Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 186 : Don't Leave Them in the Disposal Room

On the morning of April 16, at 8:50, the electronic screen outside the Market Regulation Bureau scrolled its slogan: Honest Business, Worry-Free Consumption. She climbed to the fourth floor with her canvas bag over her shoulder. Inside it sat the copy of the April 7 inventory, its edges worn white from handling.

The fourth-floor inspection room was smaller than the intake window below. One long table, four chairs, a pothos on the windowsill with half its leaves yellowed. He Min was already there, reading glasses perched low on her nose. Three items lay spread across the table, weighed down by two paperweights.

"Sit." He Min pushed a chair out half a foot. "What I meant on the phone yesterday when I said 'it matches'—these three things."

Shen Zhixia sat and examined them one by one.

The first was a hardcover ledger, spine cracked and stitched back together with white thread from a sewing kit, every page corner dog-eared. The title "Drug Receiving Register" was printed, beneath it row after row of blue ballpoint handwriting. He Min flipped to December and held her fingertip on the 26th: Hengyue Pharmaceutical, four cartons; a container number noted after it; and at the line's end, the character "Dong," the last stroke flicking upward.

"The column?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"Empty." He Min said. "The name's at the end of the line, not in the receiver column. The column is the column. The name is just a name."

The second item was an accompanying shipment document, creased twice—the copy kept in the warehouse, receiver column blank. The third was a photocopy of that same document, the one the defendant had only submitted to the court on the afternoon of March 30.

"Three things, side by side. Count." He Min said. "A surname in the register, not a single character on either copy of the document. The warehouse copy's blank, and the one in the case file's blank too."

[Thud. Three pages, and only one surname.]

"On your tip letter, item three said 'receiver's signature blank.'" He Min pushed her reading glasses up. "So we checked that column."

"You got all the way to the warehouse."

"We did. The original register's still there. During our on-site inspection, we logged it and photocopied these two pages." She pulled open a drawer and took out a thermos. "The register checks out. What doesn't check out is the person—the register was written by that Dong in the warehouse, but his handwriting isn't on either document. We've scheduled him for 3 p.m. to complete an on-site inspection record."

"Can I wait here?"

"You can wait." He Min unscrewed the cap. "What you want to ask, ask him yourself after he's done. Our record only covers the questions we ask. If he says one extra thing, I can't write it in for you."

"When will the written report come out?"

"End of the month. Don't rush it. Rushing won't make it faster."

Downstairs, she bought a bottle of water at the shop by the entrance and sent five characters to a number she'd never saved: Found the warehouse keeper.

The reply came fast.

"Don't corner him in the hallway. Find somewhere you can sit. If he says it all standing up, he'll deny it all the next day."

She copied those two lines into the margin of her notebook, read them over once, and went back upstairs to sit.

* * *

At 2:50 p.m. she returned to the fourth floor. The hallway was long, a cart parked beside the radiator with one wheel propped against the wall. Five minutes before three, a man in his early fifties came up the stairs: blue cloth work coat over an old sweater, collar pilled; the backs of his hands cracked and patched with two strips of medical tape, grime in his nail beds. He held a piece of paper folded in half.

At 3:27, he came out of the inspection room. The paper was still in his hand, the creases damp with sweat.

"Master Dong."

The man stopped and looked her over from head to toe.

"I'm Peng Weidong's agent. The Chengbei Hospital case."

"Whatever needed saying about that document, I just said it to them." He shoved the folded paper deeper into his pocket.

"I'm not asking about the document," she said. "There are some steps downstairs, in the sun. Two sentences, then you go."

He didn't answer, just took the first step down.

The steps hugged the wall, grass growing through the cracks. He sat on an upper step, hands on his knees. She sat one step below, bag at her feet, notebook still in the bag.

"The name in the register is yours."

"I keep the count."

"And the name on the document?"

"I don't sign those." He said it fast, like he'd rehearsed it a hundred times in his head. "They unload first. After unloading, he held on to both copies, said he'd fill them in himself back at the office. I said give me one copy to sign, he said no need."

"Which company delivers?"

"Hengyue's, Hengkang's—same one man runs the route."

"Did he ever make good on it?"

"I called twice. First time he said it was going through the process. Second time no answer. After that, they stopped coming."

"In the register you note the count and write a surname at the end. Why not write it in the column?"

"The column's for the person signing for the goods." He looked up. "I just do the count. If he won't let me sign, what would I put in the column?"

"I've been in that warehouse twenty years." He said it again, evenly. "Stocktaking, damage reports, returns to storage—I've written my name on all of it. Never once left two documents blank."

"You didn't leave the column blank," she said. "The blank column sits there for anyone passing by to see."

Master Dong rubbed his hands on his knees and let that one go.

"One more thing," she said. "December 27. Before sunrise. Where were you?"

The hand on his knee went still.

"In the warehouse. Month-end inventory. I got there early that day."

"What time?"

"Past five."

"Did anyone come by?"

The wind came over the wall and lifted the pilled wool on his sweater. He pulled his hands into his sleeves.

"One man," he said slowly. "White coat, forties, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Nothing in his hands. First thing he said was 'your warehouse.'"

"Accent?"

"Not about accent." He glanced at her, then looked down. "People like us, we greet each other 'Master.' He didn't."

"What did he say?"

"He said there were some empty ampoules upstairs in obstetrics. Told me to go collect them. Don't leave them in the disposal room."

"And you said?"

"I said fine. End of year, the empty boxes were getting cleared anyway." Master Dong said. "I took a transfer basket up."

