Read Novel Full Chapter 209: The Relocation Work Order
Chapter 209: The Relocation Work Order
Tang Guo's key caught three times in the lock before it finally turned all the way. The apartment door was barely pulled shut—the latch had long since lost its bite.
"Start recording from the lock screen," Shen Zhixia said. "Read out the time."
"June 26th, 9:12 a.m." Tang Guo raised her phone, aimed it first at the keyhole, then at the chipped paint along the doorframe, then pressed down on the lock screen. There was no light in the hallway; she flipped the switch four times and nothing came on.
"Hold it steady. Scroll down to the username."
Tang Guo scrolled the screen to the screenshot from the group chat: under the full address was a single line—"I'm downstairs right now." The attached photo showed the e-bike at the foot of the stairs.
The camera panned through the hallway. The bike was still there, the red cloth strip still tied to the handlebar. The layer of dust on the seat had been wiped away in one horizontal streak, left to right, with a few shallow finger-press indentations left in the middle.
"In yesterday's group photo, there was a handprint in the dust," Shen Zhixia said.
"Today it's gone."
"Photograph it. Write down: June 26th, 9:18 a.m., the handprint in the dust is gone, replaced by a wipe mark."
"Does that even count as evidence?"
"It counts as time." She slipped her hand back into her pocket. "Who pressed the handprint, who made the wipe mark—don't write that today. Write the time first. Time doesn't change its story."
The door to 302 was locked—a lock Tang Guo had changed herself, the key in her pocket. The doormat sat crooked, shifted half a palm's width to the left. In the thin dust on the floor by the wall lay half a cigarette butt, the tobacco still fresh.
Tang Guo held up her phone, photographing the doormat, the cigarette butt, the doorframe one by one, narrating as she went: "June 26th, 9:22 a.m., there's a cigarette butt by the door, the doormat has been moved. I'm the only person who lives here."
"Keep going."
The door opened. The room was exactly as she'd left it yesterday: curtains drawn, two rolls of cable lying on the table, the power strip still plugged into the wall, the small lamp by the bed glowing at half brightness.
"Gather four things first," Shen Zhixia said. "Documents, computer, metal box, lamp."
"The lamp comes too today?"
"Lamp, microphone, teleprompter—check them off one by one. You moved in a month ago; everything you set out now leaves with you today."
Tang Guo pulled the metal box out from under the nightstand. Cookie-tin sized, its edges worn pale. She didn't shove it into a box right away—she held it against her chest for a moment, then placed it at the very bottom of the largest cardboard box, a sweater folded on top.
The document pouch came out of the drawer: ID card, bank card, and the old SIM card she'd canceled. She slid the card out, glanced at it, and tucked it back in. She disconnected the computer, pulled the hard drive and sealed it into an anti-static bag. She unscrewed the livestream light from its tripod, wiped the thin layer of dust off the shade with her sleeve—twice.
"The day you moved up here—how many boxes," Shen Zhixia asked.
"Seven," Tang Guo said. "Two trips. Two brothers from the rider group helped me carry them. It rained that afternoon, too; the bottoms of the boxes got soaked."
Shen Zhixia wrote in her notebook: Seven boxes—someone who counted them, someone who came upstairs.
[Thud. People who curse don't count boxes. People who count boxes have been inside that room.]
The phone rang while Tang Guo was on tiptoe reaching for a hook on the wall.
"Landlord," she said, glancing at the screen before answering on speaker. The voice came through WeChat on the old number, traffic noise in the background.
"What's going on with that apartment of yours? Someone's standing downstairs taking pictures. The property management came asking who I rented to."
"I don't know."
"You don't know? Then move. Get out in the next couple days. Per the contract, the deposit is non-refundable—you're the one breaching."
"The contract's for a year. Rent's paid through August 19th."
"Contract is contract." There was a pause on the other end. "You move out, I'll refund half. Let's part on decent terms."
"I'm not moving."
The other end laughed. "Not moving works too. Come August 19th, I'm not renewing."
"The contract runs to next May."
The voice call ended.
Less than two minutes later, the agent's message came in: Sis, we don't handle move-outs. Our agency service ends once the contract's signed. The deposit negotiation is between you two.
Tang Guo replied: Your agency signed the contract.
The reply came back: The contract's real, the people are real. Anything else, hands off.
Shen Zhixia took the phone, typed a line, and read it aloud to her: "Please have the landlord send everything he just said again, word for word, in writing." Tang Guo pressed send herself.
The other side was quiet for a long time, then replied with a question mark.
She typed another line: Whatever he said, write it down. Write it down so I have a record on my end.
No response.
"Why are you keeping track of this?" Tang Guo said.
"If he dares to write it, he has to answer for his words." She handed the phone back. "If he doesn't dare, that means he knows himself he shouldn't have said it. If he calls again, don't answer. Make him type."
Tang Guo unscrewed the last bolt on the tripod and sat on the edge of the bed. The teleprompter still showed half a bar of battery. In the gap behind the screen was a sheet of paper—the script she'd copied out herself for that medical-case livestream.
She pulled it out and read one line: "For this case, I never took a single cent."
"Nobody believes that sentence anymore," she said. "Rent is two thousand a month, one-month deposit plus three months upfront—eight thousand before I could move in. And I earned it, one video at a time."
She folded the paper into quarters and slid it back into the slot.
"Can my account stream again?" she asked.
"It can." Shen Zhixia tore off a strip of tape. "Not today."
"I'm not giving up the apartment." She said it again, as if to herself.
"You don't have to live there." Shen Zhixia smoothed the tape down. "Money's paid through August 19th, the key's in your pocket. For the next month, that door still hangs with your name on it."
