Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 104 : The Ledger Isn't Settled

At ten a.m. on September 1st, Zhou Yu's call came in. First words: "It's filed."

She set down her pen. "Which case."

"Mass contract fraud. Hongkun Investment, Minanli Property, and Anyu Business, plus Zhou Keming—consolidated into one case. The three companies' accounts went from assisted freeze to criminal freeze, with every transaction being traced line by line. The roster of 1,042 households is attached to the file. The branch bureau assigned a whole team."

"What's the roster attached for."

"To establish the scale. Conviction turns on the amount; sentencing turns on the number of people." Papers rustled on his end. "And I didn't count those people—your eleven notebooks did. Their numbers are copied onto the file cover."

She wrote a line on her paper: September 1st, case consolidation; three companies transferred to criminal freeze; roster attached to file.

"The two rooms on Wanshun's fourth floor were opened this morning," Zhou Yu said. "The old man from property management opened them with the spare key. The rooms were cleaner than his face—only a printer was left, still plugged in. The machine on the sixth floor was taken for forensic analysis. There's a table stored on it listing every transaction heading out this year."

"How many channels."

"I won't give numbers until the verification's done."

"What about Zheng Hongbin."

"The ticket they pulled from the box yesterday is dated for tomorrow." He paused. "He's still in Jiangzhou. I raised it with the branch bureau this morning. His number's been flagged for border control, and the airport will be watching tomorrow."

"I'm not writing that ticket number on paper."

"Don't." He said, "Names written on paper have to be names someone recognizes."

"The ticket was issued on August 24th."

"Right. The same day you sealed the disk at the notary office, he bought his way out."

The pot on the stove started hissing. He Xiufen carried the kettle upstairs, missing the first half of the conversation but catching part of the rest. She set the kettle on the corner of the desk and nudged Shen Zhixia's paper inward, worried about splashes.

"The hearing on the third—what do you need," Zhou Yu asked.

"I need the bank to name the signatory. I need those one hundred and five transactions produced one by one."

"And if they won't."

"Then the refusal gets recorded." She said, "If they won't hand it over, that silence becomes their answer."

"Fine." Zhou Yu said, "One more thing: the criminal case is moving, but the civil case doesn't stop. Don't mix the materials. Mix them once and he'll have something to say."

"A separate case is a separate case." He Xiufen chimed in from the stove.

After hanging up, she poured half a mug of water. "Three companies frozen—the money's just lying in the accounts."

"Lying there." Shen Zhixia said, "Money frozen in a criminal case has to wait for the judgment to take effect, then it goes through restitution."

"First instance, second instance—a fast case takes a year or two." He Xiufen blew on the rim of her mug. She took the tally sheet and multiplied 24,000 by 1,042, drawing a line underneath: "Around twenty-five million. What's frozen across the three companies is barely a fraction."

"The gap is in the judgment."

"The gap is after the judgment." He Xiufen said, "Once ruled, someone still has to enforce it into actual money."

[Thud. People have arrived. The money hasn't.]

Tang Guo came upstairs at eleven, her phone stand still clipped to her bag strap, the lights still off. She carried two sheets of paper: one twenty-seven-square roster, one screenshot of a group chat signup chain.

"Twenty-seven people signed up to observe the hearing on the third." She pushed the screenshot over. "Kong Xiulan and Jiang Bo are on it. The guy from Dongguan says he'll take a day off, catch the night train, arrive before dawn."

"Keep twenty." He Xiufen said, "Fill the first three rows. No talking, no signs. Bring ID. If security tells you to take your hat off, take it off. If they ask which household, give your unit number. Nothing else."

"Should I post about the hearing on the third or not." Tang Guo asked.

"Don't." He Xiufen said, "Not one word until the judgment comes down. If the case is in court, the talk stays in court. Shut your livestream down for a few days."

"Three days." Tang Guo typed it into her phone's notes. "And Shi Lei—the Chengbei Building Materials Market put him on three runs this afternoon. Two days will make up for the one he lost. His old route's being handled by someone else now, a hundred and fifty per run. He didn't mention it. Two riders in the group worked the numbers out for him."

"He gave his statement in the back room downstairs yesterday," Tang Guo went on. "The officer asked him which floor he was standing on in the elevator. He took his helmet off to answer. Afterward he told me he didn't know statements required fingerprints too."

"Once the fingerprint's down, his account is complete." He Xiufen said, "Keep his schedule packed. Don't give him time to think."

"He's not thinking." Tang Guo said, "He posted 'the goods weren't wasted' in the group, and forty voice messages piled up under it."

"Anyone in the group still asking questions."

"Yeah." Tang Guo turned her phone around to show her. "Someone's asking if the frozen money means it's almost in hand."

"Frozen isn't in hand." He Xiufen set her mug down on the table. "Post one line in the group: the money's frozen in the accounts, and the split only comes after the ruling. Just that one line. Let others follow your lead—nobody adds anything of their own."

Shen Zhixia laid out what she'd need for the third on the desk: eleven pages of bank photocopies with the document receipt list marked "original unverified"; the one hundred and five receipts, bundled into three stacks; the twenty-seven-square roster. She wrote a cover sheet for the three items—first line, the case name and parties; second line, page counts and copies for each item; signature and date at the bottom.

