Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 56 : The Pen That Pays

Two sheets of paper lay side by side. One was the list page at the end of the judgment: twenty lines, one name and one amount per line. The other was the deposit voucher handed out from Window No. 3 the morning before: exactly 20,000 yuan. Payer: Hurricane Express Distribution Co., Ltd. In the memo field it read, "Enforcement funds."

[Thud. The enforcement funds are halfway in. This case's Justice Points: half recorded for now.]

She had already done the math: 39,800, minus the enforcement fee of 446, left 39,354. The first installment of 20,000 had come in. The part riding on May 31 was 20,000.

[Thud. The other half is riding on a date written by someone else.]

She folded the voucher into thirds and tucked it back into the hardcover notebook. This time another stroke had been added in the book, extending outward from the end of the "Ma" in "Ma Jianjun," longer than the previous times, and the end still left a small gap—"Chengnan Station No. 1, Ma Jianjun," still not fully written out.

Downstairs, the smell of scallion oil came up in waves. He Xiufen carried her teacup upstairs, stood by the desk, and scanned the two pieces of paper.

"The money's here?"

"It's in the court's account."

"Then it hasn't arrived yet." He Xiufen set her cup on the glass desk pad. "Let me do another calculation for you. Why they're willing to pay the full amount—you said it yourself the day you signed that paper. What he wants is the words 'case closed.' Once the case is closed, that two-page joinder ruling gets pulled back, the Merchant ID gets unfrozen, Wang Deshan's card gets unfrozen, and the case file goes into the archive. You made the right move when you put in that call to the Zhou guy, but right now that account is only queued behind him. If you file the case closure application first, his place in line disappears."

"Before I file, I'll call him one day ahead."

"Just remember." He Xiufen tapped the grid paper with the end of her pen. "One more thing. Tomorrow is May 8."

"Ten days."

"That day at the door to the hearing room, you said you wanted to stop that money halfway." She picked up her cup. "Tomorrow is the last day when he has the say."

"I'll go this afternoon and split the first installment."

"Not waiting until it's all here?"

"Luo Cheng sent me a voice message last night asking whether the money wouldn't hit the cards until June." She stuffed the hardcover notebook into her bag. "Out of twenty people, he's not the only one waiting for money."

He Xiufen didn't answer. She lowered her head and blew at the tea leaves in her cup.

At ten in the morning, at Window No. 3 of the Enforcement Affairs Center, she passed in a roster and twenty ID card copies. Liao Hong took them, leafed through them, and looked up at her.

"Split it."

He didn't ask why. He clicked his pen open.

"Like I said last time: if you want it split, I'll submit it." He flipped the funds file to the page with the list. "Let me spell it out again. Splitting means twenty receipt forms, one amount per form, one thumbprint. I send the distribution plan up once, it gets approved once, and it goes out once. You split it two times, that's two stacks of forms and two rounds of approval. If the second installment doesn't come and you apply to resume enforcement of the original judgment, the account will already have been paid out to zero by then—late-payment interest and enforcement fees will all have to be put back in line from scratch."

"Split it," she said.

"Think it through."

"I've thought it through." She set down her pen. "What goes on the receipt forms?"

"Just one sentence: Received from the labor-dispute enforcement case of Ma Jianjun and others v. Hurricane Express Distribution Co., Ltd. the amount of X yuan. You can't add one other word. If you do, I won't stamp it."

"Then I'll have them come at nine the morning after next."

"Nine o'clock. Window No. 3. Each person signs one." He noted a line in the margin of the file. "Tomorrow's the last day. If he comes to file papers, I'll call you."

That evening, before she reached Zhengping Firm's entrance, Deng Wei called first.

"Someone's on Back Street. He's got paper, and he's got money."

