Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 90 : My Name Is Shen

At 2:30 in the afternoon, the car stopped in front of the Qingyuan Testing family compound. The compound walls were red brick, topped with a half-stretch of wire mesh, and along the base sat a row of pickling jars, their mouths covered with plastic bags. Five gray buildings enclosed an open space, clotheslines strung from one end to the other, two quilts hanging on the line with patches sewn into the covers.

He Xiufen didn't rush to get out. She made a phone call first.

"Old Cui, which building does she live in?"

"Building 3, Room 502." Master Cui's voice came through the speaker. "Be out before five, don't show up around mealtime."

"How many people in the household?"

"Just her. Son's in Shenzhen, comes back once a year." He paused. "There's a daughter, too. Married, lives in Chengbei. Stops by every few days."

"Thanks." He Xiufen hung up and pulled the case file bag from the back seat, smoothing the opening flat.

"How do we handle this once we're up there?" Shen Zhixia asked.

"We don't say much." He Xiufen said. "First, get her to recognize us."

Building 3 had no elevator. The stairwell was piled with cardboard boxes, an old stool, a bundle of plastic bottles that hadn't been taken to recycling. The sound-activated light on the fifth floor was broken. Halfway up the fourth-floor landing, He Xiufen paused, tucking the bag tighter under her arm.

The door to 502 was open a crack, and through it leaked the smell of garlic and a hint of medicine. She raised her hand and knocked.

The door opened halfway. The old woman who answered wore a washed-out smock, her hair combed neatly with a black clip behind her ear. She was holding half a head of garlic in one hand.

"Director Cen's home?"

The old woman looked her up and down. "He's gone."

"I know." He Xiufen said. "My name is He, from Zhengping Law Firm. Twenty years ago, I came to your factory."

The old woman shifted the garlic to her other hand, her eyes landing on the kraft paper bag. The corners were worn pale, and on the cover were two characters she recognized.

"You're that woman." she said. "The one who handled Old Cui's lawsuit."

"That's me."

"Back then, the whole factory said you wouldn't let him sign for three thousand." The old woman stepped aside half a pace. "Come in."

The apartment faced south, and the afternoon light slanted in, falling across the arm of the sofa. A blanket was draped over the sofa, and on the coffee table sat a plastic pill organizer, an enamel mug, and a pair of reading glasses. On the wall hung an enlarged group photo, the whole factory standing in front of the workshop door, someone in the front row holding a red flag, the photo's edges yellowed with age. Beside it, a wall clock ticked loudly.

Shen Zhixia sat down by the sofa and placed the canvas bag on her knees.

"You live alone."

"Son's in Shenzhen." Auntie Wang set the garlic in the kitchen and wiped her hands on her smock as she came back. "Daughter comes every few days with groceries, wants me to move in with her. I won't. Her place is on the sixth floor, no elevator. I can't climb it."

"Were you with Director Cen the day he passed?"

"I wasn't." Auntie Wang sat down, pulling the blanket over her legs. "Six in the morning, he went downstairs to buy tofu pudding. When he came back, he sat down at the bottom of the stairs. A neighbor came up to get me. By the time we got to the hospital, he was already gone."

She spoke without hurry, laying out each sentence flat and even, pausing mid-way to reach for the pill organizer on the coffee table.

"Your heart's not good." He Xiufen said.

"Old problem." Auntie Wang shook out two pills and washed them down with water from the enamel mug. "He went quick, didn't burden anyone. Doctor said it was a heart attack."

"That last half-year before he passed, he went to the old building every day."

"Every day. Out the door at eight in the morning. At night, I'd call to hurry him home." Auntie Wang said. "He never said a word when he got back. If I asked, he'd just say it was work stuff, don't ask."

"What was he looking through?"

"Stack after stack of paper, about the size of envelopes." Auntie Wang said. "I can't read."

He Xiufen placed the case file bag on the coffee table, her hand resting on the opening.

"Auntie Wang, we came today to ask you about one thing."

"The iron one."

"Right."

Auntie Wang stared at the pill organizer for a while.

"I carried it back." she said. "Three days after he passed, someone from the administration office took me up and unlocked the door. I carried back a bundle of his clothes. I left the glasses case and the cup. Under the cabinet there was a thing, iron, square, the size of a palm, with a little lock on top. I carried it back."

"Why did you bring it back?"

"I thought it was his." Auntie Wang said. "Put it by the head of the bed for two days."

"Then why did you send it back?"

"I couldn't sleep." The old woman smoothed the creases in the blanket. "That thing sat by my bed, and every time I opened my eyes I saw it. If he'd wanted me to have it, he'd have said something. He never said a word, so what use was it to me? One morning I carried it back on the bus. Someone offered me a seat. I didn't sit, afraid I'd bump it."

