Read Novel Full Chapter 263: A Three-Page Complaint
Chapter 263: A Three-Page Complaint
The scanner beeped once, then again.
At the courier depot diagonally across from the school's back gate, the roll-up door was raised halfway. Three stacks of cardboard boxes spilled out onto the sidewalk. One fluorescent tube inside was dead; the other flickered. A woman crouched on the floor, slapping waybills onto packages. The rip of packing tape dragged long and thin.
Two police officers ducked inside.
"Is Du Qiang here?"
The woman didn't look up. She pointed her chin toward the back room.
The back room was darker. A large sheet of plastic lay spread across the floor. A young man in a blue work uniform knelt on it, sorting packages. A dozen black bags lay spread before his knees—the same kind stacked by the door for outgoing shipments, except these had a line of five small characters printed near the bottom. His uniform was washed pale; the cuffs were frayed to soft edges.
"Du Qiang."
He looked up. A box cutter sat in his hand.
"How old."
"Twenty-two."
"What do you do here."
"Temporary sorting." He set the knife down. "Two months."
"Night of September nineteenth, where were you."
"Here." He thought for a moment. "Working until ten. Evening shift."
The older officer crouched down, picked up one of the black bags from the plastic sheet, flipped it over, and held the five-character line toward him.
"This kind of bag. You took one out that night."
Du Qiang's eyes landed on the characters and stayed there for two seconds. He wiped his hand on his pants.
"I take these bags out every day. When a delivery has too much for one, I grab one to pack it."
"We traced it here." The officer set the bag back down. "Two cameras in the alley. One's got a cracked housing, only shoots the wall. The one that caught you belongs to the fried skewer stall. If your memory's fuzzy, come by Chengdong Police Station at two this afternoon. Sit down, take your time."
"I'm working."
"Ask for leave."
Du Qiang didn't push it. He picked the box cutter back up, held the point over a seam in the plastic sheet, and didn't cut.
On the way out, the younger officer glanced back at the stack of black bags. The older one paused half a step under the roll-up door.
"Remember. Only ask if he's in, what time, what he took. Nothing else."
September 26, 5:00 PM. Second floor of the Zhengping Firm. Lu Jibai's phone sat at the corner of the desk, speaker on. Shen Zhixia sat across from him, pen poised above the paper, not yet touching down.
"The one from outside the school. We found him." The voice on the other end was unhurried, leaving space between sentences.
"Where."
"Across from the school's back gate. Courier depot. Sorter. Twenty-two. Temp worker." A pause. "Asked him everything this afternoon. Statement taken."
"What did you ask."
"Can't tell you that."
"How many pages."
"Can't tell you that either."
Lu Jibai pressed pen to paper and wrote, line by line: September 26, 5:00 PM, officer from Chengdong Police Station called. Exact words: "The one from outside the school. We found him... courier depot. Sorter. Twenty-two. Temp worker... Asked him everything this afternoon. Statement taken." Beneath that, two new lines: What was asked — not disclosed. How many pages — not disclosed.
He looked up. "How you found him. Can you tell me that."
A few seconds of silence. "Item two on that application you filed on the twentieth. We're working on it." The officer's voice came back. "The rest, I can't say a word outside. If you're keeping notes, write down only what we actually said."
"I did."
"Good."
The line went dead.
Shen Zhixia set her pen down. "What's his name."
"Didn't ask."
"Why not."
"Because he wouldn't have told me." Lu Jibai slid the page across to her and tapped the two blank lines at the bottom. "What he didn't answer—there's no writing here."
She looked at those two lines.
Thud. The blue uniform has a man attached to it now. His name is on their paper, not yours.
"Three people," she said. "One lying in a hospital. One, his classmate. One sat in a chair at the police station this afternoon. And we don't have a single name."
"You have one sentence." Lu Jibai snapped the cap onto his pen. "He said a statement was taken. Taken means it's in the file."
He Xiufen came up the stairs carrying a plastic bag—a fresh bunch of scallions. She set it on the counter and wiped her hands on her apron.
