Read Novel Full Chapter 224: Plug In
Chapter 224: Plug In
"Second line. Read it."
Shen Zhixia pulled the page out of the case file and smoothed it flat: a receipt and evidence-intake record from the Jiangzhou Mingjian Judicial Appraisal Center, one page. The last three lines were the ones she had copied down herself from He Xiufen's dictation.
"The institution's preliminary examination found the following technical characteristics in the submitted material: audio track offset, facial-region fusion artifacts, repeated frames at the seams. The above are technical descriptions; the formal appraisal opinion shall govern."
"Why is that last sentence sitting there?"
"You told me to copy it."
"I told you to copy it." He Xiufen set her tea mug on the corner of the page to keep it from curling. "The first thing anyone looks at on that sheet isn't the three findings. It's that sentence. That sentence is there so the next piece of paper can do the talking for you."
"Fifteen working days." She ran the dates through her head. "End of the month."
"The eighteenth comes first," He Xiufen said. "So for these six days, that one page is all you've got. An appraiser doesn't write about character. He doesn't even write who shot it. He only speaks to the material."
"There's one thing he didn't put on the page." Shen Zhixia slid the paper half an inch toward herself, her fingertip landing on the eight characters for "facial-region fusion artifacts." "The face layer was composited twice, pulled from somewhere else. The back of the hand and the cuff—only one pass. The grain all came from a single machine in a single take."
"Where is that sentence now?"
"In my notebook."
"What's in your notebook, no one in court will vouch for," He Xiufen said. "But it's enough to get you one step further today. Show me that step."
Shen Zhixia stared at the three technical findings for a while.
"The face is fake," she said. "The clothes and the hand are real."
"Then that page has already nailed one thing down for you."
"On May twentieth, someone really stood across from her holding a camera."
"Name?"
"It's not on the paper."
"Good." He Xiufen tucked the page back into the case file. "Whose camera, whose card, who took it all away—that's yours to ask. That paper only pins down one thing: the footage is real. If it's real, someone handled it."
[Thud. The fake half, anyone can make. The real half, only one person could have shot.]
A little past ten, the computer chimed. The email from Xingyao's lawyer had arrived, with a scanned Power of Attorney attached. The body was one page, two clauses.
"1. Our company has no production relationship with the audiovisual content in question; the material used in said content was purchased by our company from a third party, and the source is being verified. 2. Regarding the sealing matter, our company is handling it according to internal procedures."
"The letter went out yesterday afternoon." She counted the days in her head. "Three-day deadline—by the fourteenth."
"Today he writes 'being verified.'" He Xiufen printed the email. "By the fourteenth, those four characters become a date he's put on paper himself—either he produces the source, or he explains to the judge where he's stuck."
"What if he doesn't respond by the fourteenth?"
"No response is also a piece of paper." He Xiufen clipped the printed page into the case file. "From today on, anything he sends: note the time first, then the page count."
At 11:10, the landline rang.
The caller gave his name first: Guo Jianping. The outside camera operator from May twentieth.
"How did you get this number?" she asked.
"I called the subdistrict office. They gave it to me."
"What's this about?"
There was a pause on the other end. "Yesterday afternoon, a little after four, someone called me. Asked whether I still had the card from May twentieth."
"Who called?"
"Claimed to be from Xingyao—the person I dealt with before. Said the company needed to go through all the footage, asked if I still had the original card, whether I'd made any backups."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'd check when I got home."
He Xiufen took the receiver from her.
"Master Guo," she said. "Three things. Remember them. One: don't hand it over. Two: don't delete a single file on it. Three: if he calls again, say anything about the card goes through the lawyer, and answer nothing else."
Silence on the other end. "…Alright."
"One more thing," He Xiufen said. "Your last phone call—the time, who called, what words he said. Write it down yourself on a page. If it comes time to hand over the card, you hand over that page with it."
After hanging up, He Xiufen pulled the subdistrict office's supplemental page from the case file and spread it on the desk.
