Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 51 : The Passbook in the Rice Crock

"I'm filling in item three today."

On the morning of April 7, Shen Zhixia slid a page under Window No. 3 at the Enforcement Affairs Center. The footer held a supplementary note. Item three was only two lines: the judgment debtor Hengtong had another case in this court that had already gone through terminated execution, with an enforcement amount of 113,000 yuan and an unpaid amount of 113,000 yuan.

The number display jumped to forty-seven. Liao Hong read the footer first, then went back to the beginning of the main text. The stack of blank Notice of Property Investigation Results forms on the desk was still pinned under the stapler.

"This isn't a lead," he said. "It's our own file."

"I want to see it."

He got up, walked a few steps into the back, and came back with three pages. The corners had pencil file numbers, and the creases from the file cover were deep. The first page was the Case Closure Notice: judgment debtor Hengtong, enforcement amount 113,000 yuan, unpaid 113,000 yuan. The second page was the property investigation results from that year. Two accounts, combined balance zero. The third page was the termination-of-enforcement ruling. The reasoning was one line—after investigation, the judgment debtor had ceased operations and had no assets available for enforcement.

"It went out of business two years ago," she said.

"That's what the paper says." Liao Hong squared the three pages and stapled them. The staple went straight through that line.

"I saw the April 2 page," she said. "Twelve accounts, and not a cent in any of them. When did those twelve accounts empty out?"

"Balances only print for the day. If you want to know when they emptied, you'd have to pull the transaction records one by one. That's not something I can do from this seat."

"Hengtong was already at zero two years ago."

"That's why I said this isn't a lead. It's our own file." He tapped the pen cap against the counter. "Two years ago it was zero. On February 3 this year, someone changed its legal representative. Someone moved its registered address to Linhe Town."

"A company that's shut down—who pressed the fingerprints for it?"

"The company isn't dead." Liao Hong raised his eyes. "The money's somewhere else."

She turned the words over in her mouth.

"Who was the applicant in that case?"

"Lutong Auto Repair Center. They fix trucks." He closed the file cover. "They pursued it for two years, and the last page says the applicant agreed to terminate enforcement. There's no point going to him. What he's holding is the same three pages you're holding."

"Then what should I be looking for?"

"Names." Liao Hong tapped the counter twice with his pen. "I can only check what's under a name—cards, houses, vehicles, shares, money in accounts that hasn't been received yet. You write me a name, and I'll go see what's under it. If the name isn't written on it, I can't find it."

She turned to the last page and stopped at the address field. "No. 173, Shiqiao Village, Linhe Town."

"The address is on the paper."

"I'll go take a look. I'll tell you when I'm back."

Liao Hong called the next number.

[Thud. Terminated execution isn't closing a case. It's just shutting the file.]

[Thud. Money that isn't written under a name is written under a date.]

April 10 was overcast. The bus to Linhe Town left from the east side of the long-distance station: twenty-six yuan, one hour and forty minutes, with stops at four village entrances. The ticket seller counted change in the aisle. In the back row, someone was carrying two chickens, their feet tied with straw twine.

She got off at the bridge. The stone bridge was newly built, two baskets of peanut shells drying on the railing. She asked three people. The third raised a hand and pointed. "The house with the little handcart by the gate."

The courtyard wall was brick, the gate was sheet metal, and an old man sat by the entrance trimming chives, a blue cloth cap washed pale. She crouched down to speak close. He turned his head and said, "Ah?"

"Sir, Hengtong Company—your name is written on it."

"Just lending the name." The chive in his hand snapped in two. "Boss Wang asked me to."

"What do you do at the company?"

"Nothing. Just lend the name. They give me six thousand a year."

"Which year did you lend it?"

"Early spring." He thought for a moment. "When it was cold. February."

"Someone took you into the city to press fingerprints?"

"I went." He tapped five fingers in the air. "Pressed quite a few times. A thick stack of papers."

"What was written on them? Did you read them?"

"I can't read."

The daughter-in-law came out from the kitchen, flour on her apron. She dragged out a plastic stool, then turned to pour water. Shen Zhixia said plain water was fine, and drank two bowls.

"Did the company give him a card, or a passbook?"

The old man shook his head. The daughter-in-law wiped her hands on her apron and went inside. In the corner of the room was a rice crock, a narrow board pressed down on its lid. She lifted the board, felt under the lid, and pulled out a plastic bag wrapped around a red-covered passbook, its edges worn soft.

"It's in his name." She spread the passbook on the little table. "I can't read much, but when he brought it home, I read it to him."

She turned the passbook page by page. One month per line, every line the same.

"The fifth," the daughter-in-law said. "The fifth of every month. The money comes right on time."

April 5, 11,800 yuan. March 5, 11,800 yuan. February 5, 11,800 yuan. She kept flipping back. The numbers sat in neat little columns, printed by machine. She turned to the very first line at the top: November 5 the year before last, also 11,800 yuan.

"When was this passbook opened?"

"During the heavy rains the year before last," the daughter-in-law said. "Old Wang took him to town to open the account. Said they'd put a little money in first."

She copied this line into her notebook too. The passbook was opened the year before last; the name was changed in February this year—first came the account, then the borrowed name.

"And withdrawals?"