"The judge flips to this page first when he opens the file." He Xiufen glanced at it. "Write it down and you save him the trouble."

Then she set her mug on the corner of the roster as a paperweight.

"The criminal case freezes the three companies' accounts; once ruled, it goes to restitution. The civil case decides who pays whom." She said, "Both roads lead to money, but the speed's not up to us. The money's blocked, but the ledger isn't settled."

[Thud. Blocking the money isn't closing the case. Enforcement completed is what counts.]

"The judgment is the real opening." He Xiufen said.

That afternoon Kong Xiulan called, asking what to wear on the third and whether to bring her loan contract.

"Just bring your ID." Shen Zhixia said. "Don't bring the original contract—I have copies here. If they don't call on you in court, just sit. If they do, say only two things: the signature isn't yours, and on April 19th you worked a full-day shift."

"Can I write it in a notebook."

"Yes. Don't hold the notebook up."

Before dark she opened the separate ledger.

Under the glass desktop a stack of paper strips lay pressed, starting from that half-sentence nine years ago, one after another. She pulled out the one reading "30th"—the day had passed, but the slip still sat there. Removing it left a white edge under the glass, while the other corners stayed pressed flat.

"There's no room under the glass for expired paper." He Xiufen said from the kitchen without looking up. "Which one's still moving—that's for you to see."

What was still moving was "Next Shift." She filed "30th" into the separate ledger and turned to two blank pages in the middle, writing "August 30th" at the top. Below, in the grid: 500,000 yuan foreign exchange settlement returned, sent back along its original path to Hongkun's account; the 31st, Zhou Keming stopped at the outbound checkpoint; one hundred and five household receipts in three stacks, 2.52 million; twenty-seven-household roster, twenty-five squares. Every entry written and cross-checked. Anything heard secondhand—not a word went down.

The same-origin page: three new rows on the left still sat there—first square of the sample receipt column from nine years ago, the top line of the August 22nd approval sheet, the first square of the approval field on the August 30th transfer voucher. At the end of the third row she'd added "Pending Verification." Below the three rows a large space sat empty—reserved for a name.

Her pen couldn't land that stroke. The three documents belonged to three different cases, and in the housing case only that half-square from the bank was usable.

"You're thinking of requesting handwriting examination." He Xiufen said, coming over with her mug.

"The half-square in the housing case can support a one-page application asking the court to order the bank to identify the signatory. The other two documents don't fit this case."

"Good that you know." He Xiufen said, "That blank for the name isn't yours to fill. Whoever has the authority writes it. Just keep those three rows laid out. If they hold on the desk, they'll hold below it."

She called Cen Hong. At the courier hub, barcode scanners beeped in endless succession.

"The disk is at the notary office, seal untouched. I copied the serial number—keep it."

"My mom emptied that drawer at home yesterday." Cen Hong said. "She won't let anyone put anything in it."

"Tell her the item is with me, with a serial number. No one can take it."

"She doesn't trust numbers. She trusts people." Cen Hong paused. "She only asked me one thing: when will someone read what's written on it aloud."

"When it can be read loud enough."

The call ended. The shop was quiet except for the noodle pot.

On the night of September 2nd, she packed the three items into a canvas bag. The three stacks of receipts were bound tight with rubber bands, each topped with a slip noting household count and amounts; the eleven pages of bank documents went into a separate file envelope; the roster sat between two sheets of cardboard to protect the corners.

Downstairs the noodle shop had closed. The scallion-oil smell faded. He Xiufen wiped tables in the dining room.

"Tomorrow you sit on this side, he sits on that side." She draped the rag over a chair back. "Watch his hands."

"Watch for what."

"Watch what he hands over and what he doesn't." He Xiufen said, "Last time he wrote three lines about having performed his duty of review as agreed. This time I've got eleven pages he hasn't seen. That's one less line he can say."

"What do I present first tomorrow."

"Those nine transactions in the eleven pages." He Xiufen said, "After the nine come the one hundred five receipts in three stacks, after that the roster. Layer on layer. Present them in order and don't touch them again. You present your three items, answer exactly what's asked—nothing more."

"What if he says those nine transactions are the bank's own business, nothing to do with the tenants."

"Then you ask one question: whose account did the money leave from, and whose name is printed in the payee line." He Xiufen wrung out the rag. "Ask it and sit down. Don't chase."

"Once the judgment is down, the bank will definitely file an appeal." She pushed the chair under the table. "Who's going to write that appeal—have you thought about it."

She didn't answer.

[Thud. Money hasn't left the country. Ledger isn't settled. Next gate: judgment.]

She turned to the last page of the receipt book. The six characters on the back were still there, written the night of August 30th: Money doesn't know roads. It knows people.

She typed: "If the bank appeals after the judgment, will you be the one writing it."

Send. She set the canvas bag on the stool by the door, came back and washed her hands. When she returned, the space beneath that line was still empty.

About forty minutes later, a reply came: "The day the judgment arrives, read the operative part first. Party, subject matter, performance period—if any one of those is unclear, you'll be fighting another battle at enforcement."

Nothing else.

She copied that line under the six characters on the receipt book's back page and capped her pen.

He'd answered the judgment side of things. Her question was still on the screen, the space beneath it empty.

She turned the separate ledger to the same-origin page. Beneath the three rows, that space—still empty.