Read Novel Full Chapter 301: One Line a Day
Chapter 301: One Line a Day
December 4, 8:50 a.m. Kang Wenying stood at the door of No. 23 Jianping Lane. The key was in her hand, tied with a red plastic cord, the end worn and fraying.
"Seven years, it's hung in this pocket the whole time." She switched the key to her right hand and slid it into the lock herself.
The cylinder was stiff. It took two tries before it turned. The door swung inward, and the first thing out was a smell: medicine, mothballs, and the damp of an old house long unventilated. Shen Zhixia paused half a second at the threshold before following in.
It was colder inside than in the alley. The curtains were drawn—faded cotton, washed nearly white. A square table sat beneath the window, a plastic tablecloth spread over it, worn to two pale patches on the side where the chairs sat.
"Open the curtains," He Xiufen said.
Light came in and dust churned in it. Shen Zhixia reached out and touched the tablecloth; her fingertips came away slick.
"Elbows went round and round on this," He Xiufen said. "For someone who writes, the table ages first."
Lu Jibai stood outside the threshold, phone already raised.
"House number, one shot." He stepped back half a pace. "The crooked one—get it with the doorframe."
The shutter clicked twice. He shifted half a step.
"Both doors closed, one shot." He said, "That bit of broken cord by the frame, one shot."
"The cord too?" Shen Zhixia asked.
"That cord's here today. Come back tomorrow, it might not be." He looked down at the screen. "Photos only show what's in this room today, not what happened here before. First, fix today in place."
He Xiufen circled the room. A few things were spread on the table: a stack of old newspapers, a pair of reading glasses with one temple broken and bound with white thread.
"She wore these to the very end," Kang Wenying said from the doorway. "I did the thread. She said it looked ugly, took it apart, and rebound it herself."
A drawer slid open. Inside was a stack of blank paper, cut palm-width, the edges crooked.
"She went through a lot of paper," Kang Wenying said. "If she didn't write it well, she'd crumple it and rewrite the next day. Full sheets felt too big to her, so she cut them herself with scissors."
Shen Zhixia pulled one out and held it to the window. One side was smooth, the other rough.
"Those two pages of the will—were they cut this width?"
Kang Wenying thought for a moment. "No, not the kind she cut. The edges were rough, like torn out of a notebook."
He Xiufen glanced back at her but said nothing.
On the windowsill, one pane had a crack running through it. The latch was rusted and only closed with force. On the nightstand sat a metal pill case with three compartments, each labeled with a small paper slip: morning, noon, night. The handwriting was tiny. The nightstand drawer opened to reveal a half-empty space—two plastic medicine pouches remained, each folded over three times at the mouth.
Lu Jibai lowered the camera and took a shot of the drawer.
The mattress on the bed was rolled up and set at the foot, rolled tight, bound with a cloth strip.
"She rolled it herself," Kang Wenying said. "Even after she couldn't get up, she still tried. When she couldn't manage, she had me tie it."
A desk calendar hung on the wall, still turned to October. The fourth was circled in pencil—a lopsided circle—and nothing had been torn off after it.
"That day I couldn't bring myself to tear it anymore," Kang Wenying said.
"Calendar, one shot." Lu Jibai crouched by the wall. "Don't touch that circle with your hands."
The inner room was small. Under the bed were two wooden chests, their lids coated in dust, and through the dust ran a few fingerprint smears.
"The paintings are in those two," Kang Wenying said.
"Not today," He Xiufen said. "We'll open them at the table, in front of witnesses."
At 10:40, Kang Wenying crouched first by the kitchen doorway.
"She never liked anyone going through this cabinet." She pulled open the two wooden doors beneath the old dish cabinet. Inside were plastic bags, a palm-leaf fan, two biscuit tins. "But I remember, underneath all of it…"
Her hand reached to the very back, her shoulder sinking with the effort. She dragged out a blue cloth bundle, tied with two knots.
The knots came undone. Inside were seven hardcover notebooks, bound together with a plastic cord, all different sizes.
He Xiufen crouched down and wiped her hands on her pants twice before reaching for them.
"What I said that day," she said, "a woman like her wouldn't leave nothing behind of the things she lived with."
Lu Jibai photographed the blue bundle where it had lain by the cabinet door, then photographed the empty space in the cabinet bottom. Two drag marks ran through the dust, exactly the width of the bundle.
Shen Zhixia counted: seven.
The first cover bore ballpoint writing: "2023" and the character for "medicine," large and pressed hard. The second had a small strip of adhesive tape on its cover, with "second half of the year" written on it. The seventh was the thinnest.
"Where did the notebooks come from?" He Xiufen asked.
"My brother's son left them after school. She took every one," Kang Wenying said. "She said the hard covers could hold things down."
He Xiufen opened the first notebook. First page, first line:
"January 1 – Morning: one blood pressure pill – Evening: half a sleeping pill – BP 138/82"
One line a day. Date, morning, evening, drug name, how many pills, and at the end, blood pressure—two numbers separated by a slash. The writing was small, each stroke pressed in so hard you could feel the indent on the back of the page.
She turned the pages. The second, third, fourth—not a single day skipped. In the middle of the second notebook, one line had an extra note added beneath it: "Didn't sleep today. Head heavy." The writing was even smaller, squeezed between the lines.
"She even wrote down when she felt unwell?"
