Read Novel Full Chapter 207: Record First, Then Answer
Chapter 207: Record First, Then Answer
The first buzz against the pillow, she figured it was Tang Guo again.
The second one followed. The screen flared into a white block: an eleven-digit local number, not saved. 12:47 a.m.
She hit answer and said nothing. The earpiece carried a hollow echo—leather soles striking concrete, step, step, unhurried.
"Lawyer Shen." A man's voice, held flat. "Hope I didn't wake you."
She pulled the phone away from her ear, glanced at the screen, pressed it back.
"This thing with Tang Guo—time to let it go." He said, "You can't hold it."
"Who is this."
"June twenty-third, Minsheng Road Police Station. You sat inside for forty-odd minutes." A half-second pause. "Your younger brother's at Chengnan Middle School, isn't he."
Her fingers clenched under the blanket.
"And don't bother with the exam." He said, "Pass it, and you're still just a name on the wall."
Click. The screen dimmed. One new line in the call log: 12:47, one minute twelve seconds.
She sat on the edge of the bed staring at it for half a minute. That call hadn't been recorded—in the two seconds of ringing, she'd fumbled and pressed the green button instead of the red one beside it. The recorder held nothing.
She dug the little notebook out from under her pillow, flipped to a fresh page. Time first, then the number, then his words verbatim. Three lines, one per line. At "brother's school," the pen hesitated. She drew two horizontal strokes beneath it.
[Thud. Calling you names is personal. Counting everyone in your household—that's public.]
At 1:20, the screen lit again. A different number, different prefix, four digits in a row at the tail.
This time she hit record first, watched the red dot come on, then answered.
No one spoke. Breathing, heavy at intervals. Twenty-seven seconds, click.
At 2:05, a third number. This one played a looping recording—a pitch-shifted male voice chanting "taking dirty money," over and over, the end feeding back into the beginning. She pressed speaker, turned the volume to the lowest setting, and let it record for one minute forty-one seconds.
Three numbers, copied one after another into the notebook. Each had a different prefix, yet shared several middle digits. In the margin she wrote: Same batch of numbers released at once? She stared at it for two seconds, crossed it out, replaced it with two characters: pending.
After copying, she pressed her palm flat against the desk until it stopped trembling.
At 2:40, she called Tang Guo. It rang five times before the answer.
"Mine's been ringing all night too." Tang Guo's voice was muffled in the covers. "I didn't dare pick up."
"Not picking up is right. Let it light up. Don't respond. I'll come over at daybreak."
"You're not sleeping?"
"I've slept," she said. "Don't open the door."
After hanging up, she found her brother's contact and stared at it for two seconds. One call at this hour would only scare Zhi'an senseless; he'd spend all tomorrow imagining things on his own. She put the number away and typed a message instead: Friday after class, come straight to the firm. Don't take detours. Then a second line: Nothing's wrong, I just want those potstickers you brought last time.
Near dawn, she slept for a while.
At quarter to seven, the door on Minsheng Road opened. Tang Guo was crouched on the floor, phone, charging cable, and two envelopes spread in a row, dark circles under her eyes.
"Exported all night." She pointed at the hard drive. "Direct messages, call log, four hundred sixty-two screenshots."
"Did you count twice."
"Twice." Tang Guo slid the drive over. "Why won't you ask me if I slept at all?"
"If I asked, the answer would still be that you didn't." Shen Zhixia picked up the drive, flipped it over to read the label on the back. "Get changed. We're getting you a new number."
The carrier store opened at nine. They were third in line. The girl at the counter asked whether to keep the old number or cancel it.
Tang Guo's mouth opened.
"Cancel it," Shen Zhixia said. "Keep the SIM card. Don't cut it."
The new number went on a sticky note, which Tang Guo tore into three pieces on the spot: one for He Xiufen, one for Shen Zhixia, one for the print shop owner's wife by the community gate.
"I get my printing done there," Tang Guo said. "She only checks whether I've paid, not what my number is."
On the way back to the firm, Tang Guo suddenly asked, "Those numbers last night—were they after me, or after you?"
"After the case."
"Did your phone ring?"
"It rang." Shen Zhixia watched the stoplight ahead. "Middle of the night."
"What did they say?"
"Read numbers. Read times." She kept her answers clipped. "This isn't my first time."
Tang Guo didn't press. So Shen Zhixia didn't mention the part about "your brother at Chengnan Middle School."
The firm's protocol was already established: paper in double sets—one copy filed, one kept for reference; electronic copies on hard drive and cloud; original devices never leave the owner's hands; only photocopies go out. The cover line was in her writing: Tang Guo Online Infringement Case - Evidence Book (2).
She followed protocol, noting the source of every item in the margins—whose phone, which day it was exported, who performed the operation. The two recordings were named by prefix and timestamp, logged in the index. For the unrecorded call, He Xiufen told her to open a separate page at the very back: Personal statement, no recording. Signature, date.
"That passage can't serve as evidence." He Xiufen pushed the abacus aside. "At most it's your own statement. To use it, it has to match up with other things."
"Match with what?"
"The part about how long you sat at the police station that day, and your brother's age." He Xiufen said, "Those two lines—only someone who knows your family's situation could say them. When you write it down, don't change a single word."
Shen Zhixia read the page over again, looked up. "Should I add the word 'malicious'?"
"No." He Xiufen drew a line through one phrase with her pen. "Record the facts as they are. They called three numbers in the middle of the night—you write three numbers. They mentioned your brother—you write that they mentioned your brother. Add one word, and you're convicting them for them."
