Chapter 154: The Paper Arrived Before the Date

Peng Weidong stood outside Third Courtroom, clutching his ID card in his hand, gripping it until the edges grew damp.

The doors weren't open yet. At the end of the corridor, a janitor was mopping, the mop wrung out poorly, water pooling in the tile grout in a thin bright line. Every step from someone passing made a wet sound.

Peng Weiguo crouched beneath the fire hydrant, smoking. Half a cigarette in, he crushed it out under his heel. A moment later he fished out another, lit it, took two drags, then stubbed it out anyway and slid it back into the pack.

"Just finish it," Peng Weidong said.

"Not smoking anymore," Peng Weiguo said. "They don't allow it inside."

At eight-forty, Ma Jianjun came up the stairs, helmet tucked under his arm, both ears red with cold. He didn't sit. He leaned against the wall and glanced at the door.

"Lawyer Shen here yet?"

"Upstairs," Peng Weidong said. "She went up earlier this morning to submit something."

At eight forty-five, Shen Zhixia came down the stairs. A hard-shell folder hugged to her chest, a cloth bag on her shoulder, He Xiufen following half a step behind with a thermos in hand. At the far end of the corridor, Lin Qi sat on the last row of plastic chairs, the cloth bag on her knees, her phone in her hand, screen facing down.

"Everything for court is with me," Shen Zhixia said. "You don't need to bring anything. Just that phone."

"It's the only thing I brought."

"When I call you, then you come in." Shen Zhixia hitched the bag's strap higher on her shoulder. "Once inside, whatever I say, look at my face first."

"Look at your face, or your eyes?"

"My face."

Lin Qi nodded, switching the phone to her other hand. Two indentations marked her knuckles, worn there by that pen with the cracked cap.

At eight-fifty, the court clerk came out to read the courtroom rules: all phones off, no audio or video recording. People in the corridor filed in one by one. Ma Jianjun went in last, taking a seat in the final row of the gallery, at the edge, helmet on the floor by his feet. Peng Weiguo sat beside him, hands resting on his knees.

A man in a dark overcoat sat in the front row of the gallery. He hadn't taken the coat off; the collar stood up. As Shen Zhixia passed him, she recognized him—Huang Weizhong, the deputy director of Chengbei Hospital. He didn't look at her. His eyes were on the judges' bench.

The plaintiff's bench was on the left, the defendant's on the right. Two people already sat at the defendant's bench. The one on the left was Lu Jibai. Three pages lay on a folder, corners aligned perfectly, pen resting at the edge of the paper. He raised his eyes once; his gaze lingered on her face for half a beat, then dropped back to the file.

Shen Zhixia sat down on the plaintiff's side and opened the hard-shell folder, checking it grid by grid: left side—two pages of the original witness application, Peng Weidong's power of attorney, three pages of interview records from the District Health Commission. Right side—three pages of the Legal Opinion Letter, still creased along the exact fold she'd pressed into it. The second item was Lin Qi's phone, currently in the pocket of that down jacket out in the corridor. The third—photocopies of the handover log: her own on-site record from January 21st, plus Qi Xiuyun's page.

He Xiufen sat to her left, twisting the thermos cap open, then shut, saying nothing.

At exactly nine o'clock, the gavel struck the bench once. It didn't sound loud.

The presiding judge was in his early fifties. The left arm of his glasses had been wrapped twice with white thread. He opened the case file and read the cause of action: medical damage liability dispute. The other two members of the collegial panel sat on either side—one flipping continuously through materials, the other holding a pen.

Roll call. When "Plaintiff Peng Weidong" was read, Peng Weidong stood and answered "Present," bracing one hand against the table. When "Legal Guardian of Peng Nianman" was read, he answered "Present" again. When the plaintiff's agents were called, Shen Zhixia and He Xiufen answered together.

"Defendant Chengbei Hospital, two litigation agents." The clerk read on. "Jiangzhou Hengzheng Law Firm, Attorney Lu Jibai."

"Present."

"Chengbei Hospital Medical Affairs Office—"

"Present."

The clerk read the three words after that very quickly. Shen Zhixia looked up at the defendant's bench. That name—today, for the first time, the court was speaking it aloud in front of people.

"Do either party have recusal applications regarding the composition of the collegial panel?"

"No." Both sides answered in turn.

"Plaintiff, state your litigation claims."

Shen Zhixia stood and read the three claims through: one, order the defendant to compensate for all losses caused by medical damage; two, commission a medical damage appraisal to determine cause of death and fault; three, litigation costs borne by the defendant.

"Defendant, present your defense."

Lu Jibai stood. His voice was neither high nor low, each sentence measured, as if he'd arranged the order on paper long ago.

"First, patient Chen Xiaoman died of postpartum hemorrhage, a severe obstetric complication. The hospital discovered it and immediately organized rescue efforts. The measures were timely and consistent with diagnostic and treatment standards. There is no causal relationship between her death and the treatment provided.

"Second, the individual irregularities in the medical records were the personal actions of the on-duty physician, and the hospital has already taken disciplinary action. Problems with one individual's documentation do not equate to fault in the treatment itself.

"Third, what the plaintiff has submitted are administrative reporting and reply materials. What this case requires is a determination of cause of death and fault, which should be established through the appraisal process. Administrative materials cannot be used to presume the hospital's liability."

He finished, sat down, and realigned the three pages. On the defendant's bench, Director Xu's fingers tapped once against the edge of the table. Very lightly.

