Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 175 : The Cup of Tea He Poured

At ten in the morning on April 2nd, the landline on the front desk rang.

The Zhengping Firm's landline barely rang a few times a year, and most calls were people asking for directions. She picked up. A woman's voice came through, speaking with crisp, precise diction.

"May I speak with Lawyer Shen Zhixia? This is the office of Jiangzhou Hengyue Group."

"Speaking."

"Chairman Qin has a small meeting at three this afternoon near Hengyue Road. He'd like to invite Lawyer Shen to sit down with him."

"What's this about? Can't it be said over the phone?"

"Chairman Qin says it's better discussed in person." The woman paused, then delivered the details cleanly. "Three o'clock. Number 18 Hengyue Road. Second floor of the teahouse facing the street."

The other end hung up first.

He Xiufen had caught the tail end from downstairs. When the phone went down, she poked her head up, flour still on her apron. "Who?"

"Hengyue Group. Chairman Qin. Three this afternoon."

"Qin Yueshan." He Xiufen repeated the name slowly. "He's inviting you, or summoning you?"

"He said he happens to be in the area."

He Xiufen twisted a corner of her apron in her hands. She'd been a lawyer for thirty years and had heard all the old stories in Jiangzhou's legal circles. "That man started in building materials, then moved into pharmaceuticals and battery materials. Anyone doing hospital business in Jiangzhou has him in their books." She narrowed her eyes. "He doesn't see people casually."

"Then why me?"

"You've been digging right up to his front door." He Xiufen said. "Go. Go alone. And remember one thing—don't accept a single thing he hands you. No cigarettes, no money, and don't drink the tea either."

"Not even tea?"

"Whatever he pours, once it's in your stomach, there's no explaining it." He Xiufen headed downstairs, her voice floating up from the stairwell. "Whatever he offers, say you want nothing."

[Thud. If he's willing to come in person, the paper wasn't written for nothing.]

At 2:40 that afternoon, after more than an hour on the bus, she reached the High-tech Zone. The street trees along Hengyue Road still looked newly planted, and the sun had bleached the pavement white. The gate of Number 17 stood open. A delivery van was unloading at the receiving dock, cardboard boxes stamped with "Hengyue."

Number 18 was diagonally across the street. A faded "Tea" character was stuck to the glass door.

A server led her to the second floor, to an inner room with the door left ajar. Inside, a man sat by the window, a white porcelain tea set before him, water already murmuring on the burner. From this window, looking down, you could see directly onto the receiving dock of Number 17.

In his fifties, hair neatly combed, dark gray jacket over a white shirt buttoned to the top. When she entered, he stood and pulled out the opposite chair half an inch for her.

"Lawyer Shen." He gestured with an open hand. "Sit."

He lifted the pot and poured water into the cup in front of her. Steam rose.

"The Chengbei Hospital case. I heard you're handling it." He sat down. "I heard about the mother, too. A tragedy."

"Is that why Chairman Qin asked to see me?"

"For that. And for you." He set the pot back on the burner. "I know Peng Weidong. Three shifts at the printing plant, baby came home at three jin eight liang, middle of last month. His brother came up from the village once. People around him mentioned it to me."

She picked up the cup, then set it back down. He Xiufen's warning pressed against her ears.

"A third of the drugs Chengbei Hospital purchases in a year go through Hengyue." He spoke as if discussing the weather. "When trouble comes, they like to hear my thoughts."

"So today, Chairman Qin wants me to persuade the family to drop the suit."

"'Drop the suit' sounds ugly." He waved a hand. "What I want to talk about is a number."

He traced a finger halfway around the rim of his cup.

"The hospital is willing to pay two point eight million up front. The child's support until eighteen would be separate. A judgment gives you a number; a negotiation gives you a number. Negotiating is faster."

Two point eight million. She ran it through her head: death compensation, funeral expenses, mental distress compensation—added up one by one, even the best judgment wouldn't reach that figure. The extra portion couldn't be found in any ledger.

She thought of Peng Weidong's hands, the printer's ink wedged into his nail beds that no washing could remove. She thought of him standing at the noodle shop door holding his child, asking, "Who ordered that injection?" This number could buy his family an apartment in Chengbei, put the child through school, pay for his mother's medical care back home, free him from night shifts for the rest of his life. She held the words in her mouth and swallowed them.

"The conditions."

"The money isn't free." He set his cup down. "Your client wants money and an explanation. I can give both. The drug—that injection—ends here. Keep digging, and no one will thank you."

"Which drug."

"You know perfectly well." He looked at her. "The batch number, the return-to-warehouse, those two slips—the few items you're holding now. Don't ask for more."

She said nothing.

"The batch returned to the warehouse on the twenty-second last month was inventory reconciliation." His tone stayed level. "Every pharmacy does inventory. One batch out, one batch in. Normal. Hengyue ships and Hengkang invoices—it's a unified group arrangement, two companies under one sign, simpler that way. The receiving column on the accompanying shipment document is blank because the warehouse keeper forgot to sign that day and was going to fill it in later." He paused. "All small things."

She pressed her hands against her knees. None of this had appeared in any newspaper. All of it sat in the First Civil Division's case file. Yet he recited each item like a man counting cabinets in his own house.