"The day after the date, he goes into town to withdraw it," the daughter-in-law said. "Takes it all out, not a cent left. His legs are bad, so I walk him there."

"And after he withdraws it?"

"Someone waits by the gate," the old man said.

"Who waits?"

"Don't know them," he said. "Mostly people in vans. Different every time. Boss Wang sent them."

"The money goes to them?"

"It does."

Shen Zhixia opened the hardcover notebook on her lap and wrote down the dates, amounts, and withdrawals for those three months, then drew a small circle beside them. When she finished, she closed the passbook and asked one last question: "Has the family ever spent any of this money?"

"Not one cent," the daughter-in-law said. "The six thousand a year he gets is enough."

11,800 times twelve was 141,600. The old man got 6,000. She balanced the two numbers in her head and looked up at the corn drying by the gate—only two rows. When the wind passed, the husks rustled.

"This money isn't for you," she said. "It just passes through your hands."

The old man didn't understand. He gathered the cleaned chives into a pile.

She made a page of interview notes. Who asked, who answered, one line each. The date, the time, the courtyard gate, and the position of the table inside were all written down. When she finished, she read it aloud to him. He nodded at each line. When he pressed his fingerprint, he pressed hard, the tip of his finger sliding half a finger-width across the paper. The daughter-in-law pressed one too.

"Can I take the passbook with me?"

The daughter-in-law drew the passbook to her chest.

"I'm not taking it." She wrote her phone number on a piece of paper. "I took photos. The passbook stays here with you. If anyone asks about this account, have your son call me."

The daughter-in-law tucked the paper behind the wall calendar.

The little handcart in the yard was rusted, half a sack of fertilizer sitting in its bed. As she stepped out the gate, the system chimed once in her ear—just once.

[Thud. He can't read, but he knows money comes to the house on the fifth of every month.]

At noon on April 11, the smell of noodles cooking downstairs from Zhengping Firm drifted up the stairs. He Xiufen spread a piece of graph paper on the long table and wrote four names in a vertical list:

Hurricane Express

Sutong

Jianhua

Hengtong

Below the four names she drew three small squares—three addresses. Then she drew a separate line out, and at the end of the line she drew a crooked little card.

"Four companies, three addresses, one card." She clicked the cap back onto her pen. "The file two years ago said it had shut down. On May 5 this year, it's still going to put 11,800 into an old man in his seventies' card."

Shen Zhixia handed over the copied pages and the interview notes. He Xiufen read slowly. At the line "someone waits by the gate," her finger paused on the paper.

"Did you bring anything inside with you?"

"Two pounds of apples. I carried them to the village entrance, but not in through the gate," she said. "I drank two bowls of plain water. Round-trip fare was forty-six. I noted it."

"Good that you noted it." He Xiufen pushed the notes back. "If you'd gone through a witness's door carrying something even once, the other side could wipe out that whole page with one sentence."

She pointed at the fingerprint. "What can this thing affect?"

"Me."

"It can affect you, not that." He Xiufen drew a circle around the word "card." "The line in the passbook was copied by you. The fingerprint was pressed by him. What the court needs is the paper printed by the bank—the payer, the account number, the date, every word exact."

"I know."

"Then go get it. But here's the hurdle: right now he's not a party to your case. If you want to look into his account, you first have to turn him from a name into a judgment debtor—otherwise, when you go after it, they'll just say, 'It's my money. What's it to you?'"

"Add him as a judgment debtor."

"Add him." He Xiufen turned the paper around to face her. "The day you file the application to add him, call me. I'll look it over first. Before you file, you need something that makes the judge believe the money on that card came out of Hengtong, not from Wang Deshan."

Shen Zhixia wrote four words in the corner of the paper: Nail down the card first.

"One more thing." He Xiufen tapped another square. "Sutong's and Jianhua's general deregistration notices are already forty-some days in. The notice period is running faster than your case."

"I know."

"May fifth." He Xiufen tapped that square with the end of her pen. "The next payment comes in on that date. If you're going to file something, get it in before then."

Shen Zhixia recorded the forty-six-yuan fare in her hardcover notebook and paused as she turned the page. He Xiufen carried the bowls and chopsticks downstairs. At the stairwell, she said half a sentence: "After the sign came down, that side never passed you any more papers."

It took her two seconds to realize who she meant.

"Whatever he passes me, I'll take," she said.

He Xiufen didn't say more.

A horn sounded beyond the iron railing. Ma Jianjun didn't come upstairs. He propped up his electric scooter and looked up, shouting, "Did you find anything?"

"Found an account."

"Whose name is on it?"

"An old man in his seventies."

He kicked down the kickstand and stood thinking for a moment. "That money isn't his."

At dusk, her phone rang. A number she hadn't saved.

"Are you the one who came to my house the day before yesterday?"

"Yes."

"This afternoon someone called my dad." There was wind on the other end; he muffled the receiver as he spoke. "Asked whether that account was still in use. Also asked whether he'd be withdrawing next month."

"Did he say who it was?"

"No. The number was from the city."

She hung up, flipped to today's page in the hardcover notebook, and after "April 11" added a line: Someone asked about the account. Then she turned the page. On the new page she wrote only a date—May 5th.