Read Novel Full Chapter 238: No Such Person Found
Chapter 238: No Such Person Found
She revised the numbering a third time, then stacked the five pages in order and fastened the lower left corner with a paper clip.
Page one: Guo Jianping's bank statement, five incoming transfers, the same name in every payer field. Page two: the serial number on the back of the card and the summary reference number from the June 23 entry, aligned digit by digit. Page three: three instances of "June 20." Page four: the account-opening banks for Dingchang, Taiying, and Sheng'an, all at the same branch office. Page five was the one she'd added last night: column after column of blanks.
The first three items had been crammed onto one page before. Last night she'd split them into five. One page, one point. No jostling when read aloud.
"Page five, the footer," He Xiufen said, taking off her reading glasses. "Scratch those four words."
The line in the footer was one she'd written the night before: Regarding the "individual Wu Jianchuan" referenced in your letter, no such person was found upon inquiry.
"Words that save trouble are your own words." He Xiufen circled the four characters with a red pen but didn't strike through them. "Write down which columns you checked, what day you checked them, and what the screen showed. Three lines. When someone else reads it, it'll hit harder than anything you wrote."
"Then what goes in the footer?"
"Leave it blank."
She crossed out those four words and rewrote them as three lines. Line one: National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System—shareholder, legal representative, principal officer, liaison—absent from all four columns. Line two: Xingyao's ten-page registration file and every field of Dingchang's public filing—name does not appear. Line three: The phone number left at the bottom of the letter is identical to the annual-report registration numbers for Dingchang, Taiying, and Sheng'an; the person who answered said, "There's no one by that surname here."
When she finished, she clicked the pen cap back on.
"On the evidence list page, just the names," He Xiufen said. "What's on which page, one line each. Don't write the word 'proves.'"
"What about 'proves the Xingyao letter is false'?"
"Those are your words." She pushed the list to the corner of the desk. "Whatever you want the judge to see, let that column say it itself."
[Thud. You want him to explain, don't draw the conclusion for him.]
The smell of scallion oil was just drifting up from outside. Tang Guo came out of the back room carrying the livestream light and glanced at the five pages.
"Still 'no such person,' huh."
"The paper doesn't say those four words," Shen Zhixia said. "It says 'absent from all columns.'"
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is who's saying it." He Xiufen set down the scallions in her hand. "'No such person'—that's us talking. 'Absent from all four columns'—that's the column itself talking. The moment he opens his mouth and says we didn't check thoroughly enough—which columns we checked and what day we checked them, it's all written down. If he says we missed a column, he has to say which one."
Tang Guo picked up the light and went back inside.
July 29, morning. Court Litigation Service Center.
She submitted two items: a one-page Supplementary Evidence List and five pages of evidence. The ten pages of Xingyao records with the accompanying statement, plus Tang Guo's account, had already been submitted once on the 26th; the receipt sat in her folder. The person behind the window flipped to page five and paused.
"This page is a query result?"
"Yes. Which column, which day, what result—all written there."
Stamped. Receipt torn off. It read: Supplementary evidence materials, six pages. She clipped the receipt to the very top of the kraft folder—that folder had gotten thicker again since last month.
Coming out, she stood on the steps for a while. Today was July 29. The evidence submission deadline ended today. What needed filing had been filed. She called the office and said only one thing:
"It's in. Six pages. I have the receipt."
"Good," He Xiufen said on the other end. "Come back and make a copy of that receipt for the file."
At 4:50 that afternoon, the office landline rang.
It was the clerk from the presiding judge's chambers. The branch office's reply letter had arrived. They'd copied a stack of Dingchang's account activity from the past year, and it had been entered into the case file. The parties could come review it.
"The counterparty name column," the clerk said, "has no 'Wu Jianchuan.'"
"Not a single entry?"
"Neither incoming nor outgoing."
She gripped the receiver and looked at the clock on the wall.
"Can I still review it this afternoon?"
