Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 122 : Three Fingerprints

The hallway outside Room 502, Building 3 of the Family Compound had a sound-activated light that cut off the moment your footsteps slowed. Shen Zhixia reached the door while it was still on and knocked three times.

The door opened halfway. Auntie Wang braced one hand on the doorframe, the other pressed to her chest.

"You're here."

"Brought someone with me." Shen Zhixia turned sideways. "Director He from our firm."

Auntie Wang looked He Xiufen over, then stepped aside. An aluminum kettle sat on the stove, white steam curling from the spout. On the table, a flattened medicine box had two blister packs resting on it. Cen Hong came out from the back room, still in her blue cloth apron, a barcode scanner tucked in the pocket. The phone in her hand flickered on and off with pickup codes from the courier hub.

"Mom, close the window." She pushed it shut herself, then turned. "You brought everything?"

Shen Zhixia set her canvas bag on the table and took things out one by one: two Powers of Attorney, one Explanatory Statement, a box of ink paste, and finally a voice recorder.

Auntie Wang stared at the recorder. Shen Zhixia stood it upright, pressed the switch, and a red light came on.

"What's that thing?"

"For recording words. Every sentence you say, I'll write down word for word when I get back. If anyone asks again, I won't be relying on memory."

"Then start." Auntie Wang wiped both hands on her apron.

Shen Zhixia spoke into the recorder: "November 28th, Saturday, 10:20 a.m. Speaking: Shen Zhixia, Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. Present: He Xiufen; Cen Shouye's wife, Auntie Wang; daughter Cen Hong."

"And my brother," Cen Hong said. "He's in Shenzhen, can't make it back." From under the stack of courier waybills on the table she pulled out an envelope. The sender field on the waybill was in her own handwriting; the recipient field held three characters. Inside was a signed and fingerprinted Power of Attorney, and beneath it a photocopy of an ID card, folded twice.

He Xiufen picked it up, held it to the light to examine the signature and fingerprint, checked the ID number, set it down, and tapped twice on the corner of the paper with her finger.

"Read it."

Shen Zhixia spread the two Powers of Attorney flat and read them line by line. When she reached the purpose field, she was about to keep going—"The purpose is to examine—"

Someone kicked her under the table.

She stopped and turned the recorder slightly. "The purpose field is blank. That part has to come from you. I'll write down whatever you say."

"Write what?" Cen Hong asked.

"Write what this trip is for."

Auntie Wang pulled her hands into her sleeves and watched the red light for a while.

"He left one sentence." She said.

"Which one?"

"He said, if anyone ever comes asking about Baixi Village, take out what's under the cabinet." She paused. "He said it to our daughter. She came home and repeated it to me. I've remembered it to this day."

Cen Hong added from the side: "My dad was a man of few words his whole life. That day on the balcony, that was the only serious thing he said."

He Xiufen pushed the pen toward Cen Hong. "You write it. What your mother said—you write it."

Cen Hong turned her phone face-down on the table, wrote, then read it back from the paper:

"I agree to the inventory, appraisal, and custody of the hard drive and archival materials left by my father Cen Shouye, for the purpose of investigating the Baixi Village matter."

He Xiufen listened, then asked her: "Is this sentence yours?"

"I wrote it."

"Did your mother say it?"

"My mother said it. I wrote down her words."

"Good." He Xiufen nodded. "That field's value is right there."

[Thud. The purpose came from them. The words were written by them too.]

The lid of the ink paste box spun half a turn on the table. He Xiufen spread the three sheets out in a row and pressed the corners down with her fingers.

"I'll read a phrase. You press for each one."

Shen Zhixia read sentence by sentence. After each passage, Auntie Wang pressed her finger into the ink paste, then onto the paper. Three pages, three fingerprints. The first was too faint. He Xiufen picked it up and examined it twice, then had her redo it. When they were done, Auntie Wang pulled out a tissue to wipe her finger. The red wouldn't come off, so she rubbed it against her palm.

