Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 308: Three Hundred Thousand

At eleven o'clock on December 16th, when the smell of scallion oil wafted up from downstairs, Li Huilan came upstairs.

She carried two things: a half-worn thermos and a stack of rolled documents bound with twine in a cross pattern. Same padded jacket as before, but the sleeve protectors were gone this time.

She stood at the top of the stairs, looking into the room. All three desks were in use—He Xiufen's on the inner side, Lu Jibai's by the window, and the small one against the wall covered with Shen Zhixia's three pages of draft lists.

"Which one's my desk?"

"The one in the storage room," He Xiufen said. "I'll unlock the door; you carry it out, then I'll lock up. Don't touch the boxes."

The long desk in the storage room sat behind seventeen cardboard boxes. Shen Zhixia and Lu Jibai carried it out. He Xiufen waited until the desk cleared the doorway, then snapped the lock shut. The lacquer on the surface was worn white in patches; one corner bore a scorched white ring, smooth to the touch. One leg was half an inch short. Lu Jibai dug half an old magazine out of a drawer, folded it three times, and wedged it underneath.

Shen Zhixia wiped it down with a damp cloth. The wiped areas came up dark; the untouched areas held a film of dust that streaked under the cloth.

He Xiufen stood at the doorway, watching for a moment.

"This desk's been with me over twenty years," she said. "Bought it the year I opened the firm."

Li Huilan positioned the desk against the east wall, leaving a walkable aisle between it and the other three desks. She tested the height, crouched down to examine the leg propped on the magazine, pressed it with her finger.

"I can manage it," she said.

She set the thermos on the corner of the desk, slid the stack of documents into the drawer, then pulled a dark blue booklet from an inner pocket of her jacket. She opened it and pushed it toward Shen Zhixia.

A practice certificate. Third line on the inner page, under "Practice Institution," the name was freshly printed: Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. Beside it, the date: December 16th.

"Stamped at ten fifty," she said. "One window at the Bar Association, one at the Justice Bureau—two trips. Second trip they asked if the firm had changed personnel. I said yes."

He Xiufen took her own certificate from the drawer and laid it on the same desk.

Two certificates, third line bearing the same name.

"The register," He Xiufen said.

Shen Zhixia took the hardcover register from the top shelf of the steel cabinet and opened it to the last page. That page held space for four names, starting from 2004, with many blank slots in between. The last two lines were Lu Jibai's and hers—one in dark ink, one in light.

She picked up the pen and copied from the certificate: date, name, practice certificate number. When she finished, she read it aloud.

"Li Huilan. Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm. December 16th."

"Well read," Li Huilan said. "From now on, that line has to hold up under scrutiny."

[Thud. Three people, three names. One page still missing.]

That line flared briefly before her eyes, then faded. She closed the register, blew the dust off the cover, returned it to the cabinet, and set the door to the position where the latch could slide home.

At eleven forty, someone downstairs called that the noodles were ready.

The four of them went down and sat at the square table in the back. He Xiufen brought four bowls. Li Huilan's had an egg tucked at the bottom.

"First bowl," He Xiufen said.

"First bowl's on you," Li Huilan said. "From now on, I pay."

"Then you pay." He Xiufen pushed the vinegar bottle toward her.

Li Huilan fished eight yuan from her pocket and set it under the vinegar bottle. He Xiufen didn't touch the money; she turned and went for her own bowl.

Halfway through the noodles, Li Huilan mentioned she had a hearing on the twenty-ninth and needed to file one more document before New Year's. She asked if the office copier was still that ancient thing. He Xiufen said it was—it jammed in winter, and you had to lift the back cover when it did. Li Huilan said she'd lift it herself tomorrow.

At nine thirty the next morning, the second floor of Zhengping Firm, four people around the long desk.

Three things lay spread on the table: bank statements from two kraft paper envelopes, one red passbook, and a stack of cut white paper.

"Money first," He Xiufen said. "This hurdle is called three hundred thousand in assets. Write a number out of thin air and they'll bounce it back the moment they look—then you start the queue over. It needs a source. Count it item by item."

She smoothed out the bank statements, pressing the four corners with her fingertips.

"Basic account: forty-two thousand one hundred sixty-three."

Shen Zhixia wrote it on a fresh page.

"Legal aid subsidy account: six hundred twenty."

Shen Zhixia wrote, then added the two figures and read them back: "Forty-two thousand seven hundred eighty-three."

"Now the property," He Xiufen said.

