Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 85 : Half a Sentence Is Still a Sentence

The person behind the window flipped through that page twice, then looked up. "Where's the index?"

Three sets lay on the counter—index, main text, archived copies. Not a single one missing. Last time she'd been short one set and had to run back to the copy shop at the mouth of the alley, a yuan and twenty fen. This time she'd counted three times before leaving the house.

That page had only five lines. The case number at the top, and in the middle, the request: that the defendant be ordered to supplement and submit the remaining one hundred and five transactions. Two numbers below she'd circled in red pen: one hundred twenty-eight, and twenty-three.

The receipt stamp pressed down, and the receipt slipped out through the window. The date column read: July 20th.

Outside the gate, the sun beat straight overhead, and the tiles below the steps were hot enough to scorch her feet. She tucked the receipt back into her bag. The stack of contract photos at the bottom still had half left unread.

Her phone buzzed. A number she hadn't saved, short message: Four p.m., No. 412 Wenchang Road.

She'd been to that place back in June. The roll-up shutter was half down, with a "Leasing Suspended" notice taped to the door. She'd taken a photo of it, and the photo sat in the second slot of her file. She read the message twice and didn't reply.

At noon she went back to the alley. The long table had just been carried out, and Tang Guo was crouched on the steps checking the list.

"Shi Lei's side: one hundred sixteen households. Chengxi: thirty-eight. Full set of three documents: seventy-nine complete."

"Five more households."

"Added this morning." Tang Guo turned her phone around to show her. On the screen was that deduction reminder from the bank: 8:07 a.m., two thousand yuan. "I screenshotted it myself."

Shen Zhixia glanced at it and said nothing.

"Just give me the stop date and I'll stop asking." Tang Guo put her phone away. "Asking's useless anyway."

At 3:50 she arrived at No. 188 Wenchang Road and took the elevator to the fourth floor. The window at the end of the corridor stood open. The notice on door 412 was still there, its color lighter than in the photo, one corner lifted by the draft. Under the door gap, three flyers for proxy invoice issuance had been shoved through; two had been yanked out and lay trampled on the floor.

At exactly four o'clock, the elevator doors opened and he came from the far end of the corridor. White shirt, no jacket, both hands empty.

Every time she'd seen him recently, he'd had something in his hands—a black folder, a case file bag. This time, nothing.

"You picked the place," she said.

"There's not a soul behind this door," he said. "What's said here won't land on anyone's ledger."

"That's what you said last time."

"Last time I said this stop doesn't count toward the bank's ledger."

"And today's stop?"

"Counts as my own."

She wrote the sentence into her notebook, word for word.

"Today's the twentieth," she said. "Two thousand came off her card at 8:07."

"Don't let her stop."

"She hasn't stopped."

"If she misses one installment, she loses on this end first."

"There's another installment next month on the twentieth."

"I know."

She flipped to a fresh page in her notebook.

"What you submitted isn't two pages," she said. "Two pages of explanation, eleven pages of purpose verification records, four pages of detail statements."

"You counted more carefully than I did."

"One hundred twenty-eight. Twenty-three. The missing one hundred and five—it wrote that number down on its own paper."

[Thud. One person handling one hundred twenty-eight transactions—is that diligence, or no one else willing to touch it.]

"The self-inspection was its own doing," he said.

"The self-inspection is what you demanded."

"I'm an agent. An agent's duty is to make his client settle its own accounts."

"As long as they settle cleanly." She copied the number down. "What it settled cleanly is exactly what I'm missing."

He glanced at the door; the corner of the notice lifted again.

"Those one hundred five transactions can't be supplemented."

"Even if they can't, I still want it written on the paper in its own hand."

"What use is it written there?"

"On hearing day, one sentence is enough: self-inspection shows one hundred twenty-eight, submitted twenty-three."

"After you say that, the judge will ask you for something else."

"That's why I came today to hear your half sentence."

He nudged the two flattened flyers at his feet toward the door with his shoe.

"Last time you left me eleven words." She looked up. "The bank isn't the last pocket either."

"I remember."

"Where's the last one?"

"I don't know," he said. "Last time I left out half a sentence."

"Which half?"

"It isn't the first one either."

[Thud. A pocket money passes through is more honest than the pocket that holds it.]

"Where's the first one?"

"The money comes out of a thousand people's hands, and the first place it lands is written on that contract of yours."

"Youyu Apartments," she said. "Those four words."

"It's those four words."

"What about those three companies?"

"They're the hands behind it."

"And you? Which pocket do you stand in?"

"I stand on the end that can pay."

"So you told me to sue the bank."

"You said that."

"You said it first."

He didn't answer, just looked toward the far end of the corridor.

"Yin Jianping," she said. "Those three characters in the lower right corner of the payment transfer voucher."

"Handler."

"Who's behind the handler?"

"It goes up the ladder, one box at a time."

"Up to which box?"

"I don't look at that box."

"In the boxes you can see—is he there?"

"He's not among my clients." he said. "Yin Jianping is one of the bank's people. His shift schedule's spotless, not a single day of leave taken."

