Read Novel Full Chapter 231: The Deep Blue One
Chapter 231: The Deep Blue One
July 19th, 8:40 a.m. The first batch of scallion oil downstairs had just started smoking when the phone rang in the second-floor office.
He Xiufen pressed one hand on the edge of the desk and answered: "Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm."
The caller was from the Municipal Bar Association's Membership Affairs Department. The first thing they said was "It came down first thing this morning on the fourth floor," then went through it item by item for them to write down. The Intern Assessment Committee had reached its conclusion after convening the previous afternoon: the signed statement and the signatory's court appearance record were accepted. Shen Zhixia's internship assessment: qualified. The deferral had been lifted. The result had been reported to the Municipal Justice Bureau the previous afternoon—her practice application had been sitting there all along, held up by exactly this—and the Justice Bureau had approved it. The lawyer's practice certificate was being prepared and would be sent back to the association. She was to pick it up in person at the first-floor window, and bring the old one with her when she did.
"How late are they open this morning."
"Eleven thirty."
"I'll go this morning."
The receiver went back on the hook. In the inner room, the laptop was open, and Tang Guo was marking lines on a printed page. By the window sat Shen Zhixia, her notebook spread open, a pen resting against the page edge.
He Xiufen didn't look at her. "First-floor window. You go alone. Bring the old one."
Tang Guo came out of the inner room and wiped her hands on her pants. "I'll go with you."
"Don't show your face."
Tang Guo pressed her lips together, pulled a black pen from a drawer, and stuffed it into Shen Zhixia's hand. "For the signature. Don't use the blue one."
* * *
Two blocks over. 9:20 at the Municipal Bar Association.
She'd been to the first-floor lobby several times over the past month. Same counter, same woman behind it, in a light blue short-sleeve. She handed over her ID and the old certificate.
The old one had a dark gray cover with two embossed characters: Trainee.
The woman checked the ID first, then a line on her screen, then the cover of the old certificate. All three matched, and only then did she reach to open the drawer.
"You were here the day before yesterday," she said. "With a director, verifying that change form."
"That was me."
"Today's entry, you sign yourself." The woman turned the register around and pointed to a blank line. "Full name, three characters, one continuous stroke."
She gripped the black pen, set the tip down, paused, then finished. The three characters took up half the line.
The woman put the old certificate in the drawer, struck through the previous entry, started a new line with the date, then took a kraft paper envelope from the drawer and pulled out a palm-sized booklet. She set it on the counter and pushed it over.
Deep blue cover, a pressed crease along the edge.
"Open it. Check two fields." She said, "Name. Practice institution."
She opened it. The left page held a photo—the one she'd submitted with her materials in June, hair pulled tight, white collar. The right page: first line, her name. Second line, the field she'd stared at longest: Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm.
"Read it aloud."
"Shen Zhixia. Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm."
"Memorized." The woman reached over and closed the booklet, then pushed it back a fraction. "New certificate number, old one voided, the old number stays in the file." A pause. "From today on, when you sign the word 'lawyer' on outside documents, you carry it yourself."
She placed the certificate in the inner pocket of her bag and pulled the zipper all the way closed.
[Thud. The words in this booklet count from today.]
The sun was already high on the front steps. The shadows of the two trees out front lay in stripes. She stood on the top step for a moment. She didn't open the certificate for a second look.
* * *
10:20, back at the firm.
He Xiufen held out her hand. "Let me see it."
She handed it over. He Xiufen turned to the right page and paused on that one line.
"Zhengping," she said.
"Yeah."
"Your father's—I've seen it." She closed the booklet and handed it back. "The cover was deep blue too."
Shen Zhixia took it. He Xiufen had already turned to open the metal cabinet, saying nothing more.
At the desk by the door sat Zhi'an. School was out for the summer, and he'd been put to work copying the six reposting account handles row by row into a grid. The writing came out crooked.
"Let me see it." He reached out.
She handed it over. Zhi'an held the certificate up to the window light, turned it front and back twice.
"Looks pretty sharp."
"Do your copying."
"I am copying." He flipped it back to the front and tapped a finger on that one field. "It says 'Lawyer' right there. Sis, does this mean you're..."
"It means I've got work."
"Then at lunch, two extra eggs in the noodles," He Xiufen said from over by the metal cabinet.
"As usual," Shen Zhixia said.
"As usual." He Xiufen shut the cabinet door.
Tang Guo stood in the doorway of the inner room, phone raised toward the certificate, the frame paused, the shutter unpressed.
"Not taking this one yet," she said.
"Wait until they're all here."
"I know what 'all' means." Tang Guo lowered the phone. "The appraisal one, plus the judgment one. All together."
Shen Zhixia reached for the livestream light's plug. The light had been hauled over from home yesterday and was plugged in here, its little red dot never going out. Her fingertip stopped on the switch, then pulled back. She didn't press it.
He Xiufen pulled a sheet of paper from a case file and laid it on the desk.
"Tang Guo's case—the power of attorney at the court needs to be replaced." She said, "The existing one, the representative field has two names. Me, and you. With two characters in parentheses after them."
"(Trainee)."
"Those two characters were my doing." He Xiufen said, "The day I wrote them, you had no certificate, and anyone appearing in court had to have their name listed under someone. It's different now."
She took a blank power of attorney form and set it down. "Write it yourself."
