Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 118 : Off the List

Old Wei carried the bowl over to the table by the window and, before sitting, scraped the bottom against the tabletop twice, wiping away a ring of water.

Monday noon. Three of the four downstairs tables were taken, and steam from the stove drifted up the stairwell. He Xiufen called out from behind the range, "Help yourself to the pickled vegetables," then bent back over the pot of noodles.

Shen Zhixia sat at the innermost table, a stack of papers spread to the corner. She was reworking the bank column: the court wanted the batch of loans Yin Jianping had handled. The bank's self-inspection had flagged 128 transactions, but only 23 had been submitted, every purpose-verification date stamped June 16, the reviewer column blank. She had copied the 23 rows into three columns—account name, number of transactions, amount. At row twelve she stopped; the remaining entries had only last digits, no account names.

The desk calendar sat at the edge of the paper pile. Friday's square had Yuan Guiying's name, followed by a question mark.

Old Wei pulled chopsticks, rejecting the first two before settling on a third. "Your handwriting's tight."

"Rushed it."

"Tight writing, rushed person." He lifted a mouthful of noodles and blew on it. "Two more last week. Two weeks, four times."

She set down her pen. He meant the handler column in the document dispatch register. Back in mid-September he'd explained it to her once: fill in your own name, then draw a horizontal line through it, then sign beside it.

"Whose name, struck through by himself?"

"Himself." Old Wei said. "That column—nobody else can strike through it."

He swallowed his noodles and went on. "Monday's response materials, the handler column was blank. Blank until Wednesday. Thursday afternoon at three it had to leave the building, so Wednesday afternoon he came down and filled it in himself. After writing, he didn't leave—stood by the window. It was open, the wind rattling the sheet."

"Which case?"

"The register only records what the firm receives." He didn't elaborate.

"What about those advisory clients in Chengdong?"

Old Wei glanced up at her. "So you've gotten that far." He nudged his bowl aside half an inch. "The slip's been swapped. The name at the top of that column used to be his. Last Friday I delivered a consulting letter, and the recipient line had a new name, stamped with Department Two's seal."

"Which firms?"

"Three. All three delivered by me."

"The grid sheet on my cabinet door's been changed too." He added, "The past two years, one swap per quarter. This time it came early. The old sheet didn't rip clean—there's still half a surname stuck to the glue on the 17th-floor visitor log. It won't come off."

"Has anyone given instructions?"

"A young guy from Department Two came down once." Old Wei said. "Said from now on, anything under his name goes straight to Department Two, no need to pass through him first. I did as told. I deliver however the higher-ups tell me to deliver."

"Does he know?"

"The strike-through on the name—that was his own doing." Old Wei said.

She said nothing. Old Wei looked at her, then lowered his head to eat. After a couple of bites, he said, "Documents for that Chengdong area—forty-seven letters went out through his hands this year. After October, not one."

"You've been counting."

"I keep marks." He said. "Year after year I add to them. What's already marked I don't manage. I only keep adding."

He added, "By the break room, someone said something. I didn't bother remembering it. Just one line—since there's less work on his plate, might as well rest."

"Who said it?"

"I didn't note it."

He drained the last of the soup and wiped his mouth. "These days he doesn't spend much time upstairs at night. Reads files in my room. I leave the light on for him."

"Why your room?"

"He says it's quiet."

He Xiufen came out from behind the range and set a small dish of pickles beside Old Wei's bowl, her eyes on Shen Zhixia. "How many rows on the table so far?"

"Breaks off at twelve." She said. "The ones after that have only last digits, no account names."

"Leave the nameless ones blank." He Xiufen said. "A blank is still a number. Don't fill it in yourself."

She turned to head upstairs, then looked back to add, "When you go to that Hengzheng building—don't go upstairs."

"I won't go upstairs."

"Don't stand in the lobby either." He Xiufen said. "Standing at the base of the building, you see more clearly than from upstairs."

Old Wei laughed twice, soundlessly. "That reply letter from Hengzheng—I picked it up this afternoon on my way, put it in my room. Come at eight to get it. You'll have to sign the slip."

Upstairs, she first pressed the three-column sheet back into the folder and added a small note at the footer: Row twelve and below, no account names, pending supplement.

[Thud. Swap a name on the list—no need to notify the man himself.]

Five minutes to eight. Three parking spots sat empty in front of the Hengzheng building, only the gatehouse showing a small light. She looked up at the 17th floor: a whole row of windows dark.

A duty roster was taped to the glass door, names in neat squares. One square was covered by a small piece of white paper, blank on its face. She looked at it for two seconds, then moved on.

Inside the entrance corridor, only one ceiling light was on. The mailroom was around the corner, second door on the left.

The glass door was filmed with dust, worn into an arc near the bottom by people brushing past. She shifted sideways, letting the pharmacy sign across the street angle its reflection off the glass so she could see through.

