Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 74 : Key Handover No. 1

By the time the receipt book reached its nineteenth page, Ma Jianjun already had his hand on the man's shoulder.

At ten in the morning, more than a dozen people lined up behind the long table with one short leg at the noodle shop entrance. The man wasn't in the line. He stood off to the side of the table, white shirt, a plastic badge pinned to his chest printed with "Jiangzhou Weimin Legal Service Center." A red two-part receipt book lay open beside his hand, a round stamp in the upper right corner—red, printed on, the edges too perfectly even.

"One hundred twenty per household, case filing fee." He was talking to a woman in her sixties in line. "Pay today, it gets filed this afternoon."

The three crumpled fifty-yuan bills in the auntie's hand were already pressed onto the receipt, the money wrinkled.

Shen Zhixia came around from behind the table. He Xiufen came down the stairs with a chipped enamel mug and stopped on the third step without going further.

"Zhengping Firm collects it," the man said. "Director He asked for the materials fee. One twenty per household."

"Director He is standing behind you."

The man turned. The enamel mug's lid clinked against its rim.

"There's no one like him here," He Xiufen said.

Shen Zhixia pulled the receipt book from under his hand and flipped through it page by page. Nineteen pages written, two boxes per page, amount and signature. Six or seven of the signature lines were written in the same hand.

"This stamp is printed on, not pressed." She turned the book over to face him. "Stamped receipts have serial numbers. Not one page in this book has a number."

"Transition period. Official receipts come later."

"Filing fees go to the court, and the court issues the receipt." She said it plainly. "This case was filed on June 22nd. You're here collecting a filing fee three days late."

The auntie's hand moved away from the money. Someone in line laughed, then swallowed it back.

"This is money my daughter sent for living expenses." The auntie tucked the three fifties back into her pocket, pressing on them through the fabric. "They've been sitting in my pocket three days."

"The hundred twenty isn't being collected today," Shen Zhixia said. "The fee is fifty per household, handed over at this table. I'll write you a receipt on the spot."

"Who else did you collect from?" She turned back.

Three people raised their hands. One was stopped in this alley yesterday afternoon and paid fifty; one paid for two households, two hundred forty; another never even got a receipt, only a transfer screenshot left in his phone. She had Tang Guo write down the names, times, amounts, and who they paid to, one by one. The two who'd scanned the code reported the payee's name—four characters followed by "Legal Affairs," the first character of which neither could read.

"Open your payment QR code."

"None of your business."

"I'm not 'managing' you." She raised her phone and took photos of the plastic badge and the receipt book, one each. "Those of you who paid, go to the police station this afternoon and turn in his whole operation. However many pages he's written in that book, we'll account for each one."

"I'm just a runner for someone." The man stepped back half a pace, Ma Jianjun standing behind him. He didn't push through, just angled out to the side. Three or four steps away, he looked back. "I'm not the only one collecting in this alley."

"Representing you in court? Show your license. Collecting your money? Show your seal." He Xiufen stood on the steps. "If you can't produce either, don't take anything he says."

The man left. Ma Jianjun smoothed out the crumpled number slips and crouched to pick up a wadded piece of paper from the ground—torn off and tossed by the man, the amount field reading one hundred twenty.

"I'll keep this book and run it to the police station this afternoon." He Xiufen tucked the red-covered book under her arm. "Tang Guo, send the rules out again."

Tang Guo typed it three times, posted it in two group chats, and pinned it under her video: Any payment is made only at this table outside the noodle shop, in front of witnesses, with a stamped receipt, fifty per household. Money collected anywhere else won't be recognized.

Shen Zhixia returned behind the table and stacked the newly collected materials. By ten thirty, fourteen more households had been added today, bringing the count with all three items to thirty-one.

[Thud. The hand that takes money is always faster than the hand that returns it.]

She didn't manage lunch. At twelve forty, four people came into the alley.

The man in front was in his fifties, a blue cloth bag in his left hand, asking "Which one is Lawyer Shen" the moment he stepped in. A young couple followed behind—the man gripping his phone, the woman carrying a cloth bag. The last person had a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, a metal strip poking out the top: locksmith's tools.

"Minsheng Road, Building 5, eleventh floor, Room 1102. My surname's Ren." He set the blue cloth bag on the table. "I registered here last week, said the key handover could be pushed back half a month. Can't wait."

"They need to vacate by the end of the month." He tilted his chin toward the young couple.

The young man held out his phone. On the screen was a photo of the contract they'd just signed: lease starting the first, monthly rent 2,300, one-month deposit with three months prepaid—9,200 total, and a 1,000-yuan deposit already handed to Ren Dechang.

"What you registered last week was: before the fifteenth, no changing locks, no moving things, no cutting utilities," Shen Zhixia said.

"Registration is registration." Ren Dechang said. "Who's paying me my 7,200?"

"I've got 20,000 in goods tied up in my shop every month." He went on. "If the money doesn't come back, I'm buying on credit."

She pushed three sheets of paper in front of him: a Notice of Case Acceptance, and three Notices of Property Investigation Results.

"Youzhu's account: zero yuan. Youjia's account: zero yuan. Xinhe's account: thirty-one yuan forty-six cents." She said. "The three defendants' accounts combined can buy three bowls of noodles."

"Is my money in there?"

"No."

Ren Dechang read through the three sheets one by one, slowly. A man in hardware knows numbers, knows which zero is which. After reading, he raised a hand toward the locksmith and pointed into the alley. "Come on, let's go take a look at the door first."

