Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 60 : The IOU Didn't Hold Up

May 28, 9:00 a.m., Third Courtroom.

Five or six people sat in the gallery. Two students with canvas bags had their notebooks open on their knees. There was also a person she recognized—a party from another case whose name she'd seen on a judgment. The third-party seat was empty. Wang Deshan hadn't come. Neither had the daughter-in-law.

After the clerk finished the roll call, Judge Cheng opened the judgment and began reading from "The Court Finds" onward.

"...Jiangzhou Hengtong Delivery Service Co., Ltd. and Wang Yuhai had frequent financial transactions between them. Company accounts were not separated from the shareholder's personal account, and company assets have become commingled with the shareholder's personal assets."

"The plaintiff asserts his personal assets are independent of the company, but has failed to submit account books, audit reports, or other sufficient evidence to prove this. The Court does not support this claim."

"...Hengtong Company has already had its business license revoked. Investigation has found no property available for enforcement. The company meets the conditions for bankruptcy but has not applied for it. The shareholder's capital contribution, though not yet due, should be accelerated to maturity."

She gripped her pen, the tip pressed against the hardcover notebook but not moving. She knew these sentences by heart, one by one. Hearing them read aloud by a judge still felt like someone holding a ruler over the words, pressing them flat onto the table—nothing could shift a single one.

"The IOU submitted by the plaintiff has a signature date inconsistent with the time the funds were actually transferred. The fingerprint on it does not match the fingerprint of third party Wang Deshan. The Court does not accept it as evidence."

The last sentence was the shortest.

"The plaintiff Wang Yuhai's lawsuit is dismissed."

The gavel came down with a dull thud. Someone in the gallery stood; a chair leg scraped against the concrete floor. On the plaintiff's bench, Wang Yuhai sat alone. He didn't move. His hands rested on his knees, his nails cut very short.

The clerk read the final section of the judgment: anyone dissatisfied with this judgment may file an appeal with this court within fifteen days of service.

The student in the back shifted her notebook forward and whispered to her companion, asking what "joinder" meant. The companion answered, voice lowered further: "It means when the company can't pay, make him pay himself."

The clerk passed over the proof of service. Wang Yuhai signed. The pen tip paused on the page. He looked up, toward her.

"Fifteen days," he said.

She didn't answer. He pushed the form back, stood up, and walked out the door. The door closed slowly behind him, and the little bit of air in the courtroom stopped with it. She looked down at her page. A line was written halfway: The scrap of paper at the bottom of the rice jar finally counts today.

[Thud. Paper doesn't hold up. The money's path does.]

That afternoon's ruling came from Window No. 3.

Liao Hong pulled a page from the file and slid it across the counter.

"The enforcement objection—served this afternoon." He tapped the main text with his index finger, twice. "Dismissed. The Court finds that the funds in the account under Wang Deshan's name, ending in 6342, are Hengtong Company's business receipts, not his personal lawful income. The freeze continues. The money stays right where it is."

She read further. At the bottom of the ruling was one more line: the funds in this account are continuous with the acquiring merchant ID settlement amounts; the freeze is maintained for both.

She read the lines over, then took out her hardcover notebook and copied each sentence in.

"He has fifteen days to appeal." Liao Hong pressed the cap onto his pen. "One of these is a first-instance judgment; the other is a ruling. He can still take it up one more level. For now, the money stays frozen. Also keeps growing."

"I know."

"You won both."

"What I won is two pieces of paper," she said.

Liao Hong didn't respond to that. He raised a hand and called the next number. The ticker jumped to fifty-seven.

Outside the west building, someone was waiting on the steps. Lawyer Qiu, his canvas document bag switched to the other hand, that pen still clipped to the opening.

"I heard," he said. "Both dismissed."

"Yeah."

"My application to add Wang Deshan—I'm submitting it tomorrow." He tucked the pen further into the bag. "If you win yours, I'll be right behind you in line."

"Line up, then."

"I'm not here to cut in." Lawyer Qiu looked down at the row of electric scooters leaning every which way below the steps. "I'm just letting you know there's one more person in the queue."

He was halfway down when he turned back.

"Lawyer Shen, in the past two months I haven't seen anyone walk a street three times over for twenty thousand yuan."

She nodded. He left.

Six o'clock, upstairs at Zhengping Firm. He Xiufen came up with a rag and wiped down the glass desktop as usual.

"Both dismissed," Shen Zhixia said.

"What got dismissed is those two pieces of paper." He Xiufen pulled the grid paper out from under the glass and laid it on the case. "Not that money."

"If he runs out the whole appeal period, can he win?"

"He can't win." He Xiufen wrote three characters in the corner of the grid paper: appeal period. "He's not appealing to win. He's appealing to keep this case lying in a second-instance drawer for another two months. Second-instance filing, docketing, hearing—every step has to wait. And on the thirty-first, you'll have one fewer piece of paper in your hand."

"Lawyer Qiu's joinder application goes in tomorrow."