"You looked for a locksmith."

"Tried two places." Auntie Wang said. "The first was a lock repair shop. They looked at it and said they couldn't open it. The second was on Xi Street. The owner looked for a while, then waved his hand and said he wouldn't take the job. I asked why. He said, 'You don't want to touch this thing.'"

"Did he say 'don't touch it' or 'I won't take the job'?" He Xiufen asked.

"Can't recall." Auntie Wang said. "I can't read. When people say things, I can't always remember."

Shen Zhixia turned those two phrases over in her mind. "Don't touch it" and "I won't take the job" were two different things.

"During those two days, did anyone come by your place?"

"People came and went in the building." Auntie Wang thought for a moment. "Does this have anything to do with my Old Cen? He did testing. What trouble could he have been in?"

"We don't know." He Xiufen said. "That's why we're asking."

Footsteps came up the stairwell and stopped at the door. A key turned twice in the lock.

"Ma."

A woman in her late thirties came in, short hair, wearing a blue cloth apron with a barcode scanner tucked in the pocket, a bag of greens in her hand. When she saw people sitting on the sofa, her feet stopped at the shoe cabinet.

"This is Lawyer He from Zhengping Firm." Auntie Wang said. "She's here about your father."

The woman set the bag of greens on the shoe cabinet.

"My father's affairs are our own business." she said. "What are you doing here?"

"Cen Hong." He Xiufen said her name.

"You know me."

"Old Cui told me. Building 3, Room 502, daughter runs a shop in Chengbei."

"I run a courier hub at the mouth of the lane, taking packages for people." Cen Hong said. "Two hundred a day. While I'm standing here talking to you, there's a whole cartload at the lane entrance that hasn't been logged in yet."

"Sit for a while." Auntie Wang said.

Cen Hong didn't sit. She kept one hand flat on the shoe cabinet.

"I'll say something, and I hope you won't take offense." she said. "My father passed in June. It was sudden. Our family has no enemies, and we don't want any lawsuits. Whatever you're investigating, go investigate it. Don't drag our family into it."

"We're not here to investigate your father."

"Then what do you want?"

"The iron box under the cabinet." He Xiufen said.

Cen Hong wiped her hands on her apron.

"My mother carried that thing back, and two days later she carried it back again." she said. "She got up three times in the night. I watched her."

"Did you persuade her to send it back?"

"I didn't." Cen Hong said. "She said it wasn't something that belonged to our family alone."

She paused, then asked: "How do you know about the thing under my father's cabinet?"

"There was a hearing on August 12." Shen Zhixia said. "The bank produced a set of approval documents. The top line only showed one character of a name. The character after it was half eaten by a seal. The person who handed us the documents said one thing: don't ask the bank anymore, go ask Qingyuan Testing. This morning we went to the old building at your family's workplace. Master Cui, who watches the building, showed us the cabinet."

"Just because of a character half eaten by a seal."

"And two scratch marks." Shen Zhixia said. "On the lower edge of the cabinet door, one deep, one shallow. One near the hinge side, one half an inch from the latch. The lock was put on new last month by the administration office. There's no rust on the shackle."

Cen Hong stared at her.

"What do you take my father for?"

"A person." Shen Zhixia said. "The words he swallowed back may now exist in only one place: inside that iron case."

"Back in June, someone called me." Cen Hong said. "A cell number. Asked whether my father had left behind any old materials from outside units before he passed. I said I didn't know and hung up. It wasn't anyone from our unit, and it wasn't a relative of ours."

"When?"

"End of June."

"Do you still have the number?"

"I didn't save it. No caller ID."

[Thud. Whoever made that phone call was more than a month ahead of whoever went up to the old building.]

He Xiufen opened the case file bag and pulled out a stack of photocopies, placing them on the coffee table.

"This is the case I handled twenty years ago." she said. "That year, Old Cui's hand was crushed under a machine. The workshop reported it and said that by factory rules, he'd get three thousand. Sign the agreement and it's settled. Your father was the director then. He signed four characters on that form."

"What characters?" Cen Hong asked.

"'Approved for submission.'" He Xiufen said. "Those four characters. He didn't say one good word for Old Cui. When he finished signing, he put the pen down."

"And for those four characters, you've remembered it for twenty years."

"Because those four characters, he didn't have to sign them." He Xiufen said. "That year, everyone in the factory urged Old Cui to sign the agreement. Sign and you get three thousand. Your father didn't urge him. He only signed four characters, letting the process move forward. Later, the evaluation came out as Grade Nine, and he got compensation according to Grade Nine. Your father wasn't one for talking in his life, but every character he signed stood there for him."

