Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 162 : Page-Number Correspondence

Shen Zhixia spread a single sheet of paper in front of He Xiufen, smoothing it flat from the center outward with both palms. Three lines of writing: the first two were timestamps—16:20 and 9:40—and the third had been added today in the hearing room: February 27th, 9:50 a.m., one bag of documents not accepted.

That night, only half the lights were on upstairs at the Zhengping Firm.

"The transcript is in their cabinet. Getting a copy has to go through the court. These three lines are my own writing."

He Xiufen pushed her reading glasses up, read it three times, and pushed the paper back. "Then it's not paper. It's your memory."

"Can memory be used?"

"It can't." He Xiufen unscrewed her thermos and added half a cup of water. "Which is why tonight I'm not talking reason with you."

"Then what are we talking about?"

"Paper." The cup landed on the table with a faint click. "Starting today, on this case I'm not discussing reason with you. We're discussing paper. Whose paper is in whose hands, where it went, which day, which hour—line by line. The court can talk reason. We handle paper."

Shen Zhixia folded the page and slipped it into the left slot of her hard-shell folder.

"Every word you said in there today, someone wrote down for him." He Xiufen said. "What got written down is today. Anything before today—none of it got in."

"He read those three lines."

"Those three lines are the court's paper, traveling with the file. They're not the same as the set in his hands. Count it: how many sets of paper does he have?"

"One set. He said it in front of everyone—'I'm reviewing according to what arrived today, the set in my hands.'"

"He said it's that set." He Xiufen raised her eyes. "This set—who's counted it?"

Shen Zhixia didn't answer. The smell of scallion oil drifted up through the stairwell, followed by the bubbling sound of boiling noodle broth.

"The first piece of paper you want isn't the list. It's what he's actually handled. The list is at the transfer office—ask the court for it. What got delivered to his door won't show up in a single line on the court's paper."

"I asked him. He said those two items aren't in the index."

"He answered about the index." He Xiufen said, "He didn't answer about the cabinet."

Shen Zhixia turned the page over and drew a short line under the third entry, then wrote three characters beside it: Ask about the cabinet.

"There's one more move you need to watch for." He Xiufen walked to the window and cracked it open. "There's a route you didn't see today."

"What route?"

"He won't fight you over the paper. He'll fight you over the dates. Different people, a different appraisal institution, a new random draw, a new scheduling. All those scratches, paper discoloration, punch-hole spacing you've been tracking—not one page carries over. If it comes to that, this whole month of overtime was for nothing."

"He didn't mention it today."

"He didn't mention it today." He Xiufen pushed the page back toward her. "So starting tomorrow, before you say anything out loud, play it back to yourself first: can this sentence land on paper? What he says with his mouth he can deny. What's written on paper, he can't shake off."

"That third line you wrote is right." She added one last thing before heading downstairs. "For things sitting in someone else's cabinet, there are only two ways to get them back: one is waiting for the court to order their release; the other is going there yourself."

"What can going there get back?"

"Whatever you can get." She was already at the stairwell. "What you need isn't the ledger. It's that one line. With that line, you can ask the next question."

[Thud. The list belongs to the court. The cabinet belongs to him. What you need to ask about is the cabinet.]

The soup had cooled and formed a skin. She lifted the bowl and took a sip—salty. Tang Guo's three voice messages arrived just then, the last one four seconds long: "Did the appraiser talk?"

She replied: He talked. What he said was "today."

The reply came back instantly: Save it.

February 28th, 6:50 a.m. She caught the first bus at the long-distance station. An hour and a half on hard plastic seats, gray-white sky outside the window the whole way—the same departure time Peng Weidong had taken yesterday.

8:20, arrived in Ningchuan. The old building housing the Qiushi Judicial Appraisal Office had its intake hall on the ground floor. The row of plastic chairs near the back sat empty, and water marks still streaked the glass at the service window.

She pulled the power of attorney and the court's notice of acceptance from her hard-shell folder and slid them under the glass.

Behind the window sat a girl in her twenties, her name badge reading: Ding Yuan.

"I'm here to verify something." Shen Zhixia said. "The intake window's receipt register for this case."

Ding Yuan pushed the two sheets back inside, glanced down at her screen, then turned and pulled a hardcover register from behind her chair. Blue cloth corners, edges worn and frayed.

"The register can't be taken out or photocopied." She said. "If you want to see it, I'll flip through it for you."

"That's fine."

"You can only look. No touching."

"I won't touch."

The register lay open on the counter. She held the center down with one finger and turned to the February section. Entries in pencil, each in its own box: date, time, delivering party, document title, page count, remarks.

February 18th, 16:20. Delivering party: Chengbei Hospital, followed by a "Xu." Document: Supplementary Statement, one copy. Pages: one. Remarks: No transfer letter attached.

February 19th, 9:40. Delivering party: Chengbei Hospital. Document: Explanatory Note on Versions of Appraisal Materials. Pages: three. Squeezed into the bottom-right corner of the remarks box were five small characters—

Page-number correspondence attached.

Shen Zhixia stared at those five characters.

"Who wrote these five characters?"

"The person delivering the documents said it, and I copied it down." Ding Yuan said. "Window protocol—remarks are recorded exactly as the delivering party states them."

"What exactly did he say?"

Ding Yuan thought for a moment. "He said, tell them inside to read it in this order."