"Done talking."
"Done."
"The medical records." He Xiufen asked. "Those two pages. When do we hand them over."
Shen Zhixia's hand was already at the mouth of the file envelope.
"Not today," Lu Jibai said.
"Why."
He tapped the pages on the desk one by one: the draft of the application from the twentieth, the three documents from the twenty-third, his own retained opinion draft.
"Today they said nothing. When they do say something, they'll be the first to say it." He held the last page down. "You hand over the medical records now, they land right under that line about 'both sides were injured,' and they fill in a word for the other side. The records need to go in with something else. That's the only way they'll have a place."
He Xiufen tapped the edge of the table with the end of a chopstick. "One page handed over alone is just paper. Stacked together and handed over—that's when it becomes words."
Shen Zhixia pressed the mouth of the envelope flat. "I'll go tomorrow."
"To do what."
"Ask one thing: whether he needs to notify the station when he goes back to school."
He Xiufen glanced at her but didn't stop her. "One question. Fine. Just one."
The next day at 9:40, the two of them waited at the crosswalk at the alley entrance. Lu Jibai smoothed the document envelope in his hand, lining up the corners of the paper inside.
"Today you only say that one sentence."
"I know."
"After he answers, step aside. If he says anything more, follow his instructions. Don't chase a second question." The light went green. He started walking half a step ahead. "Words only have a place once they're on paper. If there's no place for them, don't say a single word today."
By late September, Jiangzhou mornings already carried a chill. Everyone at the crosswalk had their hands in their pockets. Shen Zhixia switched the envelope to her left hand, kept her right hand free, and walked through the station door.
September 27, 10:00 AM. Chengdong Police Station lobby.
Behind the duty desk, the register lay open. A cup of tea, long gone cold, sat beside it. The older officer held his pen, tip pointed down.
Shen Zhixia stood at the desk and finished her sentence: "He goes back to school for class on the twenty-eighth. Does he need to notify the station?"
The officer flipped a page, glanced at it, closed the register. "As long as he doesn't leave Jiangzhou, no filing needed. If he runs into the other student, nod and keep walking."
"Should I write something down."
"What you write would just be that sentence." He looked up at her. "You're his sister. Go ask him."
"Alright."
Footsteps on the front steps. Qin Hao's mother came in first, carrying a clear film bag with two X-rays inside, the corners curled. Dark overcoat, hair pulled back tight. She walked to the desk and glanced at the register first.
Chen Maolin followed behind her. Dark gray shirt buttoned to the top, a thin document envelope in his hand.
Qin Hao's mother set the film bag on the counter. It wouldn't stand; it tipped over. She reached out and steadied it.
"My son is still in the hospital," she said. "Two fractures."
The officer pulled a new register from the drawer and opened it. "What are you filing today."
Chen Maolin opened the envelope and drew out three sheets of paper. He squared the edges and placed them on the counter with both hands. "A complaint. Three pages."
The officer turned the pages one by one. At the last page, he stopped on the signature block.
"Who signed this."
"The boy's mother signed it herself," Chen Maolin said. "Not one character written by anyone else."
"Fingerprinted."
"She did."
The officer turned back to the last page, stamped the receiving seal in the lower right corner, wrote the date. A line appeared in the register: Complaint, three pages, attached to file.
"Anything else to add." He looked up.
"Yes." Lu Jibai stepped forward half a pace and pulled a single page from his document envelope. "An opinion regarding coercive measures. One page."
He placed it on the counter and slid it forward half an inch.
"Shen Zhi'an, seventeen, currently enrolled student, with a legal guardian, with a fixed residence. Released on guarantee pending trial on September twenty-third. As of this morning, he has appeared for every summons without exception." One sentence after another, spoken in an even rhythm. "The application is that coercive measures remain unchanged. That he not be converted to detention."
The officer took the page, read it through from top to bottom, turned it over, stamped the lower right corner, wrote the date. Register entry: Opinion, one page, attached to file. The two registers lay open side by side at his hand.