Auntie Wang picked up the top sheet of paper, held it far away to look at it, then put it down.

"I didn't come today for that thing in your cabinet." He Xiufen said. "What I want is for you to nod."

"Nod to what?"

"That iron case is your father's personal effects." He Xiufen said. "Personal effects need to be inventoried, photographed, and listed, and the heirs have to sign for them. Your mother signs one copy, you sign one, your brother signs one. On the day of the inventory, someone from the community has to be standing by. After the list is signed, the item gets sealed back in the cabinet. No one can just carry it off. This isn't about giving me a piece of paper. It's about leaving your father a proper record."

[Thud. Personal effects that aren't inventoried and signed for don't exist in court.]

"And after the inventory?" Cen Hong asked.

"After the inventory, we'll talk about the next step." He Xiufen said. "That thing has a lock on it. We're not touching the lock."

"What do you want out of it?"

"I don't know yet." He Xiufen said. "But your father spent half a year going through the archives, and what he was going through was the batch of samples the south side of the city sent nine years ago. Old Cui said he asked him once at the bottom of the stairs whether the retained samples were still there. Then he waved his own hand and said, never mind."

Cen Hong looked down at the barcode scanner in her apron pocket.

"My father said one last thing to me." she said.

Shen Zhixia's fingers stopped at the opening of the canvas bag.

"In May, I brought him food. He was sitting on the balcony sunning himself, and all of a sudden he said something." Cen Hong said. "He said, 'That thing under the cabinet, don't touch it. If someday someone comes asking about Baixi Village, then take it out. If anyone else asks, don't say a single word.'"

"Baixi Village." Shen Zhixia repeated those three characters.

"At the time, I thought he was getting old and talking nonsense." Cen Hong said. "I asked him what kind of place Baixi Village was. He didn't say anything else. Sat there a while, then said it was getting cold and told me to get out his padded vest."

[Thud. The words he'd held back for half a year had landed.]

Shen Zhixia's hand pressed flat against the mouth of the canvas bag and didn't move. Inside the apartment, the ticking of the wall clock grew very clear.

"What is Baixi Village?" Cen Hong asked. "Does Jiangzhou even have a village by that name?"

He Xiufen glanced at Shen Zhixia.

"Nine years ago, Baixi Village's groundwater was contaminated by a factory on the mountain." Shen Zhixia said. "The well water turned bitter. People who drank it broke out in red spots, and soon the whole village was taking turns running to the city for checkups. The villagers filed a lawsuit. The lawyer representing them in that case was named Shen."

"What's your surname?"

"My name is Shen."

Auntie Wang looked up from the blanket, the photocopied sheet in her hand trembling slightly.

"What my Old Cen was waiting for was your family."

"He didn't know who he was waiting for." Shen Zhixia said. "My father passed away five years ago. He can't come, so I'm asking."

He Xiufen closed the bag.

"Tomorrow morning at nine, I'll wait for you at the bottom of Building 3." she said. "Bring the household register, your mother's ID, and your own ID. Call your brother today and have him write a statement of consent, take a photo of it, send it to you, print it out and bring it. Three heirs, one missing signature, and the list doesn't count. For the person who can't read, they sign with a thumbprint and two witnesses. I'll talk to the community office and ask them to send someone up with us."

"What about the lock?" Cen Hong asked.

"We're not touching the lock." He Xiufen said. "Inventory, photograph, sign the list, seal the item back in the cabinet as it was, and then call the administration office to open it. The cabinet belongs to the unit; the item belongs to your family. Not one step can be skipped."

"And after we inventory it?"

"I'll tell you the next step after the inventory is done." He Xiufen said. "One more thing to remember: before the 22nd, the bank has to hand over the originals to the court. Your father's inventory list and the bank's documents need to be laid on the same table, side by side."

Cen Hong looked at her mother. Auntie Wang pulled the blanket up over her legs again.

"You make the decision for me." Auntie Wang said.

"Fine." Cen Hong said. "Tomorrow at nine."

On the way downstairs, Cen Hong walked them to the turn on the fourth floor. The stairwell was dark, light from the fifth-floor window slanting in onto the steps.

"Your father's case." Cen Hong said. "How did it end?"

"He won."

"Did he win the right thing?"

"I haven't finished looking into it." Shen Zhixia said.

Cen Hong nodded once and stayed standing at the turn.

"When you're done, tell me." she said. "My mother's whole life, she's only ever believed one person's words: my father's."

Shen Zhixia went down the stairs. At the third floor, the sound-activated light went out. She gripped the iron railing and descended step by step, the canvas bag pressed against her ribs, the folded edge of the newspaper inside digging into the back of her hand.