Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 28 : Whose Machine

The screenshot of the Rider App's "About" page, she zoomed in three times.

The screenshot was the one Xiao Duan sent last night. The bottom three lines: version number, update time, developer. The developer line printed the full name: Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd. The characters were small, jammed together. She brought the phone screen right up to her eyes before "Network Technology" separated.

She copied that line into her hardcover notebook. Beside it she drew parentheses and wrote inside: who made the Rider App.

She used the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website for the filing query. She typed the entity name into the box, tried three times before she got the right entrance. Three results came up: one website, two mobile apps. The name in the sponsoring entity column matched the fourteen characters she had copied into her notebook exactly. The filing number started with "Jiang ICP Bei" followed by a string of digits. She didn't copy it. One column down, it read: access service provider: Yunfan Cloud Computing Co., Ltd.

She followed that name down. Yunfan Cloud had an availability zone in Jiangzhou. Its server room address was public on its own page, with a photo beside it: a spread of gray-roofed buildings, a row of poplars outside the wall. East Suburb.

She stared at the photo for a while, then copied the address down. Her pen tip drifted a little.

Then she typed "Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd." Nothing.

Typed "Jianhua Delivery Service Department." Also nothing.

Three signs hung on the same door, but the filing system held only one line. She wrote that sentence into her notebook and circled it.

He Xiufen came upstairs with a bowl of noodles and saw the page spread open on her desk.

"Found the server room?"

"East Suburb."

"Whose building?"

"Yunfan Cloud's."

"Whose room is the stuff in?"

"Rented from the platform."

"Then what does the landlord have?"

She set down her pen.

"The key records, the entry logs," she said. "Who went in on what day, what they moved out."

"The stuff is in the tenant's room. The landlord can't produce it." He Xiufen blew on the bowl. "You want the thing, go to the tenant. If you're afraid the tenant will move it out overnight, bring the landlord along as a witness. Both places have to be written down, on one piece of paper."

She nodded and changed the third item below into two lines:

One, Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd. holds: dispatch, attendance, and settlement records, plus account activation, authorization, and operation records.

Two, Yunfan Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. holds: access records for that machine.

[Thud. The door is the landlord's, the account is the tenant's.]

He Xiufen carried the noodles downstairs, then turned back at the stairway.

"The day the tenant moves out, the landlord's notebook will have a line left in it," she said. "Don't just ask what's still in the room. Ask him which day he went in."

At two that afternoon, she took two buses out to East Suburb.

The outer wall had no sign. By the guardhouse stood a small blue sign with white lettering: Yunfan Cloud Jiangzhou Availability Zone, Visitor Registration. Inside, rows of gray-roofed buildings had no windows. Behind the roofs stood two rows of outdoor AC units roaring together, loud enough to drown out the traffic beyond the wall even from outside the gate. Standing there, she could only see the gray roofs stretching east layer after layer. She couldn't see what the machine inside looked like.

An old man in a padded coat sat in the guardhouse and asked through the glass who she was looking for. She explained why she had come. The old man shook his head: getting into the building required a work order. The people who came were all sent by the company. He was just a guard; what he said didn't count.

Under the address line, she added three words: can't get in.

On the way back to the bus stop, her phone rang. A Jiangzhou landline.

"Ma Jianjun v. Hurricane Express, that case. You're the representative, right?" The voice on the other end was unhurried. "December 12, 9:30 a.m., come in. It's about the evidence collection and preservation matter, to hear both sides' positions."

"The respondent side filed something too?"

"Filed." Pages flipped. "Two documents came in on the 8th. One 'Explanation on Dispatch System Data Retention,' and one evidence preservation application. The copies are going out with the process server this afternoon. You can also come review the file tomorrow."

She said okay and stood by the road writing down the date.

At 7:40, both tables in the noodle house were full.

Ma Jianjun and Xiao Duan came together. Xiao Duan brought the cold in with him and rubbed his hands by the stove first.

"Pick any day." She pushed the notebook aside. "I want to see what every column says."

Ma Jianjun pulled out the old phone. A crack ran across the screen. He flipped to December 2, tapped an order open, and handed it over.

She read line by line: "Dispatch method, system dispatch. Assigned station, Chengnan Station No. 1. Accepted, 19:42. Delivered, 21:08. Delivery fee, 5.20. Overtime deduction, none."

"Mm," Ma Jianjun said.

"This box says the station name."

"What about the station name?"

"The station name is a sign," she said. "A sign has no legal entity, no bank account, no one has signed on it."

Xiao Duan pulled his hands back from the stove.

"When the machine sent out this order," she said, "it also recorded one more thing: which account issued the order, and who pressed that button. That column, the Rider App doesn't show you."

"Why the hell not?"

"The Rider App is the side made for people to see." She moved the paper by the stove. "Those boxes on your phone are your end of the account."

Ma Jianjun looked at the screen, his finger still resting on it.

