Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 137 : Suspended Registration

The registration slips for Nanyuan Community Health Service Center sat inside the registration window. Beneath the glass, a printed sheet of paper lay pressed flat, with two lines on it: Maternal and Child Health Clinic (II), Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Lin Qi.

January 12th, Tuesday, 8:40 a.m. Shen Zhixia stood in that short line as each person ahead of her took their slip and stepped away. When her turn came, she didn't give her own name. "Dr. Lin."

"Dr. Lin's slots aren't being released today." The person inside the window scrolled down one line on the screen. "Her Tuesday half-day has been suspended."

"When was it suspended?"

"This morning. It was shut off in the system."

She stepped back to the row of plastic chairs in the lobby. Tang Guo tucked her phone face-down into her pocket and looked up at the electronic screen on the wall—the "On Duty Today" column. The slot next to Maternal and Child Health Clinic was blank.

"She's..." Tang Guo started, then swallowed the rest of the sentence.

A woman with a baby in her arms stood at the registration window, her medical record book cover worn pale with age, two marks from a ballpoint pen across it. The person in the window told her a second time, and she still didn't believe it. "Dr. Lin told me last week to come back today for a follow-up."

The woman turned and asked Shen Zhixia, "Did Dr. Lin get transferred?"

"She didn't," Shen Zhixia said. "They're just not releasing her slots today."

The two of them stood at the end of the corridor until 11:30. The clinic door opened once—a nurse-looking girl came out, swapped a water jug, and closed it again. At 11:40, the door opened again.

Lin Qi came out without her white coat. The coat, folded twice, hung over her forearm, the collar buttoned, her hair pulled back with a black elastic band. She stopped at the doorway, reached up, and took the clinic schedule sign off the doorframe—white backing, red lettering, her name and two mornings printed on it—flipped it over, and hung it back on the same nail. The back was blank.

At the far end of the corridor, the woman with the baby came hurrying over. "Dr. Lin."

"What is it?"

"Registration said you're not seeing patients anymore."

Lin Qi glanced down at the baby, squeezed the back of its hand, then opened the medical record to the last page. "Weight hasn't dropped much. No need for more blood tests. Go downstairs and register with Dr. Wang. I've already spoken with her—she'll know what to do when she sees this page."

"When will you be seeing patients again?"

"For now, see Dr. Wang."

The woman left with her baby, glancing back after a few steps. Lin Qi switched the white coat to her other arm and went out the back door.

Behind the building, an alley ran between the outpatient wing and a residential block—one end opened onto the street, the other was piled with black trash bins. An old electric scooter sat in the alley, a cloth bag stuffed into the basket.

"Dr. Lin."

Lin Qi stopped. She didn't turn around, and she didn't look surprised.

"You came today, but I have no slot to give you," she said.

"I know. I stood in the lobby for nearly three hours."

"Then you saw."

She laid the white coat over the basket, pulled a key ring from the cloth bag, and stood there without unlocking anything.

"I suspended it myself. I shut it off in the system this morning, and the scheduler called me twice." She said, "That half-day clinic was assigned to me by the hospital, with the slots registered under Chengbei Hospital's name. Those two pages had my name on them, and they wanted me to sign below that sentence. If I went back into that clinic and put on that coat, I'd be working for that name."

"That half-day was twenty-some patients."

"Then it was." She looked down at the lock. "I suspended my slots. That doesn't count as testifying for you. It's me not wanting to work that shift for them anymore."

[Thud. She didn't sign your papers yet—but she shut down her own registration first.]

Shen Zhixia pulled two pages from her notebook and held them out. "This is an Application to Testify in Court. The first page has your name, your practice registration, and your connection to the case. The second page lists three things you'd say on the stand. Read it, then decide."

Lin Qi took the pages and read them in the dim light of the alley. She read slowly.

The three items had been written the night before: First, on the afternoon of January 4th, the Medical Affairs Office instructed three obstetrics staff to recopy the shift handover records for the 26th and 27th. Lin Qi was present and transcribed two of the pages herself. Second, the recopied version contains two additional lines compared to the originals—including one reading "family members were informed of autopsy-related matters." Third, on the Autopsy Notice held by the family, the informant's signature box is blank; the name in the box is the mother's own; the date field is handwritten as the 27th at 6:20.

At the bottom, an empty line waited for her signature.

Lin Qi aligned the two pages, folded them twice, and tucked them into the cloth bag. "I'm not signing."

"I know."

"Don't ask me why."

"I'm not asking." Shen Zhixia said. "These pages stay in my hands. They only go to the court if you say yes. If you don't, I'll tear them up. You can also take them home—taking them doesn't mean you've agreed to anything."

Lin Qi tugged the zipper of the cloth bag and pressed the two pages further inside.

Shen Zhixia flipped open her notebook and pulled out another sheet. "This is what the hospital gave me on the 6th."

Three photocopied pages. She turned them one by one and stopped at the last. Lin Qi read faster than before and halted at the third line, which read: After internal review, this was found to be the individual act of on-duty physician Lin Qi.

"The hospital only told me there were inconsistencies in the records," she said. "That sentence—it's printed on paper."

She photographed the page with her phone, her finger covering her own name. Once the photo was saved, she pushed the paper back.

"The complaint's been filed," Shen Zhixia said. "The defendant is Chengbei Hospital. Before you testify, I'll walk you through what I'll ask. What you can't answer, I'll block. You only say what you saw and what you copied. The rest is mine."

