Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 257: Three Days Means the Day After Tomorrow

The light outside Chenggong Police Station's gate went off a little past six-forty.

Shen Zhixia stood on the third step from the bottom, half a trampled flyer at her feet. Across the alley, the soy milk cart was just being set up. The vendor lifted the lid off the steel drum, and white steam rolled up, fogging over half the shopfronts along the lane. Lu Jibai's car was parked at the mouth of the alley, engine still running. He stood outside, jacket draped over his left arm. He'd been standing like that since she arrived at six thirty-five.

At six-fifty, the iron door inside clanged. The officer came out first, holding a kraft paper bag. Shen Zhi'an followed behind him. The left sleeve of his school uniform was still torn from shoulder to elbow. Three scabs on the back of his hand had darkened over. His school badge hung crooked on his chest, one eyelid swollen.

The officer set the paper bag on the windowsill and laid the contents out one by one: phone, keys, school badge. The third item—the badge—he had taken off his own chest and placed inside. When everything was counted, he slid out a form and held out a pen.

"Sign here."

Shen Zhi'an signed, glanced up at his sister, then looked back down.

"Listen to what I told you last night one more time." The officer clipped the form back into the folder. "Injury assessment: three days. Don't go far these three days. Call goes to your sister's number. You going to answer it?"

"I'll answer."

"Don't meet with anyone from the other side. If you run into them, go the other way." He looked at Shen Zhixia. "As the sister, keep him to that line too."

"I will."

There were three more sentences she didn't say. Where exactly the injuries were. Who signed the assessment. Whether she could see the original diagnosis. He Xiufen's words—"Don't say a single word of legal anything"—sat in her throat like a pill that wouldn't dissolve.

The iron door shut behind them, the sound muffled.

Shen Zhi'an stopped on the bottom step and kicked at the cracked concrete.

"Sis."

"Yeah."

"I want noodles."

The noodle shop's plastic curtain wasn't up yet, but the scallion-oil smell was already drifting out.

He Xiufen stood at the stove, one hand steadying the wok, the other grabbing noodles, flour dusted across her apron. She didn't turn when she heard footsteps. "What are you standing at the door for? Come in."

Three bowls of noodles, set in different places. Zhi'an's went on the square table by the window, a poached egg on top. He Xiufen's own bowl sat on the edge of the stove; she ate standing.

Zhi'an ate fast, barely chewing the first few mouthfuls. He Xiufen tapped the stove edge with her chopsticks. "Slow down. You choke, the whole morning's wasted."

He slowed, finished the noodles, drained the broth, wiped his mouth with the back of his uninjured hand.

"Auntie He."

"Speak."

"How bad is he hurt?"

Shen Zhixia looked up. He Xiufen draped the steamer cloth over the wok rim. She didn't answer for her.

"Bilateral nasal bone fracture," Shen Zhixia said. "Plus another bone. He's in the hospital under observation."

Zhi'an stared at the empty bowl, tracing the rim with one finger.

"I wasn't trying to hit him there," he said. "I just wanted to push him away."

"Where were you trying to push him?"

He didn't answer.

"That sentence—there'll be a proper place for it later." He Xiufen stacked the three bowls. "Not now. Not here."

"Auntie He, can I go upstairs with you two?" Zhi'an stayed standing. "What I said last night—I said it once in there and signed it."

"Then you signed." He Xiufen set the wok lid on. "Once you've signed a statement, you don't change a single word of it. Change it, and everything before it was for nothing."

"Go sleep. Don't get that hand wet. Keep it." She pushed the bowls toward him.

Water ran, bowls clinked. He Xiufen dried her hands on her apron and looked at Shen Zhixia.

"The things."

"Household register, the printed copy of the school's statement, Xu Qing's number. All in the bag."

"Eight o'clock. Three items, on my desk." She pointed at the wall clock: seven-oh-six. "The one in the car outside—call him in to eat. He sat in that car all night. I pulled the curtain back at five-thirty and saw his car parked at the alley entrance."

"Director He." Shen Zhixia stood, walked to the door, then turned back. "Last night in there, I didn't say one word of legal anything."

He Xiufen dropped the noodles into the pot, the water rolling.

"I know. That's why I kept you until this morning."

* * *

Three minutes to eight. The door to Zhengping Firm's second floor stood open.

The desk had been wiped clean, nothing on it. The three items went down one at a time: the household register with its dark cover; two A4 sheets—printed copies of the signed "Explanatory Statement" from Zhi'an's phone; and one sticky note with eleven digits.

Lu Jibai came up last, holding a water glass. He set it on the corner of the desk and didn't sit.

