Read Novel Full Chapter 199: Then Let's Verify First
Chapter 199: Then Let's Verify First
The pencil lead snapped on the two characters for "telephone."
She switched to another pencil and slid the blue-covered directory under the lamp. The one from three years ago, its gray cover He Xiufen never dusted. She flipped to the second half, to the entry for Tongsheng Law Firm: registered address in Old Town District, one name in the director column, followed by a string of eight digits.
She read them one by one. At the seventh, she stopped.
She had seen this string on two other pages. One was the "Office Premises Filing Form" that came with the Bar Association's letter—the "contact telephone" field on page two, handwritten. The other was the signature block of the Complaint Letter, also handwritten. Three places, one number.
She had dialed it once. Two rings, then the slow, half-beat busy tone that only dead numbers gave.
She flipped the pencil around and copied the string onto the margin of her working sheet. At the eighth digit she hesitated a second before putting it down.
A pot lid clattered downstairs. He Xiufen came up carrying a bowl of noodles, set it by her hand, pulled her glasses from her collar, and put them on.
"Number match?"
"Printed in the directory, written on the filing form, written on the complaint. Same one."
He Xiufen pulled the directory over, checked the number at the bottom of that entry, then the photocopied filing form, twice.
"That directory—the Bar Association issues one every year, one per firm. Everyone's got one." She set the book on the table. "You can't point at anyone with this number. It won't stick."
"Then what good is it."
"It shows the person filling in the form had paper on hand. Tongsheng's old name, old number—he copied from something, didn't make it up." The chopsticks tapped the digit string. "You use it to know he wasn't just writing blind."
"Copying from paper—and the paper's all from the same batch."
"Right. Same batch." He Xiufen pushed the bowl closer. "Eat. When you're done, take out that Li Huilan page and read it front to back."
"I've looked at it."
"You looked at the signature box."
"The signature box matters most."
"You looked at the box, not the paper." He Xiufen pulled the file copy from the hard-shell folder and slapped it on the table. "The whole page. Top to bottom."
She set down the chopsticks. The photocopy's corners were worn white. The three characters of Li Huilan's name sat in the signature box, strokes tight. Before, she had only stared at that name, twice.
This time she read from the header down: Name. Practice Certificate Number. Original Practice Institution—Jiangzhou Tongsheng Law Firm. Intended New Institution—Jiangzhou Chongzheng Law Firm. Firm Opinion field, stamped with a Tongsheng seal. Date: November 19.
Farther down, the bottom row carried five small characters: Submitted by Handling Officer.
After those five characters sat a handwritten signature, its final stroke flicking upward.
She pressed a finger onto those five characters, then looked up and turned to page two of the filing form copy. The handling officer's signature box on that page also held a signature with an upward flick.
She pulled out a thin sheet, pressed it under the lamp, and traced, stroke by stroke. First the one on the file copy, a line blank, then the one on the filing form. She spread both tracings side by side.
"Which one is which." She pushed them over.
He Xiufen studied them through her reading glasses for a long time, turned the paper over, then back.
"Can't tell."
"Neither one?"
"Neither. You ask me which is which—I can't separate them." She set the paper down. "No point asking further."
[Thud. One hand, three years apart, wrote both ends of the same matter.]
"Three years ago, that form." He Xiufen's finger moved to a field just above the middle. "What does this one say."
"Whether to retain the original name."
"And after it?"
"Blank."
"When Li Huilan signed, it was blank. Her file copy is still blank today." He Xiufen turned over the first page of the filing form and pointed at the name field. "Blank three years ago is why the firm could be deregistered. April 26 this year, that field got filled in, and the name went back under Hengzheng. Same hand, one end and the other."
"Three years ago he handled the deregistration."
"This year he handled the name registration." He Xiufen pushed the two pages side by side toward her. "Three years. He's held the same post at Hengzheng, handled the same firm's books. The man hasn't changed."
"The paper only reaches down to 'Handling Officer.'"
"The paper reaches that far and no further. Past this, paper doesn't recognize faces."
"Who does."
He Xiufen didn't answer. She stood and went to adjust the stove flame.
"April 26." Shen Zhixia was still studying that handwritten date. "Why would he backdate it ten days."
"The complaint came in May. This card says April. When two sheets sit that close together, anyone reading the paper asks which one came first." He Xiufen's back was to her. "What he fears is coincidence. Nothing wrong with fresh. Coincidence is what's dangerous."
She copied this paragraph onto another sheet, stopped midway.
"The card entered the window May 6. The complaint's dated May 16." She set the two dates together. "The header went up first. The paper was written after."
"In those ten days the Association took in two filings. One was this card. One was that complaint." He Xiufen lowered the flame. "Both went into the Association's drawers."
She finished copying the paragraph and looked up.
"I'll write it up as one page and submit it to the Discipline Department."
"Item four of the notice—you copied it once."
"No separate deliveries."
"Item two. No extraneous matters attached." He Xiufen said, "What you're sending in is a signature no one can identify."
"But it is paper."
"If the paper can't be identified, it's a guess."
"Then let it rest among these pages."
