Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 171 : The Nurse Who Broke the Ampoule

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. March 26, seven forty in the morning. The other end was so quiet she could hear the wind flap against a curtain.

"Dr. Lin. It's Shen Zhixia."

"Yeah." Lin Qi sounded like she'd just sat up, voice hoarse. "I know what you're going to ask."

"Your text said the nurse who opened the drug that day was a young one. Think about the name again."

Silence on the other end.

"I can't remember," she said. "She only came last fall. Non-establishment staff. Not tall. Whenever anyone's shift ran short on meds, she'd grab her little notebook and run to the pharmacy. The name's stuck right here, two characters, and I don't dare write it on your paper. If I get one character wrong, that girl's livelihood is gone because of me."

"Two characters. I've got it." Shen Zhixia pressed her pen to the paper. "Anything else, just say whatever comes to mind."

"Those nights, I was the only one writing medical orders." Lin Qi paused. "Ms. Shen, I'll say it again—I only signed the medical order column. I didn't collect the drug, and I didn't open it. My name stays in my box."

"Two hands. I'll record them separately."

She flipped to a fresh page, drew a vertical line, wrote "Medical Order" on the left and "Collected, Opened" on the right. She looked at what she'd written. Both boxes empty.

"When you find out—don't write down that it came from me." Lin Qi's voice dropped. "I haven't been able to explain any of this for six months."

"Materials go on paper. Who said what, I keep in a separate notebook, and that one doesn't go to the court." Shen Zhixia said, "The things you can't explain, I'll sort them out one by one. The name, I'll track down myself."

The line went quiet again. "Go ahead." The call ended.

Downstairs, a spatula clanged against a wok. He Xiufen came up with a tea mug and glanced at her notebook.

"You separated them?"

"Yes."

"Should've done it sooner." He Xiufen set the mug on the corner of the desk. "A bad drug passes through several hands. The one who gets dragged out to take the blame is usually the most convenient pair."

[Thud. When one dose passes through several people, the paper should carry several names.]

* * *

At ten in the morning, she spread three photocopies across the long table and weighed down the corners with a paperweight.

The top sheet was the outbound column from the pharmacy's drug in-out ledger. Department: Obstetrics. The "collector" field held two connected cursive characters, the first one jammed against the grid line, only half of its bamboo radical visible. The batch number box beside it had been scraped.

She pressed her palm to the paper.

[Thud. Evidence Echo. This page. One time.]

First, a stretch of corridor. White tile, freshly mopped, still damp. Mop water marks layered one over another. Then a small paper box, corner dented, half the printing on its face torn away. Then hands—young hands, nails trimmed short, a small Band-Aid on the knuckle of the right index finger, edges already curling.

The hands scored the ampoule's neck with a file, snapped it open through cotton, drew the drug into a syringe. Done. Then the hands flipped the box over, label facing up. A fingertip traced down the row of small print and stopped in the middle.

Stopped on the two characters: "Batch No."

She stared at that fingertip, trying to make out the digits beneath it. The line of text faced her, but the harder she looked, the more it blurred—like water bleeding into paper. She strained twice. Her temple throbbed.

The image dissolved.

Heat in her nostril. Blood ran down toward her lip. She wiped it with the back of her hand, pulled tissues from the drawer, rolled them up, and plugged her nose. He Xiufen walked in at that moment, took one look, grabbed the towel from the radiator, wrung it half dry, and handed it over.

"How many times now."

"Once."

"What you saw was the hand, not the number." He Xiufen said, "Remember: the picture is for you. It doesn't hold up in court."

"I know." She tilted her head back, pressing the towel to the bridge of her nose. "But she checked. When she verified that label, those digits passed right under her eyes."

"Passing under the eyes means a chance to leave a trace." He Xiufen sat down across from her. "Lay out what you have."

She lined up the three sheets. The first: the pharmacy ledger's outbound column, that signature still jammed against the grid line. The second: a photocopy of the Temporary Medical Order Sheet from the sealed medical records—carbetocin, 100 micrograms, execution time 00:55, and in the execution column, the same two connected characters. The first stroke began with a downward-left sweep and a vertical, followed by a horizontal hook. The third: the responsible-nurse signature in the night-shift column of the nursing record. Two characters again, and above the first—the same bamboo radical.

Three places. One hand.

"Same stroke pattern," she said. "Blue ballpoint. The second character ends with a downward drag. The second character I can read clearly—'Ning.'"

"Ning." He Xiufen repeated it. "That character—was it already on the paper, or did you trace it out?"

"It's on the paper. The first character, I only traced half of the top."

"A bamboo radical on top, a 'Ning' underneath." He Xiufen squared the three sheets. "That's not a lot of people. How do you plan to find her?"

"I'll go to obstetrics this afternoon." She lowered the towel and checked—the bleeding had stopped. "Take the east entrance of the inpatient building, elevator to the third floor. Lay these three sheets out at the nurses' station and ask whoever's on duty to write their name once each, compare them against these three. Once I have a match, I'll know."

"Don't go through Medical Affairs."

