Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 129 : The Signature After Death

Peng Weidong arrived twenty minutes early.

The noodle shop had just fired up its stove, and the long table still carried the previous night's smell of scallion oil. He Xiufen wiped it down with a rag, back and forth, and on the third pass she looked up at the man in the stairwell. "There's no nail in that stool."

"Standing's fine." He clutched a blue cloth bundle to his chest, a corner of paper poking out of the opening.

By the time Shen Zhixia came downstairs, the wall clock read seven forty-nine. She'd printed the two documents the night before—an agency contract and a power of attorney—and she'd brought a pen and a red ink pad along with them.

"Sit." She placed the papers on the oilcloth. "Even if you don't sit, we're still going to talk this through word by word."

Only then did he set the bundle on the stool and perch on the edge of the seat.

The client line on the contract bore his name; the firm listed was Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. Shen Zhixia slid the pen toward him and pointed at the handling line. "Director He is lead counsel. I'm the one doing the legwork."

Peng Weidong gripped the pen the way he'd grip a pair of pliers. Peng, Wei, Dong—each character written separately, one at a time. When he finished, he pressed his thumb to the page, but not before wiping it twice on his pant leg.

Then he fished a small roll bound with a rubber band out of the blue cloth bundle and pushed it across the table. "Legal fees. Half up front."

He Xiufen didn't take it. She set a fresh bowl of noodles in front of him instead. "Put that away. Fees have rules, and that's not your worry right now. First, lay out what you've brought."

He didn't take the money back. He just set the little roll beside the bowl and kept his forearm pressed over it.

Three items went down on the oilcloth.

A stack of hospital paperwork: admission at 9:10 p.m. on the 26th, diagnosis line reading thirty-seven weeks plus five days pregnant, pregnancy-induced hypertension. A six-thousand-yuan deposit, the itemized bill still held up at the nurses' station, unsettled.

"On the night of the 26th, what time did you get there?"

"She went first." Peng Weidong wiped his hand on his pants. "I got off work late that day. Didn't make it to the hospital until almost ten."

"When did her blood pressure spike?"

"First day in, the reading was already high. The nurse said they'd keep an eye on it, said the department head would come by Monday."

"How many days did the factory approve?"

"Three. The 31st through the 2nd. I'm back on shift at eight on the morning of the 3rd."

"If the leave isn't enough, we'll have the firm write a letter to back you up." He Xiufen said. "These next two days, use them fully."

A birth certificate: the mother's line read Chen Xiaoman; the child's line bore three characters—Peng Nianman. He said his wife had typed the name into her phone's memo before she died, and he'd copied it from there.

"How much is the baby's incubator costing per day?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"The nurses' station said it's being tallied, to be settled when he comes out."

The third item was that piece of paper. The same one from yesterday—the second copy the hospital had torn off for him, folded crosswise three times, the creases worn soft from handling, two corners still lifting.

In the box beside "Voluntary Waiver of Autopsy," there was a check mark.

Shen Zhixia flattened the paper, weighed down its four corners with two bowls, and went over it line by line.

The pen used for the check mark leaned blue-black, the mark itself drawn lightly—yet the pressure on paper was heavier than that of the three characters in the box. She noted that too, then stopped at the name "Chen Xiaoman." Who was supposed to sign this line was nowhere specified on the form, but everyone knew—it was for a family member. What sat in the box was the signature of the person who had died. She didn't press her finger to it; she only studied the final strokes of those three characters: horizontal strokes level, vertical strokes straight, endings neat.

Below that, the "Informant's Signature" line. Blank. Whoever had shown her this paper, whoever had read the words aloud, whoever had stood at the bedside—this sheet held no trace of any of it.

The date field in the top right corner: handwritten "27th, 6:20." Yesterday she'd only asked about two times, and she remembered the earlier one clearly.

3:40. A gap of two hours and forty minutes in between.

She turned the paper over, held it to the window to check the back. It was clean too—no indentations pressed through. In the bottom right corner was a line of fine print: This form is issued in duplicate; beneath it, the tear on the second copy was ragged, as if yanked by hand. She recorded all three details in her notebook, writing down only what she could see, adding not one word of her own.

"First, the origins of this paper." She closed the notebook. "On the afternoon of the 27th when you received it—what time, who handed it to you, who else was in the room."

"Around two." Peng Weidong braced both hands on the table's edge. "A woman at the obstetrics nurses' station, she had it clipped in a stack of forms. Said a family member needed to sign. I looked at it—my wife's name was right there on top—so I asked her, isn't that her own handwriting? She said just confirm it and you're done. I didn't sign. She took the stack back. Then in the evening she came out again with this one and said, 'You keep this.'"

"Write it down yourself." Shen Zhixia flipped her notebook to a blank page and pushed it to him. "Time, place, who gave it to you, what exactly she said. In your own words."

He wrote slowly and pressed a fingerprint when he was done. Shen Zhixia took a photo of the page, sealed the original in an evidence envelope, and wrote on the flap: Received December 31, one page, three creases. On either side of the seal line, he and she each signed once. She made him a copy of the inventory list.

He Xiufen pulled a fresh kraft notebook from the drawer and wrote a single character on the spine in pencil—Peng—then pushed it to Shen Zhixia. "The housing case gets one volume. This one starts a new volume. Two cases, two ledgers. Don't mix them." She snapped the lid onto the red ink pad, her voice low: "Those three details on that paper—keep them in your gut for now. Write down what you can see. Leave the guessing for someone else to ask about."

"Right now you've got two hours." She tossed the rag over her shoulder. "One is 3:40. The other is 6:20. Every other date—set it aside."

