Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 291: One Page, One Matter

At eight twenty, the breakfast stall downstairs had half its table cleared. The metal drawer slid open and shut, and the smell of scallion oil still hung in the stairwell.

Four sheets of paper lay spread across the long table on the second floor of Zhengping Firm. One was the one-page evidence collection application drafted last night, three lines. The other three were blank, except for "Lu Jibai" and "November 17" already signed at the bottom right of each.

"What goes on the first page?" She pulled her chair closer to the table.

"First, what came first. Then, what continued." He uncapped his pen. "The action goes on page two."

Across the top of page one, one line: An unlawful infringement came first, and it was ongoing. No adjectives below it, just timestamps, line by line: September 19, 18:45, Qin Hao stood in the alley behind the school, phone raised, demanding Xu Qing repeat the exact words she'd said on August 31, word for word. 18:46, the Qin family called the police.

"One minute," she said.

"A lot happens in one minute." He kept writing: In that same minute, the man in blue coveralls wrapped his arms around Shen Zhi'an from behind and lifted him up, feet off the ground; Qin Hao kicked him in the stomach.

She stared at those lines for a moment, then pressed a finger to the table. "Where did you copy all this from?"

"Xu Qing's interview record, Du Qiang's, the three pages from Wei Changlin, and the twenty-six seconds." He pushed page one aside. "I copied the original wording. 'Wrapped his arms around from behind, lifted him up'—those eight characters are Xu Qing's own words. I didn't change them to 'grabbed.'"

On page two, he wrote one short line first: Five seconds after being seized, Shen Zhi'an broke free.

"Those two strokes after he broke free are the hardest to write," he said. "Write it too hard, it reads like retaliation. Too soft, it reads like admission."

"Then write where he stood after he broke free."

"Where he stood is the third stroke." He kept going: After breaking free, Qin Hao did not back away. His hand came up again; Shen Zhi'an threw one punch, landing on the bridge of the nose. After that, he stepped back in front of Xu Qing, both arms hanging at his sides, and did not strike again.

She read it over. "Can the words 'one punch, then stop' make it into the document?"

"The last line. Before that, let people count it out for themselves—only one punch."

She took the page and checked it against the six lines in her notebook, second by second: fourteen seconds, the grab; seventeen, the kick; nineteen, the breakaway; twenty, the punch. When she'd verified it, she pushed the paper back. "One wrong number in the transcription, and these three pages become someone else's document."

"That's why you check the numbers, and I check the words."

Page three was about the injury. The injury assessment found minor injury, second grade, at two sites: bilateral nasal bone fracture and left maxillary frontal process fracture. He wrote it plainly: Whether the defense clearly exceeded necessary limits and the extent of the injury are two separate questions. The injury in this case does not reach the "serious harm" threshold. We request that a non-prosecution decision be made for Shen Zhi'an in accordance with the law.

"Minor injury, second grade—not serious?" she asked.

"It doesn't meet the definition of 'serious harm.' I'm not making that up. That's how analogous cases are read."

He started a new paragraph and wrote one more point: The six-page indictment opinion does not record four details—"wrapped his arms around," "lifted him up," "feet off the ground," "kicked." In the same case file, those four details appear in both the interview records and the twenty-six-second clip.

When she read that line, her hand lifted from the paper, hung in the air, then settled back down.

"What if he doesn't read it?"

"Whether he reads it is his business." He tapped the pen against the paper. "Three pages go into the file. The file is in his hands."

"I want to write a line—he's only seventeen."

"The social worker will ask about the juvenile factors tonight." He pressed page three down flat. "These three pages answer one question only: in those two minutes, was what he did self-defense?"

"He was protecting a girl."

"'Protecting who' doesn't need to be written as an adjective." He looked up at her. "Page one states who held up the phone, who grabbed and lifted, who kicked. Page two states who he stepped in front of. Standing in front of someone is more precise than the word 'protect.'"

The sound of a chair dragging came from the stairwell. He Xiufen came up carrying a bowl of soy milk and half a plate of pickled radish. She stood by the table and read all three pages from start to finish, then tapped one spot with her finger.

"Read me the last line."

"We request that a non-prosecution decision be made for Shen Zhi'an in accordance with the law."

"The line before it."

"Minor injury, second grade, does not constitute 'serious harm.'"

She set the bowl on the corner of the table and wiped her hands. "I counted six pages. One page lays out the facts; the other five say 'ought to.' Your three pages—one page of timeline, one page of the punch, one page of the injury." She picked up the bowl. "That's enough."

He pulled out the one-page evidence collection application with its three lines: Retrieve the original page from the Municipal No. 2 Hospital's September 19 emergency registration log; retrieve the WeChat transfer records between Qin Hao and Du Qiang on September 19; lawfully seize Qin Hao's phone and conduct electronic data examination.

"The first item only asks for paper," she said.

"The paper has two lines on it."

"Who wrote those two lines and who asked the questions—someone has to answer for that." She pressed her finger on the first item. "On that page, the chief complaint says 'injured in an assault,' and the history says 'fell accidentally.' Two lines apart. Whether it was the same pen or not, I can't say. But who asked those questions, and who else was in the room when they were asked—the paper has no answer. With no one answering for it, a page is just a page."

