Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 147 : Two Names

He Xiufen spread the Powers of Attorney across the table, one overlapping the next, with a thick pen and a small tin of red ink paste beside them. She unscrewed the ink paste lid, looked at it, and screwed it back on.

"Look first. Sign later," she said. "Today we only sign this one thing."

The scrap collector's loudspeaker passed by downstairs, its voice dragging long. Two steamers sat airing by the noodle shop door, white vapor pushing upward in bursts; the repair stall next door ran its air pump in stops and starts. Shen Zhixia stood below the steps, a bus schedule stub in her hand that she'd already read three times. She hadn't gone to the station. Lin Qi had told her not to send anyone.

At eleven-thirty, a short-haul bus stopped at the mouth of the alley. Lin Qi steadied herself on the door as she got off, the collar of her gray down jacket turned up, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. In her other hand she carried a plastic bag tied twice with twine, half a bundle of sun-dried bamboo shoots poking out. She'd lost weight; her cheekbones were sharper than last month. She pulled her mask down, and the tip of her nose was red from the cold.

"Which one did you draw?" That was the first thing she asked.

"One outside the city. Not in Jiangzhou." Shen Zhixia took the bag from her. "Morning of the thirtieth. I texted you Saturday."

"My phone died on the bus."

"Why outside the city?"

"I submitted a written request for the court to expand the draw pool beyond Jiangzhou," Shen Zhixia said. "The institutions here all have some connection or other with Chengbei Hospital."

Lin Qi gave a soft "mm" and didn't ask more. She climbed the stairs slowly, one step at a time. Upstairs, He Xiufen said nothing, only poured a cup of hot water and pushed it toward her.

"Drink first. Your hands are frozen. No signing anything like that."

Lin Qi wrapped both hands around the cup. There was a patch of chilblain on one knuckle. She stared at the two sheets on the table for a long time without reaching for them. Shen Zhixia sat to one side, not pushing.

"My mom asked me why I had time to come home right now," Lin Qi said. "I told her the hospital adjusted my leave. She wants me to bring my practice certificate back so she can see it."

"Did you bring it?" He Xiufen asked.

"No. I said it's locked at my workplace."

He Xiufen wiped the flour from her hands and sat down. "And if they actually revoke the certificate?"

"I'll take the exam again. Or quit." Lin Qi's voice was level. "I'm afraid of something else."

The water in the cup went untouched.

"Our county is small. My mom has old coworkers at the town health center. You run into people at a vegetable stall. If someone told her her daughter altered medical records in the city and got a patient killed—" She stopped, swallowed the second half of the sentence. "She was hospitalized last year. I stayed with her for half a month."

He Xiufen offered no words of comfort. She turned the Power of Attorney around and tapped the bottom line with her fingertip.

"Read carefully. This is a general authorization: you can speak in your own defense, or I can speak for you. Pick one. Don't mix them. Writing 'full authority' is easiest—and the most dangerous down the road."

"So whatever I say in the hearing—it has to come out under my own name?"

"Health Commission or court, same principle," He Xiufen said. "When you speak, I'll be beside you. I can lay out papers, schedule dates, pick up where you trail off. But I can't say that one sentence for you."

"Tomorrow we'll change your service address first," Shen Zhixia said. "You have to go in person with your ID and sign on the spot. No one can do it for you."

Lin Qi nodded and reached for the pen. The tip hovered over the paper for two seconds; her hand trembled slightly. He Xiufen took the pen back, swapped it for a thicker one from the holder, uncapped it, and placed it back in her hand.

"Write slowly. The name's your own—don't let it run wild."

One copy, then the second. Below the signature line, a red thumbprint from her right index finger. He Xiufen handed her a tissue; she wiped carefully, working at the last trace of red on her fingertip.

"One more page." Shen Zhixia slid a blank sheet over. "Write your name again on this, the way you normally write it."

"What's it for?"

"The transcribed copy Hengzheng sent last month—the name on the last page was signed in after the sixth." Shen Zhixia said. "If anyone tries to use your name as evidence again, I want a sample written by your own hand."

Lin Qi wrote out three characters, set the pen down, and stared at them for two seconds.

[Thud. One authorization. The name is hers, and from here on the words must be hers too.]

"Let me ask something." She lifted the cup, then set it back down. "The few lines I plan to say in the hearing—can they push back that page from the hospital?"

"Which page?"

"The one that says, 'The alterations were carried out solely by on-duty physician Lin Qi.'"

He Xiufen paused for two seconds.

"One page can't push it back," she said. "What you say, plus a few pages someone else wrote—you pile them up together. The district wants facts and a basis: what you say is the fact, and you need a few pages to prop up that basis. If you try to push it back with just one page, that's called—"

"Being stubborn with no receipts." Lin Qi finished the thought.

"Your words, not mine."

"Where is Xiaoman's case now?" Lin Qi asked.

"The appraisal office we drew is processing paperwork; the court already transferred the materials over." Shen Zhixia smoothed down the corner of a folder. "Once a hearing date is set, you'll be the first to know. If you come that day, use the side entrance and sit behind me."

Lin Qi ducked her head, smiled briefly. Her second question came out very soft: "How much... is this going to cost?"

"The firm routes it through Legal Aid. No fees from you."

"There still has to be a number."

"There is one." He Xiufen carried the plastic bag over to the stove. "I submit it. It doesn't concern you. But I'm keeping this bag—noodles for lunch."

"My mom dried those."

"Even more reason to keep them."

