Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 286: Two Adjectives

The gatekeeper slid the visitor log across the counter and flipped to the last page. "Name, who you're here to see, reason." He pointed at the bottom row. "Before you leave, have her sign it for you."

She wrote: Shen Zhixia, Teacher Yang, student home visit.

The gatekeeper picked up the landline, punched three digits, said "someone here for Teacher Yang," hung up, and pointed at the stairs. "Third floor, left-hand inner room, office."

The schoolyard broadcast was halfway through; kids were running down from both ends of the hallway. She hugged the right wall going up, yielding on every landing. At the third-floor corner, a girl with a ponytail came up carrying a stack of workbooks, stopped short in front of her, and stepped aside. She slipped past without asking her name.

The office faced south, six desks crammed into one room. The one by the window was half empty—a thermos, test papers, a plastic box smudged with red ink paste. Someone had just come in: dark green sweater, work badge on a lanyard, red pen tucked between her fingers.

"Lawyer Shen?" Teacher Yang dropped the red pen into the pen holder and pulled a chair over. "Sit. Twenty minutes of break; I teach next period."

"Twenty minutes is enough." She sat and pulled two pages from her file envelope. "This is the witness court-appearance application submitted to the court on November 3rd. It says it was delivered through the office. I'm here today to hear it from you directly: are you willing to go?"

Teacher Yang unscrewed the thermos lid, then screwed it back on.

"The school found out," she said. "The academic affairs office called me in yesterday. Their position is: go say what you saw; don't speak on the school's behalf. Don't put the school's name in writing, and don't talk to outside people afterward."

"I can agree to that."

"Her mother knows you're here today?"

"I told her last night. She asked me to come."

Teacher Yang nodded, pulled open a drawer, and slid a paper across the desk. "I have two periods on the eleventh; I'll get my own substitute slip. This is the leave request for the child, stamped by the academic affairs office. For the reason column, they told me to write 'family matters at home.'"

The paper had Feng Xiaotian's name in one line, then "November 11th, personal leave, one day," the homeroom teacher's signature below, and a square seal beneath that.

"I read it over and didn't tell them to change it," Teacher Yang said. "What I wanted was for this paper to exist, not what's written on it."

She finished examining it and pushed the leave slip back. "You keep the original; make me a copy."

"All right." Teacher Yang went next door and copied it. Shen Zhixia folded the copy in half and tucked it into the file envelope.

The broadcast stopped, and the hallway emptied at once. Teacher Yang moved the stack of workbooks aside; a ring of cup stains remained on the desk.

"What exactly do you want me to say?"

"I'm not deciding for you." She pressed her pen to the paper without writing. "You say what you saw. I'll name a few dates; see if they mean anything."

"Go ahead."

"October 21st, after school, at the school gate."

Teacher Yang's fingers tapped the desk edge once, then stopped.

"That day I was leading my class out of school," she said. "We lined up and came out from the hallway; Xiaotian was in the back. The iron gate was closed. Outside it, by the utility pole, stood a man—not tall, dark jacket. At first I didn't recognize him."

"When did you realize who he was?"

"She recognized him first." Teacher Yang said. "She stopped just after leaving the hallway; her backpack strap slid off her shoulder. She retreated two steps, backing behind the other students. I followed her eyes. The man called through the iron gate: 'Xiaotian, come home with Daddy.'"

"How many times did he call?"

"Once," she said. "The gate was closed; he couldn't get in, so he paced back and forth outside. Xiaotian didn't answer. I pulled her back into the hallway and waited until he left before taking her to the guard room. The school called the police; two officers came. Her mother arrived later too."

"How long did she cry?"

"From the moment she recognized him until she got to the guard room—nonstop." Teacher Yang said. "Even inside, she didn't speak. I asked if she was scared; she shook her head. Asked if she wanted me to call her mother; she wouldn't nod either. Only after her mother walked in did she say one thing: 'Teacher, I don't want to go to his place.'"