"That door can't be opened today." Shen Zhixia stood up.

"I'm changing my own lock."

"There's someone living in that unit. There's a lease, a copy of an ID, a case registration from the police station." She said. "You force that lock today, and tomorrow something goes missing from inside—do you pay or does he?"

The locksmith lowered the canvas bag from his shoulder and held it in both arms, looking at Ren Dechang, then at the three sheets on the table.

"Ren-ge, I'll head out." He paused beside the young couple. "Before you hand over money, get someone to look over that contract."

The young woman shifted the cloth bag to her other hand. "Our place is up at the end of the month. Everything's already packed."

"If you move in on the first, you'll be signing with him too." Shen Zhixia directed the words to both of them. "You pay 9,200, and 2,300 reaches him. The other three payments are held by the same people as in my case."

"What do you mean, same people?" the young man asked.

"Have him write you a receipt for today's 1,000-yuan deposit." She said. "Date, amount, who received it. Write it clearly. Don't think it's too much trouble."

Ren Dechang's face went stiff. "You're undercutting me."

"I'm untangling the accounts." She said. "Pull your bank statement from March 19th. I want to see what day that 7,200 was supposed to arrive."

The phone call went to Xu Dayong. He lived on the eleventh floor, worked nights at the logistics park sorting, midnight to eight in the morning, slept during the day. Ten-odd minutes later he came into the alley in slippers, hair flattened on one side and sticking up on the other, holding up his phone. On the screen was a string of deduction texts: 2,000 deducted March 20th, 2,000 April 20th, 2,000 May 20th, 2,000 June 20th.

"I paid a full year on March 17th. 24,000." He yawned. "The bank sent it straight to Youyu. I never touched it. On March 19th I was hauling boxes."

"The 2,000 a month they're taking from me—I paid for it with a year upfront." He flipped his phone over. "Same building, same layout, places listed at 2,300, plus one-month deposit and three months prepaid. Where am I supposed to come up with 9,200 at once?"

Ren Dechang looked at him and suddenly had nothing to say.

Shen Zhixia pulled out last week's Four-Point Consensus sheet from the clipboard. The eleventh-floor line was still blank. She wrote on it: before the fifteenth, no changing locks, no moving things, no cutting utilities; on the fifteenth, sit at this table and settle it, nobody acts on their own. She pushed the paper over when she finished.

"I'll draft a complaint for you today for that 7,200." She said. "You're a plaintiff too. Tenants file separately; landlords file separately. Give me your materials, and once I've written it, you sign it, and I'll submit it tomorrow."

Ren Dechang stared at the blank line for a moment, pulled a pen from the blue cloth bag, signed first, then asked for the ink pad. Tang Guo handed it up from under the table. He pressed his thumbprint down hard, leaving a red smudge bleeding into the paper.

"Materials." He said.

From the blue cloth bag he pulled a soft-cover notebook, the edges worn. The entries were tidy: date, amount, account name. On the January 19th row, the account name read two characters: "Youzhu." February 19th, also "Youzhu." March 19th was full: Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading Co., Ltd. Below that, April, May, June—the amount columns blank, three red slash marks beside them, and after them two characters: "Didn't arrive."

"I kept this myself." He pushed the notebook forward a little. "I know you'll need bank printouts for court. But I remember clearly."

"Remembering isn't a waste." Shen Zhixia crouched down, flattened the page, and photographed it with her phone—one shot, shift a fraction, another shot.

Tang Guo was behind the table collecting forms at the time. When she heard "Xinhe," she looked up, scrolled up through her phone for a long while, and found the screenshot of that QR payment. The payee field: also ten characters.

She walked around the table and held the screen over it.

The ten characters in Ren Dechang's notebook and the ten characters on her phone—not one more, not one less.

"My deposit receipt is printed with 'Youyu Apartments.'" Tang Guo said. "Four characters. The slip is printed."

"The characters on the slip were typeset by a person." Shen Zhixia placed the two side by side in one row. "The characters in the payment record were written by a machine."

He Xiufen came down from the stairway, looked at the two items laid out on the table, and set the enamel mug on the table corner.

"Those ten characters for collecting rent, the same ten for taking deposits." She said. "Then think—the one in the middle who collected a full year's rent, does he even need to show his name?"

Ren Dechang looked at the notebook, then at his own three red slashes, and closed it.

"What about my 7,200 then?"

"It's in the pool." Shen Zhixia said. "The pool has a breach. First find the breach, then find who's holding it open."

She'd originally planned to go to the bank at three in the afternoon. At three she was still writing Ren Dechang's complaint, and by five it still wasn't finished. The bank trip never happened. The police station run was He Xiufen going alone—the receipt book handed over, a receipt given back, thin paper. "They asked one thing: did the man collecting money use your name." He Xiufen said. "I said yes."

"Tomorrow at the bank, are you asking about names or account numbers?" Tang Guo asked.

She turned to the last page of her notebook. Six lines were already there; the last one was added yesterday: Check bank—account number. She dog-eared Ren Dechang's ledger and set it next to the last page of the asset inquiry statement.

[Thud. Names change. Account numbers don't.]

"Account number." She said. "Ask about the account under those ten characters—how many times money went in, how many times it went out."

Tang Guo flipped her phone face down on the table.

"Both sides with their hands out." She said.