Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 232: My Surname Is Qin

July 20, morning. The market regulation bureau, second floor, end of the hallway, the archive inquiry window.

The lock on the metal cabinet clicked through its positions, each turn dull. The person behind the window opened a palm-sized register, checked the photo first, then the practicing institution column, and finally smoothed out the letter of introduction flat.

"Jiangzhou Xingyao Culture Media Co., Ltd." She read the case name aloud. "Which matter are you handling?"

"Online infringement," Shen Zhixia said. "They're the defendant on my side."

"A defendant's records—your side can review them." The woman slid the register under the glass, then pulled it back. "Registration items, changes, annual reports—print those yourself from the public disclosure system, free of charge. For the registration archive itself, submit an application. Once I verify it matches, come back in three business days. Transcription or photocopy?"

"Photocopy."

"Seals along the perforations by page count. Missing a page and it doesn't count." She pushed out an application form and pointed at the signature line. "Write out the handling lawyer's full name."

A bench sat beside the window, half its paint peeled away. Shen Zhixia sat and filled out the form. Her pen paused at the signature line—yesterday on the first floor of the Bar Association, she'd written those three characters out the same way. In the purpose field she wrote with more detail than elsewhere: the application forms and handler signature pages from every change registration.

The woman took the paper, read it top to bottom, stopped at the last line, and looked up at her. "This company's archive runs over a hundred pages—establishment, changes, filings, all in there. Since you've specified clearly, I'll only copy the groups you need. Copy fees will be lower too." She stamped a square seal and tore off half to hand back.

Downstairs in the lobby, two self-service machines stood against the wall. One's screen was black. She waited for the person ahead to finish printing two pages and leave, then stepped up and typed in the name. The on-screen text was small; she leaned closer.

Jiangzhou Xingyao Culture Media Co., Ltd. Establishment date, registered capital, business scope. The registered address read Chuangxin Road No. 11. Dingchang was at No. 9—under the B-403 doorplate, nine entities had once hung their names. She'd counted.

Scrolling down: the change records, one line after another, each brief.

November 2017—incorporated.

June 20, 2026—shareholder change.

Same day—legal representative change.

She copied the three lines into her notebook. On the notebook's last page was the chain from Tang Guo's case, the money's origin pressed at the very bottom: the card-back number, Guo's five transfers, Dingchang. Today she'd add two more lines above it.

She keyed in "Jiangzhou Sheng'an."

The page was clean. The shareholder column held one line, same as her July 2 search: Jiangzhou Hengyue Capital Management Co., Ltd.

"Jiangzhou Taiying."

Shareholders: also a single line—Jiangzhou Hengyue Capital Management Co., Ltd. The establishment date read June 20. That upstream hand—she'd copied it among the seven transfers into Dingchang, and its date of birth she'd copied on July 2. Only today did she see whose name hung above it.

Between the two machines a taped instruction sheet had its corners curling, held to the wall with yellowed tape.

She typed "Jiangzhou Hengyue Capital Management Co., Ltd."

The shareholder column still showed the July 2 line: Jiangzhou Hengyue Group Co., Ltd. The legal representative column carried that surname Chen—the one she'd seen once on July 2 while tracing Sheng'an's shareholder chain.

Scrolling further, the last entry in the change records—

June 20, 2026. Legal representative changed from Qin Lang to that surname Chen.

She stood at the screen and compared the dates on the two pages twice in her mind, then pressed print. Fifty fen a page, five pages, two yuan fifty. The machine jammed as paper came out; she tugged twice before pulling it all loose. The lobby security guard passed behind her, swiped a card at the turnstile, and the reader beeped.

Five pages. She sorted them into two sections: Xingyao's page clipped separately; the other four stacked bottom-to-top—Sheng'an and Taiying at the bottom, Hengyue Capital above them, Hengyue Group on top. She walked slowly through the lobby doors, the papers clipped inside her notebook, not taken out.

The scallion-oil smell from the noodle shop downstairs was strongest at noon. When she came in, He Xiufen was carrying a bowl of noodles up from the kitchen, and Tang Guo was squatting under the livestream light untangling a cord.

She spread the five pages on the long table: Xingyao's page alone on the left, the other four arranged bottom-to-top in a staggered stack.

He Xiufen set the noodle bowl down, looked at the papers first, then at her. "Which page came from the archive?"

"None of them," she said. "Application's submitted. I go back in two days to pick them up."

He Xiufen pulled a red pen from the drawer and dotted the upper-right corner of each page. "What the public disclosure system prints is for people to see," she said. "Take it to court and the other side kills it with one line: 'downloaded from the internet.' If you're using it at that table on August 12, you go to the window and pull those pages so the archive's own words stand in front."

"I know."

"Good that you know. Keep going."

Shen Zhixia pointed at the two pages. "Xingyao changed shareholders—June 20. Hengyue Capital changed its legal representative—also June 20."

He Xiufen bent over, her finger moving from the Xingyao page to the Hengyue Capital page, stopping on the two identical dates.

"Two changes in one day," she said. "One end is the money's intake. The other end is the signature's seat."

[Thud. Two shells, one date.]

Tang Guo poked her head out from behind the light. "What's that mean?"

"Businesspeople don't run two errands on the same day," He Xiufen said. "Unless the two errands have to be done together."

Shen Zhixia had already counted that day through once. June 20. Jiangzhou Xinghe established. Jiangzhou Taiying established. Xingyao's afternoon group notice telling outside staff to report new card numbers with a different bank. The first four digits of the number on the package sold to Tang Guo. And now these two entries—all landing on the same day.