She wrote on the paper: October 21st, after school, iron gate closed, he was outside, did not enter. The child stepped back two paces, cried all the way to the guard room. Said "I don't want to go to his place."

"How is she in class normally?"

"Homework handed in on time; her handwriting hasn't gotten worse." Teacher Yang said. "This half year, she's stopped raising her hand. When classmates talk to her, she answers briefly. A few days ago at recess, some kid who'd heard it from somewhere asked her, 'Is your mom gone?' She stacked her books neatly and didn't answer. I was right there—I didn't answer for her either."

"October 31st."

"That day at noon she came to the office to drop off notebooks." Teacher Yang pushed the thermos aside. "She set them on my desk and stood there. I asked if there was anything else. She said: 'Teacher, I want to live with my mom.'"

"What did you tell her?"

"I didn't ask anything further." Teacher Yang's voice dropped half a register. "She pushed the notebooks toward me, straightened them, and left."

"You sent her mother a message afterward."

"I did. I copied her words exactly as she said them and sent them to her mother. I didn't follow up, and I didn't let other teachers ask about it." She paused. "Her mother replied: thank you. Nothing else."

"The bruise on her right cheek."

Teacher Yang's hand drew back on the desk. "Late September, in the days before the National Day break. I can't remember the exact date. Her hair was covering it; I only saw it clearly when I walked up next to her during class. I asked how she got it; she said she bumped into a door frame. I asked again; she said door frame again. So I didn't ask anymore."

"In court, if someone asks about the bruise, asks when you saw it, you answer just like that."

"Just like that?"

"Asked, she said door frame. If you can't remember the date, say you can't remember." She said. "If you don't know something, say you don't know."

Teacher Yang looked at her for a while, then said: "Then aren't you at a disadvantage?"

"I'm writing that remark down today." She turned to the back of her notebook. "Better to know where it will land than have it come down suddenly in the courtroom."

[Thud. The witness only tells the part she saw. The remaining part—someone has to walk it themselves.]

Teacher Yang watched her finish writing and asked: "What's it like inside the court?"

"A room, a raised desk, a few chairs." She said. "You stand first as they ask your name, age, occupation. Then they have you sit. This side asks, then that side. The judge asks too, in between."

"What if I can't remember the dates?"

"Then say you can't remember. No one's asking you to memorize."

"What if they ask me who the child is better off living with?"

"Then you answer: I couldn't say." She set the pen down. "You just tell them the day the child cried at the school gate, the day she said that sentence herself. Anything beyond that is speaking for someone else. Paper only speaks for dates."

Teacher Yang unscrewed her thermos, took a sip, pushed it away.

"I'll go," she said. "I've taught half my life and never set foot in a court. But that day, I was standing at the gate. If I don't go, no one speaks for that day."

She pulled a blank sheet from her drawer, wrote her name and phone number, dated it November 8th, and signed.

"Write that down, and the court can find you." She tucked the paper into the file envelope. "I'll deliver it to the court window this afternoon and clip it behind the previous one."

The bell rang. From classrooms up and down the hall rose the uneven chorus of reading. She went downstairs, stopped at the gatehouse window, had the gatekeeper sign the log. He finished and looked up: "Last column—put down what time you left."

She wrote: 10:05.

November 10th, 8 p.m. The noodle shop's exhaust fan had stopped. Someone downstairs was stacking plastic stools, metal legs scraping cement with a long screech.

On the second floor of the Zhengping Firm, only one desk lamp was on. She spread three blank pages flat—file envelope weighing down the left, notebook open on the right. Near the bottom of page two, the pen ran dry. She shook it twice, dug a refill from the drawer, swapped it in, and tested three characters in the corner of a scrap sheet. The ink flowed.

Page one was dates: after moving into the old locomotive depot building in late October, the child passed the alley entrance every morning at 6:40—two vegetable buns, one cup of unsweetened soy milk. The school-gate incident on October 21st. The one-day school leave on November 11th.

