Read Novel Full Chapter 202: Empty Account
Chapter 202: Empty Account
Tang Guo pressed her ID card against the last page of the contract, held it there for two seconds before letting go.
"Sign next to your name. Write it in full." He Xiufen pulled the cap off a pen. "Don't just write two characters."
"I always sign with two characters."
"The court doesn't care what you always do."
Tang Guo lowered her head and wrote, pausing at the final stroke. "Should I add a thumbprint?"
"This isn't an IOU." Shen Zhixia took the pen back. "Once you sign, this page stays with the firm. The rest is yours."
The case intake register opened to a fresh page: June 19th, client Tang Guo. In the cause-of-action field, she had written "Online Infringement Liability Dispute." He Xiufen stood behind her, waiting until she finished the authorized representative line, then reached over and added four characters in front of it—trainee lawyer.
"That field you fill in like this." He Xiufen said. "People can call you a lawyer with a single word. Paper can't."
The notary appointment was in the morning, so she had moved the contract signing up to nine. Tang Guo walked in carrying two cups of soy milk—one sweetened, one not—and pushed the unsweetened one toward Shen Zhixia. "You mentioned this last time."
"Last time I mentioned coffee." Shen Zhixia picked up the cup. Still warm. Someone downstairs was frying scallions, the oil smell drifting up the stairwell.
She had drafted the letter last night—one page, font size Small Four, generous line spacing. He Xiufen pulled the desk lamp lower, read it twice, then took a black pen from the holder.
"'Maliciously edited'—cross out these characters."
"The person who cut it was malicious."
"You write 'malicious,' and they'll argue with you about whether it was malicious or not until next year, and none of the three things on paper will land." The pen tip slashed through, turning the two words into a horizontal line. "Facts, demands, deadline. Nail down those three. Whether he responds or not is his problem."
Three items remained in the letter. One: delete. Two: preserve—from 16:02 on June 17th, the account's registration information, login and publishing logs, and playback and forwarding data must be retained for no less than six months. Three: provide—the account's registration information and the login records of the publishing device.
"He won't give you the third one." He Xiufen said.
"Even if he won't, I have to ask first." Shen Zhixia said. "Once I've asked this time, the next time I ask for something, he can't pretend it's the first he's heard of it."
"Right. Letters go out one after another, paper piles up one sheet at a time." He Xiufen pushed the page back. "I'll sign the bottom."
"I'll sign below you."
"You sign below and they'll have something to say—a person whose certificate isn't even in hand yet, sending letters." She set the pen down. "This one goes out under my name."
Tang Guo stared at the paper, then suddenly spoke. "Director He, is this going to make trouble for her?"
"For who?"
"For her." Tang Guo's chin tilted toward Shen Zhixia. "Her certificate is still sitting in their hands. She has to submit supplementary materials on the 25th. If this video of mine gets posted, they could easily say she's out there fighting online wars."
"My certificate is my own business."
"And if it doesn't get submitted on the 25th?"
"It will." She folded the letter and slid it into an envelope. "My field being empty isn't because of your case."
He Xiufen picked up her bag and walked to the door, then turned back. "I'm going to the court this afternoon. Four hearing dates, visitor logs—I have to sign for them in person. Your page says I was there, but the register needs a third person noting I was there."
They left the office at 10:40. The Chengnan Notary Office was on the third floor of an old office building. The ticket machine spat out number 67; the display showed 42 being called. The hallway was lined with people—one holding a stack of property deeds, another with reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.
Tang Guo had already filed one copy on a digital evidence-preservation platform that morning, paying thirty yuan for it. Shen Zhixia said keep that one, don't use it as the official version. Tang Guo filled out the application form; her first attempt wrote "preserve" where "insure" belonged. Shen Zhixia took it and rewrote it, writing small: one, to insure two screen-recording files on the applicant's phone; two, to insure specific webpage content on a certain platform. In the purpose field, she thought for a moment, then wrote: for the protection of the rights of reputation and portrait, for use in platform complaints and litigation.
Number 67 was called at 11:50.
Hu Yongnian took the materials, looked at the purpose first, then the links, then Tang Guo's ID. He pulled open a drawer, took out a thermos, twisted off the cap and drank.
