Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 86 : Money Goes First

The camera above the checkout counter pointed down, framing half the freezer and the aisle.

Six forty. The store had just opened, the roll-up shutter only halfway up. The freezer hummed. Kong Xiulan, in her blue cloth apron, dragged a stool over from behind the counter.

"Step up on this, you'll reach."

The store manager came out from the back, a woman in her forties. She looked at Kong Xiulan first.

"Cousin," Kong Xiulan said. "She wants to look at the footage."

"At what."

"Yesterday afternoon, around three."

"It's kept for half a month." The manager tapped at the register. "If you don't look today, it gets overwritten in a few days."

"I won't touch your machine." Shen Zhixia turned her phone face-down to show her. "I'll stand here and film the screen with my phone. You watch me do it. When I'm done, you can look at what I got."

The screen split into four small squares. The manager tapped the one on the far left.

The time jumped to July twentieth. The aisle, the freezer glass throwing back a layer of white glare. At 3:07, a man entered from the right, white shirt, walked up to the freezer and stopped. Both hands empty, a badge clipped to his chest. He turned toward Kong Xiulan and said something. Her head dipped once. He looked at her for two seconds, then turned and walked out.

From door to door, under forty seconds. He took no basket, reached for nothing on the shelves, and on the way out didn't even push the door—it was a sensor door.

"What about sound."

"This one doesn't record audio." The manager said, "Come ten times, it'll be the same."

Shen Zhixia turned her phone sideways. First she captured the timestamp in the upper left of the screen, then pushed in, closer, until she reached the badge on his chest. The characters on it blurred into a smear of white with a streak of blue through the middle.

"He said her name out loud," Kong Xiulan said from beside her.

"Yesterday you said he asked whether your surname was Kong."

"I couldn't sleep half the night." She wiped her hands on her apron. "What he said, standing there, was 'Kong Xiulan, that's you.' Three words. Not one missing."

Shen Zhixia said nothing. She steadied the phone and pulled back, taking in the freezer, the counter, and the doorway in one shot.

[Thud. One sheet of paper moves hands, and the next day someone comes looking for the name on it.]

When she finished, she had Kong Xiulan sit in the chair, pulled a sheet of paper from her bag, and read it aloud to her: what day, what time, who entered the store, where he stood, what he said, who was present watching the recording being made, that she had not copied it. When she reached the store name, she fudged the street name, and Kong Xiulan didn't ask.

"April sixteenth—separate sheet. Tell me again."

Kong Xiulan spoke slowly. April sixteenth, afternoon. This same man, standing at the checkout counter, flipping through a stack of papers. He turned to the signature page and held out a pen. She'd been in a rush that day to get to the back door for a truckload of radishes.

"Did the paperwork have names and numbers on it."

"There was a name. Everything else was blank. He pointed, I signed. He said if I didn't sign, I'd miss my spot—too many people wanted that apartment."

"That checks out." Shen Zhixia slid the pen over. "Sign and press a thumbprint."

Kong Xiulan gripped the pen hard. She wrote her name slowly, large. When she finished she asked, "Who's this for."

"For the judge." Shen Zhixia tucked the paper into a file envelope. "The original in your hands—where is it."

"Under the bed, in that plastic crate, double-bagged."

"Don't move it." She said, "He came to the freezer yesterday to ask you, which means he doesn't have your copy. If he did, he wouldn't need to ask. If anyone else asks, tell them you can't read—whatever you signed, you don't know which paper it was. Save this number in your phone."

"What if he comes back."

"Don't say much to him. Don't let him through the back." She snapped the envelope shut. "Take out your phone and film him. Doesn't matter if it's blurry."

Kong Xiulan followed her to the door. "Next time he asks, I'll say I don't know how to read." Shen Zhixia turned and nodded once, but didn't answer.

Ten a.m., 188 Wenchang Road. Same elevator, half its buttons worn white. On the fourth floor, the smell of instant noodles had faded a little, replaced by a film of dust. On the door of 412, the notice posted June twelfth was still there, one corner lifting at the bottom edge.

