Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 150 : Sealing Lips

"Lawyer Shen, let's talk upstairs."

Director Xu stood at the top of the second-floor stairs, not letting her into the Medical Affairs Office, turning and heading up first. His white coat hung open, sleeves pushed up to his forearms, hands clasped behind his back.

Shen Zhixia followed. The third-floor corridor was carpeted, her shoes making no sound.

A door swung open. On the sofa by the window sat a man in his fifties, hair neatly combed, coat draped over his arm. A cup of tea sat in front of him, the surface perfectly still, untouched. Huang Weizhong lifted his chin slightly.

"Sit."

Shen Zhixia set her bag on her lap and sat down. She didn't touch the tea.

"February first, you filed an authorization with the district." Huang Weizhong's words came slowly, as if he was picking each one. "The second, you filed another with Medical Affairs. Each one narrower than the last. Lawyer Shen handles things with restraint."

"Just following procedure."

"We'll follow procedure." He smiled, teeth hidden. "Outside of procedure, some things are faster said face to face."

"Go ahead."

Huang Weizhong pushed the tea half an inch toward her. "Dr. Lin's situation—the hospital's position hasn't changed. The department had management oversights, she had operational issues personally. Both bear some responsibility. It never should have come to this."

"She's not the one who signed."

"Whose hand wrote those strokes is a technical matter." Director Xu added from by the door.

"Forensic examination is also a technical matter." Shen Zhixia didn't turn around. "Those two handwriting samples I submitted yesterday—when do you plan to verify them."

Director Xu closed his mouth.

Huang Weizhong picked the thread back up. "The hospital can make concessions. Dr. Lin writes one page, explains the matter clearly; the disciplinary action stays internal, reported to the district as minor offense with self-criticism already submitted; the hospital handles the practice certificate issue—a few months' suspension, and she can return to her position."

"Which page."

"The four lines you saw the day before yesterday." He said. "The last line, eight characters—she didn't write them that day. Another couple of days to think it over, and she'll come around the same way."

He pressed his index finger against the tabletop.

"One more thing. The Peng family—the hospital can negotiate today. Money doesn't wait for a judgment; it comes from hospital accounts, arrives in days. The baby needs money when it comes out of the incubator. The family suffers a few months less."

"Conditions." Shen Zhixia asked.

"You withdraw the application you filed with the district."

Water trickled through the radiator, a thin sound traveling the length of the room. Shen Zhixia pulled her notebook from her bag, opened it, and wrote on her knee: February 3, 10:10 a.m., Chengbei Hospital Administration Building, third floor. Huang Weizhong and Director Xu proposed that if physician Lin Qi provides a written self-admission, the matter can be handled internally with her practice registration preserved; the hospital can simultaneously negotiate compensation with Peng Weidong without waiting for judgment; the condition being that I withdraw the application submitted to the District Health Commission.

When she finished, she held the notebook up and read it back word by word.

"What I read is what you said, not my interpretation." She said. "If any line is wrong, correct it now."

Huang Weizhong didn't look at the notebook. He looked at her.

"Lawyer Shen, a word of advice." He said. "Whose handwriting those strokes are—keep asking, and it won't be good for anyone. Dr. Lin is still young. So are you. That trainee ledger of yours—still a few months short of being full, isn't it."

"Those three pages from Hengzheng, you read them at the district office." He continued. "The existing materials support a finding. Even your own firm's opinion says so. What are you trying to prove, holding the line alone?"

[Thud. What they lack isn't a person willing to sign. It's a person willing to stop asking.]

Shen Zhixia closed the notebook and clipped the pen back onto the cover.

"Call the Peng family all you want." She said. "You don't have their bank card number. She's not the one who signed—so whose strokes are those two signatures? If you're not going to investigate, what are you afraid of."

Huang Weizhong picked up the tea, tested the temperature, didn't drink.

"I'll answer for you." Shen Zhixia said. "You're afraid someone will follow those two signatures straight into the night of the thirtieth."

"Lawyer Shen, the road is long."

