Read Novel Full Chapter 299: Half an Alley
Chapter 299: Half an Alley
November 30, 3:00 p.m. Lu Jibai laid the six sheets of paper out in a row on the long table, then stepped back and braced both hands on the edge.
"Who looked first?"
"Me," Shen Zhixia said.
"Look three more times." He turned the two-page will face up. "First the date, second the handwriting, third the paper."
"The date's at the bottom of the second page." Shen Zhixia reached over, her fingertip stopping three inches from the edge of the paper. "January 28, 2025."
"The old woman passed October 4, 2026." Lu Jibai said. "That's a year and eight months before. When she wrote this, she'd been bedridden for years, but she could still sit up and hold a pen."
"That was New Year's Eve." Shen Zhixia said. "Kang Wenying was chopping filling out in the front room. Around eight she brought soup in. Her mother flipped the paper over."
"So there was someone in the room, and someone outside the room." Lu Jibai said.
He Xiufen stood by the window, her apron half untied and draped over one arm, holding one temple of her reading glasses between two fingers.
"She picked New Year's Eve deliberately." she said. "People in the front room, a fire in the back room, and after she finished, someone would come in with soup. What she wanted wasn't quiet. She wanted people to know she was lucid that day."
Shen Zhixia turned the second page over and held it up against the white light from the window. There were faint indentations on the back, one horizontal, one slanted—the force of the writing pressing through.
"Impression marks." Lu Jibai said. "First page finished, the paper wasn't moved, then the second page was written. Both pages stacked together, written in one sitting."
"What does that prove?"
"It proves it never changed location." He pointed without touching the paper. "If someone carried the paper out and wrote on a different table, the back wouldn't keep those marks."
"I'll write that down." Shen Zhixia opened her notebook.
"Write the original wording." He Xiufen said. "If you write 'impression marks,' I accept it. If you write 'proves written in one sitting,' I don't."
She put on her reading glasses, bent down to study the page for half a minute, then took them off again.
"I've got a feel for this thing, but don't put it on paper. In court, impression marks have to be explained—who pressed them, how they were pressed. If you can't explain it, it's scrap paper."
Lu Jibai squared the two pages and pushed them toward Shen Zhixia.
"Second item: handwriting." he said. "Three characters at the bottom of each page."
"Feng Wenzhen."
"Those three characters carry the same weight as the text above. Same starting strokes, same finishing strokes, no pause in the middle that would show a hand change." he said. "When people sign their own name, it's usually slower than the body text. These three aren't slow, and they aren't fast."
"She wrote it often."
"It's her own writing." he corrected her. "Writing it often is a different matter."
"Does it prove she wrote it?"
"No." Lu Jibai said. "In court, this one needs an expert to look again. Today's look just tells us where to stand. It doesn't let us speak for the examiner."
"I'm already on edge." Shen Zhixia said.
"On edge is good." He Xiufen said. "People who aren't on edge sit down at the table and get knocked over by the first question."
She pulled an old tin box from the drawer. The paint was chipped in several places. Inside were two transparency sheets, their corners worn white.
"Twenty years ago I handled a case that turned on something like this." she said. "The other side claimed an IOU wasn't his writing. I overlaid the IOU's characters with the ones from his factory work badge. They matched up perfectly on the mouth of one character."
"Can that be used here?"
"Not now." He Xiufen snapped the lid shut. "Handwriting needs a second sample to compare against. This whole file is one person's writing. Compare it against itself and all you get is her. You can't get anywhere."
"Then what do we need?"
"Her writing from somewhere else." He Xiufen said. "A person who lives day to day doesn't write only one sheet of paper."
"One more thing." Shen Zhixia looked up. "Two crates of old paintings. One for each sibling, no one takes more. Where are those two crates now?"
He Xiufen slid the two-page will back into the kraft envelope, wound the string around the flap twice, and tied it.
"Didn't ask. We'll ask in the alley tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow at eight-thirty, you'll walk half an alley with me." She put the envelope in the metal cabinet in the corner, locked it, and returned the key to the drawer. "A lawsuit is fought against people, not against paper. Her mother lived her whole life in that alley. Somebody saw her carry her own bowl and count her own pills."
[Thud. A sheet of paper isn't afraid of age. It's afraid that no one ever saw the person who wrote it.]
December 1, 8:30 a.m. The wind at the alley mouth was biting. It lifted the quilt hanging on the clothesline, then let it drop back.