Lin Qi nodded once, then asked something else. "The 14th—is she still there?"

"She is. I go back the day after tomorrow to renew. Until the report comes back, she stays put."

The lock clicked open. Lin Qi pushed her scooter toward the mouth of the alley. At the curb she looked back at Shen Zhixia once, but didn't say anything.

* * *

5:50 p.m. Downstairs at the Old Town Noodle House, the smell of scallion oil rolled up from the stove. Upstairs, the office lights were on. He Xiufen was doing the books, reading glasses perched low on her nose.

Shen Zhixia set the receipt on the corner of the desk. "Submitted on the 6th. They said they'd respond within seven days."

"Tomorrow's the 13th—day seven." He Xiufen took her glasses off and set them on the ledger. "Tomorrow morning, you stand in front of the filing window at the Filing Hall. Don't call. Stand there in person, and they'll have to dig through your papers."

"Understood."

"She suspended her registration today," Shen Zhixia said.

He Xiufen's pen paused. "On her own?"

"This morning, she shut it off in the system herself. Twenty-some patients, all reassigned."

He Xiufen didn't respond at once. The pen tip hovered over the ledger before she spoke. "Suspending is one thing. Testifying is another. Don't fold them into each other. Suspending her slots is her keeping a breath for herself. Going on the stand—that's putting words on paper."

"I didn't take it as a yes."

"You gave her those two pages."

"I did. She took them. Didn't sign."

"Took them." He Xiufen weighed the word. "Fine."

"The hospital hasn't been in touch with her yet."

"They will be, in the next couple of days." He Xiufen said. "Keep your phone on."

Then she added, "And the 14th. The freezer fee runs through the 14th. When it's up, the family needs to file a written application to renew. I've filled out the form. Tomorrow, have Peng Weidong come put his thumbprint on it. The morning of the 14th, you take it over. He's on rotating shifts—he can spare an hour during the day."

She took a kraft envelope from the drawer, counted out the cash once—1,800 yuan.

"I have 800 here," Shen Zhixia said. "Leftover intern subsidy from last month plus the travel allowance from the first case. I've done the math."

"What about your brother's tuition next semester?"

"That math's done too."

He Xiufen slapped the stack of bills down in the center of the desk and pushed Shen Zhixia's 800 back. "Keep yours. This 1,800 goes on the case record, not on you."

Shen Zhixia pulled a pre-written page from her notebook—a reply letter to Hengzheng, three paragraphs. He Xiufen read it through from start to finish.

First paragraph: On the afternoon of January 4th, Chengbei Hospital's Medical Affairs Office organized three obstetrics staff to recopy the shift handover records. Our side has obtained photocopies of the transcribed versions of the 26th and 27th shifts. Second paragraph: According to the legal opinion your firm issued to Chengbei Hospital, no department or personnel may reorganize or replace pages of records that have already been sealed and copied before the dispute is resolved. Please notify the hospital to stop immediately and preserve both the recopied and original records together. Third paragraph, one sentence: This letter constitutes our written response within the three-day period.

"He takes his route; you take yours." He Xiufen said. "That page borrows the words he wrote to the hospital. Shown to him, and shown to anyone who flips through the file later."

Shen Zhixia took an envelope and began writing the address. On the recipient line, she wrote "Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm," her pen drifting down, then stopped.

He Xiufen glanced over, said nothing, slipped her glasses back on, and returned to her books.

She pulled the half-finished line back and signed only the firm's name at the closing. The envelope went under the corner of the desk. Tomorrow morning, she'd mail it registered at the post office and keep the receipt.

Tang Guo came upstairs with a bowl of noodles and said there were two private messages in the backend asking about the Chengbei Hospital matter—could she say something?

"What did you write back?" He Xiufen asked.

"I said the case is in process and not to guess for me."

"That one's fine to send."

* * *

8:50 p.m. The phone rang. The unsaved number.

"Lawyer Shen. It's me."

"You're home."

"Medical Affairs just called my phone." Lin Qi said. "The voice on the other end—different from before."

"Tell me word by word."

"He asked if I suspended my registration this morning."

"What did you say?"

"I said I wasn't feeling well."

She paused on the other end, then carried the sentence over. "He said about that matter, the hospital wants to handle it internally. Come by tomorrow morning, sign that sentence, and we'll keep it in-house. Your job is safe."

[Thud. A different voice. Same hand.]

Shen Zhixia waited until she finished. "Who called?"

"I asked. He said he was from Medical Affairs."

"Did you get the number?"

"I didn't have time."

"Next time he calls, put him on speaker and record a clip with another phone." She said. "If you can't record, write down his exact words line by line, with the date and time. Don't write down a single word of your own thoughts."

A sound of acknowledgment from the other end. After a moment, Lin Qi said, "They've never spoken to me in that tone."

"The hard paper—you couldn't bring yourself to sign it." Shen Zhixia said. "So they switched the messenger."

"Should I go tomorrow?"

"Call me before you go in. Go up the stairs—I won't hang up. When you come out, repeat everything he said."

"All right."

Before hanging up, Lin Qi added, "Those two pages—I put them in my drawer."

Shen Zhixia added a line in her little notebook: January 12th, Lin Qi suspended her registration. Below it, another line, writing the caller's words verbatim—if you sign, we'll handle it internally, your job is safe.

When she finished, she clicked the pen cap back on. Downstairs, the sound of the noodle shop scrubbing pots had stopped.