Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 84 : One Hundred Twenty-Eight Transactions

"Contains trade secrets."

Two pages. That phrase sat in the second line. She read on: customer personal information, lawfully exempt from disclosure, only able to provide the portion corresponding to the plaintiff in this case. Two lines at the bottom: Authorized Agent, Lu Jibai. Dated July 11.

The same postal delivery brought another page, this one from the court. That was the one she'd read first.

"The defendant, Jiangzhou Bank Chengdong Branch, is ordered to submit, within seven days of receipt of this notice, a detailed schedule of all loans processed by Yin Jianping, designated for housing rental, and disbursed through entrusted payment, specifying disbursement dates, amounts, payee names, and account numbers."

The two pages lay side by side on the long table. One written by the court. One written by the opposing side. Dated three days apart.

[Thud. This time it handed over a two-page statement.]

He Xiufen came out from the inner room holding her enamel mug, water beading along the rim.

"Both arrived together."

"This time it's not writing 'not related to this bank.'" He Xiufen read the court's page first, then picked up the other one. She stopped at "only able to provide." "Now it's changed its tune—trade secrets, customer information."

"The handler is its own employee. The loan purpose is a category its own records generated." Shen Zhixia said. "Neither of those falls under trade secrets."

"The court wrote the order in those exact terms. It wants to shrink the scope, but it can't shrink it." He Xiufen flipped the page over to check the back. "The moment it says 'only a portion,' you wait for that portion. See how many transactions it actually gives you."

"Seven days. The nineteenth."

"If it doesn't submit everything by the nineteenth, you file one page with the court. Don't argue. Write one sentence: Defendant's submission is incomplete." He Xiufen set the mug on the table corner. "The first round was an Investigation Order, making it see us. The second was an application, forcing it to answer in front of the court. This round, you're not asking whether it answers. You're asking how many transactions it answers with."

"Is one sentence enough?"

"No. You write down the number of the shortfall." He Xiufen said. "We don't need to guess the count—it wrote it down itself. Your page needs two numbers on it."

"One hundred twenty-eight. Twenty-three." Shen Zhixia wrote both figures into her notebook.

The five days that followed, she kept to her routine. Mornings at the registration point checking forms, afternoons making phone calls, evenings working through new contract photos, flipping each one to the signature line to check for any hand other than the signer's own.

On the morning of the fifteenth, Ren Dechang and Xu Dayong came to the long table to state, in person, matching line eleven of the Four-Point Consensus: no lock changes for now; wait for the judgment. Xu Dayong pressed another fingerprint beneath that line.

Shi Lei posted another entry in the group: July 14, 2:00 p.m., exited through the main gate, the stack of papers in his hand down to half. She recorded the time on his page.

At noon, the queue downstairs reached number nine. Ma Jianjun sorted the complete-set forms by building, rubber bands cinching three stacks, with a small pile still unclipped at his feet. Tang Guo called out the count from the group: one hundred twelve households on Shi Lei's side, thirty-six in Chengxi, seventy-four with the complete set.

"The twentieth is coming again." Tang Guo set her phone face down on the table.

"Let it deduct." Shen Zhixia said. "Until the day I say stop."

"What if the bank cuts off all the money this month?"

"We'll deal with it then." The words felt useless even as she said them, so she let it drop.

A man in a work uniform stood at the stairway, asking whether a bank with that much money would actually pay up once the judgment came down. Tang Guo opened her mouth, but Shen Zhixia stepped in front.

"Don't make any promises when money's involved."

"Then what do I say?"

"Say you don't know."

In the afternoon, Kong Xiulan sent a message asking if the hearing date was set. She replied: Not yet. You'll be the first to know when it is. Kong Xiulan sent another: I've kept those three characters. The paper hasn't been touched. She replied: Good.

July 19, afternoon. Municipal Court Litigation Service Center.

She arrived at 1:50, took a number, sat in the fourth row. In front of her sat an elderly couple, a stack of materials spread across their laps, counting pages. Halfway through they lost count and started over from the beginning.

When her number was called, she stated the case number and the parties' names. The clerk behind the window checked a ledger, pulled a stack from the shelf, and flipped through to count pages twice.

"Eighteen pages. Three yuan sixty."

She counted again at the window, signed, took her change, and cradled the materials against her chest. The clerk said: the defendant submitted yesterday afternoon—two submissions. The first was just a statement; the schedule came in later as a supplement.

By the time she got back to the alley, the sky hadn't fully darkened. She spread the eighteen pages out on the long table, dividing them into three groups.

The first group: two pages. A statement.

"Following internal review, this bank confirms that loans processed by Yin Jianping, designated for housing rental, and disbursed through entrusted payment total one hundred twenty-eight transactions. Of these, twenty-three transactions involve funds entering accounts of the defendant in this case and related entities, provided herewith. The remaining one hundred five transactions involve third-party customer account information, which this bank is unable to disclose."

[Thud. It counted one hundred twenty-eight itself. It handed over twenty-three.]

He Xiufen read the two pages once, then again. Her finger came to rest on "one hundred twenty-eight."

"The one hundred five it's withholding—it wrote that number on this page with its own hand." She set the paper down. "This page is worth more than anything our application pulled out."

The second group: eleven pages. One line per page: household number, disbursement date, purpose verification status, verification date, handler, reviewer.

