Read Novel Full Chapter 215: Eight Pages Total
Chapter 215: Eight Pages Total
She spread the three pages out on the writing desk in the litigation service center and, starting from the first page, added a line of small characters in the lower right corner of each footer: Page one of eight.
When she reached the sixth page, her pen paused. That missing page from the stack of old files nine years ago—no one had ever numbered it.
"Eight pages." She finished the last line, squared the stack, and tapped it even. "It matches."
The window opened at eight. She slid the stack through, a sticky note on top listing the document titles.
The clerk behind the window was a girl in her early twenties. She peeled off the sticky note first, then counted the pages. She flipped through them one by one, and when she reached the three printed attachments, she looked up.
"These three, you printed them yourself."
"Enterprise public disclosure information. Printed from the Public Information Registry."
"I can see that." The girl wrote in the register. "Write the full list of documents."
"Application for Evidence Collection, with three printed copies of enterprise public disclosure information attached."
The girl squared the pages, pulled a slip from the machine, laid it underneath, and stamped it. Through the glass, she watched the stamp come down—a smudge of red bleeding faintly around the edges.
"Who's the lead?" The girl flipped to the first page to check the signature. "It says He Xiufen here."
"She's the signer," she said. "I'm assisting."
The girl copied the word "assisting" into the register, slower than before. Through the glass, she watched those two characters being written into someone else's book, and said nothing more.
"If you don't hear anything in three days, call the number on this." The girl pushed a copy out from under the window. "Keep this one."
The receipt listed the document names, page count, and date. The page count field said: eight.
She folded the receipt into quarters and tucked it into the front pocket of her hard-shell folder.
[Thud. The page count is written down. No one can pull a page out now.]
The sun was already high when she left. She rode toward Minsheng Road, another set of documents in her basket—that one was for the police.
At the police station window, the enamel mug was still in its original spot, the ring of tea stains at the bottom darker than last time.
"Five pages." The officer took the documents and counted first. "All photocopies."
"The originals are in the register."
"I'll take the copies." He took up his pen and wrote in the logbook. "This one's marked as a police report, so I'll issue you a case acceptance receipt."
"'Case acceptance' and 'case filing'—one word different."
"One word different, two different things." He tore off a slip and pushed it out. "What I'm taking here is a report. Whether it gets investigated after this, and when—that's not my call."
"That corporate account—"
"I already told you. The name's in this batch." He set his pen down and looked at her. "Don't start guessing on paper."
"I'm not guessing."
"One more thing." He tucked the pen behind his ear. "That account selling watches—the one with the unsettled transaction hanging on it. Still not settled as of today."
She copied that line into her notebook and wrote a date at the end.
"My set here—can it be merged with those earlier pages?"
"I'll submit it up the chain." The officer closed the logbook. "Which page it gets merged into, and who reviews it—I don't ask."
It was 9:40 when she came out. The sun on the steps made her squint. She stopped and flipped open her notebook to count: from the recording of that thirty-seven seconds on June 17th, she had come back to this window several times. Every time, someone had written a line for her. Those lines sat on different pages, not yet merged into one.
She called the office and said both were submitted.
* * *
It was nearly noon when she got back to the firm. The stove downstairs had just been turned off. He Xiufen passed a bowl of noodles through the kitchen window, two eggs tucked underneath.
"Eat first," she said. "Noodles aren't any good once they sit."
She carried the bowl to the old computer and added a second page to the cyberspace administration complaint: six reposting accounts, institutional verification, and that line from the job post—"pay per post, distributed across a matrix."
She submitted it, and a string of acceptance numbers popped up on the screen. She copied them onto a sticky note and folded it.
At 6:20 that evening, an email arrived: "Disposition Statement on the Online Infringement Complaint."
The platform's legal affairs department had written two paragraphs: first, after verification, the institutional verification of three reposting accounts had been revoked; second, the other three accounts had been placed under recommendation restrictions because their posted content did not match their verified entities.
She printed this page, trimmed it neatly, and bound it into the second half of the binder. Page header: July 3, Platform Disposition Statement, one item.
She also gathered up the recent receipts into a small stack: two notarizations, sixteen hundred; three courier slips; two print shop receipts. She tucked them into the innermost pocket of the binder.
"Where do these get counted?" she asked.
"Hold onto them for now," He Xiufen said. "Someday they'll be written into the claims, line by line. The compensation in this case may not be large, but every cent has to be accounted for."
He Xiufen took off her glasses and looked over her shoulder at the two paragraphs of the disposition statement.
"Three verifications revoked, three accounts restricted."
"Mm."
"That notarial certificate of yours—it was recorded on June 27th."
"Before the verification was revoked."
"His words have landed today." He Xiufen set her tea mug back on the corner of the desk. "He had you record it before the revocation not for the sake of those accounts—it was for today. The badge that got taken down, and the page from before it—put those two side by side, and that's what you call a before and after."
"That Xingyao piece—it finally has a landing place."
"Half a landing place." He Xiufen said. "The badge came off, but it doesn't hurt him. Three come down today; tomorrow he can open three more. What hurts is the person who paid for the views—the accounts he bought, the badges are gone."
