Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 110 : A Horizontal Line

On the morning of the fifteenth, the rain stopped. Half the flagstones in the old town had dried; the other half still held water, and a bicycle rolling over them left a shallow track.

Red-gridded paper lay across the long table. She flipped the receipt book to the back and copied those few lines onto the paper, one row at a time. The words were things she'd jotted down herself, some long, some short, a few only three characters deep—only on paper did each take on its own shape. When she finished, she left a blank column on the left for dates: the first line fell in August, the last on September fifth.

Seven lines, running east like a road.

He Xiufen carried two bowls of noodles upstairs, set them down, and stood beside the table, looking at the paper.

"What are you laying this out for?"

"I'm seeing how often he gave me a sentence." She tapped between the lines with the end of her pen. "The first one came August twenty-sixth. Three days to the second. After that the gaps shrank—the twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first, half a sentence a day. Into September: the second, third, fifth. After the fifth, nothing."

"When a man's busy, his words come thick."

"Or the words were already in his mouth."

He Xiufen sat down across from her and rested her chopsticks on the bowl. "Then read those seven lines straight through and see what sentence they make."

She read them, soundlessly. The first line pulled her eyes away from the sign on the sixth-floor door and onto the purpose column of a cross-border remittance; once that column opened up, it led to the filing form, and to the three accounts frozen on the night of the thirtieth. The middle lines pointed one way toward the signature block, one way toward the money trail, and one told her to read the operative part of the judgment first and leave the reasoning for later. The last line told her not to leave once the ruling came down.

"If I hadn't listened to the first one," she said, looking up, "I'd have stared at that sixth-floor sign until the end of the month and never made out a thing."

"And after that?"

"The day he said 'money doesn't know roads, it knows people,' all I had in my hands were receipt stubs, a roster, and half a sheet of paper from the bank with a seal eating into it. If he'd only pointed me at the signature block, I'd have had to request documents layer by layer and get turned back layer by layer. What he gave me was an account name—once that landed on paper, Old Cao's receipt existed, and the words 'Hongyi' existed."

"Every line he fed you was something your hands could actually set down on paper," He Xiufen said. "Not one was empty, and not one was written out for you in advance."

"Those lines, one after another, were pushing you forward." He Xiufen's chopsticks traced an arc in the air above the page. "Forward to the judgment. And there, he stops pushing."

She took two bites of noodles and set her chopsticks down. "In the second instance, if he wants the bank's third item struck, he has to stand up in court and say the approval field has no problem—that half sheet was always like that, that no fault exists."

"He can write those words, but he can't say them." He Xiufen said. "In the first instance, those three defense statements never once touched the approver's signature at the bottom. To push that into the second instance—he can't get around it."

"He never once said he'd take this case."

"What he hasn't said, don't say for him." He Xiufen carried the empty bowls to the cabinet. When she came back, she was holding the desk calendar. She opened it and pressed a fingertip onto the September twenty-fifth square. Inside the square were two characters she'd written herself: Effective.

"What's in that square, he walks himself. You can't walk it for him, and he won't let you try."

"If I ask him, he won't answer."

"Then you ask for nothing, and he blocks for nothing, and both of you file it away." He Xiufen closed the calendar. "For these fifteen days, that enforcement application of yours can only lie in the drawer—the judgment isn't effective, and the money can't move a single step."

"If he doesn't take this case, how does the firm mark him for it?"

"I'm not part of Hengzheng. I can't read their books." He Xiufen said. "I only know one thing: a firm that does work for a bank, and sets down the case that would move the bank upward—what it puts at risk is more than a piece of paper."

"I want to ask him."

"Ask what."

"Ask him why he left that square empty."

He Xiufen looked at her, then pushed the noodle bowl toward her. "If you want to ask, wait until that square lands. If you go over and ask now and he gives you half an answer—can you take it?"

"I won't touch his square these next few days." She said. "I'll file the second-instance defense, I'll keep eyes on that account, and everything else waits for the twenty-fifth."

"Now that sounds like someone who handles matters." He Xiufen pushed the calendar back to the corner. "Someone downstairs is calling me. Eat slowly."

[Thud. The lines he handed you—each one pushed you forward. On that road, the last step is where he stands, and he hasn't moved.]

At noon the downstairs was at its most crowded. Both stoves were going, the smell of scallion oil rising up the stairwell, the glass fogged over with white steam.

A man in his fifties squeezed in carrying a kraft paper bag, the top wrapped twice with a rubber band. He set the bag on the bench by the door and called out, "Director He, extra noodles." He Xiufen answered, brought the noodles over, and added half a ladle more broth.

"How many runs today?" He Xiufen asked.

"Two. The morning one, waiting on a signature, waited half the day." Old Wei lifted his noodles high to cool them. "On that document dispatch register, the handler column has to be signed in person. If I can't get the signature, I can't get my bag back."

"That register of yours—how many lines do you cross off in a day?"