The shutter door of the print shop at the end of Back Street was pulled halfway down. Dou Guanglin sat on a plastic stool just inside the doorway, a document folder resting on his lap. The van was parked at the curb, engine still running. Riders stood around in twos and threes on the patch of ground lit by the headlights, helmets hanging from the handlebars. Nobody sat.

She walked over and stopped in front of him. He looked up and pressed one hand on the folder.

"Lawyer Shen."

"That thirty yuan from last time. Did it ever get settled?"

He paused for two seconds and gave a short laugh. "Which thirty?"

"Thirty per person's name. Twenty people. That's what you told me."

"That money isn't calculated like that." He lifted one corner of the folder, then closed it again. "This time it isn't paper. It's money."

"Let me see the paper."

He watched her for a moment, then pulled one out and handed it over. The paper was shorter than the confirmation letter from before, only three lines: "The dispute between me and Hurricane Express Distribution Co., Ltd. is settled from the date I receive this payment. Thereafter I will not make any claim under any name whatsoever." The amount column was blank. Below it was a line of fine print: "This sum is calculated as eighty percent of the total case amount divided equally, 1,592 yuan per person, in cash or same-day transfer."

"The amount wasn't my doing," he said. "I just deliver."

She held the paper and read the three lines from start to finish, then read them again. Last time, Wen Jin's twenty sheets had said "no employment relationship existed." This one didn't even give a specific claim; it just swapped in "any name whatsoever."

"What he wants is the list," Dou Guanglin said. "Whoever signs, he crosses off."

"Crosses names off."

"Crosses names off."

Ma Jianjun came over from behind the crowd, took his helmet off the handlebar, and cradled it in his arm.

"My name is on this list," he said. "If my name gets crossed off, I'll be the one holding the pen."

She raised the paper and read it aloud to the people gathered around. After she finished, she paused.

"The twenty sheets last time said 'this case.' This one doesn't have 'this case' in it. If you sign today and get hurt tomorrow—if you go file for a work injury—they'll spread this paper out: he personally said that, from now on, he would not make any claim under any name whatsoever. By then, that judgment you're holding has already been used up for you personally."

"1,592 per person." Luo Cheng crouched by the bike and looked up at her. "Right into the card now."

"You did the math faster than me," she said. "The whole case is 39,800. Divided among twenty people, that's 1,990 per person—his paper doesn't deduct the 446 in enforcement fees. Eighty percent is 1,592, a difference of 398."

"398 isn't a small amount."

"No, it isn't," she said. "But the list page on the judgment has twenty lines, one amount per line. The highest is 2,100; the lowest is 1,400. With one piece of paper he flattens everyone to 1,592. The one listed at 1,400 gets 192 more; the one listed at 2,100 loses 508. Is that 508 something he's willing to give up, or did someone give it up for him?"

Luo Cheng didn't answer.

"The second number is even harder: this money went into the court's account yesterday morning. The date is recorded in the case. If you personally sign for this 1,592, what happens to your line on that twenty-line list? When the funds are paid out, money can't be paid twice. Either you return your share, or I'll have to take it out of the other nineteen people's money."

"Then if I take this 1,500, is the rest still mine?" Lao Chang asked.

"No," she said. "There isn't one word on this paper saying the rest is yours."

Deng Wei took the paper from her hand, looked it over in the headlights, and handed it back.

"The day after tomorrow at nine in the morning, Window No. 3, Enforcement Affairs Center," she said. "Twenty receipt forms, one amount on each. Go get the first payment first. The first payment isn't much—under 1,000 per person. The court calculates the exact figure; whatever the paper says is what it is. The other half is still in this case. I'll watch it until May 31."

"Signing this," Luo Cheng said, "is it different from signing that?"

"The receipt form has only one sentence: received this case's enforcement funds in the amount of X. No 'settled,' no 'any name whatsoever.'" She folded the paper. "If I'm lying to you, take the paper back the day after tomorrow and read it word by word."

Ma Jianjun stood up and pushed his helmet down.

