Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 264: The Second Phone

He Xiufen pressed the iron down. White steam rose from the sleeve, carrying a smell of scallion oil.

"This one's been washed eight times." She lifted the hem to look. "Collar's still yellow. It'll do."

A school uniform lay spread on the narrow table—pale blue, washed to a faded white. Under the counter, a plastic bag sat with another one poking out. The left sleeve was split from shoulder to elbow, the tear long since dried, edges curled.

Zhi'an came down, hair still wet. He sat, glanced at the uniform on the table, didn't reach for it.

"Eat." He Xiufen pushed the noodles toward him.

"If I'm late, the teacher will ask."

"You won't be late." She stood the iron upright. "At school, go to the office first. Stand in front of the desk and ask that question first."

"Can I come back to class." He recited it flat, like a line he'd memorized.

"Right."

"What if she says no."

"Then ask: is that the school's decision, or hers." He Xiufen wiped the counter with a rag. "If she writes it down, bring it back. If she won't write, set the paper down, walk to the door, turn around and check—see if the paper's still on the desk."

He finished the noodles, lifted the bowl, drank two mouthfuls of soup, and stood to put on the uniform. The left cuff had been extended with a patch—coarse stitching, a shade off.

"Whose is it."

"The old Liu family's youngest, out back. Shorter than you. I lengthened the sleeves." She patted his back. "Stand straight."

[Thud. A child going to school needs a shirt without a tear in it.]

At ten-thirty, two people came down the stairs, one after the other.

Lu Jibai carried a document envelope, corners perfectly aligned. At the fork at the end of the lane, one went left, one went right. Zhi'an walked seven or eight steps, then looked back at his sister.

"I'm going to class."

"Mm."

He turned into the alley, backpack straps uneven, that patched sleeve swinging at his arm.

Shen Zhixia stood inside the door and didn't see him off. Her hand pressed on her bag strap, then released. She waited until the shadow rounded the wall before pulling the door shut.

The desk lamp glowed on the second floor. She opened the notebook and added a line beneath September 27: 28th, 10:30, Zhi'an returned to school; Lu Jibai filed Application for Evidence Collection (II), one page, two items. When she finished, she still held the pen, sitting motionless.

The exhaust fan hummed downstairs. Water boiled. A pot lid was lifted and set back down. At the far end of the lane, someone was sharpening scissors—two passes, then a pause.

She scrolled through her phone's photo album, back to September 20. The four photos were still there: the torn left sleeve, his hand spread over the sleeve, the name "Shen Zhi'an" at the inside collar, the registration slip and medical record corner in the same frame. She looked at each one. Didn't delete. Didn't crop. When she finished, she placed the phone face-down on the desk.

At eleven-forty, Lu Jibai returned.

"Filed."

"Where did they write it."

"New page, first line: Application, one page, attached to file." He set the carbon copy on the table. "The officer at the duty desk said something."

"What."

"Something like a phone—you can't get it out with a piece of paper."

"How do you get it out, then."

"Seizure. Seizing property requires an inventory, in duplicate, signed by the holder. Only after it's signed does it go into the bag." He tapped the paper twice. "He said this without looking at us."

At four-thirty in the afternoon, Zhi'an came home.

There was an ironed crease down the back of his uniform, half worn away by the backpack. He stood by the stove, downed half a bowl of soup, then went upstairs.

"How many classes."

"Four."

"What did the teacher say."

"Said I could stay." He thought. "Also said, don't stand in the hallway."

"How did you sit."

"I sat down. Third row, by the window. That seat was empty. I took it."

"Classmates?"

"One person asked what really happened that day."

"What did you say."

"I said I didn't know."

"And."

His hand pushed at the back of the stool. "Qin Hao's desk is empty. There's a stack of test papers on it. Not handed out."

Shen Zhixia didn't answer. Downstairs, He Xiufen lined bowls on the narrow table, counted, and called up for noodles.

"I sat there all day." Zhi'an said. "Didn't do anything."

"Sitting was doing something." He Xiufen brought the pot up, a rag draped over the rim. "Sit there a day, and that classroom has one more line in it: 'He's back.' Some people don't like hearing that."

Zhi'an lowered his head to eat. Halfway through the noodles, he asked:

"Will they ask again."

"Yes." Shen Zhixia said.

His chopsticks stopped at the bowl's rim.

"Everyone they've asked, they'll ask again." She kept her voice level. "Answer what needs answering. Don't say more."

"One question, one answer." He Xiufen tapped the bowl rim with her chopsticks. "Your sister shouldn't need to teach you that."

[Thud. He's back. Coming back—that too can be written into the papers.]

September 29, 3:00 p.m., second floor of Zhengping Firm. Downstairs, a scrap buyer's loudspeaker droned—old appliances, old refrigerators—over and over.

Lu Jibai's phone sat at the corner of the desk, speaker on.

"The classmate's phone." Same senior officer on the line, pauses left between each sentence.

"Seized?"

"Seized this morning. Outside his door. Inventory drawn up in front of his father, his father signed." A pause. "Sent downtown this afternoon for electronic data examination."

"Also, one more name added to the release-on-guarantee list. Separate page. He comes in tomorrow to sign: Meng Yang."

Shen Zhixia's pen stopped on the paper.

"How many days."

"Can't say."

"Will we get a result."

"It'll be in the case file."

