Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 281: The Line for the Child

On November 1st at nine o'clock, the window on the second floor of Zhengping Firm was pushed open halfway.

Downstairs, scallions had just hit the pan. The smell drifted up through the stairwell, then thinned as the exhaust fan spun to life. She wiped down the long table and laid out the eight sets of papers from top to bottom, a paperweight pinning the corner of the last page.

A fresh blank sheet went in the center. On the first line she wrote two characters: Points of Dispute.

Then she stopped. The dispute wasn't whether he hit her—that was asked on the 21st, and settled with a fine on the 29th. That section was done. Once the answer period closed on November 7th, only one thing would be left in court: who the child goes with.

Starting from the second line, she wrote down three points.

1. Who has actually cared for Feng Xiaotian since birth, where she lives now, and how she's doing.

2. The effect of his violence on this child.

3. The child's own wishes.

After the third point, she set the pen down.

For the second point, she had paper. Two police reports—August 3rd and October 12th—with the caller box filled in as "Feng Xiaotian, age 9." That line was the child saying her own name; that recording of three minutes and forty-five seconds, with the child in the closet; on October 21st he stood outside the school gate for twenty-four minutes, and the school called the police. All three could be laid on the table.

The first point, she couldn't lay out. Across the eight sets of papers, the child appeared in only one line—on the Women's Federation's Domestic Violence Help Registration Form, second-to-last column: "One daughter, age 9, Liuhe Primary School."

She moved left to right: four police call records, the warning notice, three pages of medical records, nine photos, seven text messages and four voice recordings, the report and receipt from the 27th, the admonishment and fine decision from the 29th, the group chat screenshots from the 31st. These papers answered one thing—he beat her, and he knew about the order yet still stood at the door shouting. They could not answer how the child had lived through the past six months.

She started a line the old way: "Feng Xiaotian has lived with her mother He Lan since birth, residing in Chengdong District—" and stopped at the address. She knew which building the apartment was in; the address on the power of attorney matched every page she'd ever written. But "since which year" she could not answer.

She crossed the line out and started over. The first page no longer stated conclusions. Instead she wrote a string of questions, each starting with "Who":

Who wakes her up every morning.

Who walks her to the school gate.

Who went to parent-teacher conferences, and whose name is on the sign-in sheets.

The time she burned with fever in September—who asked the supermarket for leave.

Who holds her vaccination book.

Who washes her school uniform.

Six "who"s, each followed by a blank box labeled "Basis."

All six boxes empty.

[Thud. Eight sets of papers. Seven sets document who he hit. Not one documents how the child has been living.]

At 9:40, He Xiufen came upstairs with a bowl of noodles, set it at the corner of the table, and didn't sit. Both hands braced on the table edge, she studied the six "who"s.

"The questions are right," she said. "But 'who'—nobody in court will own up to that word."

"I know."

"You don't know." Her finger tapped the first line. "You ask 'who walks her to school,' the other side says 'I did,' and it's done. What you need to ask is: does the breakfast stall by the gate remember this child passing his stand every day, does the school gatehouse log have her mother's name in it, how many times has her mother signed forms in the homeroom teacher's hands."

She pushed the bowl toward her: "'Who' is what people say. 'Which paper' is what life is. Eat first."

She wrote them down one by one: breakfast stall by the gate, school gatehouse log, signatures in the homeroom teacher's hands.

"Don't lock in the homeroom teacher yet," He Xiufen said. "The teacher belongs to the school. For you to ask, the school has to nod, and so does He Lan."

She added two characters after that line: To be determined.

He Xiufen went downstairs, her footstep sounding on the third stair—the loose one. The noodles steamed on the table. She took two bites, set the chopsticks down, and pulled the page back in front of her. The edge was going fuzzy from her grip.

At 10:20, the stairs sounded again.

He Lan came in carrying a transparent file pouch, the opening rolled over twice.

"The store gave me today off," she said, setting the pouch on the table. "Starting this month they put me on the morning shift, 7:30 to 3:30."

"The manager agreed?"

"Agreed. The schedule was changed yesterday afternoon." She pulled out her phone and zoomed in on a photo—names in a grid, the left column reading November 1st, He Lan's name in the morning-shift rows. "He said try it for a month, then we'll see."

"What about pay?"

He Lan took two pay stubs from the pouch, her fingertip pressing on the "Gross Pay" line. "5,800 yuan. Night shift allowance 320, listed separately."

"Switch to days, that 320 goes away."

"Gone." She pushed the stubs over. "Her lunch is 12 yuan a day, twenty-two days, 264. The rest of it—that was an extra hour of sleep for me in the morning."

"She reheats her own food?"

"She can manage. I taught her the microwave—first lift one corner of the lid." He Lan wiped her hand on her pants. "That 320 at night was buying my absence from home."

"Proof?"

"The manager says he'll give me a signed note tomorrow with the store's stamp." She said, "He asked what I needed it for. I said the court wants to see it. He said 'Then take it.'"

She noted it down in the ledger: Starting November, switched to morning shift (7:30–3:30), gross pay 5,800 yuan; shift-change certificate pending.

He Lan looked at the six "who"s on the table. Her finger stopped at the fourth line.

"September 14th," she said. "Her fever hit 38.9. I took one day off. Deducted 160 yuan."

