Read Novel Full Chapter 307: Only a "He" Written
Chapter 307: Only a "He" Written
December 12th, 3:05 PM. The roll-up shutter rattled once downstairs, and Zhengping Firm's old landline went off right after.
Shen Zhixia straightened up from the metal cabinet, banged her knee against the cabinet door, and walked over to pick up.
"Zhengping Law Firm."
"It's me, Li Huilan."
The sound of pages turning came through the receiver—kraft paper stacking on kraft paper.
"Three cases, all asked." she said. "Two of them, one sentence: wherever I go, he follows. The third one, the old lady needs to ask her son. Asked last night, called back at two this afternoon—said yes."
"What about the legal aid one?"
"The Center took it back and reassigned it to Zhengping Firm. The assignment letter will take a few days to come out. It comes in duplicate—when it arrives, I keep one copy."
"Accounts."
"Cleared to zero. Agency fees divided, subsidy still pending. The twenty-six yuan I paid out of pocket for courier fees, I stuffed back into Finance this morning."
Shen Zhixia wrote it down line by line, pen moving fast. "Twenty-six" came out crooked; she traced over it again below.
"Consent to transfer, stamped at three this afternoon." Li Huilan said. "One page, round seal. Application submitted, Bar Association accepted it."
"Three."
"Three. I usually don't give people this much detail."
"The sixteenth." Shen Zhixia said.
"The sixteenth. The date I put down doesn't move."
She flipped back to the beginning and read the lines aloud: "Three cases, all parties asked. Legal aid reassigned. Accounts cleared to zero. Consent stamped three PM. Application submitted. The sixteenth."
"One more thing." Li Huilan said. "The hearing."
"That hearing might need rescheduling."
"No rescheduling." she said. "Date stays the same—December 29th, morning. I'll be there."
"But if you don't come in until the sixteenth—"
"My person's at Chongzheng Firm, the case is at the Arbitration Commission." Li Huilan said. "That day I'll sit on the applicant's side. Nobody can stop me."
Shen Zhixia wrote that line down. When she got to "sit on the applicant's side," she paused and changed it to "appear in court."
"What about the three new powers of attorney?"
"Signed today." Li Huilan said. "I left the date blank. What date goes on depends on what day I go in."
"Where's the paperwork?"
"In my bag. If I'm not in, the papers don't come out."
Shen Zhixia made a sound of acknowledgment, tapping her pen once on the words "the sixteenth."
"On the firm side, I'm putting together a handover list first."
"Make it detailed." Li Huilan said. "That firm had one person managing everything for over twenty years. If the accounts aren't clear, the next person has to start from scratch on every single item."
[Thud. One piece of paper leaves, a name shifts an inch.]
After hanging up she didn't sit down. She copied those lines to the top of a fresh page, with a header reading "December 12th, call with Li Huilan." After writing it she glanced at it once, took the cardboard file folder from the drawer, and clipped it to the front of the Kang family file.
By the time the smell of scallion oil drifted up from downstairs, she'd realized she hadn't eaten lunch.
December 14th, 9 AM. The roll-up shutter was halfway open downstairs, oil sizzling in the pan.
When she came upstairs, Lu Jibai was already at the far end of the long table, three hardcover ledgers laid out beside his hand, one on top of another. Against the wall, three items sat exactly where they'd been placed on the 10th: a ring of keys on top, wound twice with red plastic cord, the cord frayed pale, all three teeth shiny; the firm seal resting beside the stamp pad, the Legal Aid duty phone book lying open. The seal and phone book hadn't been touched.
"What time did you get here?"
"8:40." He pushed over the topmost ledger.
She opened the metal cabinet and the smell of mothballs and rust came out together. Case files stood upright on the upper shelf, bound with white cotton thread in three-hole binding, thread ends facing out, one volume crammed against the next. On the bottom shelf pressed a stack of blue-covered volumes, packed so tight you needed two fingers hooked around a cover to pull one out.
"Count the ledgers first." he said. "One per year."
Shen Zhixia opened her notebook to a fresh page and uncapped her pen.
