Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 23 : Carbon Copy Set

Liu Fugui showed up before the date.

On the morning of November 30, just past nine, leather shoes came up the stairs. She looked up and saw the thermos first, then the man. A brown paper bag was clamped under his arm. The moment he came in, he swept his eyes across the desk.

"Where's Director He?"

"Downstairs rolling noodles."

"Then I'll talk to you." He sat down, both hands pressing on the mouth of the bag. "I was up half the night thinking. The sooner I pay, the sooner this is settled."

"Who's rushing you?"

"Nobody." He gave a grunt. "You brought up handwriting analysis last time. I didn't write the signature. If it really gets compared, what comes out is my nephew's hand. The whole thing would lead right to my doorstep. What do I get out of that?"

She pulled out the two-page agreement he had signed last time and spread it on the corner of the desk.

"Did you count the money?"

"Look at this first." He pushed the paper bag forward an inch.

"Look at the receipt first." She pressed a finger on the final line of the agreement. "It says right here: when payment is made, the original is to be returned and voided. Give me the receipt, and I'll count the money."

Liu Fugui stared at that line, then took a paper folded into quarters from his inner pocket. He unfolded it and held it flat with his palm. The paper was yellowed, the edges worn white. The signature at the bottom was in his nephew's handwriting, the final stroke curling upward into a hook.

"Don't touch it."

"I won't."

The oil pot downstairs sizzled. He Xiufen came up the stairs, flour on her apron, with Wang Changshun behind her. The old man scraped his shoes twice on the last step before coming in, his cap held in both hands.

"He was downstairs at seven twenty," He Xiufen said. "One bowl of plain noodles, and he stretched it out until eight thirty."

"I'm not rushing anybody," Lao Wang said. "I was just sitting."

She went downstairs, brought up the ledger and a pen, and dumped the money from the paper bag onto the desk. Twenty-five hundred-yuan bills, one fifty, five tens, and seven ones.

Last time, Lao Wang hadn't counted. He had grabbed the money and stuffed it straight into an inner pocket. This time, he wiped his hands twice on his padded jacket and started with the hundreds. At the twelfth bill he stopped, looked up at her, then started over from the beginning. After counting twice, he said, "Twenty-five."

"Right."

"One fifty, five tens, seven ones." He Xiufen pushed the rest toward his hand. "A hundred and seven. How much is that altogether?"

Lao Wang's lips moved a few times. "Two thousand six hundred and seven."

"All there," she said.

Liu Fugui twisted the thermos open, then shut it again. "You cancel the receipt."

"Lao Wang will cancel it." He Xiufen took a ballpoint pen from her apron pocket and set it on the table. "Since you didn't write that signature, let him do it himself."

Lao Wang picked up the pen but didn't take off the cap. He Xiufen reached over and pulled it off for him. He pressed the tip once against the paper, lifted it, looked at the final stroke with its upward hook, then drew a line across. One line, then another.

"Cut all the way through," He Xiufen said. "Don't leave an end that could be traced back over."

The third line went clear to the edge, and the ink soaked through to the back. He set the pen down and looked at the paper now crossed in half by his own hand.

"I'm keeping this paper," he said.

"Keep it," He Xiufen said. "Don't burn it."

She smoothed out the canceled receipt, photographed both sides with her phone, then folded it and handed it back. Lao Wang tucked the paper into the last page of the worn exercise book, put the book back in his burlap sack, and wound the string around it twice.

[Thud. 5,214, cleared.]

He pressed the two stacks of money together and held them. He let go, pressed again, then stuffed them into the inner pocket of his padded jacket and patted the spot twice. This time his eyes didn't go red. From his sack he took out a cloth bag and set it on the corner of the desk.

"Sweet potatoes. From my own cellar."

"I'll take them." He Xiufen picked the bag up and hefted it. "I'll record them the same way as last time."

Liu Fugui stood, rolled up the brown paper bag, and tucked it under his arm. At the top of the stairs he turned back. "Director He, I'll skip the noodles. A bowl here is eight yuan. I'll eat on the street for six."

"Then go eat on the street."

The sound of leather shoes descended the stairs.

[Thud. Enforcement complete. Full Justice Points recorded for this case.]

In the ledger she wrote: November 30, Wang Changshun, corn payment, collected in full. When she finished the line, the pen tip paused on the page. Three years, thirty-two entries, twenty-seven empty trips, all reduced to this line of writing. As she wrote, she thought of that carbon copy—the six pages torn out of the weighing room, still missing to this day.

