Read Novel Full Chapter 285: Written by "Someone She Knew"
Chapter 285: Written by "Someone She Knew"
6:35. The bare bulb over the breakfast stall at the mouth of the alley hung from an iron frame—yellow, filmed over with steam.
She ordered a cup of soy milk and stood off to the side of the stall. Oil hissed on the griddle as the woman scraped it twice with a metal spatula. "Want it sweet?"
"No."
"Sugarless is rare." She pressed the lid down tight on the cup. "Buns?"
"Two vegetable buns."
Someone on a low stool ate from a bowl. Wind came out of the alley, driving straight into her collar. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets. In one was the sheet of paper she'd written out the night before.
6:41. Two figures emerged from the alley. Gray coat, schoolbag slung diagonal, one hand carrying a lunch bag. They stopped at the stall. The mother bent down and tugged at the child's collar—took two tries to get it straight.
"Two vegetable buns, one soy milk."
"No sugar," the child added.
The woman answered and moved quickly. The child took the bag, glanced her way, said nothing. She said nothing either. Steam drifted under the streetlight.
"You're early today." He Lan stepped over, her voice kept low.
"Got here at 6:35."
"She knows you're coming."
"Know or not, doesn't matter." She switched the cup to her left hand. "Today you don't let her talk to me. Not one word."
He Lan nodded and pulled a kraft paper envelope from her coat, pressing it into Shen Zhixia's hand without a word. The child drank twice, looked up at the mist under the streetlight. At 6:46 they headed for the bus stop. Seven or eight steps out, the child looked back—not at her, but at the steaming pot on the stall.
The woman tucked the money into her apron pocket and jammed the spatula into its slot. "What are you to the kid?"
"Her mother's lawyer."
"Oh." She wiped her hands on her apron. "That kid's got the same order every day. Two vegetable buns, one soy milk, no sugar. Her mother straightens her collar every morning before they leave. I've been watching for ten-some days."
"Ten-some days. From when?"
"Let me think." The woman looked up. "Didn't see them at the start of the month. Then it turned cold—around when I put up the thick tarp. The twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth."
"October twenty-eighth."
"You'd know better than me."
Shen Zhixia pulled the paper from her pocket and smoothed it flat on the clean half of the cutting board. "What's your name?"
"Wang Guilan."
"Wang Guilan, I've got one page here. Four lines. I'll read, you listen. Tell me if any line is wrong." She read: "One: I've run a breakfast stall at the entrance of the Old Locomotive Depot alley for six years. Two: Starting October twenty-eighth of this year, every morning around six-forty, the mother and daughter pass my stall and buy two vegetable buns and one sugarless soy milk. Three: The child carries a schoolbag, and the mother sees her to the bus stop. Four: This is what I've seen. I don't know anything beyond that."
Wang Guilan took the paper and ran her eyes down the lines. She stopped at the fourth. "That line sounds most like a real person talking."
"Write your name yourself. If you can't manage a character, I'll tell you."
"I know half of them." She took the pen and wrote slowly—three characters dropped one by one. When she finished, she looked down once, read it over once, and at the last line raised her eyes. "That line. I'll fingerprint it."
The ink pad was buried in the back of the drawer, dried hard enough she had to scrape it with a fingernail. She pressed her thumb down and onto the paper beneath her name.
Shen Zhixia photographed it, folded the original, and tucked it into the front pocket of the case file. "November sixth, six forty-seven." She jotted a line in her notebook.
9:50. Chengdong District People's Court, third floor. The door to Mediation Room 2 stood open.
Long table, five chairs. North-facing window, a faded "No Smoking" sticker stuck to the glass. The court clerk arrived first, laid out the hearing record paper, uncapped a pen, and set it down as a paperweight.
At ten sharp the defendant's agent walked in. Early fifties, short hair, gray knit sweater, bag strap digging into her shoulder, a hard-shell folder in her hand.
"Plaintiff's agent."
"Shen Zhixia, Zhengping Firm."
"Surname Fu." She placed the folder on the table and drew out a pen. "Today is exchange only, no cross-examination. Let's count pages first."
The clerk spoke: "Today we verify indexes, exchange copies, and hear objections. Cross-examination happens at trial."
Hers went first. She laid out four items: the Supplementary Evidence List, one page, followed by six months of wage detail sheets, six pages; an Explanatory Statement, one page; a photocopied page of the November shift schedule, one page.
Lawyer Fu counted pages. When she reached the last sheet, she looked up. "This page wasn't in the November third index."
"No."
"This is new."
"Written by the witness herself. I've brought the original for comparison."