He looked at her for a long moment, then pulled the paper toward him and added one line: Also request to interview the triage staff on duty.

"Did I add that right?" she asked.

"It's right because it demands a person speak, not because it demands paper to write on." He recapped the pen.

[Thud. Three pages, harder than six.]

At fourteen fifty, outside the west gate of the District Procuratorate. Two people came out, case files under their arms, heading east. She didn't go over. She stood across the street under the bus stop sign, the wind rattling the sign's metal panel.

At fifteen hundred exactly, he went upstairs.

At fifteen twenty, he came back out, a vertically printed receipt in hand. He crossed over and handed it to her first.

Two lines on the receipt: Defense Opinion, three pages, one copy; Evidence Collection Application, one page, one copy. Dated at the bottom: November 17, 15:00.

"The clerk counted the pages," he said. "After counting, she asked if all the signatures were mine. I said yes. She asked if the date should be the seventeenth. I said yes."

"What else did she say?"

"Said the questioning will be notified separately. Family stays home and waits for a call."

"That's it?"

"She also asked whether I wanted to schedule a meeting with the handling procurator along with the written submission." He folded the receipt. "I said no need to schedule. Written submission is sufficient. If my presence is required, we can discuss it then."

"Why decline the meeting?"

"Three pages of paper can stand inside a case file. A person standing in can easily lose shape." He tucked the folded receipt into his inner pocket. "That line you added was the right call. If he wants to fill the gap, he knows where to start—finding a person who can speak is harder than finding a piece of paper."

"What if no one reads the paper?"

"Three pages go into the file. Read or not, someone signs for them." He shifted toward the inner edge of the bus stop, out of the wind. "You being down here was the right call."

"I wasn't just standing here. I was here."

"Then here it is."

At nineteen hundred, the stairwell light flickered. When the door opened, a short-haired woman stood outside, early thirties, a stack of printed forms under her arm, a badge on her chest reading "Jiangzhou Youth Social Work Service Center."

"Commissioned by the District Procuratorate. Surname Wu." She changed into slippers, came in, and spread her papers on the table first. "Ground rules: I ask, you answer. What you say, I write down. What you don't say, I don't write. When I'm done, I'll read it back to you. If any line doesn't sound like your words, you tell me on the spot."

Zhi'an came out from the inner room, hair still damp, and stood by the table without sitting.

"Sit," she said.

He sat.

"What time do you get up?"

"Six."

"Who makes breakfast?"

"My sister. Sometimes I do it myself."

"Who do you walk home from school with?"

"Alone."

"What time does your sister get home?"

"Hard to say. Sometimes eight, sometimes ten."

"The hours you're home alone—what do you do?"

"Homework. Look at my phone a bit."

Question, answer, the gaps between them longer than the words. She wrote quickly, moving to the next question after each line, never asking twice.

"Ever been in a fight?"

"No."

"Has anyone come looking for you?"

"Don't know."

"I'll record 'don't know' too." She wrote the words down, pressing the pen hard. "Do you have any close classmates?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Xu Qing. She's my classmate."

She wrote the name on the line and waited for the next line. Zhi'an had no next line. She glanced up at him and wrote: Has frequent contact with a female classmate.

Zhi'an stared at that line. "What did you write?"

"I wrote what I heard."

"She has nothing to do with this."

"I know." She set the pen down. "I'm recording what you said, not about her. You only said one thing: she's your classmate. I didn't write a single other word."

Shen Zhixia stood in the doorway, an empty cup still in her hand. She didn't go over, and she didn't answer for him. She put the cup in the kitchen, poured water, set it on the table, then stepped back and leaned against the doorframe.

"How many people in the household?"

"Two."

"Father?"

"Gone."

"When?"

Shen Zhixia's fingertip pressed against the doorframe.

"...A few years ago," Zhi'an said.

So the line only got four characters: Father deceased. The year stayed blank, and Ms. Wu didn't press.

"What does your sister do?"

"Lawyer."

"And you—what do you want to do later on?"

"Haven't thought about it."

"I'll leave that line blank. When you think of something, you can fill it in." She gathered the pages one by one and stapled the corner. "I'll take this back and cross-check it against what he says. If any line doesn't sound like his words, give me a call."

At the door, changing back into her shoes, she turned. "He answered more than I expected today."

"Did he?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"When I asked his name, he gave two characters. The rest of the time he kept the door shut." She shouldered her canvas bag. "He shut it fast, which means the door is there."

At twenty hundred, the landline rang.

She picked up, gave only her name, then listened. After listening, she said "okay" twice, put the receiver down, and opened her notebook to write: November 18, 14:30, District Procuratorate interview room. Legal guardian to attend. Bring ID. She looked up.

"Tomorrow, two thirty in the afternoon," she said. "Questioning."

Zhi'an sat across from her, his school uniform spread over his knees. "What am I supposed to say?"

"He asks; you answer."

"Just about that day?"

"I don't know."

"You'll sit next to me."

"I'll sit there."

He went to wash up, water running for a while. When he came back, he draped the uniform over the back of a chair. The left sleeve, where the tear had been sewn shut, lay turned outward, the thread white.

[Thud. Tomorrow's stretch—he'll have to speak for himself.]