Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 197: One Item Per Page

On the morning of May 28, someone downstairs called out her name—"Zhengping," twice.

She went down to receive it. Noodles were boiling on the stove, steam escaping through the window.

Two letters. One thick, kraft paper, with the Bar Association Membership Affairs Department printed in the sender's box; one thin, a single page, red letterhead, stamped Discipline Department.

She opened the thin one first.

Notice of Supplementary Materials, four items: 1. The written statement of defense shall respond to each complained-about matter one item per page, each item forming a separate section, and shall not be consolidated into a single statement; 2. The defense shall not include matters unrelated to the complaint; 3. When submitting copies, originals shall be brought for verification and returned on the spot after inspection; 4. The defense materials and the internship assessment materials shall be submitted in the same period and shall not be delivered separately.

The date was at the bottom, stamped with a square seal.

"One item per page." She set the sheet down beside He Xiufen's hand.

He Xiufen read it through, then pressed a nail into the six words "shall not be consolidated" and scored a line: "They've decided the form for you."

Inside the thick envelope was a one-line response letter—The matters inquired about have been verified, three photocopied pages attached—with a receipt tucked under it: five jiao per page, one yuan five jiao total.

Three photocopied pages.

The first page was the Law Firm Office Premises Filing Form. Name: Jiangzhou Tongsheng Law Firm. The registered address field carried the door number of Hengzheng's Third Division—identical, character for character, to what she'd copied into her notebook the week before. Notes: original premises. Number of practicing lawyers: 0. The filing date field was handwritten: April 26.

The ink on the second page was lighter than the first. Someone's signature sat in the handler's signature field, the final stroke flicking upward—she couldn't tell what character it was. The contact number field held a string of eight digits.

The third page was a document receipt register. The recipient's name in the signatory column belonged to the person at the window, surname Luo. Receipt date: May 6.

She laid pages one and three side by side under the lamp.

Filing date April 26. The Association received it May 6. Ten days apart.

On the morning of April 26, she'd been at Chengbei District Court reading those three stacks of paper.

"Whoever filled in the form wrote his own date," He Xiufen said. "The receipt was written by the window clerk. No one asks the window clerk to change a date."

"Ten days apart."

"Who would backdate their own filing by ten days." He Xiufen pushed the two pages toward her. "Unless that card wasn't made that day—it was added later. And whoever added it was afraid of it looking too new."

She pulled out the copy of the Complaint, flipped to the signature column, and checked digit by digit. The eight-digit number on the second page—not one digit missing.

She'd dialed this number once, the week before. Nothing on the other end.

"Same number," she said.

"Write it down."

"Not going into the defense."

"No." He Xiufen laid the two pages together and folded them once. "Half your guess, keep it quiet for now."

"Keep it quiet until what."

"Until it grows its other half on its own."

He Xiufen flipped the three pages back in order, reading each one to the end, then stopped.

"One person took three pages from the Medical Affairs Office. A different person swapped this card in. One could get into the hospital corridors; one could get into the Association's cabinets."

"So one person or two."

"Can't tell yet." He Xiufen tucked the pages into the hard-shell folder. "So we don't say."

* * *

What was left of the morning held the table's lingering warmth. She spread out the Complaint copy—three items, one per line.

Item one: After internship registration, repeatedly appeared in court as sole representative; the supervising lawyer did not appear as co-counsel.

Item two: Handled cases externally under the title of lawyer; cites three instances from the agent column of the trial transcripts.

Item three: Failed to follow firm procedure for centralized case intake; privately collected client fees.

"Three items. How do you plan to answer." He Xiufen asked.

"One by one."

"Order?"

"As in the complaint."

He Xiufen set down the red pen: "That's called confessing to everything at once."

"The trap in item one is the word 'title,' not the word 'qualification.'" She said, "If you try to prove you were qualified to appear in court, you've already accepted the premise that 'appearing in court requires qualification.' One step further, and you're standing there without the certificate. You don't have it—say that sentence a hundred times and it's still true."

"Then what do I answer for item one."

"Answer what you said about yourself that day." He Xiufen turned the notes toward her, pen point on the first line. "The firm issued the letter, the court appearance permit stubs are on file, the power of attorney lists my name as supervising lawyer, and the recording has your own words. Write that sentence down hard: never claimed to be a lawyer, not once. Two sentences will do. Don't embellish."

"Item two."

"Item two—the transcripts aren't in your hands." He Xiufen said, "Three places, two missing characters—that's how the clerk recorded it. If you write 'they wrote it down wrong,' the Discipline Department will ask you how you know they wrote it down wrong."

"Write 'please verify.'"

"Write it in plain sight: inconsistent with my own in-court statements, please retrieve the recordings for verification." He Xiufen nodded. "Let them listen for themselves."

"Item three is my strongest."

"The strongest item goes last." He Xiufen said, "One item per page—that's a rule made for whoever reads the paper: page one they read, page two they flip, page three they check the page number. While they read page one, the three lines of the complaint are still hanging over them. So put the one that looks most wrong on page one—you don't have the certificate, that's true, answer it clean. Put the money last to weigh the paper down. By the last page, they have to turn back and ask themselves: what else is there to question in this person. That question does more work than a paragraph you wrote."

"And no linking between the three sections," she added.

"What counts as linking."

"You write one 'in summary' and the three items become one. Become one, and you've confessed to all three at once."

She'd originally written at the end: In summary, I respectfully request the Committee's comprehensive consideration. She crossed it out.