"I said this the day before yesterday," she said. "Every person on this line takes his nerve from what's written on that page of yours. See—he called today."
Shen Zhixia opened her notebook and started a new entry: July 12, 11:10 a.m., Guo Jianping called. Reports that a person claiming to represent Jiangzhou Xingyao Culture Media Co., Ltd. asked yesterday afternoon whether the memory card containing footage from May 20 was still in his possession and whether backups existed. He has been instructed: do not hand over, do not delete, do not respond further except through counsel.
* * *
A little after five in the afternoon, she finished the second draft of the material the Bar Association wanted for the eighteenth.
"How many pages?" He Xiufen stood behind her holding her tea mug.
"Two."
"His letter asked for two pages."
"I calculated two pages on my own."
"Then write two." He Xiufen said. "If you wrote three just to defy him, you'd still be doing what he says."
She left one blank line at the bottom of the second page. A signature line.
"For who?"
"A practicing lawyer. Someone with no agency relationship to this matter—someone whose name lands on the page and whose firm's seal can still be stamped." He Xiufen put the lid on her mug. "Tang Guo and I can't sign it. I'm the lead counsel; she's the party. An appraiser only speaks to the material, a notary only records the operator, and a police report only carries the officer's name. The one sentence the assessment committee wants is 'character unaffected.' Someone has to write that sentence. And someone has to own it."
"I don't have anyone like that."
"You have a roster in your hands," He Xiufen said. "If you can't think of anyone tonight, one will appear tomorrow. When you get to the last page, the name will write itself."
At 6:20, the stairs creaked.
The wooden steps rose one by one; the footsteps paused at the third step. He Xiufen didn't look up. "He's coming up."
Lu Jibai stepped halfway through the door. Shirtsleeves cuffed twice, a kraft paper envelope in one hand, no briefcase. His eyes went first to the page on the desk.
"Just this one page."
"Mingjian has only produced this one page." She pushed the paper toward him. "A receipt record, with three preliminary technical descriptions at the bottom."
He picked it up and read, stopping at the last line.
"Where's the appraisal opinion?"
"Fifteen working days. End of the month."
"So these six days, this is all you're holding." He set the paper back down in the middle of the desk. "It's enough. The face is composited; the hand and clothes are not."
"You found the person who shot it."
"He called this morning. Someone from Xingyao called him yesterday asking whether he still had the card."
"So someone's more anxious than we are," he said.
He Xiufen brought two bowls of noodles up from downstairs and set them between them, chopsticks laid across the rims.
"Add your own chili oil," she said. "Bring the bowls down when you're done. Finish your talk before you pick up the chopsticks. I'm not doing dishes."
She went downstairs. The stairwell light clicked softly behind her.
"The document for the eighteenth—who signs it?" he asked.
"The signature line is blank."
He opened the envelope and took out a single A4 sheet, setting it between the two bowls of noodles. In the upper right corner was a small round stamp, and beside its edge, a handwritten date.
Resignation Application.
"I, Lu Jibai, for personal reasons, hereby apply to resign from my position as partner at Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm and to process a change of practice institution."
Below that: his name. Date: July 12.
"Submitted today."
"Ten a.m."
"What did the firm ask?"
"They asked for a reason." He said. "'Personal reasons'—those four characters, they wouldn't accept."
"Where are you hanging your license now?"
"Undecided. I'll handle the paperwork myself."
"Without a firm, you can't even get into court."
"Before court, this page comes down first." He slid the paper half an inch toward her. "That statement you're missing—it needs to be signed by someone who isn't with Hengzheng."
She looked at the stamp in the upper right corner.
"The firm seal?"
"As long as I'm inside, the seal is in someone else's hands." He said. "It's not that they won't stamp it. They want to hold it—hold it to ask me."
She flipped the paper over. The back was blank.
"How much does a partner make in a year?" she asked.
He looked up at her.
"Why are you calculating that?"