He Xiufen flipped through the household register to the middle page, her fingertip pressing on the "Relationship to Head of Household" field.

"Make two copies of Zhi'an's page. Write 'verified against original,' sign your name, date it today. One copy to the police station, one in your file envelope."

"Got it."

"The school's statement." She picked up the two A4 sheets and held them to the window light. "What day did she sign 'received and reviewed'?"

"It was handed in the night of August thirty-first. She signed the next day. No date on the original."

"Then add a note in the corner: 'Printed from phone photo on September twentieth. Original kept by the homeroom teacher.'" He Xiufen pushed the sheets back. "Without that line, when someone asks when this came into existence, all you can say is 'because I said so.'"

Shen Zhixia bent over and wrote. At the words "kept by," her pen stopped for a beat.

He Xiufen's hand had already moved to the sticky note.

"Xu Qing's number. Her mother's?"

"I don't have it."

"Then don't write things that don't exist." She slid the note toward Lu Jibai. "Take it. Attach it after the application. Write one line: 'Witness contact information attached; please question her in accordance with law.'"

Shen Zhixia's hand lifted half an inch, then returned to her lap.

"From today on, you don't call a single witness in this case. The number doesn't go in your phone. No WeChat. Pass her on the street, nod and keep walking. What she has to say, she says only to the police. You call her once first, and from then on every word out of her mouth becomes something you coached."

"I know."

"You know, and I'm still going to say it once more. As family: keep your hands short, your words few, your papers complete."

[Thud. This case, nothing will be charged to your account.]

The phone buzzed three times in her bag. Tang Guo: she'd watched the footage Guo Jianping shot yesterday three times, cutting tomorrow. Shen Zhixia replied "okay" and turned the phone facedown. He Xiufen glanced over but didn't ask.

"There are three items. Read them." He Xiufen said. "Have her read them."

Lu Jibai spread the application open. Shen Zhixia read:

"One: request to lawfully obtain and preserve the original footage from the two surveillance cameras at the east and west ends of the alley behind the school, between eighteen hundred and twenty hundred hours on September nineteenth."

"Stop." He Xiufen raised a hand. "'Preserve'—why did you add that."

"Cameras like these usually keep seven days. The nineteenth through the twenty-sixth." Lu Jibai said. "If we file after the twenty-sixth, they'll answer 'already overwritten,' and that item is dead."

"Put that on paper. Write 'preserve before the retention period expires.'" She said. "The person reading the paper needs to know why you're in a hurry."

He added the half-line.

"Two: request to lawfully question the students from the same class and the youths from outside school who were present on September nineteenth, to clarify who struck first, who was holding someone back, who was holding a phone."

"Stop." He Xiufen's chopstick tapped directly onto the page. "That last half—where did you get 'someone was holding someone back'?"

"The guardian heard it from others last night."

"Then take those four words off the paper." The chopstick tip pressed on "who was holding someone back." "Putting those three actions down tells whoever reads this that you're holding testimony they can't see. Xu Qing will be questioned a second time sooner or later. And the questioner will ask her one more thing: who did you tell these things to."

A cart passed outside, its iron wheels banging against the curb.

Lu Jibai pulled the paper over, crossed out the line, and rewrote beside it: to clarify each person's position at the time, whether there was physical contact, and what each person was holding. He finished, spinning the pen once between his fingers.

"Is this all right?"

"It is. And don't write one word closer than that." He Xiufen said. "You're changing it now, before the paper leaves the building. Once it enters the file, it can't be changed."

"Three: request to obtain the original emergency department registration log from Jiangzhou No. 2 People's Hospital for September nineteenth, along with Qin Hao's medical records."

"Why single out the registration log?"

"The chief complaint says 'injured in an assault.' The history says 'accidental fall.' Same pen, two lines apart."

"Did you photograph it?"

"No. That's Qin Hao's medical record. The moment I photograph it, that page is tainted." He said. "Let the police go get it themselves. What they bring back is sturdier than what I photograph."

He Xiufen folded the rag and pressed it down on the desk corner. "Correct."

[Thud. Three things spoken become three things delivered once they're on paper.]

"I'll write the firm letter." She stood and walked to the cabinet, pulled out a sheet of office paper, and wrote against her knee. When she finished, she stamped it, pressing the seal into the ink pad three times. "The original power of attorney and a copy of your practice certificate—you have them?"

"I do."

"Submit all four together. Make them sign for it. Keep one duplicate, bring it back after they sign. You deliver the household register at nine-thirty; he submits his at ten-ten. After you deliver, you leave. Don't go through the second door."

She set a new kraft paper file envelope in the center of the desk and wrote on the cover with a pen: Shen Zhi'an—September 20, 2026. The characters were straight and heavy. She capped the pen and pushed the envelope toward Shen Zhixia.

