Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 53 : Forty Thousand

The smell of scallion oil had just started drifting up from downstairs when Wang Yuhai climbed the stairs.

Around fifty, dark gray jacket, hair neatly combed, leather shoes polished, with a ring of dried mud caked around the uppers. When Shen Zhixia opened the door, she saw the shoes first, then the face.

He Xiufen was peeling garlic at the far end of the long table. She looked up once and didn't get up.

Wang Yuhai stood in the doorway for a moment and looked around the room—the long table with peeling paint, the old papers pressed under the glass top, the faded sign on the wall. He said, "Zhengping Firm. So this is it."

"This is it." She pulled out a chair. "Sit."

He didn't sit right away. He set his briefcase on the table, pulled the zipper halfway open, and slid out a printed sheet.

There was only one line printed on the paper: Forty thousand yuan, in full.

"The judgment says 36,406," he said. "The delay interest and the enforcement fee—I'll accept all of it. Round it to forty thousand, and it can be paid into the court's account tomorrow morning."

She poured a cup of plain water and pushed it to his hand. He didn't drink.

"Terms."

"Two things." He tapped the paper with his index finger. "That merchant ID—stop digging into it. And that joinder thing—don't file the paper."

"There's one more."

"That one doesn't count as a condition." He smiled, thin. "That old man in Linhe Town—don't drag him into this. He's seventy, can't read, and he's hard of hearing. If you put him in front of a court, he might not even be able to answer what his own name is."

"I went to Shiqiao Village last week."

Wang Yuhai's finger stopped on the paper.

"I drank two bowls of plain water at his place," she said. "He can't read, so I read it to him sentence by sentence. He nodded after each sentence. He pressed the fingerprint himself."

"None of that counts." He pulled the paper back half an inch. "The fingerprint, the photos, those two lines you copied—none of it counts. You have a judgment. You have the names of four defendants. Go enforce those four names. Don't use an old man as your way in."

"One of those four names is Hengtong. I at least need to see where Hengtong's money comes from."

"What have you seen?"

"One acquiring merchant ID, opened October 17 the year before last." She counted off item by item. "Settlement account under the name Wang Deshan, Jiangzhou Rural Commercial Bank Linhe Branch, account ending 6342. Eleven thousand eight hundred yuan transferred on the fifth of every month. The next one is May 5."

Wang Yuhai said nothing. He folded the printed page in half and tucked it back into his briefcase.

[Thud. When a man is willing to pay out of his own pocket, first see which pocket he's protecting.]

"Forty thousand." He stood and pushed the chair back half an inch. "You nod, and by tomorrow morning the money will be in the accounts of all twenty people. You don't nod, and the money just lies in the court account, day after day. Who exactly are you doing this for?"

"The twenty names are in the judgment, not on that paper of yours."

"What twenty people want is money."

"What they want is money in their own cards." She looked at him. "Before you pay out a cent, you'll first have twenty people sign—sign a paper saying they won't come after anyone else later."

This time Wang Yuhai actually laughed, very briefly. "At your age, how do you talk so much like an old lawyer?"

"I have a teacher," she said. "The one peeling garlic over there."

He Xiufen didn't look up. A bit of garlic skin flicked off her fingertips and landed on the grid paper.

Wang Yuhai looked at her for two seconds, picked up his briefcase, and walked to the stairway, then stopped. The car downstairs was still running. The driver hadn't come up.

"Attorney Shen," he said, "do the math. Forty thousand split among twenty people is 1,820 each, in their accounts tomorrow. Make them wait another month—and if you lose a month from now, they'll remember who made them wait."

"They all have good memories," she said.

He went downstairs. His leather shoes fell on the wooden stairs, the sound dropping step by step. As the car below pulled away, he looked back through the rear window at the Zhengping Firm sign.

He Xiufen pushed the rest of the garlic aside and came over, turning the grid paper straight. On the page were four names, three addresses, one card sketched at a tilt, and beside the card the newly added "merchant ID" still there. She tapped the card with the end of her pen.

"The account was frozen for one day, and he came upstairs."

"He's not wrong. The money really could arrive tomorrow," Shen Zhixia said, sitting down.

"If the money arrives, the road disappears." He Xiufen moved the pen point up and stopped it on the four names. "He's willing to pay out of his own pocket to settle Hengtong's debt—remember that sentence. His pocket and Hengtong's pocket—he's the one sewing them together."

"Freeze the account, and it hurts."

"Only the person who feels the pain will sit down at the table." He Xiufen finished the unfinished sentence. "The passbook hasn't been frozen yet, so he still dares to bargain with you."

That night she sorted the matter into a message and sent it to the rider group: Today someone came and said he would pay the money for the four defendants. The condition is that twenty people sign a settlement and, after signing, don't keep pursuing it.

Voice messages dropped in one after another. Deng Wei asked, "How many people sign?" She replied, "Twenty."

The next one was Ma Jianjun's, a dozen or so seconds, with motor vehicle noise in the background: "I don't want him paying this money. That little stir-fry place on Back Street pays two hundred forty-eight a month, and they've been paying for two years. If I sign today and take 1,820, tomorrow they'll still have to pay."

She set her phone face down on the table and opened the Unsettled Ledger. The half line "Chengnan Station No. 1, Ma Jianjun" was still where it had been, and the small stroke after it hadn't lengthened any further over the past few days.

April 20, 9:00 a.m., the court's west building, the interview room in the inner part of the Enforcement Affairs Center.

The room was small. One table. On one side sat Liao Hong and the court clerk; on the other, a single chair. A stack of blank notices lay on the table, with a stapler weighing down one corner. The red light on the camera in the corner was on. Liao Hong first said a few words to the camera, stating the date, the case, and the people present.