Page two was the times the child had encountered her father: June 9th, August 3rd, September 17th, October 12th—four police responses. On two of those, August 3rd and October 12th, the caller had been the child herself. The October 21st line: "I don't want to go to his place." Not a single word of commentary. At the final line she wrote: This incident caused a severe impact on the child.

Page three was what came after: starting November, day shift, 7:30 to 3:30; six pages of wage statements from May through October, lowest month 5,720; able to drop off in the morning, pick up in the afternoon; currently living in two rooms at her cousin's place in Chengbei; the child has a bed and a writing desk; someone walks her to the bus stop each morning.

At 8:40, footsteps on the stairs. Lu Jibai came up carrying a cup and set it at the corner of her desk.

"Yours," he said. "No sugar."

He sat down across from her and took the three pages, reading them one by one. The lamp made the paper glare white; his shadow lay across the words.

At the end of page two, he reached over, plucked the pen from between her fingers, and drew a line through "severe," pressing hard enough that the tip raised a dot on the back of the paper.

"What do I write instead?" she asked.

"Write how long she cried." He pushed the pen back to her. "From the moment she recognized him until she reached the guard room—nonstop. Write that sentence exactly."

"That's writing it softer."

"That's writing it on paper." He said. "Anyone can say 'severe.' Cried all the way to the guard room—only the handful of people at the gate that day can say that."

She crossed it out and revised: From the moment she recognized her father until she reached the guard room, nonstop.

On page three, he struck another line. Her final sentence had been: What the child needs is an intact family.

"That line is his," he said, setting the pen down. "You write it in, and in court it becomes two people saying the same thing, with equal weight."

"I wanted to keep it. If he claims he wants to give her an intact family, I'll ask him which room that family lives in."

"That's what you ask in court, not what you put on paper." He said. "Written down, the first thing the judge sees is that you've accepted the phrasing."

She crossed that line out, the mark heavier than the rest.

"Anywhere else?"

"I didn't find anything else."

She squared the three pages, pulled a rubber band from the file envelope, and looped it around twice.

"When you read it in court, what's the first line?" he asked suddenly.

"The child is nine years old."

"And after that?"

"After that, I read by the dates."

He picked up the cup, took a sip, and set it back at the corner of the desk without commenting on the cold.

[Thud. Three pages, and only dates written on them. The page that didn't get written—someone's already filled it in for you.]

At 9:30, He Xiufen came up. She took the three pages, read them line by line to the end, and set them back where they'd been.

"That's enough words," she said. "There's one page too many."

"Which one?"

He Xiufen didn't answer. From her sweater pocket she pulled a sheet of paper, folded it twice, and slipped it into the file envelope—under the rubber band, behind the three pages.

"When should I look at it?"

"The morning of the hearing." He Xiufen said. "After you wash your face."

"It's no different looking now."

"It is." He Xiufen slid the envelope toward her. "If I give it to you now, you'll spend tonight revising to match. This page isn't for copying. It's to show you one thing: what you're holding, and which piece is hardest."

She reached to pull it out. He Xiufen's hand pressed on the envelope—not hard, but it didn't move.

"Be there at 8:20," He Xiufen said. "Not eight, not eight-thirty. Get there, stand downstairs for a minute, rub your hands warm. In the hallway, keep quiet. If the door's open, go in and sit down; file envelope on your lap."

"Got it."

He Xiufen went down the stairs, her feet knocking twice against the iron railing. Lu Jibai picked up the cup, drained it, set it back on the desk corner. "I'm going too. Lock up."

"Mm."

At the top of the stairs he paused: "Those three pages—tomorrow morning, read them over again yourself. Out loud."

She got home just before eleven. The little kitchen light was still on. On the table a bowl sat upside down, a note under it in Zhi'an's handwriting: There's noodles in the pot. Don't eat them cold.

She stood the file envelope against the back of the bedside chair. The twice-folded page beneath the rubber band pressed a ridge into the papers around it. She touched it—the paper was cool, slightly thicker than the rest.

In her notebook she wrote a line: The eleventh, up at six, arrive by 8:20. When she finished, she laid the notebook on top of the file envelope.

She didn't unfold the page.