"Things done in a single day, each one smaller than the last," He Xiufen said. "Put them on one page and they stop being small. When you write it up, write 'same day.' Don't write 'therefore.'"

The door creaked. Lu Jibai came upstairs, set his briefcase on the desk by the window, walked over, and looked through the five pages. On the Xingyao page his finger stopped at the change record.

"Who handled Xingyao's change procedures—the public disclosure doesn't say."

"The archive does," Shen Zhixia said.

"Then we wait for the archive," he said. "A change registration application is one sheet of paper with three signatures: applicant, handler, approver. Two companies filing changes the same day—if the handler column carries the same person—"

"Same hand," she finished.

Tang Guo flipped the page over and read aloud. "Qin Lang." She clicked her tongue. "Never heard the name, but it doesn't sound like a proper name to me."

"That's Qin Yueshan of Hengyue Group," He Xiufen said, setting down the red pen. "The Chengbei Hospital case—that box of medicine came from his factory."

Shen Zhixia's hand stopped at the paper's edge. The money at the drug line's end and the money on these five pages—she'd been keeping them as two separate ledgers.

"He has a son," He Xiufen said. "A few years back the son lent his name to several companies. One by one, he withdrew."

"Qin Lang is his son?"

"A lot of people share the same name," He Xiufen said. "What's on paper is those few lines. The word 'father and son'—no one's putting their name to that for you right now."

Lu Jibai opened his bag, took out a stack of blank paper, and closed it again. "Hengyue has hung a lot of signs around Jiangzhou," he said. "Before you put that name out there, first figure out how many hands are under it."

He Xiufen set three tasks off on her fingers. Don't touch the defendant column with Hengyue yet—"Add a group to it and their first filing is a jurisdiction objection, a month of back-and-forth. Everyone on that August 12 summons will still be there, and your case only gets slower." Nail down the Xingyao and Dingchang lines: before the July 29 evidence deadline, submit it all together—Guo's three-page statement, the card-back number, Tang Guo's party statement, the witness appearance application. And the Qin Lang lead runs separately.

"Which separate path?"

"Ask Zhou Yu," He Xiufen said. "His side collects paper."

She pulled a registered-mail stub from her apron pocket and slapped it on the table. "The reply went out this morning. The three-day deadline falls on the 22nd. In the handling lawyer column—your name."

Shen Zhixia looked down at the stub. Second day after getting her certificate, and the first piece of paper sent out carried her name.

She pulled the Hengyue Capital page out, folded one corner, and clipped it back into the notebook. The two black-pen characters in the header were still there—upward, with the column below empty.

From the stairwell came the sound of a backpack strap dragging on the floor. Zhi'an came up and tossed his bag onto a stool.

"Someone was standing downstairs for a while," he said. "Wearing a hat. Took photos. Of our sign."

"When?"

"Around four. I got back from tutoring and he'd just left."

He Xiufen took out her reading glasses and wrote a line on the wall calendar: July 20, after 4 p.m., person taking photos at the door. She capped the pen and glanced at Zhi'an. "Don't go downstairs for a while."

Tang Guo flipped her phone over in her hand, then back. "Is he here because of my video," she said, "or because of you?"

"Because of the video."

"My face is in that video," Tang Guo said. "So he's here because of me."

Past six in the evening, the wind was strong at the stairwell. Zhou Yu's call came in while she was sorting a stack of police report materials into order.

"I read your three-line message," he said. Car sounds in the background. "First, congratulations. Got the certificate?"

"Got it."

"Then you're a lawyer now." He paused. "Being a lawyer isn't like last month. Your words need to be held back even more than the last few days."

"I'm holding back."

"One public security track, one criminal track," Zhou Yu said. "Threatening calls, posting the address in a group, selling your client's address and ID number—that's enough for a police report. The report registration from last time is still there. Go file a supplement. Attach the new calls, the new letters, the newly edited video. And write in today's door-photo line too."

"What about the criminal track?"

"Depends on the materials," he said. "Deepfake video used to destroy a person's reputation—that reaches defamation. Selling identity information is a separate offense. If there's someone behind it organizing the sales and someone funding it, the nature changes again."

"Will the two tracks interfere with each other?"

"They won't," Zhou Yu said. "Once a criminal case is filed, the facts on the civil side will follow. Don't chase the company stuff right now—turn the paper in your hands into report materials first, and pin down the dates."

"Behind Xingyao is Hengyue."

The line went quiet for a moment.

"That name I can't comment on," Zhou Yu said. "You have paper—go through the written channel. What reaches me, I only accept paper. I don't look at favors."

"Understood."

"One more thing," he said. "Tracing those companies upward—don't do it alone."

Past nine at night, Tang Guo's phone rang. An unsaved number. She glanced at it and pressed speaker.

"You flipped through the archives fast." A young male voice.

"Who are you?" Tang Guo asked.

"My surname is Qin."

Shen Zhixia reached over and took the phone from Tang Guo. "Your surname is Qin. What's your given name?"

A short laugh from the other end. "You've seen the name on paper. Copied it down today."

Dial tone.

Tang Guo turned the phone over and set it face-down on the table, her fingers still pressed against its edge. "He gave his surname."

"Giving the surname is enough." Shen Zhixia pulled out the corner-folded page, picked up the black pen from the table, and circled the two characters.

[Thud. He reported the name himself.]

The circle wasn't perfectly round.