[Thud. Retainer established. In that signature box, first ask whether she could even have written those three characters while she was alive.]

"Two steps." He Xiufen held up two fingers. "First lock down the paper. Then we talk about the people."

She dropped noodles into boiling water as she talked. Step one: go to Chengbei Hospital this morning and get the medical records sealed. Everyone present. Count the pages face to face, seal them face to face, affix the seal strips, both sides sign, photograph everything. Keep one copy of the sealing inventory for yourself. Labor progress records, pre-labor records, nursing records, rescue records, medication order sheets, fetal heart monitoring charts, informed consent forms—not a single item left out. If they try to hand over electronic medical records, make the hospital print the day's entries and seal those in too, with page counts and document counts and their point of origin clearly recorded. "A seal strip with no signatures—nobody later on is going to touch it. Records the hospital has already unsealed themselves would be worthless even if written out."

[Thud. If the records are to be sealed, seal them while both sides are watching. Whoever reaches in first—that page is on them.]

Step two: the autopsy. Her voice stayed flat even as she lifted noodles from the pot. "She's gone. Within forty-eight hours is cleanest; with proper cold storage, seven days at the outside. The 27th to the 31st—the first three days are already gone. This step needs the family's explicit consent, and if it's signed, it's your name that goes on it. You let her leave with her body whole. Now someone will be taking a knife to her—those words have to come out of your mouth. Think it over. We'll wait."

Peng Weidong's hand pressed against the table's edge. He didn't answer.

"One more thing." He Xiufen turned the flame down. "Whatever paperwork they push you to handle today, it's most likely settling the bill and collecting the body. Once she goes into the furnace, every door slams shut."

"And another." She pushed the bowl toward him. "There are people standing behind this hospital. The Medical Affairs Office has legal counsel—some of them come out of big firms and draft papers far prettier than ours. From today on: when the hospital hands you a document, you say no. When someone tells you to nod, you don't nod. When calls come in, log the time, log the extension, log which department they claim to be from."

He Xiufen collected the empty bowl. "If they say she signed it herself, they have to produce a witness—who saw her sign it, when she signed it, on which paper. If they say a family member signed, the signature in that box isn't the Peng family's handwriting. Both ends are blocked. They'll have to start walking it back on their own."

Footsteps on the stairs. Tang Guo came up holding a bowl, phone wedged under her armpit, screen still lit.

"Kill the lights," He Xiufen said. "Don't photograph the name, and don't get Master Peng's face either. You brought him in. You see this through."

"I will." Tang Guo stuffed the phone into her pocket.

"Marriage certificate, ID card, deposit receipt—don't miss a single one." Shen Zhixia pushed the checklist to Peng Weidong.

It was past ten when Peng Weidong's candy-bar phone went off, the ringtone loud enough to shake the room. He answered, listened for a beat, then handed the phone to Shen Zhixia. "They're asking for the family. Says to come handle the paperwork."

A woman on the other end, voice low: "Is this the Peng household? Come by at two this afternoon. We'll handle the baby's paperwork and your wife's together."

Shen Zhixia pressed the phone to her ear. "Hello, may I ask your name and which department you're with? What exactly is being processed at two o'clock, and what's written on the form that needs signing?"

There was a pause on the other end. "You'll know when you get here."

"This is Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. We've already been retained in this matter." She recited the firm's phone number twice, then continued. "On the 27th, who was it that personally delivered the Autopsy Notice to the family? And who currently has custody of the medical records?"

The voice first said, "We're the obstetrics nurses' station," then halfway through the sentence it became "our Medical Affairs Office here," and finally it just said, "I'll explain all of it when you arrive," and hung up.

He Xiufen turned off the stove and tossed the rag over her shoulder. "Go. The records get sealed first. And that two o'clock signature—not a single one gets signed."

Chengbei Hospital, Administration Building, first floor, east end. Three characters on the door plate: Medical Records Room. Behind the window sat a woman in her early forties, her badge reading Qi Xiuyun, a blue-covered register at her elbow with a curled corner.

They went up to the third floor first. The newborn room was at the end of the hall. The baby in the incubator was tiny, a tube in its arm. Peng Weidong stood behind the glass for a while, one hand pressed flat against it, his knuckles gone white.

A young nurse at the station recognized him from outside the door and pulled a form from under the counter. "Master Peng, please sign this billing statement first. We can't close out the account without it."

Shen Zhixia reached out and pressed the form back down onto the counter. "This one doesn't get signed today."

The nurse blinked. "Then at two o'clock…"

"At two o'clock we'll be at the Medical Affairs Office." She slid the form back across the countertop. "Leave it here. Don't put it away."

The nurse pointed them onward: all other procedures, first floor.

They went back down to the Medical Records Room. Shen Zhixia passed the retainer paperwork and Peng Weidong's ID through the window. "Chengbei Hospital, Obstetrics. Chen Xiaoman, admitted 9:10 p.m. on December 26th, passed at 3:40 a.m. on the 27th. We're here on the family's behalf to apply for sealing of all original medical records. First, please confirm whether the records are here, and how many pages in total."

Qi Xiuyun spread the two documents out on the counter, examined them one by one, then typed something on her keyboard. A line of text appeared on the screen. She stared at it for a moment, then reached for the blue-covered register beside her.

Her finger traced down the rows and stopped at one line. She pulled the register back half an inch and raised her eyes.

"The medical records?" she said. "Last night, someone already came to pull them."

Shen Zhixia's hand was still resting on the windowsill. She didn't pull it back.