"I won't."

"Once you're in obstetrics, don't start by asking for confessions," He Xiufen said. "First, get her to recognize her own writing. She knows her writing. She doesn't know the law."

* * *

Three p.m. East entrance of the inpatient building. The third-floor corridor was quieter than below. At the far end, a window stood open a crack, wind rustling the curtain on a treatment cart. Yan Mei sat behind the nurses' station, her nurse's cap pinned to her collar, a pen in hand circling something in the handover log. She stopped when she saw Shen Zhixia.

"You again." Yan Mei said. "Anything about Dr. Lin, we've already been asked."

"Today isn't about Dr. Lin." She spread the three photocopies on the counter and held down the top one with her finger. "Head Nurse Yan, these three signatures were written by the same person. The first character has a bamboo radical on top, and the second character is 'Ning.'"

Yan Mei looked down at the three sheets. When she reached the third, the hand holding the pen stalled on the counter, then lifted. She closed the handover log.

"I don't recognize it."

"The shift roster from that night works too," Shen Zhixia said. "Who else was on duty, I'll go by the names."

"Shift schedules go month by month." Yan Mei said. "They're bound and filed in the Nursing Department. If you want them, you have to go through Medical Affairs."

"I'm not going to Medical Affairs." She slid a blank sheet of paper half an inch forward. "Then have whoever's on shift today write their name once. Once it's done, I leave."

Yan Mei didn't take the paper. From down the corridor a treatment cart rolled past, wheels grinding a string of noise, then gone. Yan Mei shoved the handover log into a drawer, stood, and called toward the far end of the hall:

"Jian Ning. Come out here."

The curtain parted. A nurse in her early twenties emerged, a thin sweater over her uniform, a ballpoint pen clipped to her collar. Not tall. She didn't pull her hand out of her pocket until she reached the counter—and on the knuckle of her right index finger was a small Band-Aid, edges curling.

Shen Zhixia's eyes stopped on that Band-Aid.

"You're Lawyer Shen?" Jian Ning spoke first, voice low.

"That's me." She slid the photocopy of the ledger's outbound column half an inch toward Jian Ning. "The collector field. Did you write that?"

Jian Ning looked down for a long time—long enough for another treatment cart to pass at the far end. She reached out, touched two fingertips to those connected characters, then pulled back.

"...Yes, I wrote it."

"The drug that night—you signed for it."

"The pharmacy sent it up," she said. "Usually we collect our own meds, but that one was delivered. I signed for it."

"You opened it."

"I opened it." This answer came faster than the last.

"Did you check the label before opening?"

"I checked." Her answers came crisp. "Three checks and seven verifications. Bed number, patient name, drug name, dose, time, route. All checked."

"What was the batch number on that drug?"

Jian Ning's lips moved. No sound came out.

She slid her hand back into her uniform pocket, pulled it out again, wiped it against the seam of her pants. Her eyes flicked toward the far end of the corridor, then back.

"It's been too long," she said. "After this long, who remembers?"

"You don't have to say it today." Shen Zhixia lifted her pen from the notebook and flipped a page. "If you remember someday, write it down and mail it to the firm. I'll leave you the paper."

"I won't write it." Jian Ning said. Then, after a beat, she added, even quieter: "Even if I did, I wouldn't dare sign it."

"Let me read it back." Shen Zhixia turned the notebook around and read the lines she'd just written: the collector's signature was hers; the drug was delivered by pharmacy staff and she signed for it; she opened it; she checked the label. She finished and asked, "Anything in there you didn't say?"

Jian Ning looked at the paper and shook her head.

"No."

"I won't put your name in the materials without you confirming it." Shen Zhixia closed the notebook. "That's all for today."

As she gathered the papers, Jian Ning suddenly spoke:

"That night, after the pharmacy brought the drug up—"

Shen Zhixia's hands stopped.

"—someone came up to take a look at it."

"Who?"

"Not pharmacy." Jian Ning said only that, nothing more. She straightened the ballpoint pen at her collar, turned toward the ward, took two steps, looked back and said, "I have to go give meds," then slipped through the curtain.

Yan Mei stood inside the nurses' station, unmoving this whole time. Only when Shen Zhixia slid the three sheets into her folder did she add, low: "She just started last fall. Non-establishment. Hasn't passed her exam yet."

Shen Zhixia said, "Thank you," and walked toward the elevator. While waiting, she glanced back. Jian Ning stood at the counter behind the nurses' station, back to the corridor, pen moving across paper, line after line.

She took out her notebook and added one line: After the pharmacy delivered the drug, another person came up to obstetrics to look at that dose; Jian Ning said "not pharmacy," would not give a name. Timestamp: 3:40 p.m.

After writing it, she thought about that phrase: "It's been too long." Before saying it, Jian Ning had glanced down the far end of the corridor.

Where that corridor led—she hadn't walked there today.

The elevator arrived, doors open, empty. The nurses' station phone began to ring, one after another, and no one picked up.

[Thud. She looked that way first. Only then did she say she couldn't remember.]