"It started at 12:47."
"They picked 12:47." He Xiufen slid the abacus beads back to their places. "Calculated precisely for when you'd still be half-asleep."
[Thud. The list has three lines. The money line has a name now. The slicing line is still blank.]
She made a photocopy of the book, then called the Minsheng Road Police Station. The officer who'd been on duty that day answered. After she recited the case number, he said, "Bring the materials over. Number stays the same, pages get appended."
"Tomorrow's the twenty-fifth." He Xiufen called from the stove. "That evidence-supplement run goes ahead as planned. Say I finished writing it last night."
"Got it."
"This afternoon, go sit at the Procuratorate for a while." He Xiufen came up from the stairway carrying a bowl of noodles, steam from the steamers downstairs rising behind her. "Ask which road is open. Eat first."
That morning she sent Zhou Yu a message asking if he'd be in after three. The reply was four characters: After three, yes.
At three in the afternoon, she arrived at the District Procuratorate. The wind was strong on the steps. She stood on the sheltered side and used Statute Quick Search—per her habit, the prompt only gave a direction; the actual provisions she had to pull up herself. She copied three onto paper:
[Thud. Accusing someone of taking dirty money—right of reputation, civil. The one defamed files the suit.]
[Thud. Using the names of unsuspecting people to open accounts and collect money—infringement of citizens' personal information, criminal. Public Security's jurisdiction.]
[Thud. Calling in the middle of the night to name-drop your little brother—intimidation, public order. Also Public Security's jurisdiction.]
She folded it in half and slipped it into the front of the evidence book.
Zhou Yu's office was on the fourth floor. A dead pothos sat on the windowsill. He paged through the book from front to back, slowly, then went back and re-read from page three.
"Three lines." He said, "You've divided them correctly. But each of the three has to go through its own door. Don't smudge them onto one sheet of paper."
"The civil line is already at the court."
"Platform plus the empty account—two defendant rows. Correct." He pushed the book toward the edge of the desk. "The criminal line—I can't take it up for you."
"I know."
"You submit it. If the police decline to accept, or accept but don't file, then come back to me." He said, "When they refuse to act, one path runs through the Procuratorate: oversight of case filing. You don't need to recite statutes—just make three things clear: what you're reporting, who you handed the materials to, and what answer they gave you."
"What about the public order line?"
"That also goes to Public Security." He said, "Intimidation, stalking, repeated calls disrupting someone's normal life—if the bar is met, warnings, fines, and detention are all in the toolset. What it demands is something else: figuring out who made the calls. Virtual numbers get bounced through layer after layer. It doesn't move fast."
"So the criminal line has to be established first."
"Correct." Zhou Yu took a sip of water. "And one more box—I'm not sure you'll reach it. If that list doesn't contain one name but a whole group's worth, there's also the public-interest litigation route. Infringing on the personal information of many people—the Procuratorate can step in. That's a separate road. It doesn't merge with your lawsuit."
She pulled out the paper with four points drawn on it, copied it, and slid the copy across. Zhou Yu read it, then drew a line under the third point with a pencil.
"This point is solid. Same account on three separate sheets of paper—that can sit at the table." The pencil stopped at the fourth point. "This one's a dotted line. You already know that."
"I haven't written a single character of 'Xingyao' into the complaint."
"Then you're fine." He handed the paper back. "Nail the shell down first. Shells leak air."
"There's also money," she said. "The traffic-buying money came out of that shell. One room, three signs on the door, one employee on the books."
Zhou Yu's pencil tapped the paper.
"I've seen money move that way." He said, "From the shell that pays to the hand that actually takes the job, it crosses two or three steps. Every step leaves a contract. The last step leaves a hollow shell with no one even paying social insurance. Between each step, no phone calls, no shared couriers, no shared addresses. When it breaks, it breaks clean."
"A clean break means someone taught them how."
"I won't say that." He set the pencil down. "You remember it yourself."
"Take the book with you." He added, "I keep no paper here. Just copy the reference number on a line for me."
She wrote the string of digits in the bottom-right corner of her own page. Zhou Yu suddenly asked, "What about the certificate?"
"Supplementing materials tomorrow."
"Then supplement them." He said, "Just don't supplement your materials while throwing your entire self into this case."
She tucked the book into her bag and stood. At the doorway, Zhou Yu called her back.
"There's one thing I shouldn't tell you yet." He pulled the door nearly shut. "A while back, we sat with Public Security on a briefing. Someone was selling lists by the bundle in group chats, each bundle tagged—merchants, drivers, streamers, moms. What I saw wasn't your case."
Her hand stopped on the door handle.
"How do you know she's in one."
"Name matches. Number matches." Zhou Yu said, "That bundle's tagged 'legal-education blogger.' It hasn't been opened yet. Waiting for someone to pay."
"Waiting for how much."
"That I didn't ask." He paused. "If you go wake everyone up right now, that bundle opens early. You're anxious—it's more anxious than you."
Going down the stairs, wind cut through the stairwell. On the steps she dialed Tang Guo's new number. It answered on the first ring.
"Don't stay on Minsheng Road tonight."
"Where should I go?"
"My place. Grab two changes of clothes and come over."
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened." She watched the row of roll-up shutters across the street. "Once an address lands on someone else's list, it stops being an address."
Silence on the other end for two seconds.
"Then I'll bring my laptop."
"Bring the laptop," Shen Zhixia said. "Everything else can be bought again."