The clerk paused his pen. "Let me record: the plaintiff submits in addition a one-page Explanatory Statement; the defendant's agent objects; admissibility to be decided by the presiding judge."
"Let it be recorded." Shen Zhixia slid the original across the table.
Lawyer Fu finished checking, pulled six pages from her folder and pushed the copies over. Then she drew out the bottom sheet and laid it face up in the center of the table. "The original of the attachment. I've brought it today."
She didn't reach for it immediately. First she looked at the paper: a note slip, a bit longer than a palm, light blue ruled lines. One edge had been cut—the cut feathered with stray fibers. One line of writing, rounded-tip pen.
She picked it up and held it to the window, then turned it over. On the back was a pale yellow ring—a cup stain.
"Thirteen characters," she said.
"What?"
"One line. Thirteen characters, one comma, one period." She set it back in the middle of the table. "No signature, no date, no hospital name. The top edge was cut off. Whatever was written on the strip above is gone."
"Attorney Shen, the content is for trial."
"I'm not asking about content. I'm asking about provenance." She sat back. "First question: does the original exist?"
"It does. The one you just put down."
"Second: who wrote it?"
"Turned over by my client."
"I asked who wrote it."
Lawyer Fu pushed her glasses up. Two seconds passed. "He says it was written by a friend."
"I need a name for this friend, a date it was written, and a place."
"I don't have that here." She took the glasses off and hung them around her neck. "I'll verify the source and supplement in writing to the court before trial."
"Then let the clerk record something." Shen Zhixia turned her head. "Record: the defendant's agent submits one original handwritten note, stating it was turned over by her client and written by a 'friend'; unable to state the writer's name, time of writing, or place; the defendant's agent says she will supplement in writing before trial."
The clerk finished writing and read it back, one word at a time. Both sides nodded.
[Thud. The original is here. Its origins are not.]
Lawyer Fu gathered the six pages and tapped two fingers on the tabletop. "I also have objections. All four of the plaintiff's items—the police call records, the warning notice, the protection order ruling, and the admonition and fine decision—I object to them all as irrelevant to the disputed issues in this case. This case is about who directly raises the child. The protection order has been issued, the reconsideration rejected, the fine paid. The court already handled this once. There's no need to lay it all out again. Laying it out again only hurts the child."
Shen Zhixia pulled out the first record and turned to the address field and the caller column.
"These four items—I'm not using them to prove who hit whom." She slid the papers to the middle of the table, squared them flat. "This one, August third—the caller is the child. This one, October twelfth—the caller is also the child. The address is that apartment in Chengdong District. Third floor."
She drew her hand back. "I'm saying something else: where the child was at the time. The protection order, the admonition, the fine—things the court already dealt with, I won't re-argue, and I won't ask the court to re-rule on them. These three items today are entered for page count and placed in the file, and they'll be used for one precise point: she's been living elsewhere these past two weeks because she made two phone calls from her own home."
The clerk looked up. "Should I record that verbatim?"
"Record it. Note clearly: the plaintiff does not use the protection order, admonition, or fine to prove assault; she uses them only to show the environment and care situation of the child."
Lawyer Fu paused. "That statement I accept for the record. Whether the items enter the file—I still disagree."
"Whether they enter the file is the judge's call," the clerk said.
Lawyer Fu flipped back to her own notebook. "On income: we don't dispute that her pay dropped. We accept it dropped. Our position is stability. She signs her contract every three months. The child is nine. Nine years from now, does the contract keep getting signed?"
Shen Zhixia pushed the six wage sheets across.
"May through October. Six months, stamped by the supermarket's finance office. 5,865. 5,720. 5,800. 5,950. 5,720. 5,800. Not one month missed. Not one month below 5,720."
"And the three hundred twenty she lost?"
"Night-shift allowance." She pressed a finger to the line. "She gave it up so she could walk the child to the bus at six-forty in the morning."
"Three hundred twenty." Lawyer Fu wrote it down. "I've noted that."
"November, full month of morning shifts, seven-thirty to three-thirty. The photocopy is attached after the shift-change certificate."
The clerk began collecting papers and counting pages, had her sign the end of the index. She signed, set the pen down, and looked across the table. "Lawyer Fu. If this 'friend' is willing to appear, November eleventh, nine in the morning. I'll keep a seat for him."
Lawyer Fu snapped the folder shut. "I'll relay that."
"Relay it. That's all I need."
A chair scraped in the corridor. The fluorescent light flickered.
November seventh, 8:10 p.m. The noodle shop.