[Thud. One line cleared from the Unsettled Ledger.]

[Thud. Ledger balance enough to redeem one item.]

Only then did Lao Wang get to his feet. He put his cap back on, pulling the brim low. At the top of the stairs, he turned back.

"Little Shen."

"Yeah?"

"Next time I'm in town, can I come up and sit for a while?"

"You can," she said. "Hot water's free."

He nodded and went down. He Xiufen's voice rose from below: "Lao Wang, eat something before you go—"

The case file was put away that afternoon. When it was finished, the yellowed page was still tucked inside.

Last time, He Xiufen had put it in with only half of the written surname "Shen" showing. She drew the paper out and smoothed it flat. It had been folded in half, the crease white, the edges beginning to fray. It was the third carbon copy pressed from carbon paper, the writing grayish blue, and in one spot the pressure had been so light that only half of a word remained.

The header ran column by column: Client, Feng Guangtian. Cause of action, consignment payment dispute. Amount in dispute, 46.80. Result, mediation reached, payment made in full. Handled by, Shen Qian.

He Xiufen came up carrying a bowl of noodle broth. She glanced at the desk and set the bowl at the corner.

"So you turned it over."

"Yeah."

"I asked him for it." He Xiufen sat down across from her and wiped her hands on her apron. "The carbon paper made three copies. The first one was torn off and given to the melon seller, the second went into the file, and the third he kept on him. This is the third copy. He also made another handwritten copy for me."

"That's all the columns it has."

"There's a smaller line at the bottom." He Xiufen turned the paper around. "Look here."

Crammed into the blank space at the bottom was a line in pen, finer than the writing in the columns above: Payment made in full. Client requested the purchasing point change the scale; not done.

"He added that himself," He Xiufen said. "That year he took his first case, an old melon farmer from Dongxiang named Feng. He hauled a cartload of melons to the consignment outlet in town. The weighing slip said 3,100 jin. Old Feng counted the baskets himself, thought it was off, went home and worked it over for three days, then said it was three hundred jin short."

"3,100 jin, three hundred jin, 46.80."

"That's right."

"What about the slip?"

"The slip was in his hand. He took it to ask for the money, and they wouldn't accept it. He went looking for the young man who'd written the slip, and the young man said he'd long been transferred away. So he went to court and applied to retrieve the weighbridge register."

"The register turned up?"

"It came out twice. The first time, the consignment outlet said the register couldn't be found. The second time, the judge went himself and dug it out from under a cabinet. The entry in the register was a carbon copy, and the number written was 3,400."

"The two pages don't match."

"They don't. 3,100 jin was on the slip he held. 3,400 jin was in the weighing room register. The missing three hundred jin was exactly the 46.80 he added." He Xiufen pushed the bowl of noodle broth toward her a little. "He told me once: the case wasn't hard. The hard part was getting the two numbers onto the same table."

She stared at the columns for a moment.

"In your case, you never got the original copy," He Xiufen said suddenly.

"No."

"He got his."

"What I got was a person." She said, "Old Zhou saw it. The six written words were in Liu Fugui's own hand. And that receipt his nephew wrote for him was crossed out today too."

"It all counts." He Xiufen wiped the corner of the desk with the rag, then stopped after two swipes. "People are more fragile than paper. Just think—Old Zhou is seventy-three this year."

She didn't answer.

"You keep this," He Xiufen said.

"You're not keeping a copy at the office?"

"I've kept it for over twenty years." He Xiufen stood, went to the old file cabinet in the back room, unlocked it, and took a key from the second drawer. A yellowed strip of tape was wrapped around the teeth of the key. "Inside this cabinet, I'm giving you a shelf. Keep your own case files there. Don't pile them in with the shared ones."

She took it. The key was new, its teeth not yet worn bright. The tape was old and wrapped on crooked.

"How long did you know him?"

"Three years." He Xiufen pushed the cabinet door shut and snapped the lock closed. "He copied materials for me for three years. The year I opened the office, he made me this copy and told me the first case should follow it."

"And later, what happened to him—"

"I wasn't around for what happened later." He Xiufen cut her off and draped the rag back over her shoulder. "If you want to ask, go ask that trunk of his."

Before going downstairs, she turned back.

"Right, I submitted your case-handling subsidy to Legal Aid. Six hundred. It'll arrive before the new year."

He Xiufen went down. She turned the key over, the tape around its teeth brushing against her fingertip. She went through the accounts in her head: the 1,800 Tang Guo had covered, this month's 800 allowance, plus 600—before the new year she could pay her back half.