"2024, forty-three volumes."
"Forty-three." She wrote it down.
"2025, thirty-nine volumes."
"Thirty-nine."
"2026, up to yesterday, thirty-one volumes."
She added the three numbers, then went back and checked the sum, pressing her pen tip harder on the last digit.
"What about before 2023?"
"Document room." Lu Jibai said. "Seventeen cardboard boxes, years written on them."
"Sealed?"
"Tape-sealed, names marked on both ends."
"Should we count them box by box?"
"Not finished in a day."
"How do we write it on the list?"
"Transfer by box, contents per the ledgers inside." he said. "Record the number of boxes, the years written on them, what the seals look like. The key to that room gets handed over on the 20th—nobody goes in before then."
She wrote that entry into two lines, then looked up. "What about the legal aid files?"
"Bottom shelf in the cabinet. Twelve volumes."
Then the seal usage register. A volume and a half. The first volume ran from 2019 to the end of 2025; the second ran up to November this year, paper edges fuzzy. A few lines had only dates, the purpose column blank, and the handler column marked with a single "He."
"These entries are blank." She turned the register around to show him.
"She used her personal seal. Her signature counted." Lu Jibai said.
"Going forward that can't be how it's done."
"Going forward it can't." he said. "Write on the list: firm seal kept by the person in charge. Every use records four things—date, purpose, handler, and where the original went."
"What about these blank lines?"
"Copy as-is: 'original record incomplete.'"
She wrote "original record incomplete" in pencil, smaller than her usual writing.
Under the corner of the table sat a kraft paper envelope folded twice over, pressed beneath the phone book. She pulled it out—two bank reconciliation statements, one printed in October, one last month.
Basic account: 42,163 yuan.
Another account: 620 yuan.
"That account only takes deposits, never withdrawals." Lu Jibai said.
"Why two accounts?"
"One collects agency fees, one collects legal aid subsidies. The subsidy one doesn't issue invoices—separate books."
She copied both amounts in regular script, checked them twice. "That's all?"
"That's all."
"Then the three hundred thousand—"
"We discuss it on the 17th."
[Thud. Twenty years of a firm's assets, fitting on three pages.]
At 2 PM, she moved the stack of blue-covered volumes onto the table and spread them flat one by one.
A line of white characters ran across each cover: Legal Aid Case. The bottom edge bore a crescent-shaped water stain, seeped from the cabinet's dampness. The handler column mostly read "He Xiufen," written neatly, flush right. Four volumes had only a single "He."
"Twelve volumes." she counted. "Four with only one character."
"Copy as-is." Lu Jibai flipped one to the cover page. "Annotate beside it, don't touch the original. Note reads: originally recorded 'He,' completed as 'He Xiufen' on December 14th."
"Who does the annotating?"
"You do. The person adding characters leaves their name too."
She gripped her pen and opened the first volume. That "He" started with a heavy stroke and ended with a quick one, like tapping the paper with the pen. She added two characters to the right, ink darker than the original, pressing a faint indentation into the page.
The third volume's water stain landed exactly on that first stroke, the character as pale as if it had never been written. She spread the volume on the windowsill to let the paper dry first, then continued with the fifth.
Four volumes annotated. She wrote the note in each volume's remarks column and signed her own name. On the last volume she paused: after that "He" there was a dot, pressed deep, the paper pocked with a tiny hole.
"What does this dot mean?"
"Her habit." Lu Jibai said. "One dot when a case is closed."
"Then how many of these have dots?"
"Count them yourself."
She flipped back and counted, volume by volume, tallying as she went: "Eleven are dotted. The fourth isn't."
"The fourth's last cell is blank."
"Should I add the dot?"
"No." He took the volume, flipped through it, and closed it again. "A name is a record. The dot is hers to make."
Shen Zhixia added a line in the remarks column: "Volume 4: no case-closure mark," and dated it.
At 3 PM, three sheets of blank paper lay spread on the long table. She wrote in pencil.