"She wrote down everything," Kang Wenying said. "Only after writing it down could she sleep."
He Xiufen pointed at the three characters for "sleeping pill." "In the later books, does she only write 'sleep'?"
Shen Zhixia flipped back. The fifth and sixth notebooks all read "sleep." The seventh was the same.
"Her own shorthand," He Xiufen said. "Once someone settles on a way of abbreviating, it doesn't change."
Lu Jibai photographed each of the seven covers. Each notebook was first placed on the windowsill so the light came from the side, shot, then returned to its exact original position.
"Twenty-one shots." He turned the phone to show Shen Zhixia.
"I count twenty-one too."
"Not one more, not one less." He recited the file names from beginning to end, reached "seven of seven," and pocketed the phone. "Original files don't get deleted. They'll go into the firm's computer when we're back."
Shen Zhixia flipped to the end of the seventh notebook. The last line was September 30:
"September 30 – Morning: one blood pressure pill – Evening: half a sleeping pill – BP 128/76"
After that, blank. The notebook still had a third of its pages left.
"On October first she couldn't sit up anymore," Kang Wenying said. "Couldn't sit up, couldn't write."
He Xiufen arranged the seven notebooks back on the table in order, spines facing the same direction.
"Wrap them up. They come with us," she said. "These seven go into the same cabinet as your mother's two pages."
"All of them?"
"All of them. What we take today isn't paper. It's nearly four years of her days."
Shen Zhixia wrote a line in her notebook: December 4, 10:40 a.m., No. 23 Jianping Lane, blue cloth bundle beneath the dish cabinet, seven notebooks, Kang Wenying present in person. She slid the notebook over for Kang Wenying to sign. Kang Wenying signed slowly, then read it over twice.
[Thud. One line a day, written for nearly four years.]
The lights on the second floor of Zhengping Firm were cold white. At 5 p.m., He Xiufen spread the seven notebooks across the long table, pushed the third through sixth aside, and left the remaining three at a corner.
"Why these four?" Shen Zhixia asked.
"The will is dated January 28, 2025," He Xiufen said. "To see what her hand was like when she wrote that page, we need the two years before and after. The third book starts January 2024; the sixth runs through December 2025."
"What about the two from 2023?"
"In those two years her hand was still steady. The writing's bigger than later. Looking at them won't help." She picked up the seventh and weighed it in her hand. "By this one, she could barely hold the pen."
She slipped a paper strip into each of the four books, corners sticking out, pages left uncreased.
"When you turn the pages, look for three things," she said. "Did she write that day or not, how many pills did she record, and did she add anything else underneath."
Lu Jibai stood at the far end of the table and picked up the thread: "These seven books in court can show she was always writing, always keeping count. The question is whether she was clear-headed the night she wrote that page. These seven answer half of it."
Shen Zhixia opened the fifth notebook. It began in January 2025. She turned page by page to the end of the month.
"January 27," she read aloud. "Morning: one blood pressure pill; evening: half a sleeping pill; BP 134/82." Below was an added note: "Wrote half of it."
"January 28," she continued. "Morning: one blood pressure pill; evening: half a sleeping pill; BP 132/80."
Beneath it, eight characters: Wrote all night, slept well.
Her hand went still on the paper. She rotated the notebook half a turn toward He Xiufen, her index finger pressed beneath those eight characters. She made no sound.
He Xiufen put on her reading glasses and leaned close. She looked for a long while.
"This time you didn't rush," she said.
Shen Zhixia turned to the next page. "January 29: Morning: one blood pressure pill; evening: half a sleeping pill; BP 128/78." Three characters added below: "Finished it."
"Those two nights—where were you?" He Xiufen asked Kang Wenying.
"In the outer room making dumplings," Kang Wenying said. "Her light stayed on past midnight. I went in once to check on her. She told me to get out, said she was almost done."
"New Year's morning?"
"New Year's morning she asked me to crack the window open, said she'd slept well."
He Xiufen turned the fifth notebook around so those eight characters faced Kang Wenying.
"This is her writing."
"It is," Kang Wenying said.
"The two nights she wrote that page, she took no extra medicine, her blood pressure didn't spike, and she got up the next morning and wrote another line on her own." He Xiufen said, "Your brother says she was muddled on sleeping pills. She took them every day—half a pill meant half a pill. A woman who kept seven books of her own medicine would know exactly how much she took."
"Can these seven books count as evidence?" Shen Zhixia asked.
"Whether they count depends on who asks and how," He Xiufen said. "Today, it's about getting our own minds clear first."
She stacked the four books neatly, all the paper strips facing out.
"Photocopy one page and file it. Originals go back in the cabinet." She said, "Tomorrow afternoon, take those two pages out of the tin box. Character against character. Hauling all seven books out wouldn't suit—the eyes of whoever's asking will wander. For the mediation, bring these four."
"And if he still can't recognize it?" Shen Zhixia asked.
"Then he can't recognize it." He Xiufen pulled the photocopy over and folded it in thirds. "He may not recognize her writing. He'll recognize the money."
Shen Zhixia slipped the photocopy into the file with that page. The copied words were a shade fainter than the original, but those eight characters were still legible. She read them slowly: "Wrote all night, slept well."
[Thud. What she kept track of was medicine. What she left behind was that night.]
He Xiufen turned off the lights. The sound-activated light on the stairs came on one floor, casting down two steps.