Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 152 : Two Pages in the Drawer

Lin Qi's key took two turns in the lock before it opened. A rolled-up bamboo mat pressed against the back of the door, letting it swing only half a foot.

Fourth floor of Youfang Lane, north-facing, the heat long since shut off. The half-cup of cold tea still sat on the table, a ring of scale crusted around the rim. On the afternoon of January 27, Lin Qi had carried two cardboard boxes out of this room. The rent in the envelope hadn't been short by a cent.

"This month's rent—you figure it out." The landlord came up the stairs and stood in the doorway without entering. "I said I'd hold off renting, but it's been empty all these days. If I don't get a straight answer by next month, I'll have to take it back."

"I'll give you an answer this afternoon," Shen Zhixia said.

Lin Qi pulled her down jacket zipper down halfway, stepped around a box on the floor, and crossed to the desk. She pulled open the bottom drawer.

Two pages lay beneath a roll of gauze. A printed "Witness Testimony Application" from Zhengping Firm. The case type line read "Medical Damage Liability Dispute." The applicant and date fields were blank. Last month, in the examination room at the community clinic, she had taken these two pages and never opened them again. The back of the paper bore five shallow marks, scored with a fingernail—crisscrossing strokes that spelled five characters: My mom's back home.

She ran her finger across those five marks, once.

From her cloth bag she took out the deep-blue Physician Practice Certificate, corners worn white, and stood it against the edge of the drawer.

"The day I'm in court—what do I say."

"Start with what you saw." Shen Zhixia set the hard-shell folder on the desk without opening it.

"If the judge asks first about my relationship with the hospital."

"Answer what's asked. You're a physician at Chengbei Hospital, currently suspended from practice, with the district filing for revocation. It's all on paper. You don't need to dance around it."

"And after that."

"After that you read a pledge. It's printed on the page—read it as written, then sign your name. The hospital's people will question you: were you on duty the night of the twenty-sixth, is that stroke in your hand, why did you wait all these days to speak up."

"What if I can't answer."

"Then say you can't answer." Shen Zhixia said, "Remember one thing—you only speak to what you saw. If you don't know who changed it or who told them to change it, say you don't know."

Lin Qi nodded, then shook her head. "The moment I'm in court, the whole street in Tongling will know."

"Let them know."

"The alley where my mom buys vegetables—both ends are full of people she knows."

Shen Zhixia didn't answer. She pushed the drawer in an inch, clearing a space on the desk.

"That page dated January fifth—if someone asks why I didn't sign it." Lin Qi said.

"Say you didn't sign it."

"If I had signed it, none of today's problems would exist."

"Then you wouldn't have your license now." Shen Zhixia said, "And no one would be asking about Xiaoman."

Lin Qi smoothed the two pages flat on the desk and took out her pen from the cloth bag, a crack running along the cap. She wrote her name slowly, pressing hard. After the name came the date. She filled in the second page the same way. Before her pen lifted, it paused at the final blank line, then came back down and added a line in small script: The above statement reflects what I personally witnessed. I am willing to testify in court.

"I'll bring my phone on the day of the hearing," she said.

"Bring it. That shift schedule chart is on your original device. Don't leave the group chat, don't swap the phone. If the judge wants to see it, you open it in front of him and scroll through it."

"What if the judge doesn't believe the chart."

"Believing is the judge's business. Your job is to show him the chart is in your phone, not something printed out and handed to him." Shen Zhixia said, "Keep the device. Don't wipe it."

The two pages were folded and tucked into the cloth bag. The deep-blue Physician Practice Certificate went in after them, cover facing out. Lin Qi took out her phone and, in front of the person at the door, transferred this month's rent. The landlord's phone pinged, and the tension left her voice. "Why didn't you say so earlier? Then you stay. You stay."

"I'll stay a while longer," Lin Qi said. She carried the half-cup of cold tea to the end of the hallway and dumped it out. When she came back, she set the cup upside down on the table, bottom up.

She stood at the door and looked around the room once.

"I'm signing for myself, half of it anyway," she said. "The disciplinary sanction is mine alone, and the certificate is mine alone. The other half—" She paused. "At three forty that night, I watched her go. Her name was Chen Xiaoman. Her story—I should have told it all along."

"Both halves together make one thing," Shen Zhixia said.

"One thing."

[Thud. These two pages lay in the drawer for over a month. She wrote her own name.]

At two forty in the afternoon, Zhengping Firm. Downstairs, He Xiufen was simmering daikon radish on the stove, the smell of scallion oil creeping up through the stairwell cracks.

He Xiufen read through the two pages twice. When she reached the small line at the end, she pushed her reading glasses up. "She added this line herself?"

"She added it herself."

"The printed form doesn't have this line." He Xiufen handed the paper back. "This line is worth more than the ten lines before it. File the original with the court—no recopying."

"I'll keep the original. The copy goes to her."

"Read me the dates again."

Shen Zhixia opened the folder and read aloud: On the afternoon of January fourth, Obstetrics handed the shift handover record to the Medical Affairs Office. On the morning of the fifth, someone from Medical Affairs borrowed a hole punch and took away a stack of medical record paper. That same morning, a four-line page on the long table by the window, with the signature field left blank. On the twenty-seventh, the hospital submitted its materials to the district Health Commission, and the same day filed the Disposition Decision. On the twenty-eighth, the date on the Self-Review Statement. On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Director Xu arrived with a paper bag and slipped in another page. This morning, Section Chief Zou mentioned the receipt register—all eleven pages logged under the twenty-seventh, and the page added on the twenty-ninth was folded by the hospital into Wednesday's batch.

