Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 31 : Count Everyone In

The Filing Receipt slid out from under the window, its edges curled.

In the "number of items" column it said "Three Items," the strokes thick, like they'd been traced twice.

Shen Zhixia pressed the receipt against the counter. "There's also an application in there."

The clerk behind the window took the receipt back, added "One application" beneath "Three Items," and drew a little check mark before setting the pen down. "Next time, write it all in at once."

The binding edge ran along the top: three forms, the Data Recovery Statement, and the checksum from the Investigation Transcript. She had written four lines under the proof purpose for the first group—July 1 through September 30, how the system dispatched orders, how it deducted money, and which account the money came out of. The second item was the application, requesting three documents: the Delivery Service Cooperation Contract between the Platform and Jiangzhou Sutong, the agreement between Sutong and the Jianhua Delivery Service Department, and the activation and authorization records for the backend accounts. She counted the pages three times. The third time, her finger stopped on the signature on the last page. Engineer Ruan. Written as neatly as print.

On her way out, she glanced at the date on the announcement screen. Five days until the nineteenth.

[Thud. Three forms. One row is his. No one has read the rest of the rows yet.]

The wind was sharp on the steps. She stepped back against the wall. A voice message sat in her phone.

Forty-seven seconds. The first twenty-odd were all wind, Xiao Duan probably pushing his scooter as he walked. In the second half, he lowered his voice: "Sis, that day when the station told us to register as sole proprietorships, it was in the group chat, all voice messages, one after another. Nothing typed. The group fell apart last month. I've only got two messages left on my phone. I deleted the rest."

She listened again. Paper could verify the words, but the voice was proof of the person saying them—and for something shouted in the group chat, they needed a second person willing to hand over their phone. She replied: ask around, see who else riding for the station saved them.

A while later, Xiao Duan came back: asked three people. Two had left the group. One changed phones last month.

She added a line in her notebook: To be proven—registering as a sole proprietorship was required by the station.

She flipped to the end of the list and called Lao Song. He didn't answer quickly. First a "hello," then: "Is this about the money?"

"It's about what was said in the group chat that day. You're in the group."

"I am." A lighter clicked on Lao Song's end. "But I've already signed that paper. I'm not showing up in court."

"I'm not asking you to show up. That voice message, do you remember what day it was?"

A car horn blared past the intersection, swallowing a stretch of the call. Once it quieted, Lao Song finally said: "Mid-November, around the tenth or so. The day after it went out, the agent was sitting at that folding table in the station."

She wrote that down too: November. A folding table had been set up inside the station.

Her phone buzzed again. He Xiufen.

"Did you file it?"

"Filed. The receipt lists four items."

"His afternoon—what time?"

"Three. I've picked the place."

"Where?"

"The noodle house."

No response from the other end.

"You tell him to come. You treat him to a bowl of noodles."

"No rush this afternoon. If he's got something to say, it's worth a bowl of noodles."

"Save me half the soup," He Xiufen said. "Don't forget what I told you yesterday."

"I won't."

At 2:40, she wiped down the last two empty tables and put the pickled vegetable dishes back into the glass cupboard. Her notebook was open on the table. She'd written three lines in advance: 1. How many contracts, and who signed with whom; 2. Who decided on those ninety days; 3. Who he's protecting. When she reached the third line, she paused, then left it there anyway.

He Xiufen carried two stacks of bowls into the back kitchen, untied her apron, and before heading upstairs tossed out: "I'll be upstairs doing the accounts. Call and I'll come down."

The door curtain rattled as the wall clock hit 2:59.

He wore a dark gray overcoat, his scarf tied neither high nor low, and carried nothing in his hands. She set her pen down beside the notebook.

"Sit."

He sat, folded his coat neatly, and draped it over the back of the chair. She went into the back kitchen and brought out two bowls of noodles, same toppings.

"The noodles are eight yuan," she said. "You're eating; I'm paying."

"Thank you."

He Xiufen turned back from the foot of the stairs and stood on those two steps, sizing him up.

"So you're the one from Hengzheng."

"Lu Jibai."

"Lu, is it." He Xiufen wiped her hands on her apron. "The noodles get gummy if you don't pull them apart in time." That said, she headed upstairs, her footsteps climbing one step at a time.

He picked up his chopsticks but didn't eat right away. First he nudged the pinch of cilantro at the rim of the bowl aside, his movements light, as if straightening a stack of paper. She watched, pen tip resting on the page.

"Let's be clear," he said. "I didn't come today to discuss money."

"Last time, your side made an offer."

"This time there's no offer."

"Then why did you come?"

"To say three things."

She uncapped the pen. "Go ahead."

"First, contracts." He stirred his noodles. "Between the Platform and Jiangzhou Sutong, there's a Delivery Service Cooperation Contract. Between Sutong and the Jianhua Delivery Service Department, there's a Station Operation Contracting Agreement. Both exist. If you want them, apply through proper procedure."

"I filed this morning."

His hand slowed. "Filed earlier than the nineteenth."

"Both of those are real," she said. "A business license created on November 20, testifying for September's unpaid wages. You're taking a piece of paper signed in November to prove who dispatched workers and who deducted money in September."

"The contract has a retroactive clause."