"Get here by five twenty."
"We're on our way."
Lu Jibai picked the car keys up off the desk, already on his feet.
The court's case file reading room was small. A row of steel cabinets against the wall, a desk lamp weighing down the table.
The reply letter was issued by the branch office, headed with the document number of the Deposit Inquiry Assistance Notice. Below the heading were two dates: from June 23, 2025, to June 23, 2026—one year, not a day more. Xingyao's letter claimed the money was paid in late May. It fell inside the window.
Further down: the account name and number of Dingchang's corporate account. The transaction records ran month by month. In the counterparty name column, one company after another: Jiangzhou Taiying, Jiangzhou Sheng'an, and a dozen or so others—some with "Culture" in the name, some with "Technology."
She read line by line. Flipping through, she stopped—in the counterparty column there was a name she recognized: Guo Jianping. Counting down, five entries. They matched the bank statement exactly.
"Same ledger," she said, pushing the page toward Lu Jibai.
"The books had room for him," Lu Jibai said. "And for everyone else."
On the final page, the closing line:
"Upon inquiry, during the above period, no payment records under the account name 'Wu Jianchuan' were found in this account's transaction history."
She copied the sentence onto her paper, along with the heading, document number, and signature date. When she'd finished, she submitted a reproduction request to the reading room, made one copy each of the page with Guo Jianping and the final page, both stamped with the Case File Review Seal.
By the time they left the courthouse, the sky hadn't fully darkened. Someone was selling peaches on the steps below—plastic crates lined with newspaper, peaches heaped in a mound. Lu Jibai stopped and bought two jin, wrapped them in newspaper, and tucked them into the bag on her arm.
"The ledger's been pulled, the reply's in," he said as they walked. "If he doesn't explain, he's got two options—change his story, or change his person."
"Changing the person won't help him." She pressed the copies into the kraft folder. "The paper has names on it."
"Money that moves through corporate accounts transaction by transaction—it could write down Guo Jianping. The one payment that never hit the books—it couldn't write down Wu Jianchuan." He spun the car keys in his hand. "Same company, two ways of accounting. That one discrepancy means he has to explain. And if he can't, that line in the letter was written by their own hand."
"He can choose not to explain," she said. "Saying nothing in court is also his right."
"If he says nothing, the line still hangs there on the letter." He said, "And hanging there, when the judgment comes down, the judge will read it."
It was nearly seven when they got back to the office.
He Xiufen was heating noodles on the stove; the water had just come to a boil. She spread the reply letter's copies across the long table, and Tang Guo leaned in to read that one sentence—"no payment records under the account name 'Wu Jianchuan.'"
"So the name was made up."
"It's a name Xingyao wrote in their letter," Shen Zhixia said. "Made up—and still on the letter."
"So what can we do with that?"
"On the day of trial, read that page of the letter and this page side by side." He Xiufen came out carrying bowls. "One page says the money was paid to Wu Jianchuan. The other page says there's no Wu Jianchuan in the books. Both pages are on their own paper."
The bowls had just been set down when Shen Zhixia's phone rang. The screen showed an unsaved number—not "that Qin guy," but Jiahong Law Firm, Xingyao's proxy firm. The last letter they'd sent on Xingyao's behalf had come from this number.
She answered and put it on speaker.
"Attorney Shen, this is Jiahong." The voice was polite. "That matter I mentioned last time—the firm is open to discussing it further."
"Which matter?"
"Xingyao's side is willing to offer three hundred thousand as compensation to Ms. Tang for this period of trouble." The other party paused. "The condition is that Ms. Tang withdraws the lawsuit and posts a statement on her account saying the matter ends here, with no further pursuit. That video, she would delete it."
No one at the table made a sound.
"What exact wording would the statement use?" Shen Zhixia asked.
"Just... approximately that meaning. The specifics can be discussed."