"What about the deposit?"
"The deposit is an account. The door is a stance. Two separate ledgers." She stood the box upright against the wall. "Today he says he won't return it. Once the case moves, make him put that number on paper himself."
She spread a hard-shell folder across the bed and told Tang Guo to dump out the entire plastic file pouch.
"Every piece of paper with your name on it, from before and after the move. All of it."
Paper scattered across the mattress: two unopened delivery packages from the last couple days, the lease agreement from the agent, screenshots of the landlord's two-line WeChat message, and a few receipts with curled edges.
The deliveries first. Tang Guo peeled off the waybills and flattened them one by one. Four waybills, each with the same address written on it: 118 Minsheng Road, Chengdong, Building 3, Unit 302, Tang Guo, followed by her old phone number.
"For the deliveries, there's only the new address," Shen Zhixia said. "Each slip writes one delivery door. No old address, and not one box that could say when she moved."
Next was the lease. The commencement date column read May 20th, one-year term; at the bottom were Tang Guo's signature, ID number, and phone number, with the landlord's name and number beneath.
"I got the key on the 20th," Tang Guo said. "I was still packing. I didn't actually move in until the 23rd."
"The contract says the 20th." Shen Zhixia flipped the page over, then back. "And there's no old address on it either."
The third item was the screenshot of the landlord's two WeChat lines: rent calculated from May 20th, deposit two thousand, utilities separate. Aside from the Minsheng Road address, not one extra character.
"Those two lines are all he has," she said. "He doesn't even have your ID number."
"Then it's the agent," Tang Guo said.
"The agent has the contract, your ID number, your phone, the landlord's phone." Shen Zhixia flattened the lease out. "But the agent also has no old address, and no 23rd."
Tang Guo suddenly remembered something and shook the plastic pouch again. A pink slip fell onto the mattress, its edges frayed.
"Broadband," she said. "I did a relocation in May."
The print on the form wasn't crisp, but every field had been filled in. The top line was the original address—her previous residence. The line below it was the new address: 118 Minsheng Road, Chengdong, Building 3, Unit 302. Below that, the installation window: May 23rd, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Account holder: Tang Guo. Contact number: the one she'd just canceled.
The customer signature line was in her own handwriting, written fast, the last stroke dragging past the box.
"There's only this one copy." Shen Zhixia held the slip in her hand, the paper crinkling at the edge. "Old address, new address, what day they came—all three on one piece of paper. I told you before: your moving date leaked from some piece of paper. Let the paper tell us which one."
"The technician came that day," Tang Guo said. "Carried a ladder, put on shoe covers at the door, walked a circle through the room, even asked if I wanted the boxes moved."
"He came upstairs."
[Thud. The same event written on three pieces of paper; only this one puts two addresses and a date side by side.]
Shen Zhixia held the slip up to the gap in the curtain. Light slanted through, falling on the lower right corner.
There was a stamp there. Rectangular, purple-red ink paste, slightly smeared but legible in two lines: the top read "Installation Agent," the bottom "Chengdong Minsheng Road," ending with a two-digit number—07.
"That's not a carrier office stamp." Tang Guo leaned in. "I did it at that little shop downstairs—the one that sells SIM cards, tops up phone credit, takes in packages. They said they'd be thirty yuan cheaper than the official store and faster to send someone."
"A stamp is pressed onto paper." Shen Zhixia stared at the line of text. "For this paper to reach your hand, it had to pass through that shop first; and the technician who came that day had to carry this same form to verify the address."
She recorded the slip's four corners, front and back, the characters of the stamp, narrating the time as she went, filming the frayed paper edges too. Then she called He Xiufen and walked through the three pieces of paper one by one.
When she'd finished, the first question came back: "Is the slip in your hands, or Tang Guo's."
"Tang Guo's. I put it in a plastic bag for her."
"Keep it wrapped, don't crease it. In your hand, this paper is just paper." He Xiufen paused. "Out that door, it's merchandise."
"I know."
"Don't go asking at that shop yet. You ask, they'll take the slip back the moment you turn around." He Xiufen said, "Today only one thing: give this slip its own page in the ledger. Write down clearly which column matches up and whose hands it passed through. Anything you're guessing at, write 'pending verification.'"
"But the stamp only gives one point."
"That stamp is one point." He Xiufen said, "The form came out of the carrier office, went through that shop, and rode upstairs with the technician. Write down the points you can count. Leave the rest blank for now."
After hanging up, she sent a line to the unsaved number: Found the paper that leaked the address—a broadband relocation request form, with an installation agent's stamp in the lower right.
A reply came back: Don't ask who sold it. Ask who could get their hands on this paper.
She started a fresh page in the hard-shell folder. At the top she wrote: June 26th, source located, person not yet. Below that, three parallel lines—Delivery waybills: new address only; Lease agreement: commencement May 20th, no old address; Broadband relocation request form: old address, new address, May 23rd installation, holder of this document.
In the corner of the page she copied down the stamp: Installation Agent · Chengdong Minsheng Road · 07.
[Thud. On the customer copy, besides her name, there's someone else's stamp.]
The last thing in the apartment was unplugging the livestream light. The light went out, and the wall stood clean and white, as if nothing had ever been taped to it.
She copied the stamp's characters into her notebook, on the very last line. Little shops on Minsheng Road that sold SIM cards, took in packages, topped up phone credit—she could name three. But before this paper reached her hands, it had to come out of the carrier office window, into that shop's drawer, and up a flight of stairs with a technician.
The hands that touched it in between—not one point, but a chain of points.
She hadn't seen a single one of them yet.