She stood in the hallway counting door numbers. 407, 409, 411, 412.

Nothing hung on the doors of 409 and 411. On 409's doorframe, a ring of glue that hadn't been fully scraped off, a small scrap of paper still stuck to it, the torn edge fuzzy. Under 411's door, two slips had been shoved through—one a courier waybill, one a utility payment demand. The corners had been trodden black.

Jiang Bo followed behind, hands in his pockets.

"That's the door," he said.

"This whole floor." She pointed at 412. "Every name the money passed through—all crowded into this one hallway."

Old Cao came out of the elevator pushing a hand truck stacked with empty boxes. When he saw her, he pulled the cart against the wall and stopped.

"Back again," he said. "Last time you asked about 412. Which one this time."

"409 and 411."

Old Cao fished out his ring of keys, flipped through them, and put them back.

"411's never been rented. 409 rented last July. Paid a year up front, in cash. The landlord had me count it."

"Who signed."

"A man, forties, thin black-frame glasses." He paused. "Doesn't look at you when he talks. The number's saved in my phone. The note says two characters: 409 Zheng."

He held the screen up for her. First line in the contacts: 409 Zheng. Below it, an eleven-digit number.

Jiang Bo pulled out his phone and read from the business registration screenshots. "Contact number, one-three-eight..." The last four digits matched the screen exactly. She'd dialed this number the day before yesterday. It rang seven times. No one answered.

"How many times has he been here."

"Three. The day he signed the lease. Last year, lunar December twenty-fourth, he came up to pick up some things. Then last month, once more."

"Anyone working out of the room."

"Not a one," Old Cao said. "But there's activity."

"What kind."

"A printer." He tapped two fingers against the keys at his waist. "One night I was on duty. Past eleven, and that thing on the fourth floor was still going. You could hear it through the door. Next morning I came up—the gap under the door was full of white strips, trimmed-off paper edges."

[Thud. A company where nobody works, and it still needs a printer running all day.]

Jiang Bo's fingers slid over his screen for a while before he looked up.

"Minanli Property. Incorporated September third last year. Legal representative, Zheng Hongbin. Two shareholders: Zheng Hongbin subscribed ninety thousand, Jiangzhou Hongkun Investment Management Co., Ltd. subscribed ten thousand. Registered address: this building, fourth floor, room 409."

"And 411."

"Jiangzhou Anyu Business Consulting. Incorporated November eighteenth last year. Legal representative also Zheng Hongbin. One shareholder: Jiangzhou Hongkun Investment Management Co., Ltd., one hundred percent. Registered address: fourth floor, room 411."

"How many companies are under Zheng Hongbin's name."

"Seventeen. Eleven deregistered, six still active." He tilted the screen toward her. "One of them is Jiangzhou Hongkun Investment Management Co., Ltd. Incorporated in 2019. Registered address: 188 Wenchang Road, sixth floor."

She looked up at the ceiling.

"Same building," Jiang Bo said. "Fourth floor to sixth."

She stepped toward 409, crouched, and held her phone to the crack under the door, filming the two slips of paper sideways. The courier waybill's recipient field read "Mr. Zheng." The name on the payment demand was eight characters long. She zoomed in for two shots, then backed off and took one wide enough to show the door number and the gap.

Jiang Bo reached for the demand notice.

"Don't touch it." She said, "The photos are enough. Anything pulled out from under a door—you can't prove who it belongs to."

Old Cao still stood off to one side.

"You have the spare keys for those two rooms."

"409, yes." He said, "The landlord called the day before yesterday asking if anything was inside. I said there's a printer."

"Lease is up."

"It ends this month. When it ended, he didn't come to renew, didn't come to move out." Old Cao nudged his cart forward half a step. "Sixth floor isn't mine to manage. But once I saw him in the stairwell, heading up."

In the afternoon, Tang Guo merged all the reports into one master ledger. Two hundred-plus households registered through the firm, Shi Lei's group, Jiang Bo's area in the west of the city, plus—after her livestreams—other complexes that had formed their own groups and submitted in batches. Together the count passed a thousand. Signatures that weren't in the signer's own hand—Kong Xiulan among them—they'd pulled out eleven households and bound them in a separate volume. Filing first thing tomorrow.