"There's nothing to discuss." She said, "If you want to negotiate, put it on paper. Who's paying, who the money goes to, what sentences the statement contains—write it out line by line and stamp it with your seal. Verbal offers don't get recorded on my end."
"Attorney Shen, three hundred thousand is not a small amount."
"It isn't," she said. "All the more reason to put it on paper."
"You're a lawyer who just got licensed—"
"Put it on paper," she cut him off. "Put it on paper and I'll accept it."
Two seconds of silence on the other end, then a promise to call back, and the line went dead.
She wrote down the call time, the number, and the content, line by line, in the margin of her paper. When she'd finished, she read it over and added five words: The other party left no paper.
"No recording," He Xiufen said, leaning over to look. "That page just needs to stand on its own—what time, what number, who called, what was said. If words come without paper, we don't respond."
Tang Guo sat gripping her chopsticks, not moving.
"Last time they cut together a clip of me saying 'I took the money,'" she said. "This time they want me to write, in my own words, 'I won't pursue this.'"
"One sentence written by you is worth more than ten sentences they cut together," Shen Zhixia said.
"That's exactly why I can't write it." Tang Guo set her chopsticks down on the table. "The moment I write it, it's the same as me saying the whole thing was a misunderstanding from the start."
He Xiufen pushed the bowl of noodles toward her. "Eat first."
Tang Guo lowered her head and took a couple of bites, then looked up again.
"Before, they just wanted me to withdraw," she said. "Now they're paying me."
"He's changed his tune," He Xiufen said, sitting down. "Before, it was 'withdraw and we'll pretend it never happened.' Now it's 'take the money and you say it didn't happen.' A change of tune means that when trial comes, there's a page they don't want read aloud."
"Not just one page." Lu Jibai pulled out the two reply-letter pages and laid them on top of the new evidence. "Withdraw, and there's no judgment. No judgment means those three June 20s, this ledger, Guo Jianping's settlement slip—they just lie in your kraft folder forever."
"He's buying a way out of going to trial," Tang Guo said.
"Yes."
[Thud. The price he's offering—he calculated it for himself.]
Halfway through the noodles, the phone rang again.
This time it was that number. The screen showed three words she'd saved on the 21st: That Qin guy.
She glanced at Lu Jibai and pressed speaker.
"Attorney Shen." A young man's voice, different from the previous two calls. This time it was relaxed, like he was talking things over. "You won't take our calls, you won't answer our letters, but you sure file paper at a steady pace."
"Say what you came to say."
"Then let's meet face to face." He said, "Tomorrow at three in the afternoon, downstairs from your office, the teahouse across from the noodle shop. I've reserved a table."
"How many seats?"
"You can bring as many people as you like." A pause. "We don't need tea there to get things done."
Shen Zhixia looked at the desk calendar. Tomorrow was July 30. The August 12 square was still two weeks away.
"The meeting won't be on your turf," she said.
"Oh?"
"Tomorrow at three, Zhengping Firm, upstairs." She said, "You give your name at the door. I'll record your arrival time."
Silence on the other end for a few seconds. She heard the faint sound of a teacup being set down on a table.
"Fine."
One word. The line went dead.
Tang Guo picked up her bowl, then set it down again. "He actually dares to come up?"
"It's not about daring." He Xiufen untied her apron and draped it over the back of the chair. "He wants to see what else we have besides paper."
He Xiufen turned and gathered the stack by stack of paper from the long table into the kraft folder, then locked it in the steel cabinet. On the table, only the calendar, the desk lamp, and two half-finished bowls of noodles remained.
"Tomorrow, clear the long table," she said. "He's not coming to see paper. The paper's in the cabinet."
Lu Jibai put the two reply-letter pages back into the case file and closed it.
"I'll be here tomorrow."
Shen Zhixia wrote a line in the July 30 square of the desk calendar, then set the pen down. Downstairs, the noodle shop was closing; an iron ladle scraped against the bottom of a pot. Once. Then again.