Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 268: After Breaking Free

"Shen Zhi'an, after you broke free, why did you still hit him?"

The interrogation room's heater was on high. The smell of paper pressed down over the damp-rag odor of an old mop. On the table: an aging computer, one pen, a sheaf of printed form paper. The officer asking was around forty, cuffs buttoned neat. A younger one sat to the side, flipping through the transcript from the last round. Shen Zhixia sat in the plastic chair against the inner wall, the table edge maybe ten centimeters from her knees.

Today she had brought only her ears. Before leaving the house, He Xiufen had given her one instruction: sit there, hands on your knees, look at no one. Just watch him.

Zhi'an sat across from her in the old school uniform with the patched left cuff—rough stitching, the thread a shade off. He'd glanced at his sister once when he came in, then hadn't looked again.

"I asked you a question."

"He was still right there in front of me." Zhi'an's voice was steady. "He was going to come at me again."

The pen tapped twice against the paper. "How do you know he was going to come at you again?"

"His hand was still raised. He didn't back off—he stepped forward another step."

"That step forward. You saw it."

"I saw it."

"That hand you raised—was it a push, or a punch?"

"A punch."

"Where?"

"The face."

"How many times?"

"Once."

"And after?"

"He didn't go down. He stepped back one step. I didn't hit him again."

The officer wrote. The scratch of pen on paper filled the room. The younger officer flipped the previous transcript to a page, compared two lines, looked up at Zhi'an, then back down.

"Before you hit him, was someone holding you?"

"The one in the blue shirt grabbed me from behind. He lifted me up—both my feet were off the ground."

"He was holding you. You broke free, then threw a punch."

"Yes."

"Why still hit him after breaking free? You could have run."

Zhi'an looked at the tabletop. "If I ran, he'd still be right in front of her."

"In front of who."

"…Xu Qing."

"What does your running have to do with her?"

"He would've kept forcing her to say that line."

The officer paused, then wrote that down too.

"The people we've talked to don't quite agree with your version." He laid the pen crosswise on the paper. "Some say you went over first and pulled someone. Pushed him first. Is that true."

"I grabbed Xu Qing's arm," Zhi'an said. "He came in from the side and blocked her. I didn't push him."

"Who threw the first hand?"

"The one in the blue shirt grabbed me first."

"Who can prove that."

Zhi'an's hands were clasped together under the table. "Xu Qing saw it. And the camera at the mouth of the alley."

The officer didn't answer that. He wrote five more characters on the paper: Camera at alley entrance.

"After the August thirty-first incident, what did you do?"

"I wrote out a statement and gave it to my homeroom teacher. She signed off that she'd reviewed it."

"And."

"On the morning of September first, I called the police station to report it."

"Did anyone come?"

"No. They told me to wait—said the school would keep an eye on it first. I never got a receipt."

The words no receipt went down on the paper too. Shen Zhixia's fingernail pressed into her knee, then released.

"Between that report and September nineteenth, did you ever arrange to meet him, or send word through someone?"

"No."

"Did you tell any classmates you were going to hit him?"

"No."

"Did you ever wait for him at the school gate?"

"No."

"Last time he didn't grab you. This time he did." The officer stilled the pen. "Last time he pushed you, and you didn't fight back. Why fight back this time?"

Zhi'an thought for two or three seconds. "Last time, once she said it, everyone scattered. This time they didn't scatter. They were still blocking the alley."

"After that night, did you contact Xu Qing?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I wasn't allowed to."

The officer's pen paused. "Who told you that."

"It was written on the paper when I signed."

"Good that you know." He wrote it down and flipped back a page. "After you threw that punch, when did you leave?"

"The security guards came in first and pinned me down. I didn't move after that."

"You know he was hospitalized."

"I know."

"Both sides. Two fractures."

Zhi'an's jaw shifted. He said nothing.

"Anything else to add?"

Zhi'an lifted his eyes from the desk. His voice was steadier than anything that had come before. "He was still right there in front of me, and he was going to come at me again. I want that written down."

The officer looked at him, then wrote it.

Shen Zhixia ran through the questions in her mind. After you broke free, why still hit him. After breaking free, you could have run. What did you do after August thirty-first. After reporting, did you arrange to meet him. After that night, did you contact Xu Qing. After the punch, when did you leave. Six questions carrying the word after. The rest were about the two ends of a single moment—who approached first, who let go first. They weren't asking about the same thing.

[Thud. Six "afters," one "that punch."]

[Thud. The seconds they couldn't get out of him—those stayed blank on the page.]

At 11:20, four pages of transcript were printed. The officer pushed them across. "Read it over. If something's written wrong, say so. No adding nonsense."

Zhi'an dragged the pages to him and ran his index finger down the first line, reading slowly. He stopped at the middle of page three.

"This line."

"Which line?"

"'He was still right in front of me, and he was going to come at me again.' That's not what I said. I said 'he was going to come up again,' not 'come at me.'"

The officer leaned over to look. "Same meaning."