"The video was posted by someone else."
"Yes."
"Then why do you claim it infringes your rights?"
"My words were cut." Tang Guo said. "I have the sentence before the cut on my phone."
"How long?"
"An hour and forty minutes."
"Then we can't insure three items today." Hu Yongnian said. "The online version, one item. Those two recordings in your hand, one item. The original requires full playback and full recording—that needs a separate appointment."
"Two items first." Shen Zhixia said. "We'll go through the original second by second ourselves, then come back."
"Webpage evidence collection is 800 per item, including full recording and printed pages bound into the file. Electronic data insurance is 600 per item." He pushed the fee slip across. "Two items, 1,400."
Tang Guo pulled out her phone to scan the code, glancing at Shen Zhixia first.
"I'll pay. This is my matter."
"The invoice goes under your name." Shen Zhixia said. "Write your ID number too."
Hu Yongnian looked up at her. "You know why that's required."
"So later, when claiming reasonable litigation expenses, the name on the receipt has to be the rights holder."
"Certificate's being renewed." Tang Guo added.
"I can tell." Hu Yongnian clipped the slip into the file.
While waiting for the assistant to set up the equipment, they sat on the bench outside. She took out her phone and sent six characters to the number she'd never saved: At notary, two items.
The reply came fast. Let the notary click. Don't touch the mouse yourself.
She stared at the two lines for a moment, typed out "Do you still take sugar in yours," looked at it, deleted it, and turned the phone face-down on her knee.
Inside, the assistant connected both phones to the computer with data cables.
"Report the file names."
"June 18th, evening, Tang Guo screen." Tang Guo recited slowly. "First one, three minutes and a few seconds. Second one, under two minutes."
The assistant copied both files onto the computer, noting names, sizes, modification times, and calculating checksums.
"Put this in the work record too." Shen Zhixia said.
"It's included." Hu Yongnian said. "One byte moves, the value changes."
Both files played their first ten seconds and last ten seconds. The red dot in the corner of the screen stayed lit the whole time.
Then the webpage. Hu Yongnian turned his own monitor slightly, typed the title into the address bar, and clicked through page by page.
"For the webpage item, please operate it yourself." Shen Zhixia said. "I won't touch it."
His hand paused. "Why?"
"If I click, the other side can say I only captured the pages that helped me."
"I'm putting that sentence in the work record." he said.
The video played again on the screen, start to thirty-seven seconds. The printer rattled at the far end of the hallway: one page of the video, two pages of forwarding records, two pages of comments.
Halfway through printing the third page, Tang Guo's finger tapped the screen. "This number was 130,000 this morning."
"What is it now?"
"146,000."
[Thud. Today nails down what's today. Pages get deleted. Numbers go up. This copy won't.]
Hu Yongnian produced two Notices of Acceptance and an invoice. The webpage item would issue a certificate in three business days; the data item needed an attached disc and would take four. She left the office landline and Tang Guo's number, saying someone was there every day, they'd come pick it up themselves.
"Once this comes out, can I talk?" Tang Guo asked.
"Not yet." Shen Zhixia said. "Paper is for other people to see, not for your mouth to use."
Back at the office, nearly two. The last pot of noodle soup downstairs was still simmering. He Xiufen was out. She ordered a small bowl of plain noodles for Tang Guo.
"I can't eat."
"Half a bowl. There's a whole afternoon of work ahead."
She ate half. Tang Guo asked if she'd finished watching last night's replay.
"Finished."
"In those last ten or so minutes, what did I say?"
"You were explaining why you started this account." Shen Zhixia said. "Talked for about twelve minutes."
"Did I mention anyone?"
"You did." She traced over the two timestamps on the sticky note again. "You mentioned me."
Tang Guo didn't respond to that, just lowered her head and pushed the half-eaten noodles a little farther away.
She opened the laptop and had Tang Guo log into the complaint portal herself. The form asked which rights were involved. Tang Guo checked "reputation," then looked up.
"Also check 'portrait.'" Shen Zhixia said. "The cover image is your face."
ID card front and back, photos of the Notice of Acceptance, the links—one by one, uploaded. The submission-success page showed a reference number, a dozen-plus digits with two letters mixed in.