"Is there a leave slip?"

"The supermarket has one. I signed the request form myself. Whether it was approved or not, I don't know—but that month's pay was short."

"Get a copy, together with the pay stub."

He Lan nodded, then said quietly, "He claims seven or eight thousand a month. The family never saw a cent."

"Is there paper?"

"What paper?"

"What he earns, who he gives it to, which month he handed any over—pay stub, transfer, receipt. Any of it?"

"He keeps his own money," He Lan said. "For groceries, he gives it to me a hundred at a time. When he doesn't, we fight."

"Then that sentence is just something you said." She wrote it on the last line and marked two characters after it: No paper.

He Lan stared at "No paper" for a while, her throat moving twice.

"5,800. My salary alone, two people living on it."

"The judge will look at this." She set the pen down. "But the first box isn't who earns more. The first box is who the child has slept beside for the past six months, who cooks for her, who takes leave when she's sick. You have paper for that box—it just hasn't been collected yet."

"There's one thing on his side I can't match," He Lan said suddenly. "The apartment was left by his father. Third floor. His parents live on the fifth floor, same unit, just downstairs."

She wrote this on a small slip of paper, opened a new column, and wrote one line: Three things he will say.

The child's surname is Feng.

The apartment was left by my father.

My mother lives upstairs and can help take care of her.

"He'll say all three." She tucked the slip into the case file pouch. "Once we know them, we can finish our argument on paper first."

"Then should I move?" He Lan asked. "If I'm staying at my cousin's, doesn't that count as me not having my own place?"

"Right now you have a place to live, someone for pickups and drop-offs, and you're home at night." She looked at the six "who"s. "First turn those into days. The housing question gets handled separately."

She pushed the first page over. "Don't rush to find paper for me. First write down the days you remember, as far as you get. When you're done, I'll go verify."

He Lan gripped the pen full-fisted, the tip nearly punching through the paper. She wrote for a long time, line by line, down the page:

Wake her at 6:20 every morning. Out the door at 7:20, past one produce market on the way.

September 14th she had a 38.9-degree fever. I took one day of leave.

I've been to two parent-teacher conferences—one last winter, one this April.

He hit her once, in September, the time the cup tipped over. One slap.

On the fourth line she stopped. "This line too?"

"Write it. Then sign and date."

He Lan signed her name at the bottom, stroke by stroke, and wrote November 1st beneath it.

"These four lines are now something you wrote." She put the paper into the case pouch. "With them, I'll know where to look for the paper."

At eleven, she cleared a space on the desktop and divided it into three stacks.

Left: the child. Middle: the injuries. Right: him.

From the four police call records she pulled two—August 3rd and October 12th, caller box reading "Feng Xiaotian, age 9." She took them down to the photocopier, made one copy of each, came back, returned the originals to the middle stack, and placed the copies on the left, jotting a small note at the corner: Same paper, used twice.

She had no copy of the three-minute-forty-five-second recording. She cut a blank sheet and wrote: October 21st, played in court at the Second Interview Room of the court, police call recording 3 min 45 sec, child in the closet. Below it another line: This firm has no copy; request the judge to play at trial.

The two parent-group screenshots she copied and put on the left as well, originals on the right. At the corner of the copies she wrote: He put the child in front of forty adults. The child was not present.

He Xiufen came up at 11:30, empty bowl in hand on her way to wash it, and paused as she passed.

"How many on the left?"

"Five," she counted. "Two police call records, one blank sheet, one screenshot copy, and the Women's Federation registration form. He Lan's four lines are kept separately."

"The right?"

"Four: the 27th's case receipt, the 4-minute-20-second video, the original group screenshots, and the copied work record from the police station."

"The middle?"

"Six items." She paused. "The thickest."

He Xiufen ran her fingers along the edges of the left stack.

"This column of yours is the thinnest."

"I know."

"The thin column is the one you'll have to fight for in court," she said. "It's thin—don't pad it with words. The moment you pad it, the other side says you're speaking for the child."

"I won't."

"One more thing." He Xiufen turned toward the door. "You got all three points right. The third is the hardest. It has to be someone else doing the asking."

The door closed. The stairs sounded their way down. She spread the five left-column pages flat, aligned the corners one by one, and set the paperweight on top.

That afternoon she recopied the third page, three points, one per line.

Under the second point she added a small line: August 3rd, October 12th, caller is the child; 3:45 recording in court file.

Under the third point, only one sentence:

Basis: A child who has reached the age of eight shall have their true wishes respected.

She stopped writing. She could work out the age: Feng Xiaotian was nine, one year past that box. But this box needed someone to ask.

If she asked, the child would answer looking at her face.

If He Lan asked, the child would answer looking at her mother's face.

If asked in court, both sides would be sitting right there.

She drew a question mark at the end of the sentence. Thought about it. Then beside the question mark she added three small characters: Who will ask.

The pencil tip pressed against that box, pressing out a dot that slowly spread.

In the case pouch, the page titled only Request for Court to Hear the Minor Child's Views had been following her since yesterday evening. The box below the title was still empty.

Downstairs someone called out, "One bowl of noodles, add an egg." The exhaust fan started up again.

[Thud. This box is not yours to fill.]