She pulled a handwritten list from under the desk. The paper edges were rough, one item per line, the characters written larger than usual.

"Long desk, one. Chairs, seven. Steel cabinet, one. Old file cabinet, one. That computer." She tapped the paper with her finger as she read. "The certificate in the frame doesn't count as money. Neither do the keys."

"What's the valuation?" Lu Jibai asked.

"Desks, chairs, and cabinets priced as used goods. The computer only boots every other try—takes three presses." He Xiufen said. "I calculated it three times last night. Twelve thousand."

"Twelve thousand." Shen Zhixia recorded it and looked up. "Let me verify: forty-two thousand seven hundred eighty-three, plus twelve thousand, is fifty-four thousand seven hundred eighty-three."

"Correct. That's the firm's entire net worth." He Xiufen flipped open the passbook, turned it around, and pushed it across the desk. "The rest comes from this."

The last line in the passbook showed a balance of one hundred ninety thousand four hundred.

"My share: two hundred thousand," she said. "The forty-two thousand seven hundred eighty-three in the account, plus twelve thousand in property—fifty-four thousand seven hundred eighty-three combined. Short one hundred forty-five thousand two hundred seventeen. I'm going to the bank this afternoon to transfer it into the basic account. After the transfer, this book will have forty-five thousand one hundred eighty-three left. Enough for my noodles."

Shen Zhixia wrote everything down, stroke by stroke. When she reached the figure one hundred forty-five thousand two hundred seventeen, she checked it again and copied it at the top of the first page.

"You." He Xiufen lifted her chin toward Lu Jibai.

"One hundred fifty thousand," he said. "Arrives this afternoon."

"Where's the money?"

"I resigned as partner on July 12th. The account was settled at the end of November." He paused half a beat. "Haven't touched it."

"Good that you haven't. Even if you had, it's still your money."

"Fifty thousand," Li Huilan said.

The room went quiet. Water gurgled in the radiator.

"My fifty thousand—twenty years of sitting in a room in the east side of the city is what made it," Li Huilan said. "More, I can't offer. Less, and it wouldn't be a proper entrance."

"Fifty thousand is enough," He Xiufen said. "By share. Whoever puts in how much gets signed to paper. Future dividends follow this split; buyouts follow the same math. No rule in this firm that whoever's money is bigger has the bigger say. Big talk makes thin paper."

Shen Zhixia listed the three figures downward, totaled them, and let the pen tip rest on the final zero.

"Two hundred thousand, one hundred fifty thousand, fifty thousand. Four hundred thousand."

"Four hundred thousand."

"Thirty-thousand threshold. Crossed by a hundred thousand."

"A hundred thousand over isn't comfortable," He Xiufen said. "The first year runs entirely on this. Rent, utilities, paper, phone—all out of this pot. Nobody takes money out of the firm to go drinking."

"When does it arrive?" Lu Jibai asked.

"I'm going this afternoon," He Xiufen said.

"Me this afternoon."

"Me tomorrow morning at eight," Li Huilan said. "The moment the branch opens."

"Tomorrow morning we have to go submit the documents."

"Then I'll walk in the moment they open." Li Huilan said. "I don't transfer money on my phone. Money that leaves my hand needs a stamped receipt from someone behind a counter."

[Thud. Four hundred thousand. Threshold: three hundred thousand.]

Shen Zhixia finished the line, turned the paper around so all three could read it. Each nodded after reading.

"Second item: the person in charge," He Xiufen said. "The responsible person is chosen from among the partners and must have at least three years of practice experience. I nominate Jibai."

"I agree," Li Huilan said. "Outside, he signs his name. If the firm gets into trouble, it's his name on the line. I've checked this provision."

"I agree," Lu Jibai said. "Then I'll take over the seal usage register this afternoon."

"Take it," He Xiufen said. "From now on, one use of the seal, one entry, four items: date, purpose, handler, where the original goes. I used it for twenty years writing nothing but 'He'—that column ends with me. It doesn't break again."

"My column—write it clearly," she went on, her voice not raised. "I'm not in the responsible-person column. No new cases, no desk duty."

"Should the characters be written large?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"Write them small. Don't make it look like you're elevating me."

Shen Zhixia wrote entry by entry. At the fourth line, she looked up and asked: "How many copies of the partnership agreement?"

"Five," Lu Jibai said. "One for each of the three partners, one for the firm, one filed with the Justice Bureau."

"Articles of association, how many?"

"One."

"Where does the contribution date go?"