"My share, I'll wait even if he offers the full amount," he said. "Until this money is in my hand, I won't withdraw for a single day."

Dou Guanglin fastened the folder shut, stood up, and brushed off his pants. The headlights swept across his face. He kept out an extra copy of the paper with the blank amount and pressed it into her hand.

"Take it," he said. "I'll come back tomorrow. He delivers money; I deliver paper. Same work."

"That thirty yuan—ask me," she said. "I can get it back for you."

He smiled but didn't answer. He got into the van's passenger seat and shut the door very lightly.

At nine that night, only two lights were still on in the noodle shop. Lu Jibai sat at the table in the back, half a bowl of noodles left in front of him. When she came in he didn't look up; he first slid a printed sheet toward her. On it was a passage of analogous-case reasoning. The last half sentence was circled in red: "... During the review period, no disposition may be made of the subject matter of enforcement."

"Where's this from?"

"I passed by your upstairs this afternoon and borrowed Director He's printer." He set his chopsticks down. "Tomorrow's his last day."

"How do you know he'll file?"

"I filed the appeal. Squeezing it to the last moment was his idea." He said, "Same person, same habit."

"You're still filing papers for him?"

"They haven't hired outside counsel for the enforcement stage." He picked up the bowl and drank the last mouthful of soup. "He'll file two. Don't only take one."

She picked up the page. Beneath the red-circled half sentence was another line of small writing, very lightly marked, in his own hand: What he's fighting over isn't whose money it is, but whether that money can be moved.

At four in the afternoon on May 8, she went to Window No. 3 to ask whether the distribution plan had been approved—the twenty receipt forms were needed first thing tomorrow. Liao Hong pulled a page out of the enforcement funds file and showed her: it had been submitted. Come at nine tomorrow to sign. At 4:20, someone appeared in front of Window No. 3.

Wang Yuhai pushed two envelopes through the bottom of the window. He didn't look at her or at anyone else. He smoothed the envelopes flat and put his hands back into the pockets of his overcoat. Beside him stood a young man carrying a bag, half a step behind.

Liao Hong opened them and read them one by one, slowly. When he finished, he squared the two documents together and set them on the enforcement file. Then he looked up at her.

"One is an enforcement objection lawsuit, challenging the two-page joinder ruling from April 28. It was filed this morning over at filing. The Case Filing Division just sent the case number over."

"And the other?"

"Enforcement objection." Liao Hong turned the paper around so she could see the heading. "He claims the money in the card under Wang Deshan's name ending in 6342, and the settlement funds frozen in the Merchant ID, are his personal legitimate income—the card was put in Wang Deshan's name, but the money is his own business dealings, not Hengtong's money. He requests the freeze be lifted and the assets returned to Wang Deshan."

"Was it accepted?"

"Accepted." He said, "During the review period, not one bit of those two places can be touched: no unfreezing, and no distributing it to other cases. That account you're watching and that card stay where they are for now."

"If he wins?"

"If he wins, the money goes back, the card gets unfrozen. Hengtong's old 113,000 case and that account you're holding both come up empty. The two-page April 28 ruling also has to wait for the result of the enforcement objection lawsuit."

"What about the twenty people's case funds?"

"The funds were paid in by Hurricane Express. They're not the same money as the two things he's contesting." He put the envelopes into the file. "But as for who made Hurricane Express pay the second installment, you know very well."

Only then did Wang Yuhai turn around. He walked past her, his pace slowing half a beat. He didn't stop, and he didn't speak. The wind at the door lifted a corner of a stack of flyers by the filing window.

As she went down the steps, her phone rang. It was Wen Jin.

"I signed the payment request for the second installment."

"When will it go out?"

"Signing—I did that part." There was a pause on the other end. "The pen that pays isn't in my hand."

"Whose hand is it in?"

"You've met him."

The call cut off in the wind. She turned the phone over and looked at the date: May 8. Twenty-three days left until May 31.