"It's not the same." Zhi'an said. "He didn't lunge at me. He took a step forward."

Shen Zhixia's hands tightened on her knees. Her tongue had already lined up the words—the transcript has to be in his exact words—but she swallowed them back. Her throat moved.

The room went quiet for two seconds. The officer uncapped the pen, drew a line through "come at me," and wrote "come up" beside it. "One correction, one thumbprint." The tin of red ink paste was pushed toward Zhi'an. He opened the lid himself, pressed his thumb in, pressed it down over the strikethrough, then lifted it off—a ring of red still circling his thumb pad.

"There's more." He pointed to a line near the bottom of the second page. "'After I broke free, I fought back and hit him.' I didn't say 'fought back.'"

"What did you say."

"I said I broke free and hit him once."

The officer's pen hovered over the page, then came down and made the correction. A second thumbprint went beneath "hit him once."

The four pages were turned one by one. At the last page, the officer pointed to the blank space at the bottom. "Write: I have read the above transcript, and it matches what I said. Sign your name. Write the date."

Zhi'an wrote character by character, set the pen down when he finished. Shen Zhixia watched those three characters form—steadier strokes than the September twenty-third statement.

The officer pushed the pages between them and looked at her. "You read it over too. Sign when you're done."

Shen Zhixia pulled the four pages to her. She read even more slowly than her brother, page by page, checking even whether the "Q" and "A" lines aligned. On page three, the line with the strikethrough and correction—two thumbprints red and glistening. She mentally checked the date, the time, the two officers' ranks, every one of Zhi'an's answers. She wrote nothing down.

"Nothing to correct," she said.

"Then write 'legal guardian' in this column." The pen was pushed toward her. "Name and date."

She signed, set the pen down. The red ink paste lid was still open, giving off a smell of varnish.

"Can we get a copy?" she asked.

"No." The officer gathered up the four pages and squared them. "At the investigation stage, these aren't given to family or to lawyers. You're allowed to see them today because you're here in person."

She nodded. Didn't ask again. Didn't take out her notebook.

"He's still out on guarantee pending trial." The officer stood. "Tell us before leaving the city, and don't wander off on your own. If we can't reach him, we come looking for you. You're the one who signed."

"I understand."

"We'll be in touch if there's more."

In the corridor, wind squeezed through the window gaps. Cooler than inside. Zhi'an walked ahead, stopping at the stairwell to wait for his sister.

Lu Jibai stood at the bottom of the steps, a kraft paper envelope tucked under one arm, one page held flat in his other hand as he read. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps.

"Done?"

"Done," Zhi'an said.

"What did they ask you last?"

"They asked if I had anything to add."

"What did you say."

"I said he was still right there in front of me, and he was going to come up again."

Lu Jibai folded the page in his hand and slid it back into the envelope. "Three times now. Three times, not a word off."

Zhi'an stood still. Suddenly he asked, "If they ask me if I've seen that footage, what do I say?"

"You've seen it. Say you've seen it."

"Who gave it to me?"

"Say I did." Lu Jibai said. "What I showed you was the copy we made ourselves. Don't hide it for me, and don't add to it. Hide one sentence, and everything you said before goes bad too."

"…Okay."

"Anything else?"

"They asked about the September first report," Zhi'an said. "I told them the truth. No receipt."

Lu Jibai's hand paused over the envelope. He looked at Shen Zhixia. She said only two words: "It's recorded."

"Did they make corrections in the transcript?" he asked.

"Two places," Zhi'an said. "Two thumbprints. Both on my hands."

"The corrections were right." Lu Jibai said. "One of them you insisted on yourself. That one's worth both prints."

Walking down the steps, Shen Zhixia stayed behind. The envelope bore writing, dense, column after column, and she recognized that squared-off hand.

"The six questions they asked all landed on 'after,'" she said.

"They want to write this as retaliation." Lu Jibai shifted the envelope to his left hand. "They won't ask what happened before. If they do, it's just to set up 'mutual fight.' They only recognize what comes after."

"The seven items for tomorrow—you've got them all written out."

"10:00. Read them off to the duty officer one by one. When I'm done, have him sign for them." He stopped at the bottom step. "We're still missing one box. We have to wait for them to flip it themselves."

"Which box?"

"The September first box." He said. "Once they dig it out, there's a sentence: He went to adults first."

Zhi'an, listening from above, cut in. "And if they can't dig it out?"

"Then I write the application again." Lu Jibai said.

"The word 'after'—that's theirs." Shen Zhixia stopped on the last step. "The line 'he was still right there in front of me'—that's his. I only heard it. I didn't feed him a single word."

Lu Jibai didn't answer that. He looked back up the steps. "Get in. Director He's got noodles on downstairs."

Zhi'an didn't move. "Sis, did I answer right today?"

"You answered what you remembered," she said. "The rest isn't yours to answer."

Only then did he come down, taking the steps two at a time.

The wind came through the alley mouth and blew the two plane-tree leaves off the windshield.