"I'm keeping accounts."
"Then mark it down." He picked up his chopsticks. "Under my name."
[Thud. This page is not part of the Justice Points.]
She folded the sheet in half and pressed it beneath her notebook. Steam from the noodle broth rose, misting a thin white film over the desktops.
He Xiufen came up to collect the bowls and saw the page on the desk. She slung the rag over her shoulder.
"Make two photocopies," she said. "One for the case file, one to keep for her."
"What's the extra copy for?"
"Keep it." He Xiufen stacked the two bowls. "A person doesn't hand in many sheets of paper like this in a lifetime."
He reached the stairwell, then came back half a step.
"Guo Jianping's card. Don't let him photograph only the front."
"Why?"
"There's a serial number on the back. If the back is too blurry, the court will have to pull the actual card."
* * *
A little past ten, she got home.
She'd just slid the key into the lock when light seeping through the door crack swallowed the dark of the hallway. Pushing the door open, she found the room blazing white. The ring fill light stood on the coffee table, its face aimed at the sofa, throwing a circle onto the opposite wall—edges soft and blurred.
Tang Guo sat inside the circle of light, phone propped on a tripod, screen black.
"It's plugged in," Shen Zhixia said.
"I wanted to plug it in today." Tang Guo picked up the phone and swiped it awake. "The day I moved in, I put it on the coffee table and you asked if I wanted to plug it in. I said no."
"You want to stream?"
"I want to write." She opened the notes app and turned the screen around. "You said last time that the plaintiff needs her own statement. I started one. Couldn't get past the second line."
The first line on the screen read: My name is Tang Guo.
"Don't make the second line about who you are."
"What should it be?"
"Write down every payment you've ever received. One by one."
Tang Guo stared at the sentence, her finger hovering over the screen. "I have three."
"Read them."
"Platform creator earnings, from eleven yuan to eighty-something a month. The backend can print statements. In April I did an electric scooter ad, three thousand, invoiced."
She paused.
"Last winter, an account I didn't recognize sent me two hundred yuan. The note field was blank. I didn't accept it—I returned the transfer, and I still have the refund screenshot."
"The third one goes in too."
"That was money I returned."
"Returned is still a receipt."
"Returned is the real account." Shen Zhixia took the phone. "Numbers exact. No 'about.' Dates exact. Last line: Other than the above, I have never received money from any party in connection with any case."
"Not 'I have never—'? "
"No," she said. "'Never' is speaking for them. You only write what you've received and what you've returned."
Tang Guo tapped the characters in one by one. The light shone on the back of her hand.
The door opened. Zhi'an came in, dropped his schoolbag on the shoe cabinet, and squinted from the living room doorway.
"What's with this light?"
"Mine," Tang Guo said.
"Wastes electricity."
"Then I'll pay for it."
"You borrowed ten yuan from me last month." Zhi'an straightened his shoes. "Sis, the hallway light."
"I'll buy one tomorrow."
"You said that three days ago too."
"I'll buy it tomorrow." Tang Guo said. "I go out before dawn."
Zhi'an went into his room. Tang Guo filled in the date for the third entry. The three lines merged into a single paragraph, reading like a small ledger.
She spread her notebook under the light and added three final lines.
July 12. Mingjian's formal appraisal opinion not yet issued; fifteen working days, due before month-end. On file: one page—a receipt and evidence-intake record—with three preliminary technical descriptions: audio track offset, facial-region fusion artifacts, repeated frames at the seams.
Same day, 11:10 a.m.: Guo Jianping called. Reports the Xingyao side inquired about the original card and backups. He has been instructed: do not hand over, do not delete.
Same day: Lu Jibai submitted one Resignation Application. Copy retained in this office.
She closed the notebook, swiped open her phone, and flipped to the square marked the eighteenth.
"Six days left," she said.
Tang Guo didn't look up. The paper under the lamp was white enough to glow. She reached out and twisted the light all the way up.