"Every piece of paper in this case goes in here from today on. One comes in, you write the date on the back and who gave it. What goes out, you write it too. Not one sheet missed."

"Understood."

"One more thing. On this case, don't write the words 'it should be fine.' Write that enough times and you'll start believing it."

"There's instant coffee in the cabinet. Make two cups." She pointed at the corner of the room. "He didn't sleep last night. Neither did I."

Shen Zhixia made two cups—one with half a spoon of sugar, one without. The unsweetened one she set by Lu Jibai's hand. He picked it up, took a sip, said nothing. He Xiufen took her own cup and added another spoon of sugar.

"Drink it sweet," she said. "What we have to say this morning is bitter."

* * *

Nine twenty-five. The two of them went down to the alley entrance together.

"You go first. I'll go in at ten-ten." Lu Jibai switched his briefcase to the other hand. "After you hand yours over, wait outside the window. If you can hear, listen. If not, don't lean in."

"Deliberately separate."

"Deliberately. One is a guardian submitting materials; the other is counsel filing an application. If the same person hands in both, in their minds it's one thing."

Two people were queued at the duty desk window: one whose e-scooter had been stolen, another there for a no-criminal-record certificate. When her turn came, she slid a photocopy through.

"Shen Zhixia, Shen Zhi'an's sister. Submitting a supplementary copy of the household register to prove the guardianship relationship."

The officer opened it, glanced at the "Relationship to Head of Household" line, then looked up at her.

"Last night's form already listed a guardian."

"I didn't have it with me last night. Submitting today." She said. "Could you write 'supplementary' on the back?"

The officer looked at her for half a second, lowered his head, and wrote while reading aloud: "September twentieth, Shen Zhixia submits supplementary household register copy, guardianship relationship." He finished and slid the paper into the drawer.

At ten-ten, Lu Jibai came in carrying a clear document folder, four papers clipped in order.

"Lu Jibai, Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm, counsel for Shen Zhi'an. Submitting a two-page Application for Evidence Collection, with a firm letter, one original power of attorney, and one copy of my lawyer's practice certificate. Please sign for receipt."

The officer pulled the four documents out and examined them one by one. "When was the representation accepted?"

"The evening of September nineteenth. The date is on the power of attorney."

The officer nodded and wrote on the registration sheet. When he finished, he wrote "Received" in the upper-right corner of the duplicate, signed, dated it, the pen tip pausing for a beat on the last character.

"Duplicate's yours."

"Two more things I'll mention." He recapped the pen. "First, the two camera feeds from the back of the school—they've been pulled this morning."

Lu Jibai's shoulder twitched, then settled back down.

"Second, the charge is currently suspected intentional injury." The officer said. "Not filed yet. Waiting on the assessment."

"Those two feeds—"

"No." The officer cut him off. "Everything in the file—you'll hear about it after the investigation is done. What you can ask now, I'll answer. But see? No."

Lu Jibai took out his notebook, pen pressed to the page. "Three more questions."

"Ask."

"When were the feeds pulled—what time is recorded?"

"Around nine-forty this morning."

"Have the two people at the scene been notified?"

"Calls made. They haven't come in yet."

"When does the injury assessment come out?"

The officer glanced sideways at the desk calendar. "Reported the night of the nineteenth. Three days. The day after tomorrow." He pushed the drawer shut. "One more thing you can hear: the other side brought in the original diagnosis this morning."

Shen Zhixia's pen stopped in her small notebook, then kept writing: September twentieth, roughly ten-ten, officer states the other side's original diagnosis was delivered this morning.

Outside the duty room, she waited three steps beyond the window. Lu Jibai handed her the duplicate.

"Put it in your envelope. Not in your notebook."

"Not in the notebook?"

"The notebook is for you. The envelope is what you'll have to show other people later." He said. "Mix the two, and the dates won't line up."

She reached out to take it, her fingertip pressing on the corner of the paper—a half-second pause before she let go.

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

"Two hours in the car."

"Two cups of coffee isn't enough."

"It'll hold until noon."

The wind at the alley mouth carried the smell of frying oil from the breakfast stall. She folded the paper once and slipped it into the kraft envelope, pressing the flap flat. Two sheets in the envelope now: the household register copy, and this application with its receipt signature.

She looked down at the first item's wording: request to preserve before the retention period expires.

"The moment September twenty-sixth passes, those two feeds erase themselves."

"That's why the paper has to go in today," Lu Jibai said.

She ran the officer's last sentence through her mind again.

The assessment was reported the night of the nineteenth. Three days.

Three days meant the day after tomorrow.