"On a busy day, fifteen or so." Old Wei said. "There's one case I've logged three times this year. First time was back in summer—delivered three defense statements to the Civil Division, and he filled in that column himself. I know his handwriting. Second time was the day the complaint went in: past two, the document was in my hands, but that column was blank—I waited until almost three, and young Luo came down to fill it. Third time was yesterday. There was a name in that column, crossed out with one horizontal line, and a different name written below it."

Shen Zhixia's chopsticks stopped at the rim of her bowl.

"That line," Old Wei said, "he came down and drew it himself. On our register, crossing out a name has to be signed by the person himself."

"What did he say when he came down?"

Old Wei thought about it and shook his head. "Not a word. Took a pen off my desk, drew the line, capped it, put it back in the cup at the same angle. At the door he stopped and asked me the date." He ate two more bites, then looked up again. "Seventeen years I've delivered documents in that building. Every year there are a few names struck through on that register, but a man crossing out his own—I've never seen that."

He Xiufen moved the bag against the wall so no one carrying noodles would knock it over. "Old Wei, what you've said here ends here. Don't bring it up at any other table."

"I'm a document courier. Who would I tell?"

He finished eating and left. The rubber band sat tight around the bag's mouth, leaving two creases.

[Thud. Someone crossed out his own name. Your name is still written on the last line of the defense statement.]

She stacked the two empty bowls. He Xiufen pressed down on her hand: "Don't move yet."

"That line—he could have had someone else draw it."

"Each name crossed by its owner. That's how the register works." He Xiufen took the rag. "He didn't let anyone else."

"The bank will remember this."

"Clients remember, and the firm remembers too." He Xiufen wiped the table, and when she reached the edge of the red-gridded paper, she nudged it inward. "From now on, if Hengzheng reaches toward that bank again, the bank has this on the record—he set a case down once. You just remember it."

"Remember it for what?"

"Remember it, so that next time you run into a place where he's stepped back for your sake, you'll understand what it cost." She hung the rag back by the stove. "One more thing—he didn't tell you about this, so don't go thanking him. If you thank him, the line was drawn for nothing."

At three in the afternoon she sealed two copies of the second-instance defense statement into an envelope and mailed them to the Intermediate Court filing division. The sender read Zhengping Firm, two signature lines as always—He Xiufen first, hers below. She photographed the courier waybill and saved it to the folder. Last time she'd submitted materials, a receipt had gone missing; she remembered.

Tang Guo came downstairs to pick up noodles. She stood by the long table and glanced at the envelope. "Where's it going?"

"Intermediate Court."

"People in the group are asking whether they should come watch the second instance. Some of them have figured it out—they say the bank's just trying to stall the money."

"Stalling it may be, but the paper doesn't gain a single thing." She capped her pen. "Tell them to read what the judgment says, not to look at me."

"You want me to reply in the group?"

"You reply. Just read those four operative items. Don't add a word."

"Shi Lei's also asking whether we should send another shipment up to the sixth-floor office."

"Keep sending as usual." The words came out, and then she paused—that was He Xiufen's rule, and she'd learned it so smoothly it was already out of her mouth.

Tang Guo lifted the bowl, and at the foot of the stairs she looked back. "You've been quiet today."

"A lot to do."

After four, Zhou Yu called. He kept it short: the account hadn't moved from yesterday to today. As for Hongyi's account at another bank in Chengdong, he'd submitted the materials yesterday, going through the involved-account channel—only once verified would it freeze. He was still sticking to two things: submitting materials and asking about procedure.

Just before hanging up, he said two more things: "On the judgment side, wait for it to take effect. If you're going to say anything in the group, stick to what the judgment says."

"I understand."

"One more—the appellant has pulled the third item out front to attack it. What's buried under that item is the handwriting in that column. If the second instance really goes to hearing, the thing you most need him to turn over is still that paper—the original."

After ten, the downstairs closed up. The roll-up shutter clattered halfway down. On the desk calendar, in the corner of the September twenty-fifth square, she made a small mark with her pencil; the circle was still a circle. In the folder at the desk's corner, the enforcement application He Xiufen had filled out on the eleventh lay at the very bottom. In the deduction target column, two characters read: Hongyi. She closed the folder and slid it back into the drawer.

She lifted one corner of the glass desk pad. The five slips beneath it were still those five: next shift, the thirteenth, fifteen days, the operative part, and on top, the one she'd cut herself—notice of appeal, backside up. She looked at them for a while, then set the glass back down without adding a new slip. This one she didn't want kept where anyone could lift the glass and see.

She turned the receipt book over. Those half-lines filled the left side. On the empty right half she wrote one line, the characters a little larger than the ones she'd copied:

Why does he keep bringing up my father, and each time only ever give me half a sentence.

She stopped there. She remembered clearly what he'd said that day by the convenience store downstairs from Hengzheng—your father also once thought evidence would speak for itself. And the old newspaper, the date beside the masthead nine years ago, the words "Qingyuan Testing" circled in ink. Neither had been said in the middle of a case; both had come when she'd said she couldn't hold on much longer.

Beneath that line, she added half a line: That year—where was he.

She closed the book. This time she didn't slide it under the glass.