Before copying the final page, she started a new line: I have never met the complainant and bear no personal grudge against them.

He Xiufen reached over and crossed out that half-line too.

"Why cross that out."

"You write that sentence, and they have to ask you why you said it first." He Xiufen set the pen down. "You've never met the complainant—that's verifiable, no need to write it. The moment you write it is the moment your mind already has someone you want to ask about."

"The section on the attachments."

"What you had was: 'Neither I nor my firm ever provided the respondent with copies bearing our seal.'" He Xiufen said, "You know you didn't give them; the paper doesn't. Change it to what the paper knows."

She changed it to: The verification seal was not applied by me or my firm. Please request Chengbei Hospital to verify when this set of copies was made and by whom, and verify how it was obtained.

"Keep the last half-sentence?"

"Keep it." He Xiufen said, "What you want is for them to investigate, not for them to see you angry."

* * *

Once the revisions were done, she pushed over the page she'd researched. Three people.

The first: a partner at a firm in Chengxi, practicing for thirty years. In public judgments, the largest share of his cases were medical damage suits.

The second: a veteran supervisor at the Bar Association. His name appeared only in two annual disciplinary bulletins; both matters had been complaint reviews.

The third: Huo Jingzhi. After the name trailed a line of small characters: Intern Assessment Committee, Review Panel. The year before, she'd participated in reviewing an intern's appeal of an assessment result. The outcome wasn't on the public platform—only half a sentence remained in an internal Association training write-up—

Strictly verify signatures and attributions.

She drew a line under that half-sentence.

"Did he represent anyone in the Chengbei Hospital case." He Xiufen asked.

"Nothing in the public record."

"Then don't mention recusal." He Xiufen returned the page. "A recusal without evidence is handing them something to quote."

"And Huo Jingzhi's half-sentence?"

"You copied that down yourself—don't use it as a lead." He Xiufen glanced at it. "Use it as a reminder: that day, however many names you sign, make each stroke clean."

"Five days left."

"In those five days, turn what you need to answer into something you can say aloud." He Xiufen said, "Three questions you can answer, but if the fourth one stops you, the first three answers were wasted. When you can't answer, say 'I need to verify.'"

That afternoon she reprinted six pages. The printer was downstairs, next to He Xiufen's ledger; the pages came out one by one, and she checked each one: three items, one page each; one page for the attachment sources; one page for the complainant and the material sources; the final page was the requests, with page numbers in the lower right. She left the signature blank on the final page, to write by hand.

* * *

June 2, morning, fourth floor of the Municipal Bar Association. The elevator doors opened, and the first sound she heard was in her ears.

[Thud. Chengbei medical case: appeal period expired, judgment in force. Enforcement incomplete; Justice Points recorded at half, the rest to be settled when the money lands.]

She placed three things on the desk one by one. The six-page defense. A one-page evidence list, originals in a file envelope. Three internship assessment items: internship registration form, case-handling log, supervising lawyer's opinion—the final page of the registration form held four rows of court appearance records, and in the column "Did the supervising lawyer appear," all four rows read "Yes."

Guan Min flipped through page by page. At the last page, she studied the signature field for two seconds, then flipped back to the first page to check the page numbers.

"Six pages."

"Six pages."

"Originals."

She untied the envelope and slid the items forward one by one: case intake register, engagement agreement, special power of attorney, firm letter stubs, deposit vouchers, invoices. Guan Min checked them off against the list, verified them, and pushed them back.

"The three assessment items I didn't open."

"Taking them all."

Guan Min wrote a code beginning with "Received" on the receipt, dated June 2, and pushed it over for her signature. She signed; Guan Min tore it into two copies and handed one to her.

"June 11, nine a.m., Hearing Room on the fourth floor." Guan Min said, "Arrive fifteen minutes early. Bring original ID."

"The defense and the assessment—both on the table that day."

"Both." Guan Min squared the stack and tapped it against the desk edge. "My job is receiving and numbering."

At the corridor entrance she looked back at that door. Someone inside was on the phone, voice very low, talking about someone else's business.

[Thud. Defense and assessment, same-day filing. The formalities are satisfied.]

[Thud. This stage has no evidence to collect. Three people in that room, and they'll be looking only at you.]

* * *

The night of June 10, the stall downstairs closed early.

She laid out tomorrow's things on the long table and counted: ID, defense, original evidence bag, receipt. Counted twice.

He Xiufen came up, gathered the papers on the corner of the table, squared them into one neat stack.

"Count it a third time—it still won't grow a page," she said. "Sleep."

Nine forty, Peng Weidong called.

"Should I go tomorrow."

"No need."

"Then I'll wait downstairs."

"Wait for what."

"For you to come down and say something."

She hung up and set the phone face down beside the papers.

Ten o'clock, a message from Tang Guo: I'll be outside the Bar Association tomorrow morning. Not going in. No filming.

She replied: No filming.

Tang Guo sent another: When you come out, lift your head.

She replied: Okay.

Ten forty, the phone lit up beside the papers, this time face up. An unsaved number, one line:

Tomorrow they won't start with those three items.

She picked up the phone and typed four characters: What first.

Sent. No response.

After a while, the screen lit again. Same number.

Huo Jingzhi will watch how you sign your name.

She set the phone down and looked at the corner of the desk: the final page of the defense, page number in the lower right, her name written in her own hand—three characters—and the wastebasket full of discarded attempts, half a finger deep.