She took out her phone and sent a line to the number she'd never saved: Three receipts are in. The platform revoked three verifications.
A quarter hour later, a reply came back: Receipts aren't judgments. He didn't even wait three days before reaching out—that means he's still holding a card.
She stared at the words "a card" for a while, then laid the phone face down on the desk.
[Thud. The badge can come down, but the page from before it was taken down can't be removed.]
* * *
She got home at 9:20 that night. Zhi'an was in his room doing practice exams. Tang Guo sat in the living room, her phone face down on the coffee table.
"The new account picked up two followers today," she said. "One is Director He. The other sells insurance."
"There's another one." She flipped the phone over and pushed it toward her.
A photo. The stairwell entrance. The wall by the sound-activated light, two patches of plaster peeling; a corner piled with half a box of cardboard—the same half box she'd carried down herself two days ago. Above in the photo, the third-floor window, the screen corner lifted by the wind, a small piece sticking up.
Underneath, a line of text: That door of yours now is easier to get into than the one on Minsheng Road.
Tang Guo's fingers pressed against the edge of the coffee table. Her knuckles were white.
"Yesterday he only said the soup was salty," she said.
"Yesterday, all he used was his mouth." Shen Zhixia enlarged the photo and studied the two peeling patches. "Today he went down, stood beneath the building, and pressed the button."
She called He Xiufen and described everything in the photo, item by item.
There was a pause on the line. A tea mug knocked against the edge of a desk.
"That wall he photographed isn't for Tang Guo." He Xiufen said. "It's for you. You're holding three sheets of paper, so he shows you a wall—he's telling you: I know exactly which step you're on, and you know exactly which step I'm on."
"Then we don't wait."
"We wait."
"He's already snapping photos at the door."
"The fact that he sent the photo means he's not planning to make a move today." He Xiufen said. "People who are going to act don't send advance notice. You submitted three documents—that's you laying your cards on the table. And instead of backing off or going quiet, he starts photographing the stairwell—he's preparing something."
"Preparing what?"
"I don't know." He Xiufen said. "I only know that right now, he's not afraid of those pages in your hand."
[Thud. Last time he photographed the street. This time, it's a wall.]
"Director He," she said. "That editing girl from two years ago—should we go ask her now?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"She's still taking jobs in that circle." He Xiufen said. "If you go now, all she can give you is a spoken word; once the word is out, she loses her livelihood. Wait until Xingyao gets sued and can't land a single job from any studio—then you go to her, and what she hands over will be something real."
"How long do we have to wait?"
"Until you have a piece of paper in your hand that makes her unafraid." He Xiufen said. "It's not the person you're missing. It's a piece of paper."
After the call ended, Tang Guo was still sitting in the same spot.
"Can I say something?" she said. "Just one thing—that video wasn't me."
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"If you come out now, tomorrow he'll have a second clip." Shen Zhixia pressed her phone gently onto the coffee table. "If you're asking me when—I can't answer that. I won't lie to you."
Tang Guo looked at her for half a minute, then flipped her phone over, screen down.
"I'm not deleting the video," she said. "You told me a long time ago—once it's deleted, it's gone."
"Mm."
"Then tell me something I can understand." She said. "How long do I keep my mouth shut?"
"Until there's a piece of paper standing in front of you." Shen Zhixia said. "When you open your mouth, there has to be something standing in front first. And that something can't be my mouth."
Zhi'an came out of his room to get water and glanced at the photo on the coffee table.
"Where's that taken?"
"Downstairs."
He stood holding his cup for two seconds. "Then I'll come straight home after school tomorrow. I won't stay out playing."
"Go play your ball," she said. "Just be home by six."
"Got it." He pulled the door shut, but it didn't close all the way—a crack remained.
Tang Guo said nothing more. She got up and went to the kitchen to pour water, the cup clinking twice against the bottom of the sink.
* * *
After eleven, her main phone lit up.
An unrecognized number, no profile picture, sent only a clip, followed by one line: Lawyer Shen, you don't know me. Take a look at this.
She tapped it open.
Nine seconds.
The footage showed a room—a square clock hanging on a white wall, a white porcelain cup on the desk. A room she had never been inside.
Behind the desk sat a person wearing a gray coat, the cuff marked with a stain that wouldn't wash out—her own coat, bought last winter. The person looked up, smiled, and reached out to accept a red envelope from somewhere off-screen.
The hand moved smoothly, wrist turning outward, all the way.
She watched it once, then pulled it back and watched it again.
The second time, she didn't look at the face. She watched the hand—when the wrist turned, the tendons on the back of the hand moved first, then the turn. When she accepted things, she always curled her fingers inward first, then turned.
The nine seconds ended. The screen went black, reflecting her own face.
She got up and took the other phone.
Tang Guo came out of her room, crouched by the coffee table, and played the clip again.
"Is that you?"
"No."
"But it looks like you." Tang Guo said. "It looks so much like you that I'd believe it."
Shen Zhixia propped both phones side by side on the coffee table—one playing, the other recording the screen. The red timecode ticked upward, second by second.
"First, let's turn it into paper," she said.