Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 72 : The Defendant Column

He Xiufen slapped the stack of papers onto the long table. The scallion-oil smell from the alley had just drifted up.

"Three power of attorney forms. Not one less." She tapped the blank spaces with her fingernail. "This one, the client writes their own name and presses their own thumbprint. This one's for the representative—write me, write her." She jerked her chin at Shen Zhixia. "The top one stays blank. She'll fill it in."

The blank line at the top was printed with two characters: Defendant.

Shen Zhixia bit the cap off her pen and steadied her wrist. Tang Guo stood behind her, reading off her phone. "Jiangzhou Youzhu Information Technology Co., Ltd."

"Slowly," He Xiufen said. "One character at a time."

She finished the first line, started the second: "Jiangzhou Youjia Business Services Co., Ltd." Before the third line, she paused. "Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading Co., Ltd."

He Xiufen leaned in to check, looked for a full half minute, then set her enamel mug back down.

"Don't write the words 'Youyu Apartments.'"

"That's what's printed on the contract."

"What's printed on the contract is one thing. Whose hands the money passed through, whose name is on it—that's another." He Xiufen read the three lines aloud. "One party on the contract. One account that paid the landlords. One that cut the registered capital from five million to five hundred thousand on April 21st and still has its name on the business registry. Three, one per line. Miss one, and someday you're sitting through an extra hearing."

"Zhou Keming. As an individual. Do we name him?"

"Not yet."

"His signature's on it."

"His signature's on it, but whether the books are his—that hasn't been checked." He Xiufen drained the last of the water from her mug. "Last time, you were the one who dug that passbook out of the rice jar. The person whose name stands on a piece of paper isn't always the person holding the money."

The first one to the table was a woman in her early forties, hair pinned back with a plastic clip, a tan line across her forearm. Her name was Wang Li. Min'an Li Building No. 3. Quarterly payment of six thousand three hundred. Water cut off last week.

"If I sign this, am I suing my landlord?"

"The three lines in the defendant column—take a look." Shen Zhixia turned the paper toward her. "No landlord."

"So what if I don't sign?"

"Then your case sits on this table." She held out the pen. "Sign, and the representative runs the errands for you. But she can't settle for you, can't give anything up for you. The signature is still yours."

Wang Li wiped her hands on her pants and wrote her name. When she finished, she said: "I went three days without a shower last week. I'll sign."

He Xiufen slid another form over. The heading was already printed, with rows of blank lines underneath.

"This representative nomination form needs signatures too. Twenty households per sheet. Don't cram three hundred names onto one page—when the time comes to verify them one by one, anything we can't verify counts as a mess."

"What does the representative do?" Wang Li held the pen, unmoving.

"She files your documents, runs the windows, sits in court." Shen Zhixia said. "She doesn't collect money for you, and she can't waive money for you either. Any time you want out, write one line on paper and you're out."

"Then I won't do it."

"Then don't. Sign your name in the second column." She tapped the paper. "For the Min'an Li group, I'll find someone else later."

Three items spread out for checking: the contract, proof of payment, the loan papers. She went through them one by one. At the fifth person, a man turned his wallet inside out and dug out twenty yuan.

"I'll make it up next week."

"Next week's money is for next week. Can't pay today, we don't take it." He Xiufen's voice came from behind the table.

Tang Guo tore off the last receipt in the book, wrote down a name and unit number, counted again: "Five hundred fifty." He Xiufen had told her to keep every stub. Not one was to be lost.

A young man with glasses asked the more practical question: "So this loan—can I just stop paying it?"

"Stop for one day, and it goes on your credit record." Shen Zhixia said. "You stop paying in your own name. Your credit is the only thing that hurts."

"So I just keep paying forever?"

"Paying doesn't mean admitting." She said. "On the twentieth of every month, make that payment first and keep the receipt. Whether you get it back later—and who it comes back from—depends on whether it admits the debt, not on how much you've paid on its behalf."

A young man in a work uniform pushed the paper back: "The bank is the one taking the money. Why isn't the bank in the defendant column?"

"Because the bank wired it all to the company in one lump sum." Shen Zhixia said. "The bank is the other end of the pipe, and that end hasn't opened its mouth yet. The day it refuses to acknowledge this account, the bank is just carrying out the contract. Get through this ledger first. Then we flip open the other one."

The young man said nothing. He took the paper back and signed.

At 9:40, Jiang Bo stepped off the bus, a canvas bag under his arm, the opening wrapped twice with tape. He set a stack of papers on the table. "Chengxi side—three households with all three items complete." He wiped his face. "I sat on the bus for an hour and ten minutes."

"Anyone ask what was in your bag on the way?"

"They did. I said it was auto repair invoices."

She smiled and filed the three households into the folders by complex. Then she pulled out the representative nomination form again and held the pen toward him. "Chengxi group. You in?"

Jiang Bo took it and signed. "Thirty-seven households won't fit on one sheet. I'll sign four."

"Four sheets it is." He Xiufen took it and looked it over.

On the corner of the table, her phone buzzed twice. Two voice messages popped up in the courier group chat—something about another building's issue. She didn't open them.

[Thud. Materials turned in today. Eleven households with all three items complete.]

"These eleven go in tomorrow morning." He Xiufen smoothed the case files flat. "The rest, we keep collecting and supplementing. Each new name, one more on the list."

"The landlords—I want to talk to them too."

"Landlords are a separate set of books." He Xiufen gave her a look. "First, keep these eleven steady."

At three in the afternoon, she went to Minsheng Road anyway.

