Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 280: A Child Without a Mother

October 29, 10:05 a.m. The landline on the second floor of Zhengping Firm rang twice. She set down the file folder in her hands and went to answer it.

"Chengdong District Court." It was the court clerk on the other end, flipping through papers as she spoke. "He was brought in at 9:30 this morning. Are you writing this down?"

"I am." She pressed her pen tip to the paper.

"Asked him what he was doing outside your firm's door on the afternoon of October 27. He said he knew about the order. His exact words: 'I went to get my wife back.'" The clerk turned a page. "Asked if he shouted. He said yes. The judge asked how long he stood there. He didn't answer. We went by the report and the case receipt: began at 15:30, officers arrived at 15:49."

"He admitted it?"

"Didn't contest it."

"The judge asked what the second line of the order says."

"He answered: 'No harassment.'"

"So," the clerk paused, "the judge asked him—you stood outside her door shouting for nineteen minutes. Does that count as harassment? He went quiet after that."

She copied those words into the ledger verbatim, written as "he said," "he answered," "he said nothing." Not one adjective added.

"The outcome: an admonition, fine of one thousand yuan. The decision is one page, already served on him personally. A copy goes to the applicant—come pick it up before 4 p.m."

"One thousand is the top of that range."

"Right. Maximum." The clerk said, "He asked if he could pay in installments."

"He asked?"

"He did. I told him this is a court fine, not a store account." Paper rustled on the other end. "Whether he pays within fifteen days—that'll be visible."

She hung up, her pen still resting on that line.

[Thud. An admonition, one thousand yuan. The ceiling is only one thousand yuan.]

She pulled the page out and started a new line. 10 a.m., court call—admonition, fine of one thousand yuan.

At 3:40 p.m., she was at the window on the west end of the Litigation Service Center on the first floor of Chengdong District Court. The copy for notification was a single page. The judicial assistant slid it through from inside and had her sign her name in the register.

One page. The first paragraph stated when and where, what he shouted, whom he was trying to see. Below it, one line of admonition, one line for the one-thousand-yuan fine. The last two lines: pay into the designated account within fifteen days; overdue, compulsory enforcement by law.

She read the page top to bottom. No "aggravating circumstances," no detention. The detention line was blank.

She photographed the page, then asked, "Is this the same window for supplementary materials?"

"The lawsuit?" The assistant looked up. "Write a table of contents, match every item to it. Don't mix it in with the original seven groups."

"Understood."

She pulled another sheet from the file folder and slid it under the glass: Notice of Change of Applicant's Residence. The paper read: the applicant and her daughter have left the temporary shelter since October 28; the new address is not written here—if the court needs to verify, contact the community police officer assigned to the Chengbei district; this statement is not to be served on the respondent.

The assistant read it and stamped the receipt seal in the lower right corner.

She photographed the stamped corner, then sent Officer Gao a text: The statement is filed. The court accepted it.

At 4:20 p.m., she messaged He Lan: I'll come by later. There are two things for you. The reply was one word: Okay.

5:20 p.m., the old locomotive depot area in Chengbei. The sound-activated lights in the stairwell were the same as always—one floor lit, one floor dark. The folding bed was wrapped in cardboard, and she hauled it up three floors by herself. The metal frame hit the handrail just as Su Hongmei pulled the door open.

"Oh, you actually bought it." Su Hongmei grabbed one end and dragged it inside. "A hundred twenty? I'm not paying you back."

"I said I would, so I'm covering it." She tore off the cardboard. The metal frame snapped open, the latches clicking twice. "Unfold it at night, fold it against the wall during the day. It's ten centimeters longer than the sofa."

"Perfect under the window." Su Hongmei wiped down the surface with a rag. "Better than the sofa, anyway. One spring's collapsed on mine—you sleep on it and your back ends up crooked."

Feng Xiaotian was already crouched down, pressing on the bed surface. Every panel she pushed made a sound.

The sound of water in the basin stopped. He Lan came out from the back room, hair still wet, a patch of white from the laundry powder on her hand.

"Sit." She patted the edge of the bed. "I'll read a page to you."

He Lan didn't sit. She stood and listened.

She read: On October 27, between 15:30 and 15:49, you stood outside the place of practice of the applicant's attorney, shouting and demanding by name to see the applicant. The court finds this constitutes a violation of the personal safety protection order...

"Wait." He Lan said, "That word—'constitutes.' The court wrote that to him?"

"The court wrote it. This page comes in two copies—one in his hand, one for you."

She read through the admonition, the one-thousand-yuan fine, and the last two lines: pay within fifteen days; overdue, compulsory enforcement by law.

No other sound in the room. The toilet in the back gave a low gurgle. The row of medicine boxes on the windowsill caught the fading light and turned pale.

"Ten years." He Lan said. "He'd hit me, and the next day he'd come home with a carton of milk. Put it on the table. Nobody mentioned it."

She wiped her wet hand on her pants.

"This time it isn't milk."

"This time it's a piece of paper and a thousand yuan." Shen Zhixia said, "And the paper doesn't say how many times he hit you. It says he knew that paper existed and still stood at the door shouting."

Feng Xiaotian had been crouching by the bed the whole time. Now she looked up: "What's the thousand yuan for?"

"For ignoring that piece of paper."

"What if he won't pay?"

"The court will come find him. He's got a bank card, he's got wages. The court can track that down."

The girl thought for a while, then asked her next question, her voice lower than before: "What if he comes back anyway?"

Shen Zhixia glanced at He Lan but didn't answer for her.