When Lin Qi stood, her movements were stiff. At the top of the stairs she turned back: "Those two pages—still in the drawer?"

"They are," Shen Zhixia said. "The practice certificate too, underneath. I only photographed them. Didn't touch anything."

Lin Qi stared at her for a moment, then just said "oh," and pulled her zipper all the way up.

February 1st, Monday. Third floor of the Chengbei District Health Commission. At the far end of the corridor, a long table against the wall, two chairs, and a plastic number placard on the table—the number blank.

Lin Qi wore a dark coat, hair tied back, her ID and the dark blue practice certificate gripped in one hand. Last night she'd gone back to Youfang Lane. The drawer was exactly as she'd left it the day she walked out.

Clerk Yu emerged from the inner office, a ballpoint pen clipped to his blue cloth sleeve covers. He collected the materials and checked them one by one: two copies of the Power of Attorney, the firm letter from Zhengping, the internship certificate, the ID. Done, he squared the stack against the table edge.

"Two matters?"

"Two," Shen Zhixia said. "Change the service address, and review the copy the hospital submitted."

"She fills out the address herself and signs." Clerk Yu pulled a Service Address Confirmation Form from a folder and placed it in front of Lin Qi. "Once you sign this, documents go to this address. Delivery to your workplace still counts as delivery—someone from your unit signs for it. Think it through."

"Has the Notice been issued yet?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"Investigation isn't closed. Can't issue." Clerk Yu said. "When it does go out, they mail it to the address on file. If you hadn't come in today, it would've gone to that building, someone else would've signed for you, and the deadline would run from that date."

Lin Qi pressed one finger against the edge of the form.

"I've thought it through," she said.

She filled it in stroke by stroke: Youfang Lane, fourth floor, Chengbei District; her phone number; the date. Her signature went in the last column, steadier than yesterday.

Clerk Yu took the form, clipped it with the other materials, walked to the filing cabinet, unlocked it, and removed a kraft paper envelope. The hospital's logo was printed on the front; the flap was wrapped twice with white cotton string, a small paper slip pasted at the knot, and a Materials Index pasted beside it. He set the envelope on the long table, his hand still resting on the flap.

"Rules up front: you may read and photocopy. You may not remove it. No photographs. Copies are fifty fen per page. Pay first."

"Shouldn't be many pages."

"Count them yourself."

The index listed seven lines. She read down them one by one: Index, the hospital's Explanation, the tidied transcription of nursing records, Hengzheng's Legal Opinion Letter, the Disposition Decision, the Handover Slip—and after the last line, in parentheses: "Supplemental," one page. At the line reading Legal Opinion Letter, her finger paused on the paper, then moved on.

"Eleven pages total," she said. "I'll read first. Copy after."

Clerk Yu nodded, yielded one of the chairs, and stepped to the far end of the corridor to take a call.

The first page was the hospital's Explanation. Pages two and three were the transcription; the name "Lin Qi" on the final page she'd photographed a month ago—signed after the sixth. She recognized it. Pages four through six were the Legal Opinion Letter, three pages, stamped at the bottom with the seal of Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm, and beneath the seal the handling lawyer's name handwritten in very small characters. She didn't read those three closely: first she needed to fix the order, which line belonged to which page. Pages seven through nine were the Disposition Decision. Lin Qi lingered at the line recommending "handling in accordance with the Physicians Law," then said nothing. Page ten was the Handover Slip.

Page eleven—the supplemental page.

"Self-Review Statement on Changes to Medical Records." Four lines of text: the alterations in the shift handover records and nursing records for the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh, made during the tidying process, were the result of the undersigned's failure to check the original records page by page as required. The final sentence: "I voluntarily accept corresponding responsibility." Signature: Lin Qi. Date: the twenty-eighth.

She recognized those eight words. On the morning of January fifth, the Medical Affairs Office first laid this page in front of Lin Qi. They laid it down again on the morning of the twenty-seventh. Both times, Lin Qi had refused to write it.

"After you left the hospital on the twenty-seventh, did you write your name on anything?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"No."

"The self-criticism the Medical Affairs Office asked you to write?"

"I didn't write it either," Lin Qi said. "I said I wouldn't. Didn't write a single word."

Shen Zhixia turned page eleven around and pushed it to the center of the table.

Lin Qi looked down. The hand that had been resting on the dark blue practice certificate withdrew into her coat pocket. She read slowly—the body first, then the signature, then the date.

[Thud. A name on the same page—the thing to fear is placing it beside another one.]

Shen Zhixia took yesterday's page—the one with just three words on it—from her folder and set it next to page eleven.

Two "Lin Qi" signatures, two inches apart.

The one on the left she'd watched being written yesterday: the three horizontal strokes of the "west" character slanting slightly upward, the last stroke light and clean. This one in the file: the three horizontals flat as a ruler's edge, the final stroke pressing down with a small dent in the paper.

"This wasn't written by me," Lin Qi said.

But Shen Zhixia wasn't looking at the handwriting. She was looking at the five characters beneath the signature—the twenty-eighth.

Before dawn on the twenty-eighth, Lin Qi had already reached Tongling, sitting in the station waiting room until five-thirty before daring to walk home. At 7:20 that evening, Shen Zhixia had dialed the Tongling number, and the person who answered was Lin Qi herself.

"How many copies?" Clerk Yu leaned in from the far end of the corridor. "Fifty fen per page. Pay first."

Shen Zhixia pulled out her wallet, counted five yuan fifty onto the table. Coins clinked.

"All eleven pages. One set."