Six people showed up on the concrete platform in front of Building No. 5. Zhao Guangtian came down from upstairs, the entrusted leasing contract still rolled in his hand. Two landlords—from the sixth and eleventh floors—she'd arranged by phone a few days ago. Jiang Bo had brought two from Chengxi, one on an electric scooter, one by subway. The first thing they asked was whether they needed to sign and press thumbprints.

"Hai." She gave up her little folding stool. "Just one sheet."

That sheet she'd written at noon, upstairs at the noodle house. Four lines, each one short.

One: This month, no landlord changes locks, moves belongings, or cuts water or power.

Two: No tenant moves out, and no tenant blocks the landlord's door.

Three: Both sides document everything; if anyone asks you for money or tells you to sign or press a thumbprint, ask questions first.

Four: For the money, go after it.

The one who'd come by subway read the four lines twice. "So are we landlords the plaintiffs or the defendants?"

"This month, you're not in this case at all." Shen Zhixia said. "You signed an entrusted leasing contract with it—it pays you monthly. The tenants signed a lease with it—they pay a year upfront. Two ledgers, same defendant. They have to be filed separately."

"Separate files. So we're just waiting for nothing."

"Waiting still counts as being on record." She said. "The company can empty its offices, but payment records don't empty. Whoever has proof of money it sent—your name will have a place to land."

The landlord from the eleventh floor shook her head after reading line two. "Not happening. I listed my place last week. Handover's the first of next month."

"Signed with anyone yet?"

"Signed. They've already bought their bedding."

"I'm not stopping you from handing over." She said. "Just one thing. Push the handover back half a month. And for that half month, register your info: unit number, monthly rent, how many payments missed, the account name on the last deposit."

"Who pays me for those two weeks?"

"No one." She said. "The half-month you lose and the half-month the person upstairs from you lost—it's all water drained from the same pool."

Zhao Guangtian rolled the contract into a tube and tapped it against his knee.

"I won't change the locks." He said. "My son's mortgage payment comes out on the twentieth. You tell me—where my six thousand six hundred comes in line."

"It doesn't."

"Doesn't come in line, and you're telling me not to touch the door."

"I'm not telling you to wait." She said. "The day that lock gets changed and the stuff gets moved into the hallway—who moved it, what went missing, how much it's worth—it all becomes one unfixable mess. Lock stays on, the stuff stays in the unit, the lease on paper runs to next May. When that page gets opened in court someday, the side you're standing on is the side that's right."

Zhao Guangtian chewed on that sentence for a long while.

"So what about my money?"

"Your money is on its books." She flipped her notebook to a line. "March 19th, two thousand two hundred. Paid to you by Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading Co., Ltd. That day all you saw was two thousand two hundred coming in. You didn't check who sent it. Go home, take a clear photo of that page of your bank statement. I'll open a separate book for you here."

"And writing it in a book gets the money out?"

"It doesn't." She answered. "But if you don't write it down, someday there won't even be a place to say the words 'it owes me six thousand six hundred.'"

Six people came. Five signed. The one from Chengxi who'd ridden the scooter pushed his bike and left, with one sentence: "Let me ask my wife."

[Thud. What I got today: half a month.]

[Thud. In half a month, the lock is still on his door.]

At eleven at night, only one lamp was still on over the front counter at Zhengping.

Tang Guo sat at the computer, editing footage, headphones around her neck. On the screen, a tenant was telling the camera how much he'd paid. Shen Zhixia was assembling the eleven households into case files in order, stapling each with three staples. When she finished, she reached to wipe the glass top of the counter.

The new eleven-household checklist she'd written today was pressed right on top of that old newspaper. The rag swept across, and the corner of a sheet underneath curled up, exposing half a line:

The signature was mine,

Her hand stopped for half a second. She pressed the glass back down and didn't pull the paper out.

"What's wrong?" Tang Guo asked from behind her screen.

"Nothing. Dust."

Tang Guo dragged an earlier segment into the recycle bin, then stopped: "Someone in the comments is telling me to film the landlord's face."

"Don't."

"I know." She pulled her headphones off. "Yesterday someone called me a grifter too—fifty per person, five hundred fifty in one day."

"Post the stubs too." Shen Zhixia flattened the receipt stubs and photographed them. "How many we took, how much it was—put it out in the open."

Her phone lit up on the table.

A number she recognized.

The housing case—don't just watch the landlords.

She stared at it for a few seconds, typed back four characters: I know.

Deleted it.

What she sent in the end: I've finished talking with the landlords.

No reply came back.

Tang Guo's phone lit up a moment later, right next to her hand. Message after message.

First: Your loan payment of 2000.00 was successfully deducted on June 20. Available account balance: 0.32.

Second: Remaining installments on the loan in your name: 11.

Tang Guo stared at the screen for a while. "It went through."

"I saw."

"Thirty-two cents left in my account. Two thousand yuan. Enough to buy half a strip of its wallpaper?"

Shen Zhixia didn't answer. On the table, two screens were lit: her phone with his message—"The housing case—don't just watch the landlords"—and Tang Guo's phone with the deduction confirmation. The two screens sat side by side, a black edge between them. The one below kept going, line after line, about the next twentieth, and the one after that.

She flipped her notebook to the last page. At the bottom of that page were four characters she'd written yesterday: Where is the money.

Underneath, she added three more: Check the bank.

The pen cap clicked on. Under the glass, the half-sentence—"The signature was mine,"—stayed buried in the stack of papers, untouched.