"Every fingerprint I've pressed in my life has been on prescription forms," she said.

Cen Hong signed her own name, pressed her fingerprint, arranged the three pages in order, then picked up her phone and photographed them one by one.

"I'm keeping a record," she said. "Not that I don't trust you."

"You should," He Xiufen said. "The copy in your hands is stronger than mine."

Shen Zhixia put the papers into a file envelope. Cen Hong tucked her phone back into her apron pocket and suddenly asked:

"I want to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"This matter has something to do with you. Doesn't it."

Shen Zhixia folded the envelope's flap once, then again, before looking up.

"Yes," she said. "Nine years ago, that batch of samples—my father brought them in for testing. My father's name was Shen Qian."

The only sound in the room was the aluminum kettle. Cen Hong didn't ask anything more. Auntie Wang's hands shifted inside her sleeves.

"Where's your father now."

"He's gone."

Cen Hong looked at her for a moment, then picked the file envelope up from the table and placed it in front of her.

"What if we open it and it's empty?"

"Empty, I'll bring it back just as it is. Whatever's written on the appraisal report, I'll read it to you. Not one word changed."

"I taught her that," He Xiufen said from the side. "Just remember it."

Auntie Wang saw them to the door. The sound-activated light had gone out. She stamped her foot and it came back on.

"Old Cen waited nine years for this. Never got to see it." She said. "He said of that batch of samples—not a single one should have been lost."

"I won't forget."

Downstairs, He Xiufen glanced up at the building. A corner of old newspaper was taped over the window on the third floor.

"Master Cui's blue-covered logbook doesn't leave the compound. The notary comes Tuesday afternoon to verify it on-site," she said. "Today we deal with the drive first."

"Okay."

"Hold onto your copy."

Monday morning, Shen Zhixia merged the Qingyuan Testing portion onto the same sheet and submitted it at the court window. The receipt bore the same four characters: Received, on file. That afternoon she accompanied Tang Guo on a trip to Chengbei Hospital. The household at Room 502, Building 3, Minsheng Road was still there, under a different number now. The upper-right cell of the Schedule remained blank. Tuesday morning the Bar Association called: Chairman Han was at a provincial meeting for the next few days, the donation matter was postponed, and they'd be notified once a date was set. He Xiufen hung up and scratched a line across Tuesday's box on her desk calendar with her fingernail.

"Dates held in other people's hands are the hardest to schedule," she said.

That afternoon, the notary went with Shen Zhixia to the old Qingyuan Testing building. Master Cui flipped the blue-covered logbook to that page in the gatehouse. Xiao Tan spread the register open on the third floor. The notary cross-checked both places page by page, then wrote verification notes beside the three cells on the inventory list and signed her own name. Of the three cells, Xiao Tan signed one, Master Cui signed one, and only the last belonged to her.

Wednesday morning, nine o'clock. The storage room on the fourth floor of the Chengnan Notary Office. A steel cabinet with six compartments; the key ring hung from the notary's waist. She opened the second compartment from the left and took out a kraft paper envelope. The flap bore three signatures across the perforation seal, dated August 24th. Shen Zhixia still remembered the last four digits of the number.

"The seal strip is unbroken." The notary put on white cotton gloves and turned the envelope under the lamp to show her. "I'm not opening it. Today we verify the seal, not what's inside."

Three items on the table: the envelope sealed in August; Envelope No. 1 sealed by Xiao Tan on the third floor, his name pressed over a line of dates on the seal; and the file envelope Shen Zhixia had brought. The notary read each one—number, date, the names on the seals—then wrote in the record: Seal strips intact, perforation seals unbroken, handwriting consistent with the August Evidence Preservation Record.

Then she placed the Power of Attorney, the inventory list, and Envelope No. 1 into a new envelope. Two signatures across the perforation seal—one hers, and one she pointed Shen Zhixia to.