Wang Yuhai was led in by someone. He wore the same jacket and carried four kraft-paper file envelopes. On entering, he looked first at the camera, then at the chair. When he sat down, he stacked the four envelopes on his lap.

"Wang Yuhai," Liao Hong said. "You were asked to come today not because you are a judgment debtor in this enforcement case. Your name appears on Hengtong's filed business license, in the handler column of the merchant materials, and in the approver column on that cleanup work order from Yunfan Cloud Computing. I want to hear you explain these things."

"The business registry changed on February 3," Wang Yuhai said. "I'm not the legal representative now."

"I've reviewed the change. Matters from before the change are still yours."

Liao Hong pushed a page to the middle of the table. It was the first page of the reply from the payment company.

"This acquiring merchant ID under Hengtong—from the time it was opened until now, the settlement account has been in the name of Wang Deshan. Did you know that?"

"I don't handle financial matters."

"The handler's signature on the merchant materials—is it yours?"

"I don't remember."

"On December 10 last year, on the Yunfan Cloud Computing cleanup work order, the approver was you."

"I don't remember."

[Thud. A person can forget something very thoroughly, so long as he has to forget it once more every year.]

"Then let me mention a few things you don't have to think about." Shen Zhixia pushed the second page of the reply and a one-page copy side by side to the middle of the table. Liao Hong pulled the original from the case file and laid it beside them. "On October 17 the year before last, this account was opened. This court has another case in which Hengtong is the judgment debtor. It ended in Terminated Execution two years ago. The ruling says, 'It has ceased operations and has no property available for enforcement under its name.' A company that has been shut down for more than two years—who opened the account?"

"The company has its own people."

"The name in the handler column is yours."

"I sign a lot of things. A dozen or so a day."

"On the passbook, from the first transaction to April 5 of this year, there are eighteen entries, 212,400 in total." She pressed her finger on the last line of that reply page. "This is the paper from the payment company, for the most recent twelve months."

Wang Yuhai looked down at the table. Twelve rows, each row 11,800 yuan, the last row April 5. He looked at it for longer than a passing glance.

"Who the money was transferred to, I don't know."

"The one on May 5—who are you planning to have withdraw it?"

"That's Hengtong's business."

"Hengtong's current legal representative is surnamed Wang, seventy years old, living at No. 173 Shiqiao Village, Linhe Town."

Wang Yuhai raised his eyes to her, his gaze pausing on her face for a moment. "Then go ask him."

Then he moved the four kraft-paper envelopes from his lap to the table and opened them one by one, one company per envelope, lining them up in a row.

"Four companies. Each has its own accounts, each files its own taxes." He said, "If you want to audit the books, go audit them. The names are all on file with the business registry and the tax bureau. If you want money, go after these four names."

Liao Hong pushed the outermost envelope back half an inch. "We won't audit the accounts here. Where the money comes in and where it goes out—that's what I want to see. Four envelopes, one address, one account, one passbook."

Shen Zhixia pulled two pages from her folder and handed them over. The cover line read: Application to Add Judgment Debtors.

"The requests are two lines," she said. "First line: add Wang Yuhai as a judgment debtor in this case, bearing liability for satisfying the debt established by the judgment. Second line: add Wang Deshan."

Liao Hong flipped through the two pages and looked up. "For Wang Yuhai, what's your basis?"

"From Hengtong's founding until now, the articles of association, the shareholder register, and all the change-of-registration records are in the business registry's internal files. I haven't seen them," she said. "I'm asking the court to retrieve them. Under the rules for a one-person limited liability company, the shareholder has to prove that the company's assets are separate from his own before he can avoid liability. That proof has to come from him."

"What about Wang Deshan?"

"He's not with Hengtong, and he's not on the judgment. But that passbook under his name is Hengtong's acquiring settlement account. Money goes in under his name, and a day later it's all withdrawn, not a cent left. The passbook sits on the lid of the rice jar. A company moving over a hundred thousand a year in operating income through one person's private account—I want that person's name in this case too."

The court clerk typed for a while. Liao Hong pressed the two pages into a folder and pressed down the corner.

"Two names. For one, we'll first look at the license and internal records; for the other, we'll first look at the account flows." He said, "The second one's foundation is thin. Whether the grounds hold up isn't for me to decide. I'll form a panel to review, notify the respondents to appear and give their positions, and you can argue face-to-face. Once the date is set, we'll send it to you."

Wang Yuhai gathered the four envelopes and, one by one, retied the string fasteners on the kraft paper. As he stood, he asked her, "That transfer on the fifth of next month—you still want to freeze it?"

"The one on the fifth of next month—I want it stopped in its tracks."

"Fine," he said. "I'll be there on the hearing day."

The record ran six pages. On the last page, he and she each signed their names and pressed a fingerprint. Wang Yuhai signed slowly, stroke by stroke. When he finished, he capped the pen and put it back exactly where it had been.

A window was open in the corridor, and the wind came pouring up from the stairwell.

At the stairwell she slowed a step, letting the man carrying four envelopes go first. When Wang Yuhai reached the second step, he suddenly stopped, shifted the envelopes to his other hand, and looked back at her.

"Attorney Shen," he said. "You've dug into all this. What are you after?"

Down in the lobby, someone was submitting documents, and a printer went off in bursts.

She thought for a moment.

"On the fifth of next month," she said, "I want that money to stop taking another pass through the rice jar."

Wang Yuhai looked at her for two seconds, said nothing, and went downstairs. In the stairwell, only the sound of his leather shoes on the concrete steps remained, fading farther and farther away.