A long table. On it a stack of files, blue cloth covers bound with cotton cord. Two had been untied, their yellowed page edges curling upward. The label paper on the spines was old, marked with a year, the writing faded to light brown. Through the glass and glare she could only make out the first character, which looked like "two."

He sat at the far end of the table, left hand pinning down the open volume, right hand holding a pencil, the tip moving down the page square by square. Beside him an open ruled notebook, already half filled. Wherever he'd written up to, his little finger held his place.

Every time he turned a page, he smoothed the curled edge flat with the back of the pencil.

From start to finish, that pencil never once touched the file.

She watched for a while before she understood his rule: the pencil point hovered over a line in the file; he read it, wrote a line in the notebook, then lifted his eyes back for a check, and moved the point down one square. Once he checked a spot twice, erased what he'd written and rewrote it, then checked again. The eraser crumbs he gathered into his palm—not a single fleck landed on the file.

On the table corner, a glass, tea down to a single finger's width at the bottom, the color dark as black.

Old Wei sat on a square stool by the door, newspaper spread over his knees, peeling an orange in his hands. The peel spiraled into his palm in one long strip, and he didn't toss it. Inside and out, not a sound.

[Thud. The pencil is his own. The letter is the firm's.]

[Thud. He can finish copying this volume. He cannot finish copying the next.]

Last week, in the file-reading room at the Chengnan District Court, Fang Yaqin had said it once: a lawyer comes with the firm's letter, and this office lets you read but not copy; what goes into your head doesn't count once you walk out the door. He couldn't take away a single sheet, so here he sat, copying page by page into a notebook, then carrying it home to memorize. He didn't even dare leave one pencil mark on the original file.

But the letter granting access to the file had to bear the firm's seal. A man no longer on the list—whether he could still get that letter tomorrow, she didn't know, and she suspected he didn't either. How many hours ago the tea in that glass had been poured, she couldn't tell. What she could tell was that he hadn't drunk it.

And there was another layer she now understood: the light in that 17th-floor room had been switched off. He came downstairs himself, sat at this long table, turned the pages one by one. The line struck through his own name—he'd drawn it himself. Each stroke put him one step farther from that building.

The gatehouse old man came out the side door in a padded coat to dump water. Seeing her, he set the basin on the step. "Looking for someone?"

"Not looking for anyone." She said. "Waiting."

"Nobody's working at this hour." The old man said. "Only Lawyer Lu's still inside. Leaves latest every day. I've got to go up and call him before I can lock the door."

She made a small sound of acknowledgment. The old man picked up his basin and went back inside. The door closed behind him, and the light from the corridor ceiling got sliced into a thin line by the seam.

Her hand rose to the glass door, her fingertip half an inch from the handle.

Old Wei looked up. Through the glass, he saw her.

She shook her head once.

Old Wei nodded once, then lowered his gaze back to his orange, not rising. Inside, the man never looked up, the pencil point moving steadily across the page, line after line.

She drew back her hand. She didn't knock.

Walking back to the street, she passed the duty roster again. The white paper over the name had been lifted at one corner by the wind, revealing half a character underneath. She didn't reach out.

Around nine the next morning, Old Wei came upstairs. A kraft paper bag, secured with a rubber band wrapped twice. He set it on the long table and fished a document dispatch slip from his coat pocket, pulling off the pen cap.

"Sign here."

There was already a signature on the line above hers—bigger than her writing, every stroke running out of its box. She signed and handed the pen back.

Old Wei clicked the cap on. "Last night you didn't come in."

"I got there at eight."

"I know." He pushed the bag toward her. "He copied until nine last night. I went up to call him so I could lock up. He said one more page."

She still held the rubber band in her hand.

"This morning at 6:40, as he was leaving, he said something."

"What did he say."

"He said, the thing he owes, he'll come back to settle it himself sooner or later. Told you—don't wait."

"Owe what."

Old Wei shook his head. "I only keep marks. I don't keep matters."

"Did he say anything else?"

"He said it's cold out." Old Wei said. "Then left through the side door."

He went downstairs to eat noodles. She opened the paper bag: one reply letter, the signature line below blank. She filled in her name, checked the page count against the attachment list, then filed it into the Housing Case volume.

He Xiufen leaned in from the doorway. "The reply letter came."

"Got it. Signature line's in my name."

"That line he said." He Xiufen pushed the desk calendar up one day. "Don't put it in the file. The file only records what can be verified. The bank numbers—get those to me before Thursday."

She sat at her desk. Under the glass pad lay two paper strips, Tang Guo's grid chart, and a route map drawn over four or five times. She pulled a notebook from the drawer and flipped to that page: "Why does he keep bringing up my father." "Where was he that year."

Below it, she added one line:

"November 23, 8 p.m. He was copying files in the first-floor mailroom."

Another line:

"His name is no longer on the list."

The pen point hesitated, then dropped to a third line:

"He said, the debt is his to repay, and told me not to wait."

She wrote slowly, stroke by stroke, like the man at the long table last night.