Jianping Lane ran open at both ends, narrow in the middle. Three people walking abreast had to turn sideways. Rows of one-story houses lined both sides, old tiles on the roofs, the bases of the walls stained a band of dark from the rain. The old pickled-vegetable shop at the alley mouth still had its wooden counter, now stacked with a pile of delivery boxes, other people's names written on them in marker.
"I worked this alley twenty years ago." He Xiufen said.
"What for?"
"A family trying to collect wages. The man died in the factory, and the factory said no such person existed." She switched her cloth bag to the other hand. "Back then this alley was even narrower. Two fat men couldn't pass each other."
Halfway down, she slowed. A pair of wooden doors stood shut, a layer of dust on them, a blue address plate with white lettering nailed crookedly to the frame. Beside the frame, a nail with a broken string dangling, half of it still tied.
"No. 23 Jianping Lane." Shen Zhixia read aloud.
"This is it." He Xiufen didn't push the door. She turned toward the house diagonally across. "Don't open the door yet. The one who opens it should be someone who belongs inside."
An old woman squatted on the threshold of the diagonal house, an aluminum basin at her feet with chives soaking in it. Seeing strangers, she pulled the basin closer first.
"Sister Zhu." He Xiufen stood two paces away.
"You know me?"
"No. In the community records, under the caregiving section, your name is listed." He Xiufen set the cloth bag on the ground. "My surname is He, from Zhengping Firm, the one above the noodle shop. Her daughter Kang Wenying asked me to handle this."
Zhu Xiuzhen wiped her hands on her apron twice but didn't stand up and didn't invite them in.
"Her medicine, nobody dared get it for her." That was her opening line. "How many pills per dose, she counted them herself. Once I picked up a box from the pharmacy for her. She poured it out and counted. When she finished, she said two were missing."
"Two missing?"
"I said impossible—they're sealed at the factory. She laid the empty blister sheets on the mattress, one by one, and said, 'Four days, half a pill a day. Where would two pills go?'" Zhu Xiuzhen said. "I counted. Two were missing. Turned out her grandson had come to play and pulled two out as toys."
Shen Zhixia wrote in her notebook: counted her own medicine, laid out empty blister sheets when pills were missing.
"She counted money even more clearly." Zhu Xiuzhen nodded toward the alley mouth. "Nine in the morning she'd carry her cloth bag to market. When she got back she'd go over the change right at the door. If anyone shorted her a dime, she'd carry the bag back and stand in front of their stall."
"And after she was bedridden?"
"Still counted." she said. "The first year she could still walk holding the wall. By the third year, no. Her daughter would count out a day's medicine and put it on the nightstand. She'd still count it again before she took it."
He Xiufen crouched down, pulled the basin half an inch toward herself, lifted the soaking chives out, and shook off the water.
"Can we write this down and have you sign it?"
Zhu Xiuzhen's hand stopped on her apron. A damp spot slowly spread.
"I can't sign."
"What are you afraid of?"
"It's not fear." she said. "It's one alley, and we still have to face each other. Youxing grew up under our eyes. He did his homework at this doorstep when he was little. I handed him water."
"If he comes asking, what will you say?"
"I'll say I don't remember and I didn't see." Zhu Xiuzhen took the chives back. "I can say that to his face. But press a fingerprint to paper? I can't do it."
Shen Zhixia looked up. "Still write down the name?"
"Yes." He Xiufen said. "A name records who spoke on this day. It's not a guarantee. Don't mix the two."
Seven or eight steps deeper, a house had half a wooden sign by the door. The words "BICYCLE REPAIR" were half washed away by rain. An old man came out in a dark blue padded jacket, the cuffs frayed, holding an enamel mug with a chipped rim.
"Master Song."
"Not repairing anymore. Leg's gone." Song Dehai set the mug on the windowsill. "You're asking about the Feng family?"
"Yes."
"Those last two years, I went over to see her three times." he said. "She recognized me. Asked if I still fixed bicycles."
"Senile people don't recognize anyone." He Xiufen said.
"Senile people recognize three different faces in one day." Song Dehai spread his hands on his knees. "She recognized me. Knew me right away. And she told me: 'That sign of yours hangs by the door. When the wind blows it rattles. I can hear it at night.'"
"She slept lightly."
"Lightly." he said. "Light sleepers are clear inside."
He Xiufen asked, "Did you ever see her write?"