Page one: Case files and archives. Three ledgers—forty-three volumes, thirty-nine volumes, thirty-one volumes. Seventeen boxes in the document room, contents per the ledgers inside, key delivered with the list. Case files not lent outside the office; any removal requires written authorization.
Page two: Seals and licenses. One firm seal, one finance seal, original and duplicate of the practice license, one and a half volumes of the seal usage register.
Page three: Money and property. Two accounts with balances; four long tables, seven chairs, one metal cabinet, the old computer, one ring with three keys, the Legal Aid duty phone book.
At the bottom of each page: three cells—transferor, transferee, date—all blank.
She spread the three pages out and read them through to him from the top. When she reached "seven chairs," he raised an eyebrow.
"Seven?"
"Seven." She pointed and counted back. "The three-legged one brought up from downstairs counts as one too, propped on bricks."
"Then write that."
"It's written."
"One more thing." he said. "The framed certificate on the wall."
"The practice license is inside it—counted under licenses."
"It counts." He passed her the pen.
She started a new page for the last line, writing three characters and a colon: Person in charge:
The pencil point stopped after the colon.
"Whose name goes here?"
"Whoever takes over next."
"Right now that's her."
"That's right now."
She thought it over, wrote "He Xiufen" in pencil, and looked at it twice. Then she picked up the eraser and rubbed the three characters out. A pale gray smudge remained on the paper. She wiped it with her finger; the gray spread, a larger patch.
"It won't come off."
"Don't wipe it." Lu Jibai said. "When you trace over it in pen on the 20th, this patch stays underneath."
At 5 PM, she clipped the three pages into the cardboard folder and laid a ruler on top. Outside the window, light snow began to fall. The water stain on the windowsill volume had dried into a faint yellow edge.
The next day at 10:30, He Xiufen came upstairs.
She didn't unwrap her scarf first—she reached out and touched the radiator to feel the heat before sitting down to finish what she'd come to say.
"Kang Wenying transferred it at 10:07." she said. "That time deposit was withdrawn early. She called me after the transfer went through."
"What did she say?"
"Her younger brother sent two words back."
Shen Zhixia flipped open her notebook. "Which two?"
"Received." He Xiufen said. "Write those two words down too. Money doesn't come alive until it crosses the accounts."
"Still short eighteen thousand."
"Before the 31st." she said. "She also said one more thing today: she's moved back into her mother's room. Last night there was water running through the radiator."
Shen Zhixia wrote that line down too, then pushed the cardboard folder across the table.
He Xiufen turned the pages one by one, slowly. On page three, looking at the two account balances, she pressed her finger on "620." She flipped back to page two and counted how many pages remained in the half-volume seal register.
"What about the annotated legal aid files?"
Shen Zhixia brought the four volumes to the table and spread them beside her drafts.
He Xiufen pulled one out, opened to the cover, and looked at that column: a single "He," two more characters added to the right, then a small line noting the annotator's name. She looked for a while, closed the volume, and held her finger against the edge of the cover.
"The handler column. Who told you to complete it?"
"The files need full names." Shen Zhixia said. "Anyone can check in the future."
"Twenty years of writing one character."
"Adding it is good."
"It is good." she said. "Once it's added, the people who come later will know who handled it."
She stacked the four volumes back together, squared the covers, and flipped to the last page.
The gray patch was visible under the light.
"There was something written here before."
"There was. Erased."
"Erased correctly." He Xiufen picked up the pencil, weighed it in her hand, and set it back beside the ruler. "I won't fill this cell. Whoever it is, they fill it."
"The 16th, she comes in." Lu Jibai said.
"The 16th she comes in, the 17th you fill it." He Xiufen wrapped her scarf around her neck. "The morning of the 20th I'll come count the inventory. Once that's done, my column's all that's left—just a name."
She went downstairs. Her footsteps faded at the second-floor landing, and the roll-up shutter rattled once below.
Shen Zhixia closed the three pages, then flipped back to the last one. Water ran through the radiator, the ruler pressed down on the paper, the line after the last entry empty, that gray patch on the page. The pencil lay beside the ruler, point up.