He Xiufen rested the spatula on the stove edge. "According to the district's register, a file received on the twenty-seventh contained a page dated the twenty-eighth."

"Either the date is fake," Shen Zhixia said, "or that page arrived before its own date."

"Two roads, and the hospital has to walk one." He Xiufen said, "If they need to fill in a name within three days, they first have to explain this page away."

"And if they can't."

"If they can't, those two written characters become handwriting nobody claims." He Xiufen sat down at the table and pushed two garlic cloves aside with her hand. "For the hearing, let me lay out a strategy. That day, don't question Lin Qi first. Question the hospital first: whose hand wrote those two characters in the submitted materials. Let the hospital speak."

"They'll say it can't be verified."

"Then 'I personally' collapses on them. If they fill in a name, that person has to stand before the judge and explain: I wrote these characters, at what time, and who told me to." She brushed the garlic peel onto the floor. "One name, blocked at both ends."

"In court, they'll ask her about being 'disciplined by the hospital.'"

"Discipline first, confession later." He Xiufen said, "The Disposition Decision was filed on the twenty-seventh. Her 'self-admission' is dated the twenty-eighth. If you were the judge, which page would you look at first."

[Thud. Discipline comes first, self-admission after. The order on paper is more honest than a person's mouth.]

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, each heavier than the last. Peng Weidong came up with a bag of oranges, his padded hat tucked under his arm, white frost marks on his gloves.

"I came up to ask," he said. "Has the court sent anything?"

"If they call this afternoon, then today," Shen Zhixia said.

"My brother called again yesterday." He set the oranges on the corner of the table. "Different person this time, still asking for the card number. I didn't give it."

"Good that you didn't."

"That doctor..." He glanced at the two pages on the table. "Will her word hold up."

"It will." Shen Zhixia said, "Behind her words stand the two shift schedule charts from December, the scratched-over page in the nursing records, that recording from Medical Affairs, the three pages of interview records from the district. She speaks alone, but the paper stands beside her."

"She's also from Chengbei Hospital."

"The hospital disciplined her. The sanction came down on the twenty-seventh, but those four lines were on paper by the morning of January fifth. The name was added by someone else later." Shen Zhixia said, "Courts see disciplined employees as witnesses all the time. What they're wary of is a witness standing there with no paper behind her."

Peng Weidong rolled his hat in his hands, squeezed it, then released. "The incubator unit says we can bring her home early next month." He said, "The name's been registered: Peng Nianman. The name Xiaoman chose—not one character changed."

Shen Zhixia wrote this on a new page of her notebook. Below it she added three more lines: One witness, Lin Qi; Witness testimony application signed, February 10; Original placed in file. When she finished, she sent Lin Qi a message: The baby's name is Peng Nianman. Coming home early next month. Five or six minutes later, the reply came back: Understood.

She spread out the two pages of the testimony application and placed them in the left slot of the hard-shell folder, on top of Peng Weidong's Power of Attorney.

"From today on, that left slot holds two people's matters." He Xiufen looked at her. "One room, two keys—opening the same door."

At five twenty, the office landline rang. A clerk from Chengbei District Court, speaking fast: Medical damage liability dispute, set for February 17 at 9 a.m., Third Courtroom. Summons and evidence notice served electronically. Confirm receipt.

"Who's representing the defendant?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"Two of them. First is Lu Jibai."

"Received."

She wrote these lines at the bottom of the notebook page: 17th, 9:00, Courtroom 3. Then she set the pen down.

Downstairs the pot came to a boil. He Xiufen cut the flame, the iron spoon clanging against the pot rim, then came back upstairs.

"That day I'll sit beside you," she said. "I won't speak."

"If you don't, I will."

"Lay out everything for the hearing."

Shen Zhixia opened the hard-shell folder. The left slot held: the power of attorney, the notice, the two December shift charts, Qi Xiuyun's on-site record, the three pages of district interview records, and on top, the two-page testimony application signed today. The right slot held three folded pages—an attachment pulled from the submission file: the Legal Opinion Letter from Hengzheng Law Firm.

She drew out the three pages and flattened them. The signature line bore a printed firm name and date. Beneath the printed name, one handwritten line, three characters: Lu Jibai.

"How do you plan to use this page," He Xiufen asked.

"Read it as written." Shen Zhixia said, "State for the record which firm issued this opinion letter and whose name is signed on it. If he acknowledges it, his name goes on the record. If he doesn't, then he has to tell the court who signed for him."

He Xiufen looked at the three characters for a while, and did not ask what connection there was between them. "He'll be sitting across the room that day, as the hospital's attorney."

"I know."

"If he stands up, you keep asking."

Shen Zhixia folded the three pages back along their original creases and returned them to the right slot. The two halves of the folder came together, leaving only a seam between them. The clasp pressed down with a snap.

"Once the hospital submits its explanation within three days," He Xiufen said, "you'll have everything."

"Not everything."

"What's missing."

Shen Zhixia's fingers rested on the right slot of the folder. "Whether he knows."

Downstairs, the noodle shop's lights came on. The door curtain lifted, and the whole wave of scallion oil surged up the stairs.

[Thud. The hearing is set for the 17th. The hospital—and the man who wrote his name beneath three pages—will both sit on the other side.]