"Paper can't stop everyone." She crouched down, bringing herself level with the child. "That's why your mom's phone has three numbers saved in it: Old Zhao at the gate downstairs, Officer Gao's cell from the community, and one-one-zero. Not for you to call—for you to know how fast it works."

"I know." The girl said.

"And I know you know." She stood up. "You only need to remember one thing: after school, don't wait around. If you get to the gate and see someone who shouldn't be there, go back into the school and find a teacher, find the security guard."

She pulled a page from the file folder—a Supplementary Evidence List covering three items: the case receipt from October 27, a disc recording of the same day's footage running four minutes twenty seconds, and the copy of the admonition and fine decision from October 29.

"You sign this page yourself. If you sign it, it's your words, not mine."

He Lan spread the paper on the folding bed and wrote her name stroke by careful stroke. At the bottom line, she added three more characters: "I confirm."

October 30, 8:15 p.m. She was on the second floor checking accounts. The exhaust fan downstairs was still running, the plastic basin scraping across the floor in rhythmic intervals, the sound carrying up through the boards.

Her phone on the desk buzzed twice. He Lan had sent two screenshots.

The first was from the "Liuhe Primary School Grade 3 Class 2 Parents' Group," forty-two people. At 8:15 p.m., beneath Feng Guoming's profile picture, one line—"Children with no mother are the ones who leave home. My daughter hasn't slept at home for a single night these past two weeks."

The second screenshot caught the area below it. A wall of silence. No one had responded. Not one word.

At 8:30 p.m., Teacher Yang posted a notice: "This group is for class announcements only. Any other matters, please contact me privately."

Downstairs, someone was carrying a bowl of noodles up. He Xiufen came through the door holding the bowl in one hand and bracing the door frame with the other. She looked at Shen Zhixia's face first.

"What happened."

She pushed the phone over. He Xiufen set the bowl down and took the phone in both hands, reading through it once sideways, once upright.

"He's stopped shouting in the street." She said. "Shout at the door, he gets the police. Shout in the group chat, he gets forty adults."

"That's not something to say to the child."

"And it's not for you, either." He Xiufen set the phone down on the table. "What he wants is for everyone to believe the mother took the child away."

The person by the window hadn't made a sound. Lu Jibai closed the two pages from some other case he'd been reading and came over to glance at the screen.

"That line, in a divorce case," he said, "doesn't prove he ever hit her."

"It proves something else." He Xiufen said.

"It proves he's put her on public display."

Shen Zhixia zoomed in on the second screenshot and studied it twice, then looked up: "Group name, time, who sent it, how many people in the group—all four have to be visible in the image."

"What about Teacher Yang's notice?" He Lan asked on the phone.

"Don't reply with a single word. And don't leave the group. If you leave, you won't see what he posts next. Don't delete the original message. Screenshot it by scrolling up from your own phone—don't use anything someone else forwarded to you."

"Should I delete hers?"

"Keep it." Shen Zhixia said. "That line of hers proves no one else joined in."

On the morning of October 31, she printed both screenshots and attached a one-page explanation: 8:15 p.m., forty-two people in the group, no responses from anyone else; 8:30 p.m., homeroom teacher Yang posted a notice in the group. She took the page to Chengbei and had He Lan sign it herself at the end. At 3:20 p.m., she submitted it at the Litigation Service Center; the receipt went into the file folder.

5 p.m., second floor. She laid out the case documents one by one, left to right: four police dispatch and response records, the warning notice, three pages of outpatient medical records, nine photographs, seven text messages and four voice clips, the Women's Federation registration form. Further right: the protection order application, the acceptance list, two pages of photocopies of the signed ruling, the case acceptance notice, the answer period marked November 7, the dismissed reconsideration, the October 27 report and receipt, the admonition and fine decision, the parents' group screenshots.

"Seven groups plus one. Eight." She counted, then placed the last page in the corner and weighted it with a paperweight.

[Thud. This case isn't settled. The part about the beatings made it onto paper. The part about the child—that hasn't begun yet.]

He Xiufen came up from downstairs and stood at the desk for half a minute, smoothing the corners of each page upward with her fingers.

"A thousand yuan isn't a lesson for him." She said. "It's a ruler for the next time."

"You'll handle this part on your own, and you'll handle it steady. What remains is who the child belongs to."

Her phone buzzed again. He Lan had forwarded a message—a private chat from Teacher Yang. Her exact words: "Xiaotian's mom, your daughter said something in my office at lunch today, and I think you should know. She said she wants to live with you. I didn't press her on it, and I didn't let any other teacher ask. When she said it, I was the only person in the room."

She held the phone in her hand, still standing, not sitting down.

"Has she ever said that to you?" He Xiufen asked.

"No."

"Then you're not allowed to ask her either." He Xiufen said. "The moment you ask, that sentence carries your voice."

Lu Jibai walked over from the window and glanced only at the blank header of the page: "Write 'Request for the Court to Hear the Minor Child's Views.' She's nine—past the eight-year mark. The court has to listen to her."

"I can't write 'the child wishes to live with her mother'?"

"You never heard her say it. If you write it down, it's your words, not hers."

"When the court asks her, can I be present?"

"No." He Xiufen said it quickly. "If you're there, she'll be looking at your face while she speaks. This time, you stand outside the door."

"I'll stand outside." She picked up her pen. "I'll file the papers. Three things have to line up: Teacher Yang's words, that line in the record—'I don't know'—and that three minutes and forty-five seconds."

On the first line of the page, she wrote the title: Application for the Court to Hear the Minor Child's Views.

She left the section below it blank. What to ask, how to ask it—that had to come from the child's own mouth.