Read Novel Full Chapter 200: Deferred Issuance
Chapter 200: Deferred Issuance
The registered letter arrived at the door while she was shoving a stack of photocopies into her bag.
June 18, 8:40 a.m. He Xiufen signed for it downstairs. On the receipt: unit number, date, and a signature written too fast. The mail carrier's scooter was already turning out of the alley.
"From the Bar Association." He Xiufen set the envelope down on the dining table. "Same stamp as last time."
The kraft paper envelope was thicker than the last one, hard corners of two sheets pressing through. She took the small scissors off the wall, cut along one side of the flap, and shook out two pages.
The first page was horizontal, with a line of small print under the title: Discipline Department, Jiangzhou Municipal Bar Association.
Three points, one paragraph each.
Point One: The complainant alleged that she appeared in court alone on multiple occasions after her internship registration, and that her supervising lawyer did not participate as her agent. Upon review, she is an intern received and registered by Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm, and her court appearance procedures are complete. Audio-video recordings from the hearings on February 17 and April 26 show that supervising lawyer He Xiufen was present in court, seated at the plaintiff's bench, and spoke as her agent during the April 26 hearing. This allegation is inconsistent with the verified facts and is not upheld.
Point Three: The complainant alleged she improperly collected fees from clients. Upon review, the case intake registration, engagement agreement, power of attorney, payment receipts, and invoices are all on file. All payments were deposited into the firm's account, with handling and approval separated. This allegation is inconsistent with the verified facts and is not upheld.
Two points dismissed.
Point Two: The complainant alleged she handled cases in the name of a lawyer, citing three instances from the agent column in trial records. Upon review, in the audio-video recordings she identified herself as an intern and did not claim to be a lawyer. The current evidence is insufficient to establish circumstances warranting disciplinary action, and this Association has decided not to impose discipline. However, regarding her failure to correct the opposing party's use of "Lawyer Shen" in a March 2 phone call, this Association issues a written reminder.
"Not to impose discipline" came first, then a comma, and the second half waiting behind it. She swallowed that half and looked at the signature: June 16. Last line: If you object to this notice, you may apply for review to this Association within fifteen days of receipt.
"Does this go in the file?"
"It goes in the assessment file. It follows you." He Xiufen said, "The day you move to another firm, these are the pages they'll flip through."
The second page was short, five lines, signed not by the Discipline Department but by the Office of the Intern Assessment Committee, dated June 17.
"In handling the aforementioned complaint, this Association's Discipline Department also retrieved the intern assessment materials you submitted. Upon review, the entries in the 'Was the Supervising Lawyer Present in Court' column of the four court appearance records attached to the Internship Registration Form require supplementary explanation. Until the supplementary materials are verified, the issuance of your internship assessment conclusion is deferred, and the issuance of your practice certificate is deferred."
Last line: Please submit supplementary materials to the Membership Affairs Department of this Association within ten days of receiving this notice.
The pot on the stove was boiling, white steam pushing the lid up in pulses. He Xiufen didn't lift it.
[Thud. Two points dismissed. The one that trapped you isn't on this paper.]
[Thud. Assessment deferred—not a verdict, not a closure. Your name is still hanging where it was.]
He Xiufen laid the two pages side by side, comparing signatures.
"The sixteenth, the seventeenth."
"One day apart."
"The page written first returns three points to you." She pulled the second sheet out and laid it on top. "The page written second keeps you where you are."
She turned to the second paragraph and pressed her finger on the eight characters: "Was the Supervising Lawyer Present in Court."
"I filled in that column."
"The form doesn't say who filled it."
"It doesn't say, but I did." He Xiufen took off her glasses and held them. "May 22, late afternoon. Four rows, filled in one pass. At the hearing, he asked me what I was thinking when I wrote 'yes.'"
"You thought: she was there."
"He wrote it down. Then he said, that column isn't something the person who fills it gets to explain."
"I didn't hear how heavy that sentence was at the time."
"Today I understand it." He Xiufen slid the paper toward her. "What he wanted wasn't my explanation. He wanted that column left open. A sentence sitting on paper with no one claiming it—and with unclaimed paper, your certificate doesn't move."
"Fifteen days, ten days." She tapped the two dates with her fingernail. "The one saying fifteen days means you still have something to say. The one saying ten days means get the materials in now. One page controls procedure. The other controls the person."
She looked down at that line. Final statement at the hearing—she'd answered all three points. For the fourth, she'd written only five characters: I need to verify.
"The morning of the twelfth, the assessment committee met."
"Someone asked whether this matter belonged in this batch."
"The second name read off the list was those five characters."
"Then verify first." He Xiufen said. "Five characters, he added not one. And that's how he kept you here."
"The written reminder—I can contest it too."
"Contest what?" He Xiufen flipped the paper over. "The half-sentence they left you is for later use. If you contest it, you have to read that half-sentence aloud yourself."
"Then leave it."
"Leave it. It doesn't hurt."
She pulled a sticky note over and wrote the first line: Supervising lawyer's supplementary statement.
"All four hearings, you were there." She looked up. "February 17. March 5, the evidence examination. March 19, when the appraiser testified. April 26."
Second line: Court visitor logs for all four hearing dates—the attendees column.