A little past eight at night, the long table sat outside the noodle shop. Half the registration forms had been collected, the rest bundled with rubber bands. Shi Lei's minibus was parked at the mouth of the alley, mud caked on its rear end. He came in holding a slip of paper and set it on the table.

"Yesterday's. Three boxes of printer paper. Sixth floor."

Shen Zhixia picked it up. In the receiving-unit field it read "Jiangzhou Hongkun Investment Management Co., Ltd." Quantity, three boxes. Amount, one hundred twenty. Signature line: a scrawled name, stroke running into stroke, impossible to tell how many characters.

"Why do you still have this."

"He wouldn't pay cash. Said to keep the slips and settle at the end of the month." Shi Lei pushed his sleeves up. "I waited outside the door for twenty minutes."

"What did you hear in those twenty minutes."

"The door wasn't shut all the way." He said, "Two people inside talking. First one said, the translation's done. Monday it goes to certification. The other asked, what about him? First one said: he stays for now. The money goes first."

The table went quiet. Tang Guo set her bowl down. He Xiufen came downstairs with her enamel mug and stood at the far end, listening.

"Money goes first." Shen Zhixia repeated it.

"Those exact three words. I was standing at the door holding a box of paper. I heard it clear as day."

"Then what."

"A man came out. Thin black-frame glasses, that hard-shell black bag sitting on the table just inside the door. He scrawled a name on my slip and told me to stack the paper by the doorway." He scratched the back of his neck. "That trip was the first time I'd ever seen his face."

Shen Zhixia filed the delivery note onto a fresh page in the folder, then pulled out the photos from the morning. Finally she laid the delivery note next to the copy of Kong Xiulan's contract.

On the contract, the name and number had been written by someone else's hand. The first stroke of "Kong" lifted upward; the last hook dragged long. In the scrawled signature on the delivery note, there too was a lift at the start, a dragging, drawn-out finish.

She looked at it for a long time.

"What do you see." He Xiufen asked.

"It looks like the same hand."

"What you see doesn't count." He Xiufen separated the two sheets. "These pages need to go somewhere that can speak—let someone else do the talking. One 'looks like' from your mouth is worthless in court."

"I'll file it tomorrow."

"File it tomorrow. Write one line on it: requesting a handwriting comparison and appraisal of the two documents. Not one extra word." He Xiufen set her mug down. "And list 409 and 411 as well. Apply for an account freeze. On filing day, the defendant column gets written once and stays. Today, just toss out the names and account numbers."

Shen Zhixia ran Shi Lei's words through her mind and asked the System for the tightest provision it had.

[Thud. Statute Quick Search: To apply for preservation, you must show preliminary evidence that the other party may be transferring assets.]

The delivery note, the screen recording, the number in Old Cao's phone—three items spread on the table, none overlapping, laid side by side, enough to fill one thin page.

Tang Guo leaned in. "Money goes first. Can I post something? Just those three words."

"No."

"I won't name anyone."

"There's only one company in that building with that name." Shen Zhixia tucked the slip away. "You post it today, tomorrow morning their translation gets sent out early. They've been at this for three months. Another three or five days won't matter to them."

"And if the money really does get out."

"Once it's out, you can't chase it back." She said, "So we have to get there before it leaves. There has to be a piece of paper waiting at the door."

He Xiufen added from the other end of the table, "Translations, certifications—those have to come from an agency with a seal, a name, a file number, a record. I'll look into that one myself. Find out who's been issuing those for the companies in this building. You just get the filing done tomorrow."

She tore a strip off the notepad and wrote Shi Lei's three words on it—Money Goes First—then slid it under the glass desk pad. Below it, a few more notes had accumulated.

[Thud. Where is the money—bottomed out.]

[Thud. The pool has a breach.]

[Thud. The breach leads outside.]

She pulled that slip out, flipped it over, and wrote four new characters on the back. Then she slid it back under the glass.

The breach leads outside.