"I rode for three years," he said. "It never once printed any company's name on it."

"Then what about the agreement in your phone?" she said. "The one you clicked agree to when you installed this app."

"What agreement?"

"Look under 'My,' at the very bottom."

He swiped a few times and opened the User Service Agreement. First line on the first page: This agreement is entered into between Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd. and you.

"Did you click this or not?"

"Can't get in without clicking." Ma Jianjun said. "Every install, click it once."

She wrote that line into the notebook. Three signs hung on one door. The one that had signed with the riders was on top.

"That machine. Can the court really get in?"

"Yes," she said. "But first you have to write clearly which columns you want. If you can't write it clearly, they'll give you a piece of paper with nothing on it."

Xiao Duan fished a sheet of paper folded twice out of his pocket and spread it flat. The ballpoint writing was large: November 3, morning shift, fourteen trips. System showed thirteen. Missing the 9:07 order. November 4, one missing. November 6, one missing.

"Sent it to your number," he said. "The station won't print sheets now. Before, if I asked, the station manager could still print me one."

She held it up to the light and read it twice, then folded it and clipped it into the case file. Three orders, scattered in the early part of the month, the same shape as that July 18 box.

"Keep the original yourself," she said. "On hearing day, bring the phone and tap it in front of the judge."

"No swapping phones."

"No."

"Remember that."

Ma Jianjun lifted the bowl and drank his soup. When he set it down, the bottom knocked against the table. He wiped his mouth and suddenly said, "The day before yesterday, I went to the station. I said I wanted my own order records. The station manager asked me, what do you want that for."

"What did you say?"

"I said I'm counting to see if any are missing." He pushed the bowl away. "He said if it's not in the system, then it doesn't exist."

The pot lid on the cutting board shifted. The smell of scallion oil pressed in. She didn't answer. She closed the case file.

Back at the firm, it was just past nine. The evidence deadline notice still sat at the corner of her desk. She turned it over and looked: nine days left. On the cabinet downstairs sat a kraft envelope, court express delivery, signed for by He Xiufen, pressed under a pickle jar.

She brought it upstairs and opened it. Three items: a notice for a hearing of opinions, an Explanation on Dispatch System Data Retention, and a copy of an evidence preservation application. The signature line on the copy printed two lines: Respondent 1's authorized litigation agent, Hengzheng Law Firm, Lu Jibai, Lü Hang.

She read the Explanation first. The body was short, three lines:

1. The company operates the delivery system. Rider App order data retention period is ninety days, after which it is automatically overwritten;

2. Operation logs are periodically purged according to internal platform rules. Logs from July to September 2024 can no longer be retrieved;

3. To avoid dispute, the company is willing to apply to this court for preservation of the currently existing Rider App order data.

The scope in the preservation application followed this: a request to preserve Rider App order data in the company's delivery system from September 11, 2024 to the present.

After reading the three lines, she sat still and turned the paper over to look at the back. The back was blank.

She remembered the small ads on the wall downstairs. Notary office document drafting, starting at 400. She wrote "notary 400" at the edge of her notebook, thought it over, then added another line: bring the phone to court on hearing day, tap it in front of the judge. Then she crossed out "400."

He Xiufen came up and saw her desk lamp still on. She picked up one of the documents and scanned it twice.

"Of these two, which is easiest for someone to knock back with one sentence?"

"Preservation."

"Why?"

"Because you have to touch someone else's machine."

"Then your reasons have to be enough." He Xiufen put the paper down. "Your fear isn't a reason. The thing possibly disappearing is. Don't write 'I'm afraid he'll delete it.' Write that the thing is in his hands alone, and if it's deleted, no trace remains."

She nodded, revised that line back, then added another sentence beneath: Request Respondent 1 to submit the system's data retention and purge rules, as well as records of their creation and amendment.

When she finished, she laid the two papers side by side under the lamp.

July 18 to today, 145 days. Counting back ninety days landed on September 11. The July page fell exactly outside the count.

She counted twice. Dates are fixed. Line the two sides up, and the answer comes out.

[Thud. The date on paper, it picked it too.]

She looked again. What preservation covered was Rider App order data—that was the result. Who changed it, when it was changed, which account was used to change it: that whole string was the process. On this page, there was not one word of the process.

The result kept, the process not.

She read the preservation scope again. September 11 to today. October lay inside that stretch. In October, someone on that room's machine had touched the July 18 line.

Footsteps came up the stairs. He Xiufen stopped at her door and glanced at the two papers on the desk.

"He rushed to preserve the things in his own house," He Xiufen said. "What he wants is to get this line of dates into the judge's file first."

"I know."

"On that day, don't be in a hurry to say what you want." He Xiufen yawned. "First ask him one thing: these ninety days, who set them, and from what day they start."

When she was alone, she straightened the two papers again.

On her own page, the word "preservation" had been written the night before last. On the other side's document, the date column read December 8.

One day earlier.