"That clean."

"Clean things generally come from one of two places."

"Which two?"

"He never stopped. Or no one dared let him stop."

She wrote the two sentences separately in her notebook, leaving a blank line between them.

"That page I filed on the tenth," she said.

"The next morning, a photocopy of that document was pulled out and held in someone's hands for a long time."

"Who pulled it?"

"Someone who sits in a box."

She'd heard those four words before. He Xiufen had said it: paper pressed with a perforation seal—only someone who sits in a box could get it out.

"How long did he look at it?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you ask me here today?"

"That name in Min'an Lane—you'd better ask about it yourself."

"Ask what?"

"I have a complete set of what's on paper on my end." He pulled his hands out of his pockets. "What you're missing is words from people's mouths."

He turned and walked toward the elevator.

"Lu Jibai."

He stopped but didn't turn around.

"Everything you give me is missing half."

"The missing half isn't in my hands."

"Last time eleven words. This time half a sentence."

"Half a sentence is still a sentence."

"Then what about next time?"

Someone downstairs rode past on a bicycle, the bell ringing up through the stairwell. He stood still.

"Next time," he said, "wait until you've used up this half."

The wind lifted the corner of the notice on the door, then let it fall back.

Last time she'd asked, he'd shut her down clean: You won't hear anything today. This time he didn't shut her down, but he didn't give extra either.

After a few seconds, he walked to the elevator, pressed the button, and stepped in when the doors opened, without looking back.

[Thud. Received today: two words, one name, half a sentence.]

The sky wasn't fully dark when she got back to the alley. He Xiufen set her enamel mug on the long table and told her to tell it from the beginning.

She did. Tang Guo crouched on the doorstep holding a bowl, listening; halfway through she cut in:

"He still splits it into two sessions."

"Same as last time."

"Doesn't it exhaust you, him talking like that?"

"It does." She opened her notebook flat. "But every half sentence matches up with something."

He Xiufen pulled the notebook over and studied those four lines. When she reached the word "handler," her finger paused.

"What you earned today is those two words," she said. "The hand in the corner of that payment voucher is the hand that reaches out. You were staring at the hand before; now you're staring at the arm."

"He told me not to stare at names."

"That sentence he gave for free." He Xiufen took a sip. "The name he can't give; the handler he can. That half sentence is his own."

"He also said one more thing." Shen Zhixia flipped back. "I don't look at that box."

"If he can say that, it means such a box exists." He Xiufen said. "The place a man refuses to look is more accurate than the place he talks about."

"What about the last line in the notebook?"

"Min'an Lane." He Xiufen set the mug down. "You've got two Min'an Lanes in your hands."

"I know. One is an address—Building 6, Room 301. The other is the company name that just showed up on the detail statement."

"Ask the person first." He Xiufen said. "Companies are paper, and paper can be altered. Words from a person's mouth—you have to hear face to face. Those one hundred five transactions he won't supplement, but on August tenth he still has to respond. There's no need for you to push on that account."

"I'll go tomorrow."

"Before you go, settle the one thing left over from today." He Xiufen pointed at her notebook. "He said this stop counts as his own. You wrote that phrase down—don't put it on the scale."

"I haven't."

"Putting it on the scale's fine too." She picked up her mug. "The materials he gave you are work he did for the bank; his own matters are a separate thing. The two can't be mixed together in the count—I've told you this before."

"I remember."

"Good." She walked toward the stairs, then turned back after two steps. "The day he puts his own thing on the table, that's when you enter it in the ledger."

"Who's the name he mentioned?" Tang Guo stood up with her bowl.

"Kong Xiulan."

"The one who said, 'I didn't sign it.'"

"That's her."

"Bring the voice recorder tomorrow." Tang Guo stacked the bowl into the basin. "The words on that contract were written by someone else, but what comes out of her mouth is her own."

She messaged Kong Xiulan: Tomorrow 6:30 a.m., will you be at the shop?

The reply came slow, more than ten minutes later. Two messages.

"Yes. I get to the shop at six-thirty to turn on the freezer."

"This afternoon after three, a man came into the shop. White shirt, a badge pinned to his chest. He stood by the freezer and asked if my surname is Kong. I said yes. He nodded and left without buying anything."

She read the second message twice.

White shirt, badge pinned to his chest. On the afternoon of April 16th, that was exactly the kind of person who'd stood at the cash register, flipping pages and telling her to sign that stack of papers.

She sent another message: Does the shop have cameras?

Kong Xiulan replied: There's one mounted above the register. The manager says footage's kept for half a month, then wiped.

She typed: Is this footage still there?

Kong Xiulan: Yes. I'll tell the manager tomorrow.

She typed: Don't say anything yet. I'll come by tomorrow morning.

After sending, she set her phone face down on the corner of the desk.

The notebook had four new lines today. She picked up her pen, then put it down again.

She hadn't written down his parting words. That sentence didn't match up with any single thing.

Downstairs, Tang Guo's livestream light glowed, a strip of white light leaking through the door crack onto the steps.