"I'm walking it."

She stood. Director Xu stood by the door, neither blocking nor moving aside. She turned slightly, her coat brushing the doorframe as she passed.

At the second-floor landing, she paused half a step on the stairs. The Medical Affairs Office door was open. On the corner of the desk, the top sheet of that stack of photocopies bore a five-character heading: Legal Opinion Letter. She looked away and kept going down.

On the front steps of the administration building, someone was coming up. Dark overcoat, a file folder in one hand.

"Lawyer Shen."

"Lawyer Lu."

"The tea in that third-floor room is cold." He said.

"What are you doing here."

"The hospital is my client. I'm here to deliver documents." He stood on the steps, one shoulder in the wind. "If you keep filing papers upward, you'll draw out someone else's papers."

"Then let them come out."

"What comes out may not be what you want."

He walked inside, leather shoes striking the steps. Shen Zhixia stood below, thinking of that hard-shell folder at Zhengping—the three folded pages in the right compartment. She didn't ask. She pulled her scarf up higher and walked out the main gate.

At four that afternoon, Zhengping Firm. The noodle shop downstairs had just fired up the stove, the smell of scallion oil climbing the stairs.

Lin Qi sat in the chair by the door, a cloth bag at her feet, the zipper not fully closed, a corner of a down jacket sleeve poking out.

"My mom got a call yesterday."

Shen Zhixia sat down across from her.

"A woman, polite, said she was from Chengbei Hospital." Lin Qi's hand rubbed against the cloth bag. "Said my daughter has some issue in the city, the unit needs to handle it, asked the family to talk to her, get her to cooperate."

"What did your mom ask."

"Asked three times what the matter was. The other side said, minor, just cooperate." She paused. "When my mom called me, she also asked three times. I said it was nothing. She said, your voice doesn't sound right."

An oil sizzle came from the stove.

Lin Qi took a sheet of paper from the cloth bag and spread it on the table. A4 printer paper, handwritten characters on it, copied line by line, neat—those exact four lines. The signature space at the bottom was blank.

"I copied it last night." She said. "Wanted to see what those characters looked like coming out of my own hand."

Shen Zhixia looked at the page. The three horizontal strokes of all three "xi" characters slanted upward, the final strokes ending light.

"Lawyer Shen, I thought all night." Lin Qi pressed her hand flat on the page. "Let it go."

"Let it go how."

"I'll write the eight characters." She said. "What you filed with the district—withdraw it. The things they promised, I'll push them to deliver. The Peng family negotiations start today, money first, then the baby comes out."

She looked up at Shen Zhixia, dark circles under her eyes.

"Don't sink your firm into this for me. Your internship isn't over yet." She said. "That day, in that room, they told me: a sensible person looks out for herself. I lay awake all night—it's not entirely wrong. Besides me, there's no one more important in this matter."

Footsteps on the stairs. He Xiufen came up carrying an enamel bowl, two pieces of stewed radish inside, a sheen of oil floating on the broth. She set it beside Lin Qi's hand.

"Eat something before you talk." She said. "Once words leave your mouth, you can't take them back."

Lin Qi didn't touch the chopsticks. He Xiufen glanced at her, didn't push.

"We don't take your money for this case, and we don't sign your name for you." She said. "If you want to speak, speak what you saw. The night you saw, the page you saw, whose hand passed it over."

She went back downstairs, the stairs rattling in a string.

Shen Zhixia stood and took the hard-shell folder from the shelf, set it on the table, opened it. The left compartment, corners pressed flat.

She laid things out one by one.

First: the name Lin Qi had written at this table on Sunday. Second: the last page of the transcribed copy. Third: page eleven from the district office—the Self-Review Statement on Medical Record Alterations, signed "Lin Qi," dated the twenty-eighth.

Three sheets side by side. She took He Xiufen's plastic ruler—the one used for shoe soles—and laid it across them.

"On this one, the 'xi' slants up, the last stroke is light." She pointed to the first. "On these two, the three horizontals are level, the last stroke presses down. The same person's name, written by two different hands."