After eight that night, the noodle shop downstairs was half empty. She went down to get water. Ma Jianjun was at the table by the door, his helmet by his feet, his bowl emptied down to the last bit of soup.

"Brother Ma."

"Little Shen." He laid his chopsticks across the rim of the bowl. "I've been waiting for you all evening."

"What's up?"

"Lao Song came to see me today."

She sat across from him. He Xiufen looked out from the stove and dropped a handful of noodles into the pot.

"He waited for me behind the station this afternoon," Ma Jianjun said, pushing his bowl aside. "Squatting on the curb. He talked for a long time, going round and round the same point. I had to hear it three times before I understood."

"What did he say?"

"He said last winter, the station threw a birthday dinner for someone, set a whole table. Late into the drinking, somebody asked the station manager, are we even part of the platform? The station manager slammed his cup on the table and said—if you want to know who sends you your orders, look at your own phone."

She held her cup without moving.

"He said one more thing, but I can't remember it exactly." Ma Jianjun frowned. "The gist was: this place of mine is just a corridor. Money comes through from that side, and I just pass it along. He didn't sound steady even saying it himself."

"He's willing to testify?"

"He is."

"Will he write it himself, or should I?"

"He can't write all the words." Ma Jianjun said, "He said to tell you—you write it, he'll read it over and put his thumbprint on it."

"Okay."

"He has one condition." Ma Jianjun paused. "He won't appear in court."

"Why?"

"He signed that settlement receipt last year. He said if he steps forward, the first ones to curse him out would be the others at the station who signed it." Ma Jianjun looked at her. "I told him, the paper you signed was about money. This one writes down what you heard. He didn't say anything after that."

"You weren't wrong. They're two different things." She said, "Will you be at the station tomorrow morning? I'll go find him."

"I will." Ma Jianjun said, "He also asked one thing."

"What?"

"He asked, what level are we taking this to this time?"

She set her cup down.

"First, we take it to the level whose name is on paper," she said. "Once the name is filled in, the person can't run."

"So this case of ours," Ma Jianjun said. "When do we file it?"

"This week," she said. "First thing, I'll go to the community office to get the Letter of Recommendation. The defendant column gets two names first: Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd. and Sun Jianhua."

"Sutong's office is empty."

"I know." She said, "Even if they can run, we list them. Put that name in, and only then can the name behind it be written in."

"Which name is that?"

"I don't know yet." She said, "If Lao Song's statement holds, then the hand that sends out the orders isn't Sutong's."

Ma Jianjun picked up his bowl, drank the rest of the broth, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"What about that fifteen-day thing from before?" he said.

"The fifth," she said.

"Five days left."

"I know." She closed the ledger on the table. "The separate case goes in, but we can't let go of this end either. Sutong is just an empty signboard. The person behind that signboard—I have to dig him out from somewhere else."

In the separate case file were two photos: the Attendance Summary Sheet from the wall of the old office, and the lease agreement Guo Jianguo had brought. She had flipped through them so often over the past two days that the corners had gone soft.

"Okay." Ma Jianjun stood, helmet in hand. "Tomorrow morning, I'll wait with Lao Song behind the station for you."

Upstairs, she first reorganized Wang Changshun's case file, tucked her father's old paper back into the last page, closed it, and pressed it flat. The lock on the cabinet in the back room had been freshly oiled; the key turned without a sound.

The bulb was the one replaced last week, and its light fell yellow on the paper. She pushed the cabinet door shut. As she turned to switch off the light, the page of the ledger surfaced on its own from the desk.

This time there was a new line on it: Hewan Village, Wang Changshun.

The writing was solid. Just as she made it out clearly, a horizontal line pressed across from the left and crossed the entry out. The ink paled, as if soaked in water, and merged into the faint writing below.

The line beneath it had only half an entry: Chengnan Station No. 1, Ma Jianjun.

The latter half was still faint. At the very front of the faint part, a short stroke had appeared—vertical, coming down partway, then bending to a stop.

She stared at that stroke for a long time.

"What word is this?"

[Thud. A name is missing.]

She had names. The company name on the signboard. The name in the signature column of the attendance sheet. One hung in a room whose lease had already been given up. The other existed only on paper. Which one was the person, she still hadn't seen to this day.

She reached out and turned off the light. The two lines in the ledger didn't go dark with it. The top line had already been crossed off. The half-line below still had that short stroke standing in its latter half, not moving further down.