"I know Zhengping is in that old building in the Old Town District." He refilled her empty cup a little. "Director He has held that office for thirty years. Not easy. A firm like yours handles only a handful of decent cases a year."

"Whether a case is decent doesn't depend on the price tag."

"Well said." He smiled slightly. "But people have to eat. Hengyue funds scholarships at two schools every year. Jiangzhou University's law school has taken our money, too. People in business care about face."

His hand circled halfway around the cup rim again, then stopped.

"Dr. Lin," he continued. "Her materials should be submitted in the next couple of days, I imagine. Once submitted, that license of hers—in danger." He paused. "If you push one step further, the first one to be strung up won't be Hengyue."

March 30th. The date filled in on that form, the signature line still blank. She remembered Lin Qi's glance back as she went down the stairs.

"One more thing." He leaned back in his chair. "Hengyue's legal department is short-staffed. If you're willing, that position wouldn't pay less than what you're making in that old building."

[Thud. Money placed in your hand only counts once it's on paper; money refused should be put on paper even sooner.]

She reached into her bag, took out her phone, and laid it face-up on the table between them. The recording line on the screen kept rising.

"Chairman Qin, I'm recording."

His eyelids lifted. After two or three seconds, he laughed.

"Record away," he said. "My words can stand scrutiny anywhere."

"The drug, it's all on paper." She pushed the phone half an inch forward. "Which company shipped, which seal was stamped, which day it was returned, which column is blank—all submitted by the hospital itself. I didn't add a single word."

"Getting justice for that mother is a good thing." He gazed at the phone on the table. "But the drug hasn't rotted that far. Your own path, though, is about to get difficult."

"I don't need thanks."

The water sounded again. He lifted the pot and topped off the cup she hadn't touched. Steam rose and filmed the phone between them with a thin fog.

"Lawyer Shen," he set the pot down, "you're still young."

"So is Chairman Qin."

No anger crossed his face—he looked more like a man facing a form filled out incorrectly. He stood, pulled a business card from an inside pocket of his jacket, pressed two fingers on it, and pushed it across the table. She didn't reach for it. The card stopped in the middle of the table, an inch from her hand.

He didn't push it further. He withdrew his hand, walked around, and pulled the door open for her.

At the doorway, she stopped. "Chairman Qin, let me ask one thing on behalf of my client, too. That injection—who ordered it?"

"That's a question for the hospital."

"The hospital can't answer it." She said. "So I'm asking you."

He didn't respond. His hand stayed on the door handle, waiting for her to leave.

As she went down the stairs, she glanced back. The cup of tea sat where it had been, untouched, the steam long gone from its rim.

On the bus ride back, she went over today's exact words twice in her mind, afraid of missing a syllable. By the time she got off, dusk had fallen. The phone pressed against her leg in her bag, recording still on. She didn't turn it off.

She got back to the office after six. The smell of scallion oil drifted up from the downstairs stove. Two voice messages sat pinned at the top of the rider group chat—Ma Jianjun asking about the doctor's situation. She didn't reply.

Under the desk lamp, she spread out a blank sheet of paper and wrote line by line from the top.

Time: April 2, 3:00 to 3:40 p.m. Location: Second floor of the teahouse at 18 Hengyue Road. Present: myself and Qin Yueshan. No third party.

She recorded the conversation item by item, putting his words in quotation marks and writing her own statements exactly as spoken. At the line about two point eight million, she paused, and after the words "the hospital is willing," she added "as relayed by Qin Yueshan"—who said it and on whose behalf had to stay separate. When she got to the business card he'd pushed forward and that she hadn't taken, she wrote five words: I did not accept it.

[Thud. The words were his; the writing is yours. Paper recognizes words, not people.]

He Xiufen came up with her tea mug just as she was writing the final line.

He Xiufen read the page from top to bottom—the name "Qin Yueshan," the "two point eight million," the last line "I did not accept it"—and nodded.

"Keep this paper," she said. "He didn't admit anything, but he came. A chairman, over a mother's lawsuit, driving out to the High-tech Zone to meet with a trainee lawyer—that alone is worth a line in the record."

She set her mug on the corner of the desk. "If he came in person, it means this chain is afraid of being examined."

"You didn't drink the tea, did you?"

"Not a sip."

"Good." He Xiufen pushed the paper back toward her. "He couldn't give away a single cent, but he gave himself away by showing up. Keep this paper safe. He won't come looking for you again—he knows you can't be talked around. From now on he'll go to Peng Weidong. He'll go to Lin Qi. Tomorrow, call Peng Weidong first. Get ahead of it. Don't let him answer unfamiliar numbers alone."

The door closed, footsteps descending the stairs.

The phone lit up on the corner of the desk. Lu Jibai.

"Keep the evidence safe. Don't meet him alone a second time."

She stared at the line for two seconds. Last time it was him too—"Check the accompanying shipment document, not just the invoice"—no explanation offered.

She sent back three words:

"Already met him."

The screen went dark.

Under the desk lamp, on top of the stack, lay that "Interview Record." She laid it over the two supply slips. Hengyue Pharmaceutical's seal was stamped on the upstream one—oval, the characters cut thin.

Not one thing he offered, had she accepted.

Hengyue's seal, he'd stamped on himself.