"The other phone." Lu Jibai said.

Silence on the line. Through the speaker, you could hear footsteps near the duty desk, then the sound of a cup being set down.

"Which one." The officer said.

"Qin Hao's. September 19, he was holding one up, pointing it at someone."

"The victim's side says," the officer paused, "his phone was broken. Thrown away."

Lu Jibai pressed the pen down and wrote: Broken. Thrown away.

"Who said."

"His family."

"When was it thrown."

"They didn't say."

"Where."

"They didn't say."

"Was it logged."

"They didn't say."

"Has anyone asked him that."

"That, I can't say."

Lu Jibai wrote line by line, then set the pen down. "Everything said on this call is on this paper."

"Write it down." The officer said. "Write down what we said."

"Anything else."

Silence for two or three seconds.

"One thing."

"Go ahead."

"After the holiday, we may want to talk to him again. Don't let him travel far over the break. Jiangzhou's big enough."

"Talk about what."

"What needs talking about."

The call ended.

Shen Zhixia took the sheet. Three lines of "they didn't say" sat there. She looked at them for a while.

"Broken. Thrown away."

"Mm."

"Xu Qing saw that classmate holding his up the whole time."

"Holding it up is an action. Whether there's anything on the phone—that's another matter." Lu Jibai capped his pen. "The examination's job is to turn the word 'nothing' into a sentence."

"Which sentence."

"'There was.' Or 'There never was.'"

She lowered her head and wrote in the notebook: September 29, 3:00 p.m., Meng Yang's phone seized and sent for examination, body signed by his father; Qin Hao's phone, "broken, thrown away." When she finished, she drew a horizontal line under "thrown away." Then she flipped back one page to that line—"Where is the second phone?"—and added two words beneath it: Seized.

[Thud. One phone went into a bag. The other went into three words: "broken, thrown away." The bag has a signature. The words don't.]

September 30, 6:00 p.m., second floor of Zhengping Firm. The lights were on downstairs; the scent of scallion oil drifted up.

He Xiufen spread three stacks of paper on the long table, a porcelain basin weighting the upper-left corner against the draft.

"Count."

Shen Zhixia went through them one by one: two draft applications, the Opinion on Coercive Measures, one page; outpatient medical records, two pages; Notice of Appraisal Opinion, one page; Decision on Release on Guarantee, one page; Notice of Obligations for Person Released on Guarantee, one page; photocopy of the guarantee statement, one page. The four school-uniform photos from her phone weren't printed. She stated the count.

"Why not print them."

"They're in the phone. I can see them anytime."

"Seeing and submitting are two different things." He Xiufen moved the basin half an inch. "Print them. Two copies. One goes in the file envelope, one stays at the firm. On the day you print, write the date—who did the printing, how many pages—all of it in the corner."

"Four."

"Four, then write four." She pushed the papers back toward the middle. "What's numbered on paper, no one else can change."

"Folded in three times," He Xiufen went on, "pulled back out four. The rest stays in your phone."

"And this." Lu Jibai pushed the blue notebook over, opened to September 20 and through to the last page. "Every call is in here, one line per call. Everything that can be written is written. The things I can't say—three lines left blank."

"Those blank lines—someday someone fills them in, or they stay blank forever." He Xiufen pushed her glasses up. "Don't write anything in them."

She pushed the stack of papers further toward the middle.

"Xu Qing's statement, Meng Yang's statement, the statement of the guy in the alley, Qin Hao's account, and Zhi'an's own two sessions. All of that's in the case file. The file's in their hands—we don't get to see a single page." She lifted her eyes, looked at each of them in turn. "That's investigation. This stage isn't meant to be seen. Same for any lawyer."

"Through October, I'll file whatever can be filed." Lu Jibai said. "What can't be filed, I won't ask one extra word."

"And you shouldn't."

"Right."

"So if they do call him in after the holiday." Shen Zhixia opened her notebook. "Where do I sit."

"Inside, by the door. You're his legal guardian—you can sit in." Lu Jibai said. "He answers once. You listen once. When you come out, don't talk in the corridor."

"Where do I write it down."

"In your head. Write when you get home. Don't write at the police station gate."

He Xiufen pressed both palms on the papers, twice. "The stack's neat. That's all for today."

She pushed herself up with her hands on her hips, then sat back down, looking at the stack in the middle of the table. "What a person refuses to say—that's a fact too. If someday someone hands you a 'nothing,' you ask: how many things is that 'nothing' hiding."

Downstairs the pot lid clattered. Zhi'an called up: "Auntie He, is the exhaust fan still on?"

"Off."

Footsteps came up the stairs. He held two bowls. At the top, he saw the papers spread on the long table and stopped.

"What are you counting."

"These ten days." Shen Zhixia gathered the papers into the document envelope.

"And what did you get."

"We got a count of what's in our hands."

He set the two bowls on the corner of the table and bent to look at the envelope. "When will they ask me again."

"After the holiday."

He pushed the bowls further onto the table, didn't ask again, turned and went downstairs. His foot paused on the third step before continuing.

The exhaust fan stopped. Someone in the lane was closing a stall; an iron frame clanged against the ground.

Shen Zhixia sealed the envelope and added a line on the cover with her pen:

Next time they ask, bring this bag.

[Thud. The file is in their hands. Next time they question him, they'll bring the file. You bring him.]