Read Novel Full Chapter 193: No Such Person
Chapter 193: No Such Person
"Item one: after filing the internship registration, repeatedly appeared in court alone, and when appearing, the supervising lawyer did not participate as the agent."
He Xiufen finished reading the copy of the Complaint Letter aloud and pushed it back to the center of the table. The noodle shop downstairs was closed, the roll-up shutter half-lowered; in the upstairs room, only the two of them remained. The three-page attachment sat under the corner of the paper.
Shen Zhixia picked up a pencil and drew a circle outside the complainant's field, then circled two more spots below it: the line for the practice institution, the line for the contact number, and finally the signature date at the bottom.
"Four spots circled. What did you find?"
"Three of them don't look like a real person," she said. "The name doesn't, the firm doesn't, the number doesn't. I dialed once this morning. Dead number."
"Then why circle them?"
"I used my ears this morning." She tapped the pencil tip on the paper. "This afternoon, I started using the paper."
"Where's the paper?"
"The number's on the paper." She shifted the two pages into the light. "Eight digits. A landline. Called it — dead. The name, the firm, the number, all in the same column. Not one of them connects to an actual person."
He Xiufen moved her water glass aside to make room. "Three items. Go through them one by one."
"Item one, the answer comes in two halves. Half of it is paper: the firm letter stubs, the summonses, the court appearance certificates, dates laid out one after another, showing which times you sat on my left. The other half isn't paper: a trainee lawyer appearing in court only needs the supervising lawyer present. They don't have to be listed in the agent column. This complaint takes 'present in court' and rewrites it as 'participated as the agent.'"
"You've got it memorized."
"Memorized this morning."
"Memorizing it isn't a problem." He Xiufen pushed the paper back toward her. "But this one's the hardest. Look for yourself: the firm letter stub has my name on it, the court appearance certificate is mine, the case intake registration is mine too. These three prove the firm assigned me. They don't prove which chair I sat in on the day of the hearing."
"The record doesn't show you."
"The record doesn't show me. That's the fatal weakness in item one. What they want isn't to prove I wasn't in court. They only need to say one thing: it's not on paper."
Shen Zhixia smoothed down the two corners. "Then take 'present in court' off the paper and put it on the person. That hearing had audio and video recording. Pull it up and it shows you sitting at the plaintiff's bench. Who sat in which chair — the camera doesn't miss it."
"Whether to pull it up is their business."
"It's their business," she said. "But we have to be the first to say it. If we don't say it, they won't look."
"Whether the Discipline Department listens to your other half is another matter. Keep going."
"Item two: handling cases externally in the name of a lawyer. What they cite are three places in the trial record." Shen Zhixia flipped out the photocopied pages of the court transcript and stopped her finger on the line reading "Shen Zhixia (Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm)." "Every time I stated my full title: trainee lawyer Shen Zhixia, supervising lawyer He Xiufen. If those two words aren't on the paper, that's the recording convention."
"Recording convention. You believe it. Others may not." He Xiufen thought for a moment. "Add one line: request retrieval of the hearing audio and video recording for verification. Whether they retrieve it is their business. You just put that sentence in."
"Item three: failing to register cases through the firm's internal procedures and charging fees privately."
"That one's the easiest to answer."
"The case intake register: the handler column is you, the registration was done by me. The engagement agreement is in the firm's name. The money was transferred by Peng Weidong into the firm's account. The invoice is in the file." She paused. "This one just needs photocopies attached."
"Three items — there has to be one that's just filler." He Xiufen rolled her sleeves up a little. "You can answer all three. What about the header column?"
"Investigate."
"Can you find anything?"
"Only by investigating do you find out what you can't find."
He Xiufen looked at her for two seconds, took the pencil from her hand, and slid it back into the pen holder. "Start drafting your defense statement. But don't put this column first."
"Why not?"
"You answer their three items, then at the end you attach a line saying 'please verify the complainant's identity' — that's a reminder. If you put it first, that's an accusation." He Xiufen stood up and lifted the pot lid. "The moment you accuse, they'll say you're dodging the substance."
Downstairs, someone at the door was calling about recycling, the voice drifting up through the gap in the shutter. Shen Zhixia was squaring up the three photocopied pages. Halfway through, her phone rang.
"I heard you got complaint-filed with the Bar Association." Tang Guo had keyboard sounds in the background. "Someone forwarded it to me. I killed it. Didn't post."
"Don't post it yet."
"I know. So what do you need — paper, people, or money?"
"None of them." Shen Zhixia said. "When it's time to post, I'll call you."
"Fine. I'll keep it warm."
She hung up and went back to arranging the pages.
[Thud. What's written on the paper — cross-check it against the roster first.]
"Any movement from the hospital?" she asked.
"No." He Xiufen said. "The appeal period runs to the end of the month. Twelve days left."
* * *
On the morning of May 19th, He Xiufen packed five sets of photocopies into a kraft paper envelope and left, dropping one final line on her way out: "Hold off on your defense statement until you've checked the roster. I'm not drafting this for you."
Shen Zhixia started with a phone call. She dialed the Bar Association's public number.
"I want to ask about a firm. Whether it's on the roster."
"Complaint matters aren't discussed over the phone."
"I'm not complaining. I'm looking something up."
"To check a lawyer or a firm, go to the provincial Justice Department's public disclosure platform and look it up yourself." The person on the other end paused. "It's all on the website."
She hung up and turned on the computer. The office machine was five years old, took half a minute to boot, the cursor jumping twice before settling. She opened the enterprise information page first, typed in the name, then remembered — law firm registrations weren't in that category. She closed it and switched to the provincial Justice Department's platform.