"A retroactive clause may bind both parties. It doesn't bind the riders."

He looked up.

"In September, riders registered on the Platform. They clocked in against the station's address on their GPS. Orders were assigned by the system. Deductions came out of Platform accounts." She turned a page. "Only on November 20 did the station start telling people to register as sole proprietorships. The exact words were: if you don't, starting January next year you won't receive any orders."

"Who recorded those words?"

"It was said in the group chat. Voice messages. Nothing typed."

"Then it's as good as never said."

"It will exist." She pressed those three words hard into the page, the pen tip poking a tiny dot into the paper.

He lowered his head and ate, slowly. She waited until he swallowed, then kept going.

"At registration, the pop-up came from the Platform itself: 'Please confirm that you possess business entity qualifications.' The developer was also the Platform."

"I acknowledge it." He said, "Registration occurred on the Platform, the pop-up appeared on the Platform—those two things I acknowledge. But 'voluntary' is a legal term, not a state of mind. A pop-up can prove it gave notice. It can't prove it coerced."

"Then what needs to be proven is coercion."

"Yes. That does."

He lifted the bowl, took a sip of soup, and set it down.

"Why isn't the plaintiff himself here today?"

"He's out delivering."

"If you win the case, he gets thirty yuan and a piece of paper." He said, "Tomorrow that sign changes to a different name. The door stays the same door."

She wrote that down word for word, pen tip braced against the paper, unmoving. "Then why are you still writing the defense for it?"

"The defense writes only what can be proven." He said, "That the riders were pressured by the station to register as sole proprietorships—I know that."

She looked up at him. He said it flat, the way one reads off a number. For the first time, she heard from this man something his client would never let him admit.

"Second thing." He laid his chopsticks back across the rim of the bowl. "You asked about that number, who decided on ninety days. The statement my side submitted—I didn't write it. By the time I got it, it was already written, already stamped."

"You reviewed it."

"I reviewed it."

"If you reviewed it, you should've caught the issue."

"I couldn't catch anything." He pushed the bowl half an inch forward, back to the center of the table. "Every step after this one depends on paper. Once the paper's gone, nobody wins."

"Including your own side?"

"Including my own side."

She wrote that down, and without stopping the pen: "When will the reconsideration be filed?"

"Within two days."

"And you're telling me this."

"You'd know it without me saying it." He said, "Administrative Reconsideration doesn't stay enforcement. Don't stop working on your end. That's as far as I can go."

She closed the notebook. "I have one more question. You can answer or not."

"Ask."

"In this case, who are you protecting?"

He didn't answer immediately. Two condiment bottles sat on the table. He reached out and nudged the outer one inward, lining it up perfectly with the other.

"I represent Hurricane Express (Jiangzhou) Network Technology Co., Ltd." He said, "Full legal name."

"Hurricane Express wouldn't ask you how long backups are kept."

"The people who would ask don't ask." He said, "I ask for him."

She understood the first half of that sentence. The second half, she didn't.

She wanted to ask again, but he was already standing, shaking out his coat. From the inside pocket he took out money, pressed eight yuan under the vinegar bottle—the bill folded into a neat square, all four edges flattened.

"I'll pay for my own bowl."

"This meal's on me."

"I don't owe you anything in this case, and I don't owe you anything in this bowl." He said, "What did you plan to answer for the third thing?"

"What?"

"How many people do you plan to sue on behalf of, in this case?"

"One."

He nodded. "Mm." And that sound carried no follow-up. He walked to the door curtain, hand on the edge of the plastic sheet, and stopped.

"If you're going to sue the Platform, don't just sue the Platform." He said, "Count everyone in."

The curtain dropped. A gust of cold air poured in. The wall clock read 3:21.

She sat back down in her chair. Half of her bowl of noodles remained, a thin skin of oil forming across the soup's surface.

He Xiufen came down from upstairs, holding half a page of reconciled accounts.

"He left?"

"He left."

"Did you ask who he's protecting?"

"I did. He said he represents the defendant."

He Xiufen stacked the bowls with a clatter. "Then he didn't answer."

Shen Zhixia picked out two things he'd said over the noodles and recited them: one, the reconsideration would be filed within two days; two, once the paper's gone, nobody wins. He Xiufen wiped the table twice with her rag and pulled it back.

"The people protecting a case and the people protecting paper aren't making the same money." She said, "Who that last line was meant for—figure it out yourself."

"He also said something earlier—keep everyone in."

He Xiufen pulled the eight yuan out from under the vinegar bottle, held it to the light, then stuffed it into Shen Zhixia's hand. "Sue them one by one, and he'll settle you one by one. Get a whole roomful of people together, and he has to go back and rebuild the machine."

Shen Zhixia carried her notebook upstairs. On the table by the window lay the leftover checklist from the morning's filing. She opened the hardcover notebook to the second page and wrote three lines: 1. Find who's still in the group and hasn't deleted the voice messages. 2. Count how many accounts under Chengnan Station No. 1 are owed money. 3. Find out who carried that folding table in. She left blank space beneath the three lines—that station list on the disc scrolled forever. The people had to be counted one by one.

[Thud. Chengnan Station No. 1, Ma Jianjun—that half-drawn stroke has now moved one stroke further down.]