"I've received both parties' submissions." He set the pen down. "They go into the file. Everything handled according to law. Beyond that, I can't say anything."
"When will there be something to say." Lu Jibai asked.
"We'll say it when the time comes."
Qin Hao's mother picked up the film bag again. As she passed Shen Zhixia, her eyes lingered on her face for a moment, dropped to the envelope in her hand, then rose again. She said nothing and went out first.
The corridor off the lobby was short, a window at one end. Outside, in the courtyard, two trees had lost half their leaves.
Chen Maolin stayed in the corridor. He turned, a faint smile on his face, not deep.
"Lawyer Lu." He looked at Lu Jibai. "The boy still has to go to school."
"School is his own business."
"I know your side has injuries too." Chen Maolin slid his hands into his trouser pockets. "Two kids got in a fight. Both sides threw punches. That's mutual assault."
Outside the window, someone wheeled a bicycle past. The chain rattled the whole way.
Shen Zhixia's hand stopped at the mouth of her envelope. She opened her mouth. "He that evening—"
Snap. The pen cap clicked shut.
"Today you brought only your ears." Lu Jibai said it very quietly, just loud enough for her alone.
The second half of her sentence broke in her throat. She closed her mouth. A muscle moved at her jaw.
Only then did Lu Jibai raise his eyes to Chen Maolin.
"Then let the paper do the talking."
Chen Maolin pulled his hands from his pockets and straightened a cuff. "The paper says the same thing."
"Then there'll be something to read."
Chen Maolin gave a small smile, turned, and walked out. At the top of the steps, he looked back and added one more line: "Three pages. And I didn't write them."
His footsteps descended to the bottom. A door in the courtyard opened and shut.
Thud. What they said today is "mutual assault." These two characters will appear on every page from here on.
The noodle shop lights came on at six. The smell of scallion oil drifted up the stairwell. The exhaust fan hummed.
He Xiufen stood at the stove, dropping noodles into boiling water without turning around. "What did they file."
"A complaint. Three pages." Shen Zhixia set the envelope on the narrow table. "Just one line in the register."
"Can't tell what it says?"
"Can't."
He Xiufen shook the noodles twice and slid them into the pot. "From today on, that's their one story. They won't change a single word." She stirred the noodles apart with her chopsticks. "Don't take the bait. You go gather what needs to be gathered, one thing at a time: the school uniform, the photos, those two pages of medical records, the camera footage, the two phones. Put them all in order, then hand them over together."
Zhi'an came in from the stairwell, a pair of chopsticks in his hand. "What did they say."
Shen Zhixia glanced at him. "They said it was mutual assault."
He stood still, spinning the chopsticks in a slow circle. "I wasn't fighting him."
"Eat first." He Xiufen pushed a bowl toward him. "Counting the days on an empty stomach only makes the counting worse."
He didn't sit. He asked one thing: "Who threw the first punch. Are they not even going to ask."
"They will," Shen Zhixia said.
He set the chopsticks down, then sat down anyway.
That night, the desk lamp burned on the second floor.
Shen Zhixia turned to a fresh page in her notebook and wrote at the top: September 27. Opposing side filed Complaint, three pages, one line in register, attached to file. Below, a new line, copying Chen Maolin's exact words:
"This is mutual assault."
Then another:
"Three pages. And I didn't write them."
When she finished, she flipped back one page. That page held only a few lines: September 19, after 8:00 PM. Xu Qing said "he was beside them the whole time using another phone to film." What he filmed was the two of them. Qin Hao's phone—pointed at me. Below that, a line standing alone: Two phones. Then: Where is the second one.
She placed the two pages side by side, clipped them together with a binder clip, then flipped back to the new page and added a header: Tomorrow, Zhi'an returns to school.
The pen swung back and drew a circle around the four characters this is mutual assault. When the circle closed, she drew another one around the outside.
Thud. The file gained three pages. You gained one. Three to one.