"What floor."

"Fourth, obstetrics. Hallway was busy. Someone went running past pushing a cart. There were a few ampoules piled by the sink in the disposal room, and I swept out another one from under the treatment cart. Five total."

"Who usually collects the empties?"

"Cleaning staff in the disposal room. Twice a day, into the yellow bags."

"So why didn't he get them from the disposal room himself?"

Master Dong didn't answer. He tucked his chin into his collar.

"Which one did you look at longest?" she asked.

He hesitated.

"Before I came down, I stood there a while longer. Turned the bottom one over, label side up."

"Why?"

"If he asked which one I'd collected, I could tell him."

"Did he ask?"

"He took the basket." Master Dong said. "Took it right out of my hands, said he'd keep it. Never saw that basket of bottles again."

Her throat was dry. She uncapped her water and took a sip, keeping her hand steady on the bottle.

"Around 5:40," he said. "Sky was just getting light when I came down."

"The warehouse is just you and the young man who hauls boxes."

"Just us two. He only started in February. Wasn't there back then."

"Who have you told about this?"

"Even if I told someone, I wouldn't put my name to it."

"Your name won't be on any materials," she said. "Whatever line of yours goes into the record, I'll show it to you first. If you nod, it gets written. If you don't, it doesn't touch paper."

Master Dong studied her for a long moment, the whites of his eyes yellowed, like a man running on no sleep.

"On the afternoon of April 9, someone came to the warehouse asking about the December shipment," she said. "You weren't there that day."

"I was moving stock in the yard. Heard someone mention it after I got back."

"Why didn't you come to work the next day?"

"Family matter." The answer came quick, and his mouth closed right after.

She didn't push further. Ask one wrong question and he wouldn't show up tomorrow—and after that, nobody would know where to find him.

"The hearing is on the 26th," she said. "The court needs a person who received the goods to repeat the story of those five bottles."

"I've got this job till I retire," he said.

"I know."

"The lock on the cabinet is mine to manage." He slipped his hands back into his sleeves. "If I go tell them, tomorrow somebody else will be opening it."

"Take a few days to think." She shouldered her bag. "Anything you ask me, I won't repeat to anyone."

He stood, brushed the dirt off his trouser legs, went down three more steps, and turned back.

"One more thing."

She stopped.

"That day he asked me what batch the drug came from."

"What did you say?"

"I said I didn't note it."

[Thud. At that time, no one had filed a case against anyone yet.]

She sat on the steps another ten minutes, writing down the conversation in order: the man came to the warehouse past five; she—no, he—went up and collected five; the basket was taken away; white coat, forties, sleeves rolled to the elbow; opened with "your warehouse." When she finished, she noted the date and time: April 16. Her pen hovered over the words "forties," then moved on without adding more.

* * *

Back at the firm that evening, the noodle house downstairs was just filling up. The sizzle of scallion oil climbed all the way up to the second-floor window. He Xiufen had laid out three comparison sheets on the long table and gestured for Shen Zhixia to come over.

"Talk."

She went through the three sheets, then the five empty ampoules, reading the line from her notebook: "I said I didn't note it." He Xiufen didn't interrupt. Only when she finished did she take off her glasses and set them on the tea mug.

"Three people telling one story," she said. "The one on duty saw someone standing by the cart. The one who broke open the drug saw someone come up after the delivery. The one who collected the bottles says he went up and collected them—and as for who went up, you've got a name now."

"Jian Ning said 'not from the pharmacy,'" Shen Zhixia said. "I verified it. The warehouse is in that row of single-story buildings behind the inpatient building—it's not the same as the pharmacy window on the first floor. The faces she knows are at the window."

"That lines up." He Xiufen slid the three sheets into order. "Three blank columns, one surname—that's paper. What he said—that's a person. Person and paper get stored separately."

"How do I write up the materials?"

"One column for paper, one for source, one for date." She said. "The warehouse register: a surname at the line's end, column blank. Source: retrieved during the drug regulator's on-site inspection. The two copies of the accompanying shipment document: warehouse copy blank, and the one submitted to the case file on March 30 blank as well. As for those five ampoules—not a word goes into the materials."

"What if he's willing to talk but won't sign?"

"Then let him hear your questions first." He Xiufen said. "Two filings: one as supplementary evidence, laying out the three blank columns; one as an Application for Evidence Collection, asking the court to obtain the register page and the on-site inspection record from the drug regulator. Both filed before the 21st."

"Five days from now."

"Five days is enough." He Xiufen nudged the tea mug to the corner of the desk. "I don't care where that basket of bottles went. What you have to nail down is the man who collected them—if he sits in the witness stand, those five empty ampoules are evidence. If he sits in the warehouse, they're just an old man's idle talk."

Shen Zhixia opened her notebook. The April 15 entry was still there: Jian Ning. A blank space after the name. She picked up her pen and wrote one character into it: Dong.

"One more layer," He Xiufen said. "Whoever came asking about the batch number wanted to muddy the water. That morning, no lawsuit had been filed yet—but he came asking first. He wasn't afraid the drug was overpriced. He knew this drug was about to become a problem."

Headlights swept across the window, then died. Someone downstairs called for extra noodles.

Shen Zhixia copied the sentence into the bottom of her notebook. When she finished, she sat still.

At 5:40, the empty ampoules left obstetrics. At 6:20, handwriting landed on that notice form. The pen that wrote those characters arrived more than half an hour after the hands that collected the bottles.