"Let it rest." He Xiufen drank the last spoonful of soup from the bowl. "It'll grow its own use."
"This afternoon I have to go to the Bar Association to submit this quarter's legal aid filing materials for the firm." She wiped her hands. "Don't come with me. You're the one under complaint. Don't stand around on that floor."
"I won't go up," Shen Zhixia said. "I'll hand in a sheet at the first-floor window."
"What are you submitting."
"An application to verify the original filing form."
He Xiufen looked at her for two seconds. "Submit it then. Don't ask anyone anything."
She laid the two tracings together and filed them with the previous pages into the hard-shell folder: the deregistration record, Li Huilan's file copy, the filing form photocopy, the receipt register page. The long binder clip snapped shut. On its spine she wrote the date: June 12.
[Thud. Names are dead. Numbers are dead too.]
* * *
At two that afternoon, she walked into the first floor of the Municipal Bar Association.
Two people stood at the Membership Affairs Department window, both holding document envelopes. She queued behind them, waited until they took their receipts and left, then passed a slip of paper through.
"Application to verify the original," she said. "Last month I inspected a photocopy of an office premises filing form that was accepted into materials. I need to verify whether the original matches the photocopy."
The man inside, surnamed Luo, read her note twice.
"The originals in the filing archives stay in the Association's cabinet. No external access." He pushed her slip back halfway. "Write a formal application stating your reason. I'll accept it. It needs leadership approval before retrieval."
"Will you accept it today."
"Yes." He pulled out a blank application form for her and watched her write. "A verification needs a basis. What's your relationship to this material—be clear."
"I am the respondent in the complaint."
Luo's hand paused. "Then write 'for the purpose of verifying dates and signatures recorded therein.'"
She wrote it as dictated. Handed it in. Luo entered a line in the register, tore off a duplicate stamped with an acceptance seal, and gave it to her.
"You record intake the same day?"
"One sheet, one day." He pushed the receipt toward her. "Intake, sign-off, numbering—all logged same day. Anything supplemented later doesn't go in this book."
"What about the person who delivered them."
"Plenty of people deliver. I don't record faces." He capped his pen. "Anything earlier I can't help you with. I only handle intake."
She thanked him and walked out the main door.
* * *
At three-thirty, she stood in a patch of tree shade by the street and called the Discipline Department.
"The complainant's explanation is due this afternoon," she said. "I'm not asking about content. Only whether it was received."
"That's outside what I can tell you." Guan Min's voice was low, a printer feeding paper in the background. "In this room, the Discipline Department, I can't reach the intake book."
"Mm."
"Your book—don't wait for the notice." Guan Min paused. "This morning they sent up that batch of intern assessment name lists. I saw the draft in the first-floor print room."
"How many names on it."
"I didn't count. Don't make me count."
The call ended.
She stood a while, turning the phone half a circle in her hand. Yesterday walking out of the hearing room, the board in the corridor still hung on the wall—Intern Assessment Committee, second member. On hearing day, the first and third had attended. The second hadn't.
She looked down and typed a line to the number she'd never saved:
Second name on the wall board—didn't show yesterday.
Sent. She pressed the screen face-down into her palm. Two buses passed. The screen lit once. Still that number. One line:
He doesn't need to be there.
That certificate matter isn't on that room's table.
Before the screen went dark, she glanced over Tang Guo's morning message: someone in the group had reposted the news of the complaint against her and asked whether they should say something on her behalf. She replied: Hold two more days.
* * *
He Xiufen went out at four, changed into a clean shirt, light gray, buttoned to the collar.
At quarter past ten, He Xiufen came back. The stall downstairs was packed up, the roll-up shutter down, the small kitchen lamp still on. She poured herself a glass of water, sat at the far end of the long table, and flipped her phone over.
"An old classmate, worked the Bar Association for over twenty years, was smoking on the steps today. I stood with him for a smoke." She said, "The meeting upstairs broke up this morning. Someone came out and said a few words. I made him say them again."
"What meeting."
"The Assessment Committee. Ten this morning." He Xiufen looked at the rim of her glass. "He said this much—someone asked whether this matter belongs in this batch. The second member said: 'She said herself she needs to verify. Then let's verify first.'"
"No one answered."
"No one agreed. No one objected. It went down that way."
She set the rag on the stove and turned the flame down a notch, then back. Yesterday's hearing, final statement: she had answered all three items. For the fourth, she had written only five characters.
"The five characters I wrote."
"He read the same five." He Xiufen took a sip of water. "Not one changed."
[Thud. Even heard words need a signature.]
She drew out a blank sheet, uncapped the pen, and stopped before the first stroke. At the top she wrote three characters: Heard, secondhand. Left a line, copied the words down: She said she needs to verify. Then verify first. Date: June 12.
The name she didn't put to paper. She only spoke it once, under her breath.
"Han Chongli."
"Once, aloud, is enough." He Xiufen lifted her cup. "Your paper doesn't recognize that name. Don't repeat this line to anyone, either."
She pressed that page into the hard-shell folder, after the first four. The first four were paper. This one was words. The long clip snapped shut with a crisp click.
Downstairs, the last lamp went dark.