"Record this page for ten seconds." she said. "You need to hold what it looked like at the time."
Tang Guo recorded it and read the number aloud. She copied it onto a fresh page in the hard-shell folder: at the top, June 19th; below that: platform complaint, reference number, submitted via portal.
When she reached the "retention" line, she tried Statute Quick Search once.
[Thud. Statute Quick Search. Two directions: notice and necessary measures; data in two hands—the platform, and a court order.]
Following those two directions, she paged through the platform's own complaint rules, then found its public data-retention statement and copied down two sentences: one on notice and deletion, one on log preservation for no less than six months. She pasted these into the letter's attachments.
At 3:30, she printed one copy of the letter and one of the attachments, mailed them by registered mail to the platform's published service address, and copied the tracking number onto the same page.
What remained was the account. She typed the string of numbers into the search box and counted twice: eleven digits. The profile page loaded—a gray frame for an avatar, a short dash where the follower count should be, an empty bio, three accounts followed. She scrolled down: one video. Scrolled further: nothing.
Among the three followed accounts, the names read "Sukan," "Select," and "Hot News."
She pulled up last night's forwarding records to compare. The first three accounts that reposted were exactly these three.
"He follows people too." Tang Guo leaned in to look.
"He only follows three."
"What does that mean?"
"Write it down first." she said. What it meant, she had half a sentence for already. Half-sentences don't go on paper.
On that page she wrote: June 19th. Original posting account name is eleven digits. Zero followers. Following three, same names as first three entries in forwarding records. Homepage has only one video. No bio, no avatar. She thought for a moment, then added a line below: Registration information pending disclosure.
[Thud. An account that's only ever posted one video—still opened by a person.]
She texted He Xiufen: The original account is empty. Registration info can't be found.
The reply came fast: Last time, that slip they blocked you with—the string on the bottom was empty too.
Half a minute later, another line: Copy both numbers onto one page, side by side.
She flipped back to that page and copied the eight-digit string next to the words "empty account." One eight-digit, one eleven-digit, standing on the same page with a horizontal line between them.
Tang Guo sat on the little stool by the door, scrolling her phone. "The group's asking why I'm not streaming today."
"Don't stream yet."
"I know." She shut off the screen. "They're asking politely, at least."
"Screenshot the polite ones."
She pulled up Zhou Yu's account, looked at it for two seconds, backed out. Right now the cause of action couldn't even stand; calling the police would just be "someone's insulting me." Get the paper together first, then bring the whole folder to him.
At 6:40, the landline rang. A local number, claiming to be platform customer service, employee ID 4027.
"We've accepted your complaint. The reference number matches the page. Content review results will be issued within three business days."
"Three items from the letter. Answer them one by one." she said. "First: delete."
"If review determines infringement exists, we will process it."
"Second: preserve. That account's registration information, login and publishing logs, playback and forwarding data—retain all of it from 16:02 on the 17th onward."
"Our data is kept in accordance with regulations."
"Third: provide. Registration information, plus the login records of the device used to publish."
A pause on the other end.
"That item can only be provided to judicial authorities." Customer service said. "A court investigation order, or a retrieval letter from public security. We cannot provide it to individuals."
"I want that sentence in writing on the complaint page."
"Understood. I'll submit a work order."
"Your employee ID?"
"4027."
After hanging up, she copied the employee ID at the bottom of the page. Tang Guo stood in the doorway, the half-bowl of noodles long cold.
"They're not giving it, are they."
"A court order is needed."
"Then let's get a court order."
"Before getting the order, we have to know who we're suing." she said.
Tang Guo lit up her phone. The screen glowed once, then again.
"Stop scrolling."
"I'm not scrolling. It jumped out by itself." She turned the phone around.
That comment was pinned in the top three, with over twenty replies beneath it. She read down line by line until she reached that one:
The legal-education blogger personally admitted taking money. @Shen Zhixia, Lawyer Shen, how much did you take on this case?
The room went quiet for a second. Downstairs, someone called for another bowl of noodles.
"They dragged you into it too." Tang Guo said.
She took the phone and pinched two fingers to zoom in on that line. After the @ was her name, and after her name, three characters.
Lawyer Shen.