The search box was in the upper right corner. Below it, a line of fine print: Name field supports fuzzy search.
She typed in the name from the Complaint Letter character by character, then checked it against the original paper again before hitting Enter.
A line appeared: No lawyer matching the criteria was found.
She swapped in two homophone characters and tried twice more. Three searches, three times the same line. She went back to the original paper and stared at the name for a long time — the strokes neat and correct, not one extra, not one missing. Some people write with perfect form, and the person isn't on the roster.
She deleted the name and typed "Jiangzhou Tongsheng Law Firm."
The page loaded for a second.
One result came back.
She pulled her chair half an inch closer and read down, field by field:
Name: Jiangzhou Tongsheng Law Firm.
Deregistration date: November 19th, three years ago.
Deregistration reason: merger by absorption.
Law firm inheriting the merger: Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm.
Seals: surrendered and canceled per regulations.
She read the entry twice. The second time she read more slowly, her finger stopping on that last field. Then she wrote two characters on the back of her notebook: Hengzheng.
She picked up her phone and sent one line to the unsaved number: Tongsheng Law Firm.
After sending, she flipped the phone face-down on the corner of the desk.
The printer was under the cabinet. The paper jammed when she pulled it out. She worked the stuck half-page free, fed it back in, and printed the record — the page footer carrying the URL and print timestamp. Along the edge she wrote: Search time, May 19th, 10:40 AM; searcher, Shen Zhixia.
[Thud. Those words on the paper — not in the roster.]
[Thud. The firm deregistered three years ago. The seal surrendered too.]
* * *
He Xiufen came back around noon. The kraft envelope was empty; she was holding a receipt. "Five sets, all accounted for. The kid who counted the pages counted twice. He found the missing ones."
"What did he find missing?"
"Nothing." He Xiufen sat down. "If he couldn't find anything, that means the paper was complete."
Shen Zhixia pushed the printout across.
He Xiufen put on her glasses and read from top to bottom. She didn't pause at "deregistration date." Didn't pause at "merger by absorption." Her finger stopped on "law firm inheriting the merger."
"Three years ago, Hengzheng swallowed a firm." She took off her glasses. "'People later scattered' — I thought they'd scattered. Scattering is closing your own doors. Merging is someone taking over."
"That's what the page says."
"The person who wrote this doesn't leave fingerprints on paper." He Xiufen pushed the printout back. "Turn the Complaint Letter to the signature page."
Shen Zhixia flipped to the last page of the Complaint Letter. Yesterday when she looked at this page, she'd only looked at a date.
Below the signature block was a signature, and after the signature, a date. She held the page up to the window, then turned it over to look at the back.
"What are you looking for?"
"A seal," she said. "The header is in the firm's name. The complainant column lists a practice institution. But the signature block only has a name. Where's the firm seal?"
He Xiufen took both pages and flipped through them from beginning to end: header, cause, three items, signature — not a single stamp anywhere, not a single practice certificate number.
"A firm filing in its own name, and no seal on the paper." She set the pages down. "On the day they accepted it, who counts seals one by one?"
"The paper has a name, a firm, a phone number. It's missing one thing — that's when someone looks."
"Right. The person who submitted it knows exactly which thing they can afford to leave off."
The fryer downstairs sizzled; garlic hit the oil.
"A piece of paper with no seal. Who wrote it?" He Xiufen asked.
"Someone who isn't afraid of being investigated."
"Not afraid because there's no person behind the paper in the first place." He Xiufen flattened the two pages. "What you need to investigate isn't this person who doesn't exist."
"Investigate the day it disbanded," Shen Zhixia said. "Three years ago this firm got absorbed into Hengzheng. The people had to go somewhere. The firm is gone. The people are still here."
"The name is old. The paper is new."
"The complainant column — I'll put it in the defense statement."
"At the end," He Xiufen said. "Write exactly what you found: the firm deregistered three years ago, no practice record for the name in the roster, not a single seal on the paper. List the facts one by one. Don't add a single word of commentary."
She opened the defense draft and added a paragraph at the end:
Additionally: After searching the Jiangzhou Province Lawyer Practice Public Disclosure Platform, the "Jiangzhou Tongsheng Law Firm" listed in the Complaint Letter was deregistered on November 19th, three years ago; no practice record was found for the complainant's name as listed; the Complaint Letter bears no seal of the complainant's practice institution. Request verification of the complainant's identity and the source of the complaint materials. One page of printed search results is attached.
"Write the dates in," He Xiufen said. "When you searched, when you printed, who searched — all of it goes on paper. Miss one thing, and they can say this page has no provenance."
She picked up her pen and added a line: Search time, May 19th, 10:40 AM; searcher, Shen Zhixia.
"There's one more thing you need to think through clearly." He Xiufen said. "The header column was filled in this completely. The person who wrote it knew exactly what he was filling in. He chose to submit it this month. What he's after is your certificate — get blocked once, and you're waiting another half year."
"So he's not coming after this case."
"The case, win or lose, is written in the judgment." He Xiufen folded the receipt and pressed it into the clip. "Your name is on the assessment form."
Shen Zhixia set the pen down. The printout went behind the defense draft; the hard-cover folder closed with its edges neat and even.
She turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote: Tongsheng — deregistered three years ago — no such person — no seal. After writing, she circled the four characters for "no such person."
The phone at the corner of the desk was still dark. That message had been sent. All afternoon, no reply.
[Thud. The firm was deregistered three years ago. The paper was sent the day before yesterday.]