."

"The Minsheng Road eleventh-floor cell is a Key. Xu Dayong works nights and sleeps during the day. The landlord's nephew came up at eight last night and handed over the spare key. Said, 'We'll talk after the judgment.' I wrote that on the back." She added, "Three households behind him on the list share one landlord. I merged them into one cell."

"He photographed the key himself and sent it before his midnight shift. I didn't call him."

"Another landlord called today." Tang Guo flipped to the back. "Said he's been paying the property management fees for three months out of pocket. Asked if he could sue along with the tenants."

"Have him bring the contract," He Xiufen's voice came from the stove. "A landlord's accounts go in the landlord's ledger."

Riders came in downstairs for noodles, voices loud, one shouting for a bowl with an extra egg. The range hood ran another stretch. Tang Guo turned her phone around: "Shi Lei ran over to Wanshun again this afternoon. Couldn't get to the sixth floor—there's a paper strip on the door. He took a photo and posted it in the group."

The screen showed the photo: a white strip across both doors, a red seal pressed in the middle. Twenty-plus voice messages followed underneath. The top line of text was his own: That delivery run wasn't for nothing.

He Xiufen came over with the enamel mug and set it on the table with a clank.

"Write a line at the top," she said. "August 31: one hundred and five households, three stacks of receipts, 2.52 million; one list of twenty-seven households, twenty-five cells filled. Only what can be verified."

She started writing. Halfway through, He Xiufen said: "That line about 'the keys hanging from his neck'—that's Shi Lei's. Who said it, what day, write it next to his name."

She noted it beside Shi Lei's name, adding: "August 29, Shi Lei's oral account."

"This paper is thin." He Xiufen tapped the twenty-seven-cell list. "A twenty-seven-cell list in front of four-digit numbers—yes, it's thin. But it's the first thing we can actually lay on the table."

"On the third, you take the housing case documents to court." She lifted the mug and blew on it. "Nine service fees, one hundred and five receipts, this list. Three items. Lay out whatever you've got. The three Shi papers stay under the board."

She recounted what she'd seen in the morning: the six-hour remittance return, and the line about someone pulling the form up the queue. He Xiufen listened without looking up. When she finished, all she said was: "That line doesn't go into the record."

"Shi Lei's lost a job," He Xiufen added. "No more Wanshun runs for him—one less trip a day. Say something in the group: whoever has goods to haul from the Chengbei building materials market this afternoon, call him first."

"I'll do it," Tang Guo answered.

At eight that evening, Zhou Yu came up with a page in hand.

"Freeze order. Three entities: Hongkun Investment, Minanli Property, Anyu Business. Today's copy is a photocopy; the original's in the case file."

He Xiufen had him write a line on the back. He picked up the pen and wrote: This document is a photocopy; original not verified. Signature. Date. When he finished, he laughed lightly. "Last time I wrote a line like this, I was signing on the receiving end."

"That receiving end was me," He Xiufen said.

Below the three entity names was a row of figures. He Xiufen studied it for a while. "Last time, the three together came to thirty-one yuan forty-six. This time, there's an extra five hundred thousand."

"Of that five hundred thousand, one portion is the bit he deliberately put out for people to see." Zhou Yu took the paper back. "The roster is attached; the branch assigned a unit. The three accounts' statements need to be gone through line by line. Only then will it be clear whose name those small slips are registered under. Whether there are other outflow routes beyond the three entities—that also has to wait until the statements are processed."

"Shi Lei's written statement went into the branch yesterday with the roster," He Xiufen said. "What else do they need from him?"

"Him, in person," Zhou Yu said. "The paper's in the file. Someone from the branch is coming tonight to take his statement face-to-face. Once the statement's taken, he's standing out front. He's a hauler—he still has to keep running this street."

"Then take it," He Xiufen said. "If he wants to stand up, write his name clearly. The day he doesn't want to stand anymore, you let him step back."

Zhou Yu stopped at the door. "Director He, from now on, your side comes to me for exactly two things: submitting materials and asking about procedure. I'll take the materials. The files I won't give you—not a word."

"Fine," He Xiufen said. "It isn't the files I'm after anyway."

"I've got the civil half in my hands from here on. I know where it goes." He glanced at Shen Zhixia. "That morning ticket business—don't write it into any paper yet."

She nodded. He Xiufen poured him half a mug of tea. He didn't drink it. He picked up the envelope and went downstairs; the footsteps were gone halfway down the stairwell.

The front room went quiet. The photocopy still lay on the table, three entity names, one row of figures.

She opened the separate ledger. Below the three entries was a large blank space—reserved for names. She looked at it, then closed the book.

[Thud. The door is shut. The keys are still in someone else's hands.]

She sent Lu Jibai a message: "The money came back. They stopped him at the gate."

He replied: "You can stop the money. You can't stop the judgment."

She waited. No further message.

She pulled the slip of paper from under the glass desktop—the one that said "Next Shift"—looked at it, then pushed it back, half an inch deeper than before.