"Page two of the agreement, right after the contribution amount, add one sentence: contributed in full within three days of signing." He said. "We won't wait three days. Today and tomorrow, everything lands."

At ten twenty, five copies of the agreement lay spread across the middle of the long desk, page aligned to page, the corners as even as if machine-cut.

Lu Jibai signed first. He took a black pen from an inner pocket, unscrewed it, and wrote the three characters of his name—quick strokes, clean finish. When he was done, he stepped back half a pace so He Xiufen could sit squarely.

He Xiufen put on her glasses, pressed the temples into her ears, then set pen to paper.

The three characters of "He Xiufen" came out larger than her usual writing. On the final stroke of "Xiu," she paused and dragged the last horizontal line long, past the edge of its grid, into the neighboring cell.

When she finished, she sat looking at it, once, then again.

"Twenty years, always signed just 'He,'" she said. "Today I signed the whole thing."

Li Huilan signed last. She studied the previous two signatures, one by one, before picking up the pen. Her writing was slow, stroke separated from stroke. When she finished, she turned the paper half a circle to check if the ink had bled through.

"Signing third—same as walking in the door," she said.

The end of the articles of association also required signatures. The three of them shared the same pen, one line each, signing faster than on the agreement.

Shen Zhixia opened the hard clipboard and drew out the top page. It was the draft list written on the fourteenth. At the end, a new page began with only three characters and a colon: Responsible Person:

The space after the colon was blank. A faint gray patch on the paper showed where an eraser had been.

"Does this page get signed too?" she asked.

"This page doesn't get signed." He Xiufen pushed the page across the desk to Lu Jibai. "This page gets filled in."

Lu Jibai uncapped the pen and set the tip after the colon.

He didn't write fast. As the strokes pressed down, that patch of gray lifted slightly, then was pressed back under the fresh ink. When the three characters of "Lu Jibai" were complete, he lifted the pen, leaving a faint sheen of ink on the paper.

Shen Zhixia's gaze lingered on that spot. The gray was gone—pinned under the characters.

[Thud. Responsible-person column: filled.]

"That cell sat empty for three days," He Xiufen said. "Whoever takes it, fills it. Once it's filled, it's right."

"When tracing on the twentieth, this patch will be under the characters," Lu Jibai said.

"Under is good," He Xiufen said. "Now no one can rub it out."

For the meeting minutes, Shen Zhixia wrote the final entry, then drew a signature block at the bottom with four cells: one for each of the three partners, the last for the recorder.

He Xiufen took the page and read it through from the top: three attendees; contributions of two hundred thousand, one hundred fifty thousand, and fifty thousand, totaling four hundred thousand; partnership agreement executed in five copies; articles of association in one; Lu Jibai elected as responsible person; He Xiufen not in the responsible-person column, no new cases, no desk duty. When she finished, she set the paper back on the desk.

"Who signs as recorder?"

"Me."

"Then write your name," He Xiufen said. "This page has three partners and one recorder. Whoever recorded it—if something goes wrong later, there's someone to ask."

Shen Zhixia wrote "Recorder: Shen Zhixia" in the final cell, dated December 17th.

The three signed the signature block in order—He Xiufen, Lu Jibai, Li Huilan—each signature larger than the last.

The agreements lay spread on the desk to dry for a while. Lu Jibai separated three copies, rolled them into tubes, and passed one to Li Huilan, set one by He Xiufen's hand, and put one in the drawer by the window.

He Xiufen picked up her copy but didn't roll it. She held it open, looking at the signature block on the last page.

Water gurgled in the radiator. Downstairs, someone was chopping filling for dumplings—a muffled sound, steady and rhythmic. The window glass was fogged white with her own breath.

"Tomorrow morning, Justice Bureau." She folded the agreement in half, slipped it into her canvas bag, and stood. "Eight o'clock, downstairs. Anyone late takes the bus."

She walked to the stairwell, then looked back.

"The documents are all ready. Missing one page and they'll bounce the whole thing back. Every bounce means another wait."

She went down. Her footsteps faded at the second-floor landing. The rolling door downstairs clattered once.

Shen Zhixia picked up that final draft page and held it to the light from the window, studying it for a long time. After "Responsible Person," the three characters were black and solid. The gray patch lay beneath the strokes, invisible. The paper looked flatter than before.

She flipped through her notebook. The last page was blank, so she wrote on it: December 17th. Three people signed on one piece of paper.

She closed the notebook, dropped the pen into the holder, and stood to shut the window.