Steam rolled out of the ground-floor kitchen into the street. He Xiufen chopped scallions at the cutting board, the knife falling fast. At the table by the window Lu Jibai sat halfway through a bowl of noodles, a cup of instant coffee gone cold beside it. He Lan sat by the door, gray coat still on, both hands clasped on her knees.
Shen Zhixia spread the photocopy of the note slip in front of her.
He Lan looked down at it. Looked for a long while.
"Who wrote this?"
"I don't know. His agent says a friend wrote it."
He Lan's fingers came to rest at the paper's edge. From downstairs someone called for extra noodles, and He Xiufen answered.
"October seventeenth, did you cry at the hospital?"
"...Yes."
"Where?"
"Third floor. The exam floor, in the corridor. While you were downstairs getting the records." Her hands slid off the paper and back onto her knees. "I sat there alone, waiting. It hurt. And I was scared."
"Scared of what?"
"That he'd show up."
"How long did you cry?"
"I don't remember. A nurse gave me a roll of paper towels."
"Did anyone talk to you?"
"No."
"Did any doctor give you a diagnosis or record anything related to 'emotion'?"
"No. That day it was just those three pages of injury exam records."
Shen Zhixia flipped the paper over and pressed it face-down on the table. "The back is blank."
He Xiufen set a bowl of clear broth down by He Lan and wiped her hand on her apron. "She cried. That's fine. That page doesn't need washing clean." She turned. "What are you planning?"
"Hallway surveillance at the hospital usually holds thirty days. October seventeenth is twenty-one days ago." She opened her notebook. "There are other routes: pull the proof of service and compare handwriting. Ask whether his mother was present that day."
"Stop." He Xiufen pressed a hand to her apron. "Suppose you find out his mother wrote it. How do you use it in court?"
"Ask one question: so this was written by your own family."
"Then he's vouching for himself. That question—you can ask it without the investigation."
"And if someone else wrote it?"
"Even easier to ask." He Xiufen nudged the soup bowl toward He Lan. "You want to investigate because you're angry. Anger's wasted here."
"Then where should I spend it?"
"On the paper." He Xiufen said. "Don't attack the other side's people. Attack their facts. This man of theirs—the court fined him a thousand yuan in October. That page's been turned. One thing's left in this case: who does the child live with. Those thirteen characters in your hand—can they prove who the child should live with?"
"No."
"Then those thirteen characters of his can't prove the child shouldn't live with her."
Lu Jibai hadn't looked up the whole time. Now he laid his chopsticks across the bowl. "Nothing said at this table today goes in the notebook. On trial day, ask from the paper."
"Ask what?"
"There's no date on that note. So ask one question: which day was it written?" He pushed the cup aside. "If they can't answer, that page proves only one thing—someone once wrote a line of words."
"And?"
"His defense statement uses one phrase: emotional instability." He raised his eyes. "Ask him which page the diagnosis is on. If he can't produce it, the phrase never lands."
"And if he does produce it?"
"Then you answer in the moment." He said. "Don't answer for him today."
He Xiufen paused at the foot of the stairs and looked back. "I'm not going on the eleventh. You sit down. Open your own mouth. Four days—move the words from your lips to the paper."
10 p.m. Second floor. Desk lamp on, three pages of disputed issues spread flat.
At the bottom of page one were still the lines she'd scribbled over the past few days: He hit her four times; He doesn't deserve to be a father; He lies with every breath.
She crossed them out line by line. On the second line she paused, pencil lifted, then brought it down. In the margin she wrote in small characters: This line shouldn't be about the man. Write dates.
That entry on page two, she rewrote: June 9, August 3, September 17, October 12—four police call responses. On two of them, the caller was the child. After it she added: I'm not saying who hit whom. I'm saying where the child was at the time.
The entry on page three, she stripped to law and procedure: The child has reached the age of eight; their true wishes shall be respected. Application already filed for the court to hear the child's views separately; the specific method is for the court to determine. The agent shall not participate or be present.
She turned to the box for "lived with father since birth." Inside the box sat a single word: "empty," written smaller than the rest. She looked at it. She didn't change it.
Then she pulled a clean sheet from the case file and wrote: Three questions to ask in court. One: Who wrote this note, and on what day? Two: His "emotional instability"—which page is the diagnosis on? Three: The child lives on the third floor, the two grandparents on the fifth—how exactly does "can assist with childcare" work?
Three pages aligned, rubber band wrapped twice, pressed into the case file. She turned her notebook to the last page and wrote: November seventh, answer period expires. Trial: November eleventh, 9 a.m., Family Division Courtroom.
She closed the notebook. Four days to trial.