Lin Qi stared, fingers digging into the table's edge.

Fourth: two printed screenshots. The first page of the December shift schedule, the twenty-sixth slot—after "night shift" were two characters: Lin Qi. The second was the correction posted December 27 at 10:04 a.m., the thirtieth slot crossed out in red, someone else's name added beside it.

"You were on duty the twenty-sixth." Shen Zhixia said. "The records were taken from the Medical Records Room on the night of the thirtieth. The thirtieth slot—that's not your name."

[Thud. The name in the thirtieth slot is not hers.]

Fifth: an on-site record. January 5, morning, someone from the Medical Affairs Office borrowed a hole punch and took a stack of record paper; January 7, afternoon, another trip—the punched stack left on the windowsill, with a single remark: "All the signatures are done."

Sixth: a call log. February 2, Peng Weidong called—the hospital had asked his hometown for his bank card number.

"When you copied those four characters last night, why did you leave the signature blank." Shen Zhixia asked.

Lin Qi's fingers released the table's edge.

"Because what you copied was their handwriting. The signature has to be your own name." Shen Zhixia said. "That stroke—that's exactly what they're waiting for."

She moved the copied page to the top.

"If you sign, the hospital doesn't just take your name. They take this slot." Her fingertip landed on the thirtieth. "You become the one who altered the records. 6:20 becomes a time you wrote yourself. The original records no longer need examination. The rescue pages no longer need verification. Xiaoman left at 3:40—and in the end, no one ever asks again."

Lin Qi's eyes went red. She didn't cry.

"Money can be claimed anytime." Shen Zhixia said. "A judgment is money. Enforcement is money too. But once the paper is gone, you can't get it back."

Lin Qi stared at the six items on the table for a long time. Then she picked up the copied page from the top, opened it, glanced at the blank signature space.

"It wasn't me who signed." She said.

Her voice was quiet. Just the two of them in the room—clear enough.

She said it again: "Those three strokes—I didn't write them."

Shen Zhixia said nothing. She slid her phone over a little.

"The number's in your phone." She said. "You call. Say what you want to say. Don't say more."

Lin Qi opened her phone, found the number saved as "Hospital," and dialed. It rang three times.

"Director Xu, this is Lin Qi." She said. "I'm not writing those eight characters. If there are questions, I'll answer them myself."

She hung up and set the phone face-down on the table. Her hand was shaking—then it stopped.

[Thud. The words came out of her own mouth.]

After dark, Shen Zhixia's phone rang. The screen showed three characters: Clerk Yu.

"Lawyer Shen, the notice has been sent to the Youfang Lane address. Please watch for it." The voice said. "The statement and defense hearing is set for February 10, nine a.m. Both you and Dr. Lin need to be present."

"Understood."

"One more thing—just arrived this afternoon." Clerk Yu paused. "The hospital submitted an additional page. The report file went from eleven pages to twelve. The heading reads: Disposition Opinion."

"The last line."

"Recommend revocation of her physician practice certificate."

Shen Zhixia stood by the window, phone in hand. The noodle shop downstairs was filling up, a dim yellow bulb over the door, figures moving between the tables.

"If you want to see this page." Clerk Yu said. "Come tomorrow. Still fifty cents."

After hanging up, she sat at the desk and wrote in her notebook: February 3, 6:40 p.m., call from Clerk Yu of the Chengbei District Health Commission. Notice has been sent to the fourth-floor Youfang Lane address; statement hearing set for February 10, 9:00 a.m. The hospital submitted an additional page—Disposition Opinion—bringing the report file to twelve pages. Final line: "Recommend revocation of her physician practice certificate."

She finished writing and looked up. The copied page beside Lin Qi's hand had been folded and tucked into her down jacket pocket.

"The tenth." Lin Qi asked. "Morning?"

"Nine a.m."

Lin Qi pressed her hand over the pocket.

"I'll go myself." She said. "This time, I speak for myself."