Shen Zhixia wrote: Principal, Tang Guo. Agent, Shen Zhixia.
When she finished, He Xiufen read it from top to bottom, then pointed at the name. "Nothing goes after it." She aligned the two sheets. "This one gets submitted in open court on the day, along with the substitution paperwork."
[Thud. This page has been filled in.]
"Two more things." He Xiufen tore a page off the wall calendar. "Evidence submission deadline is July 29th. Master Guo's three pages of statements, and that serial number on the card back—they have to go in before then, so the judge goes looking for those three words in Dingchang's books. And for him to testify to those five payments in court, you need a separate application, with his name in the witness field."
"I'll draft the application."
"Second thing." She pressed her palm on a large kraft envelope on the desk. "The hearing summons arrived. August 12th, 9:00 a.m."
"Master Guo needs a firm date today," Shen Zhixia said.
"You call and tell him. He's to wear clean clothes that day and stand up in court to identify the handwriting."
Shen Zhixia picked up the phone and dialed Mingjian first. A young woman's voice answered, saying the opinion draft for that matter was still under review, and they would call when it was issued—no need to follow up.
"I wasn't following up," she said.
Tang Guo asked from the side, "What'd they say."
"Said it's coming soon."
"Then I'm waiting for that one."
She opened the notebook and added three lines under the box for the 29th: Master Guo statements and card back; Tang Guo's party statement; witness court appearance application. When she finished, the pen tip hesitated under the three lines, and she left one line blank.
* * *
2:40 p.m. Someone shouted up from downstairs. An express delivery had arrived at the door.
Lu Jibai was at the firm that afternoon. The desk by the window had only been cleared out two days ago—nothing on it but a white porcelain cup and a briefcase.
She opened the delivery. A kraft envelope, sender field printed with the name of a law firm that had never appeared in this case. One page inside, with another page clipped beneath it.
The first thing she read wasn't the body. It was the heading.
"To Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm: Lawyer Shen Zhixia, Lawyer Lu Jibai."
Three paragraphs of body text:
"1. This firm has been engaged by Jiangzhou Xingyao Culture Media Co., Ltd. to handle the matter of Ms. Tang Guo's lawsuit against the company for online infringement liability."
"2. In the interest of properly resolving this dispute, the company is willing to meet with Ms. Tang Guo and your firm in person to negotiate all related losses together; specific amounts to be determined separately."
"3. Please reply by letter within three days of receipt."
The letterhead bore a round seal, and beneath the seal was one handwritten character: a single surname, Zhao. No given name. No phone number.
He Xiufen turned the page over, looked at the back, then turned it back.
"A letter with no phone number, signed with only a surname." She said, "Same playbook as those three pages of complaint materials."
[Thud. The name on the letter is only half written.]
"Do we reply," Shen Zhixia asked.
"We reply." He Xiufen said, "In writing, and one sentence is enough—this case is now in litigation; everything will be handled according to the court's proceedings. No amounts, no mention of that surname, and no use of the word 'settlement.' What they're hoping for is for you to name a number first. The moment you name a number, that piece of paper gives you a price."
"They're paying me to shut up," Tang Guo said from the inner doorway. "Same thing the fake video said."
"Which is why this one should be as short as possible." He Xiufen said, "For the signature block on the reply, in the handling lawyer field, write your name."
She took a blank sheet and drafted the reply—three and a half lines. He Xiufen read it over, her pen tip landing on the final half line. She crossed it out.
"What did you cross out."
"A word of advice." He Xiufen said, "A reply letter has no business handing them a way down."
She recopied the clean draft. In the signature block, beneath the firm name, she wrote one line: Handling Lawyer: Shen Zhixia. Nothing after the name. It was the first time she'd ever signed her name without being attached to someone else's.
"Send it registered mail tomorrow morning," He Xiufen said. "The three-day window ends on the 22nd."
Lu Jibai picked up the page, glanced at the heading, then at the signature.
"The two names in the heading are copied from the public registry," he said.
"On paper outside these walls, it's the first time Zhengping has had two names side by side." He Xiufen filed the letter into the case folder and marked a number in the corner.
He nudged his white porcelain cup half an inch toward the desk's center, making room for the notebook.
Shen Zhixia opened the notebook to the Xingyao page. The front side held the photocopy of the subdistrict office's reply, the responsible unit line printed with Xingyao's full name. The back side held the "source" statement Xingyao had submitted, whose listed name led nowhere.
"Before the hearing," she asked, "can the person behind Xingyao be dug out."
Lu Jibai pulled the notebook over and flattened it. He'd read that page several times: the subdistrict office's handling unit, the institutional verification screenshot, the lawyer's letter, the unverifiable name on the "source" document.
His finger tapped the bottom field on the page.
"This equity section—you copied the most recent change."
"That's what's in the annual report."
"Go back further." He said, "Each change gets its own line. See who went out on which day, and who came in on which day."
"I'll pull the records first thing tomorrow."
"Before you pull them, get the dates copied down first." He pushed the notebook back. "On that table come August 12th, every name you put forward has to lead to a real person."
She tucked the page back into the notebook and left a blank space at the top of the sheet, then wrote two characters in the header with the black pen: Go Up.
When she finished, she looked at that field. Below it, blank.
The surname on the letter—no given name beneath it either.
The field was still empty. August 12th, 9:00 a.m. She'd have to fill it in.