"Sign here," she said. "From today until the day it's opened, anyone who touches this envelope will have explaining to do."

Shen Zhixia signed. She knew her signature was only as handler—the name on that perforation seal wasn't hers.

[Thud. Seals aren't for honest people.]

The August envelope got its own new cover, with two additional signatures across the perforation. The notary placed it in her hands. On the handover slip in the file envelope, Shen Zhixia signed; duplicate copies.

He Xiufen was waiting downstairs. She took a call from the firm—someone had come asking about the Schedule from the Housing Case. She handed the folder over, then felt inside her jacket's inner pocket and produced a card.

"I'm heading back. You finish this and come back too."

"Okay."

"Once you're there, keep your hands in your pockets," He Xiufen said. "The one who cuts the seal, the first one who handles the drive—neither of those is you."

"I know."

"Cen Hong wanted to come. The courier hub's short-staffed these two days, and she said she wouldn't recognize the drive anyway. The Power of Attorney has this line: your presence counts as hers." He Xiufen pressed the card into her palm. "Take this. Invoice goes under the family member's name."

The list of appraisal institutions had come from the Municipal Justice Bureau—she'd asked for the list, no names. The Jiangzhou Electronic Data Forensic Appraisal Institute occupied the sixth floor of an old office building in Chengnan. Two gutted computer cases sat in the hallway; a circle of unscrewed bolts lay on the floor. Behind the reception desk sat a girl in her early twenties, who first spread the materials out one by one: preservation certificate, two Powers of Attorney, inventory list, ID photocopy.

"The principal is a family member, right?"

"Correct."

"This is priced per drive. Three thousand six hundred upfront, adjusted at the end." She slid the form over. "Who should the invoice be made out to?"

"The principal's name."

"So, Cen Shouye's family." The girl wrote with her head down, then looked up. "Acceptance notice this afternoon."

Shen Zhixia handed over the card He Xiufen had given her.

Someone emerged from the inner room. The girl at the front desk called him Master Qiu. Around fifty, sleeves rolled to his elbows, an old burn scar across the back of his hand. He picked up the materials and paged through them twice. At the purpose field, he stopped and stared for a while.

"Can you do it?" she asked.

"We can."

"How long?"

"That I can't guarantee."

He closed the folder and laid it flat in the center of the counter, then reached out to the girl: "Gloves. Scissors. Is the notary present?"

"Yes."

The scissors were small, thin blades. The notary pulled on gloves, set the envelope on a tray, photographed it first, then cut the perforation seal in front of the three of them and opened the flap wide. Master Qiu reached inside and was the first to take out the hard drive. He held it under the light and turned it half a turn—the scraped-off patch on the label showed pale under the lamp—then turned it back and set it on the tray.

"Three shots," he said. "Front. Label. Lower-right corner."

The girl raised the camera and photographed. Shen Zhixia stood three paces back, both hands in her pockets.

The unsealing record came in duplicate: time, place, persons present, condition of the seal before and after cutting. The notary signed, Master Qiu signed, and the last line was left for those present. She wrote her name down. It took two tries to get the pen cap back on.

[Thud. From today, anyone who touches this drive signs for it.]

Procedures done at 10:30. The drive stayed in the inner room—sealed in an antistatic bag, locked into the lower compartment of the steel cabinet. She walked to the end of the hallway to wait for the elevator. Master Qiu followed her out.

He dug his phone from his pocket, swiped a few times to the photo of the drive, pinched the screen to zoom in on the lower-right corner, and handed the phone over.

There was a scratch on the side of the drive—diagonal, not long. The exposed edges were darker than the casing.

"You see it?"

"I see it."

"Someone's been at this drive before." He took the phone back. "That scratch on the casing predates the day it was unsealed."

She didn't ask who'd made it. The elevator arrived, the doors opened, stayed open two seconds, closed again. She was still standing in the hallway.