Third line: Audio-video recordings of all four hearings, request for retrieval.
Fourth line: First pages of all four trial records—the persons listed column.
"What do I do for these ten days?"
"Work your cases." He Xiufen tucked the notice into a hard-shell folder. "For the court appearances you have now, the letters still go out from the firm, both our names on them. You go to the hearings, I sign."
"So this month, I basically don't have a certificate."
"From the day you left Hengzheng, you never held one." He Xiufen closed the folder. "Last time, no one kept you. This time, the paper is in someone else's hands."
She ran through the math in her head—this month's rent, Zhi'an's tutoring fees—and said nothing.
"The first line, I'll write myself." He Xiufen said.
"I draft it, you copy it."
"I'll write it myself. If I write it badly, it's still mine." She pulled open the drawer and took out a sheet of grid paper. "I'm the one who filled in that column."
The pen cap needed two tugs before it came off. At the top she wrote: To the Intern Assessment Committee, Jiangzhou Municipal Bar Association. She paused, then continued: Statement on the Facts of the Court Appearance Records Attached to the Internship Registration Form.
"Not one character changes." She said. "What was written was 'yes,' so it stays 'yes.'"
"What we're supplementing is that you were there."
"Supplement attendance." He Xiufen murmured, and put pen to paper. "Four hearings. The supervising lawyer was present. I attended."
The pen tip paused.
"Seated at the plaintiff's bench, on her left."
She stood beside her, watching the line take shape. The host in the hearing room had asked that question—one name in the agent column, but the person sitting next to her was nowhere on the paper. What would someone reading the transcript see? That day she'd answered: they'd see me.
Today He Xiufen was settling that account on paper.
At three o'clock, she called the number for the Membership Affairs Department window at the Municipal Bar Association. Same man as before, the one surnamed Luo.
"How do supplementary materials get delivered?"
"The window receives them, stamps the date the same day, tears off a receipt slip for you." He said. "I remember that piece of paper from last month."
"What goes in the archive when materials are accepted?"
"One line: on such and such a date, so and so submitted such materials, so many pages. Just that one line."
"That one line is enough for me."
"Keep your copy of the receipt." He paused. "And don't write the wrong date on the materials."
"The deadline counts from the day of receipt." After hanging up, she circled the date line on the notice. "So it lands on the twenty-seventh."
"We deliver to the window on the twenty-fifth." He Xiufen said. "Get a receipt, and copy down the number."
She sent a line to a number she'd never saved: Deferred issuance.
Ten minutes later, a reply came back: Supplementary materials. Get a receipt.
She stared at those six characters and typed again: What else?
It took the other end a long time before the second line arrived: Whose folder, whose number, date written clearly.
Seven in the evening, the stove was off. She sat at the long table copying out the index a second time, her pen drawing a line under the words "visitor logs."
The phone rang at 7:40.
"Zhixia."
Tang Guo's voice was flat—too flat to be hers. In the background, a fan spun, blade after blade.
"Something happened to my account."
"Which one."
"The June 5 livestream. The part where I talked about the medical case—someone clipped it." She stopped. "Thirty-seven seconds. My face on the thumbnail, white text across the top: Legal commentator admits on air she took money on this case."
"What did you actually say."
"I said, this case—I never took a cent, all I wanted was for it to have an outcome." Tang Guo read it out slowly. "What they cut it to was: this case, I took money."
"Where's the cut?"
"Between one word and the next. Half a second." She said. "Listen."
She played it over the receiver. The half-second was as short as a breath. The comment section didn't listen for breathing.
"Posted yesterday afternoon. I checked today—hundred and ten thousand." Tang Guo said. "People in the comments are asking which hospital the maternal case was. Someone dug up last month's local news and pasted it underneath."
She looked at the posting time: June 17, afternoon.
She set those two dates side by side in her mind and said nothing.
"What are you doing right now?"
"Saving things. The link, screenshots, the full livestream recording—I downloaded it twice." Tang Guo said. "I didn't cry. My hands only started shaking after I finished saving."
"Don't reply to any comments. Not one character."
"I won't. Someone DMed me, said just admit you were wrong, delete the video, and nobody'll mention it in two days."
"We're not talking about that." She said. "Your main account keeps posting, don't stop, don't explain. Don't delete the original video yet."
"I'll go do evidence preservation tomorrow." Tang Guo said. "The platform you gave me last time—I still have it."
"Do timestamping first—link, page, comments, one copy of each. Then the notary office. Don't change your phone, don't clear your cache."
"Got it."
"One more thing. Export a complete copy of the June 5 livestream and send it to me."
"When can I call him out?"
"Wait until there's a piece of paper."
The line went quiet on both ends. Downstairs, the roll-up door was half down. He Xiufen was counting the day's change, coins dropping into the metal box one by one.
The case in that clip had already been decided. There was a man who'd just read the judgment aloud to his wife. She let that name settle in her mind and said nothing for now.
She listened through all thirty-seven seconds.
[Thud. This one, the System will take.]
"Tang Guo."
"Yeah."
"The original video, the original link, the posting time, that account—don't touch a single box."
"If I touch it I'm a dog."
"One more thing." She flipped over the paper that said "Deferred Issuance" and put pen to the back. "Turn that half-second into a page for me."