"Submitted tomorrow, then it waits in line too." He Xiufen moved her pen to the number beside that account. "Once his paper gets approved, he's in the same queue as you. Whose judgment has the earlier date goes first."

"Count it out. What's the thirty-first?"

"Three days from now."

"As of today, how much is in that account?"

"Twenty-two thousand one hundred sixty-eight."

"Enough for your nineteen thousand eight hundred."

Her phone vibrated continuously on the desk. The rider group chat. Deng Wei forwarded a voice message. She tapped it and Luo Cheng's voice came out: "So did they rule or not? If we won, when does the money arrive?" Four or five more messages followed in the same vein, plus Lao Chang sending three question marks.

She turned the phone face down on the desk.

"What they're waiting for is when the money comes." He Xiufen pressed the cap onto her pen.

"The thirty-first."

"The thirty-first." He Xiufen draped the rag over the chair back. "He's lost two this time. That leaves him one last move—making you stand outside a window on the thirty-first, waiting for a pen."

"That's exactly what he wants."

"Good that you know." He Xiufen picked up her water cup and stopped at the door. "One more thing: don't go back and restore the original judgment. That paper is thirty-six thousand four hundred six—three thousand three hundred ninety-four less than the settlement. That three thousand three hundred ninety-four is enough for Ma Jianjun to drive half a year."

May 31, 9:40 a.m., Window No. 3.

"Has it arrived?"

"No." Liao Hong turned a page in the ledger. "As of this morning, the only deposit under this case is still the one from May 6."

He laid two items side by side on the counter: a blank form for an application to transfer allocated enforcement funds, and an application to resume enforcement.

"Today is the last day." He said, "You can submit either one. Resume enforcement, and you go by the judgment—thirty-six thousand four hundred six. Transfer allocation, and you go by the settlement's second installment. Which one you submit—think carefully."

She pulled out her phone. Deng Wei had sent her a message separately. Five characters: Any news today? She typed a line, looked at it, deleted it, and put the phone away.

Wen Jin answered quickly. The office on her end was very quiet, only keyboard sounds.

"Lawyer Shen."

"Today's the thirty-first."

"I remember." Wen Jin said. "The form I signed is still in process."

"He lost two."

"I know." Silence on the other end for two seconds. "I'll say it again: the pen that sends the payment is not in my hand. This morning he had someone pull the attachment to look it over again—your settlement agreement. What he's watching is the date on that paper."

"If he actually won those two, would you pay?"

"What he wants is never to win." Wen Jin said. "What he wants is that account unfrozen, the money sent back, moving through his hands again."

"The agreement says if payment is one day late, you can apply to resume enforcement of the original judgment."

"It does." Wen Jin said. "That clause was yours. I remember it."

"It can't go through today?"

"It can't go through today." She said. "Lawyer Shen, I've signed my name on this form twice. Twice it couldn't make it to the final step."

The call died in the wind. She put the phone back in her bag, looked at the two papers, and reached for the one on the left.

[Thud. The payment he won't make—you have to take it yourself.]

The title "Application" was at the top. The body had only one line: Request to transfer nineteen thousand eight hundred yuan, the second-installment case funds in this matter, from the frozen account under the judgment debtor Wang Deshan and the Hengtong acquiring merchant ID settlement amounts, to this court's enforcement funds account. In the signature line she wrote Zhengping Law Firm, and before her own name she added two characters: Agent.

When she finished, she ran the numbers: twenty-two thousand one hundred sixty-eight in the account, minus nineteen thousand eight hundred allocated, leaving two thousand three hundred sixty-eight.

"Transfer allocation?" Liao Hong took the paper and looked up at her.

"The money frozen in the account covers this." She turned her notebook to show him the number. "Nineteen thousand eight hundred. I'm not waiting for his pen anymore."

Liao Hong read the application from top to bottom, took a blue pen from the drawer, and wrote a date in the upper right corner of the first page.

"Accepted." He said. "But this money won't be transferred out today."

"Why not?"

"The day before yesterday, Zhou Defa's side submitted a joinder application. Wang Deshan is in that one too." He placed two case files side by side on the counter. "Same account, two people in line. Before the money goes anywhere, there has to be a distribution plan—who gets what order, how much."

"When does the plan get issued?"

"You finish saying what needs saying, and I'll issue it." Liao Hong put both files back in the cabinet. "Get your written position on distribution to me within three days, and this can be processed this month. Drag it past the end of the month, and you wait for the next approval window. Whether this money should go to you first—you'd better make your case today."

She looked down at the first page of the application. The ink on that date in the upper right corner still wasn't dry. The remaining two thousand three hundred sixty-eight—she'd already worked out where it should go in her head, but she didn't say a word about it now.

Outside the window, the sun bleached the steps white. Someone walked past below, helmet in hand. A sparrow perched on the iron railing.

"It should." She said.

Liao Hong clipped the application into a case file and looked up at her once more.

"The first name on the plan—you'll have to fight for it yourself."