"She wrote." Song Dehai nodded toward the far end of the alley. "She wrote everything down—the grocery accounts, the pill counts. The winter before last I fixed her door hinge. She tore a page out of her notebook and gave it to me to wrap the screws."
"Tore it out of her notebook."
"Tore it. I said no need to wrap them, but she tore it anyway." He laughed, showing two yellow teeth. "That woman, everything had to have a place to go."
"Do you still have the notebook?"
"I don't know. Her things—her daughter kept them."
He Xiufen didn't press. But Song Dehai brought up signing on his own, waving a hand.
"At my age, I can't go to court. You want this face sitting in a room talking, I can't sit still. Three streets away and I can't find the door." He picked up the enamel mug and took a sip. "What I've said, you remember it, I own it. Put it on paper, I don't."
"Write his exact words." He Xiufen told Shen Zhixia. "Including 'three streets away and I can't find the door.' Don't change it to 'unable to travel due to advanced age.'"
At 10:20, they came out the south end of the alley, crossed a street, and entered the market.
A few bare bulbs hung under the awning, filmed with grease. At the tofu stall, a block of tofu sat on a wet cloth. The woman behind the counter held a thin knife; one cut, perfectly square.
"Yue'e, one kilo." He Xiufen said.
"Director He does her own shopping." Chen Yue'e set down the knife. "I know about the Feng family matter."
"What do you know?"
"She came twice a week. First thing she did was check the scale." She set the tofu on the scale, the weight landing at nine hundred grams. "My scale never shorted her. But she didn't let anyone off easy, either. Short her by a hundredth of a jin, she'd announce it from one end of the row to the other."
"You could hear what she said clearly?"
"Clearly." Chen Yue'e said. "But I won't sign."
"Why not?"
"I stand here every day." She tied the tofu with straw string and handed it over. "Last week he came. Stood right in front of my stall and asked if I'd looked in on his mother in her last few months."
"What did you say?"
"I said no. I sell through these blocks of tofu every day. When would I have time to visit anyone?" She snapped off the end of the straw string. "He asks again a couple more times and my answer becomes the same. Same mouth, who'd believe it?"
He Xiufen handed over the money, counting out each bill.
"Give me a straight answer. Could she count her own money and speak for herself?"
"Yes." Chen Yue'e said. "She came here to buy tofu. She said three yuan twenty fen, and I gave her three yuan twenty fen. She counted slowly, but she never miscounted."
"Then I'll write that one sentence down."
"Write it." She took the money and laid the wet cloth back over the tofu. "If you want names, ask across at the pharmacy. They have a ledger there. Who came in, what they bought—every last word. My stall, money changes hands and it's gone."
He Xiufen didn't cross.
"The pharmacy's ledger records who bought the medicine, not who took it." she said. "What we need is her own writing."
At eleven, they emerged from the other end of the alley. The wind had eased. The quilt had been taken in, leaving only two empty wooden clothespins swinging on the line.
Shen Zhixia held three pages covered in writing. She gathered them and counted off the people.
"Zhu Xiuzhen, Song Dehai, Chen Yue'e." she said. "Three pages, three surnames, not one fingerprint. What use is this paper?"
He Xiufen stood at the alley mouth and looked back at the wooden door. It was shut, the dust on it pale in the sunlight, the blue address plate still crooked.
"It has a use." she said. "Put it in the file, and we know how many people in this alley are willing to speak and how many aren't. At the table, I'll have a sense of the room."
"But they won't sign."
"Not signing means they have more to fear than we do." He Xiufen hitched the cloth bag up her arm. "We're afraid of losing. Lose and there's another case. They're afraid of the next three years, living in this alley, faces meeting whether you look up or not."
"Then what do those three pages count as in court?"
"They count as the road we walked ourselves." she said. "Those three mouths can attest that her mother was a clear-headed woman. They can't attest to the writing on those two sheets of paper."
"Where is the writing?"
He Xiufen turned and looked into the depths of the alley. The door of No. 23 was still shut. The broken string by the frame stirred in the wind.
"It's in her own house." she said. "A woman like that, everything had to have a place."
[Thud. People who can speak can attest to her days, but not to her writing.]
[Thud. The writing is in her house, waiting for someone to open the door.]
Shen Zhixia slid the three pages back into her notebook and smoothed them flat.
"When do we open the door?"
"When Kang Wenying comes." He Xiufen said. "A house like that needs a member of the family standing inside before strangers start going through it."