All eleven lines under "purpose verification status" held the same phrase: Counterparty information verified. The verification date column showed the same date on all eleven pages: June 16. Handler: Yin Jianping. Reviewer: blank.

Shen Zhixia flipped through once, then went back to that date column.

"June 16. The storefronts were already closed by then. The last rent payment to the two landlords on Minsheng Road stopped March 19."

"So what did it verify that day?" He Xiufen asked.

"Nothing."

"Then these eleven lines weren't the product of any review." He Xiufen ran a fingernail along that phrase. "Backfilled. And it wrote in the date itself."

"What do I ask at the hearing?"

"Two questions. Who conducted this verification. And to what stage it actually went." He Xiufen pushed the page toward her. "If it can answer, make it produce whatever was actually verified. If it can't, these eleven pages are just paper it filled in itself."

Ma Jianjun came upstairs to drop off forms, three rubber-banded stacks landing on the long table's corner. He glanced at the detail pages and asked if she wanted him to sort these into building stacks too.

"No. These four pages don't sort into that."

"Whatever doesn't sort, you keep." He headed back downstairs.

The third group: four pages. A detail schedule. Twenty-three rows. Columns: serial number, disbursement date, amount, payee name, payee account number.

She worked down line by line. The first several rows listed that fourteen-character name: Jiangzhou Youyu Housing Rental Service Co., Ltd. In the middle, a few rows for Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading Co., Ltd. Toward the end of the second page, the payee shifted to another name: Jiangzhou Minanli Property Co., Ltd. On the fourth page, one more she'd never seen: Jiangzhou Anyu Business Consulting Co., Ltd.

She pulled out sixty-six contract photos and searched for those two names. Not one match. She'd flipped through the corners of three stacks of bank statements twice over—she didn't remember those account names either.

"Not on the contracts. Not on the statements."

"It handed these to us on its own."

On the night of July 2, Lu Jibai had sent her a line: What he handled went beyond Youyu. That message had sat in her phone for over two weeks while she tried to figure out where it landed. Tonight it landed—on two rows of a schedule.

He Xiufen smoothed the four pages flat and pointed at each line in turn.

"It's willing to give you these because it assumes you already know about all of them."

"It assumes I only have three names."

"This line." He Xiufen's finger stopped on the last row.

Disbursement date: July 3. Amount: 24,000. Payee: that fourteen-character name.

She pulled out the disbursement dates for all seventy-four households with the complete set and read from earliest to latest. The last date was June 12.

No July 3.

She copied down Kong Xiulan's nineteen-digit string and checked the last four digits against every payee account number in the twenty-three rows. Not one match.

"There's no household under this line."

"Don't start with whether there's a household under it." He Xiufen gathered the four pages. "Tomorrow, write one page to file behind these: requesting an order compelling the defendant to supplement and submit the remaining one hundred five transactions. Whether it complies is its business. The number it wrote down—that's in our hands."

"What if it doesn't give them up?"

"Then at the hearing, you read one sentence: The defendant's internal review identified one hundred twenty-eight transactions; the defendant submitted twenty-three." He Xiufen picked up her enamel mug. "That sentence is in its own handwriting. It can't out-read you."

"Do I add those fourteen characters to the defendant column?"

"The case number comes first. Once the number's issued, then we speak."

Ten o'clock at night. The table downstairs was cleared away. The scallion-oil smell faded from the window crack. She opened her computer and typed that fourteen-character name into the search box of the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

Lines appeared one after another.

Date of Establishment: March 11, 2020.

Legal Representative: Zhou Keming.

Change Record: On April 21 of this year, the legal representative changed from Zhou Keming to Zheng Hongbin.

Shareholder: Jiangzhou Youzhu Information Technology Co., Ltd., 100% capital contribution.

Registered Address: Fourth Floor, Wanshun Building.

She stared at "April 21" for a long time. Last month, pulling records at the Market Regulation Bureau, the topmost of those three names had also undergone a capital reduction on April 21. Same day. He'd moved on two fronts at once: one capital reduction, one switch of representatives.

The room on the fourth floor of Wanshun Building had been emptied out last month—desks and chairs hauled away, property management fees still owing 4,800, the spare key still in Old Cao's hand, never turned in.

She typed in the other two names. Both established in the latter half of last year, registered capital 100,000 each, registered addresses two rooms in the same building, the same contact phone number.

She dialed it. It rang seven times. Nobody picked up. She set the phone down; the screen went dark on its own.

She copied the fourteen characters onto a strip of cut paper and pressed it under the glass desk pad, lined up beside the other slips.

Then she pulled out Shi Lei's grid-paper page from the file. Line three read: July 3, 10:00 a.m., entered through the side gate, together with a person wearing a blue badge, that person carrying a kraft paper envelope.

The last row of the detail schedule: also July 3.

[Thud. Under this transaction, there is still no one.]

She pushed the two pages toward each other, leaving a two-finger gap between them, lamplight pooling in the space.

Tang Guo stood in the doorway, phone in hand, the screen showing the bank's monthly deduction reminder for the twentieth.

"Tomorrow's the twentieth."

"Let it deduct."

"When is the day you say stop?"

Shen Zhixia didn't look up. She pointed at those two lines.

"When this transaction finds its person."