Shen Zhixia pulled out a blank sheet, set it beside the register, and began copying from the first entry. Date, time, delivering party, document title, page count, even the five characters in remarks—not one changed.

"When I'm done, I'll read it back to you. Listen. February 18th, 16:20, Chengbei Hospital, Supplementary Statement, one copy, one page, remarks: no transfer letter attached. February 19th, 9:40, Chengbei Hospital, Explanatory Note on Versions of Appraisal Materials, three pages, remarks: page-number correspondence attached."

"Correct." Ding Yuan said.

"Sign it, or stamp it."

"I won't sign." Ding Yuan pulled her hand back from the register. "A signature is something that goes out. For anything going out, the court has to send a letter. We only issue copies in response to an official letter."

"I know."

"Then why ask?"

"Because asking means the words land on paper." Shen Zhixia said. "You just said the word 'correct.'"

Ding Yuan didn't respond. She closed the register, aligned the blue cloth corners, and placed it back behind her chair.

"Where are those two items now?" Shen Zhixia asked. "Entered into the file, returned, or sitting somewhere?"

"I only handle registration." Ding Yuan said. "Filing, returns, reference storage—none of that is my area."

"Then where?"

"The register doesn't record that."

Shen Zhixia capped her pen and asked one final question. "The person who delivered them—what did he look like?"

Ding Yuan thought again. "Male, forties, carrying a paper bag."

"What about the case filing number?"

Ding Yuan pulled the register out again and turned to the inside of the front cover. The case number box had been empty before—it had been filled in yesterday. A row of numbers preceded by a small round stamp.

"Filled in yesterday." She said.

Shen Zhixia looked at that box. The day it was filled in, the case was formally accepted. The index was locked. The page count was locked. Whether those three pages—the ones not in the index—ever entered the file, it would never be written in this register.

She sat on the plastic chairs at the back of the intake hall for ten minutes. She recopied those two entries and circled "page-number correspondence attached." On the chair across from her, someone had left an empty paper cup, mouth up, a ring of dampness spreading on the counter.

[Thud. What he received was three pages. Those three pages said: read those thirty-four pages in a different order.]

On the bus back, she called Director Xu. 3:20 p.m.

"Director Xu, I have a small question."

"Go ahead."

"February 19th, 9:40 in the morning. The three-page version note delivered to the Ningchuan Qiushi intake window—who delivered it?"

"Someone from our department."

"Who specifically?"

"Whoever was assigned." Director Xu said. "I'd have to check."

"And those three pages—who wrote them?"

Two seconds of silence on the line.

"Dictated." He said.

"Dictated by whom?"

"I spoke, and someone in the office wrote it. It came to three pages."

"Whose name is in the handler column?"

"I didn't look at that column."

"Something you handled, and you didn't look."

"The medical affairs office sends out a dozen items a day." Director Xu said. "If you want specifics, I'll verify when I get back."

"When will the verification be done?"

"I'll call you once it is."

"Director Xu." She said, "The name in the delivering party column—it's your surname."

Two more seconds of silence.

"I'm not the only person surnamed Xu."

"I know." She said. "That's exactly why I'm asking."

The voice on the phone changed. The new voice was unhurried, as if carefully selecting each word.

"Lawyer Shen, Director Xu is here with me."

"Director Huang."

"Documents move according to their own channels." Huang Weizhong said. "You have a court ruling in your hands. We have our procedures too. Don't rush. There's no point in rushing."

"I'm not rushing." She said. "I'm asking one thing: where are those three pages now?"

"Where they are isn't for you or me to decide." Huang Weizhong said. "Jiangzhou does it this way, and Ningchuan does it this way. Going somewhere else means getting in line."

"Somewhere else?"

"I didn't say anything about going somewhere." He said. "What I said is—everyone gets in line."

The call ended.

She recorded the call duration, who was present, and those two sentences verbatim, line by line. When she finished, she read the page aloud once, the same way she'd read back Director Xu's words into the phone that day.

[Thud. He didn't say he wanted to change locations. He said something about "somewhere else."]

5:05 p.m. A Ningchuan number called.

"Lawyer Shen? This is the Qiushi intake window." Ding Yuan's voice. "Just letting you know—the materials for this case have been sorted out. The preliminary opinion is scheduled to be issued before March 17th. No further hearings will be organized before then. We'll notify both parties by phone at that time."

"Before March 17th." She repeated.

"Yes."

"Who set this date?"

"The office scheduling." Ding Yuan said. "Teacher Lu only has this one medical case on his desk."

She hung up and pulled the page from the left slot of her hard-shell folder. Three lines were written on it: February 18th, 16:20; February 19th, 9:40; February 27th, 9:50 a.m., one bag of documents not accepted. There was space below the third line—she picked up her pen and added a fourth line: Before March 17th.

Outside the bus window, streetlights came on one by one. She called He Xiufen.

"Three things." She said. "One: the register contains the five characters 'page-number correspondence attached.' Two: Director Xu admitted those three pages were 'dictated.' Three: Ningchuan set a date—preliminary opinion before March 17th, no hearing before then."

He Xiufen turned the stove down on her end. "What you're afraid of isn't his opinion coming out."

"What I'm afraid of is that those three pages are already sitting on his desk."

"Then don't wait for the opinion." He Xiufen said. "He can only have one set of documents in his hands. Before March 17th, you need to figure out one thing—what's on that desk: one set, or two."

[Thud. Before the opinion comes out, first count what's on that desk: one set, or two.]