Suppress the cause of death. Suppress the records. Suppress the procedure. She'd copied these three points from the defense statement before; hearing him read them aloud today, not one word or order had changed. She capped her pen, then twisted it back open.

"We now proceed to evidence presentation and cross-examination. Plaintiff, present your evidence."

Shen Zhixia pulled the stack from the left side of the hard-shell folder.

"Presiding Judge, the plaintiff has three groups of evidence. Group one: the sealed medical records, the photocopy verification records, and the on-site record from January 21st, the day the handover log retention volume was retrieved. Group two: the disputed photocopy of the handover log, and the receipt register and reply for the defendant's submitted materials. Group three: an electronic record, which I ask the court to view in person when the witness takes the stand."

She paused.

"I won't present the latter two yet. First, I'd like to show a few pages of paper—paper we didn't retrieve ourselves."

"Page one: the submitted materials from the defendant received by the Medical Administration Division of the Chengbei District Health Commission on January 27th, eleven pages total. This page is the receipt register. It shows the date the materials were logged.

"Page two: page eleven of the submission file, 'Self-Review Statement on Changes to Medical Records.' The date at the bottom of this page is January 28th.

"Page three: page three of the Statement of Defense the defendant filed with this court on January 18th. This line reads: 'The department, per internal management requirements, organized and transcribed the handover log.'

"Page four: the 'Reply on Time-Limited Explanation' the defendant submitted to the Medical Administration Division of the District Health Commission on February 13th."

She laid the four pages side by side, top edges aligned in a single line, pressing down with her fingers.

[Thud. The paper arrived before the date. You only read dates, not logic.]

"What these four pages show is one single thing," she said. "The paper entered into the district files on January 27th carries the date January 28th.

"This piece of paper was already lying in the file before the day it claims to have been written."

The courtroom went still. The clerk's keyboard froze mid-air.

"Either the materials entered the district files on some date other than the 27th, or the date on this page is not the date it was written." She said, "Which one is the truth? I ask the defendant to answer."

Lu Jibai stood.

"Presiding Judge. The third and fourth pages the plaintiff has produced are documents the defendant submitted to administrative authorities. They are materials from an administrative procedure and have no bearing on the medical damage dispute in this case. Using administrative materials to determine treatment conduct cannot stand procedurally."

[Thud. He wants to call it irrelevant. Ask the court to note it on the record. Don't argue with him.]

"Presiding Judge, I ask the court to note one thing on the record." Shen Zhixia said. "Page three is the Statement of Defense the defendant filed with this court on January 18th. It is already in this case's file. Page four is the explanation the District Health Commission demanded within a deadline—a three-working-day deadline the defendant set for itself. Whether these two pages count as materials in this case, the court can tell by looking at the paper."

"Entered into the record," the presiding judge said. His pen moved a line down the file before he looked up. "Defendant, continue."

Lu Jibai offered no follow-up. He sat, both hands pressing down on the folder.

"Regarding page four, I have one more question for the defendant," Shen Zhixia said.

"Ask."

"The defendant's materials submitted to the district state that those two lines of writing in the handover log were written by the individual in question. Yet on this page, the 'Writer' field is blank, and the 'Handler' field contains three characters—the name of the Medical Affairs Office's Director Xu."

She raised her eyes to the defendant's bench.

"I ask the defendant: which individual wrote those two lines?"

No one on the defendant's bench answered immediately.

Director Xu's hand drew back on the tabletop. He turned his head and looked at Lu Jibai—just one glance.

"Defendant, answer," the presiding judge said.

Lu Jibai flipped a page of the paper in his hand. "Presiding Judge. The source and formation process of this page require verification with the hospital. I ask the court's permission to address it in the cross-examination opinion."

"Granted." The presiding judge looked at him. "But you must answer today."

[Thud. That field—if he doesn't fill it, it stays empty forever.]

Shen Zhixia didn't press that line. She took page four back into the hard-shell folder, gathered the four pages into one stack, and weighed them in her hand. The three pages arranged on the defendant's bench were laid out the same way as the stack in her hand.

In the front row of the gallery, Huang Weizhong fished a pen from his overcoat pocket and jotted two lines on a piece of paper.

"Presiding Judge, the plaintiff applies to call a witness to testify."

She submitted the two-page original Witness Testimony Application, which the clerk passed to the presiding judge. He read it through, then flipped to the back. There were scratch marks on the back, with five characters written beneath them. He didn't read them aloud. He squared the two pages and set them at the edge of the case file.

"Witness's name, identity, and relationship to the parties."

"Lin Qi, obstetrician at Chengbei Hospital, employee of the defendant institution." Shen Zhixia said. "Her practice certificate is currently suspended, and the hospital has reported to the District Health Commission recommending revocation."

At these words, two or three heads in the gallery turned in unison.

"Does the defendant object to the plaintiff's witness application?"

Director Xu's body tilted one inch toward Lu Jibai. He said something close against the table, so low that not a word carried to the plaintiff's bench. Lu Jibai listened, then set his pen down on the paper.

"No objection."

He answered very softly, then sat, folding his hands on the folder.

Last night at 10:17 PM, in that phone call, the hospital had asked him the exact same question—would Lin Qi testify. His answer had been "I don't know." Today, in front of the hospital's own people, he gave this answer.

[Thud. Last night he said he didn't know. Today he says no objection.]

The presiding judge wrote two lines on the case file and set down his pen.

"Granted. Witness Lin Qi, please take the stand."

The clerk went to open the door.

When the door opened, a strip of light from the corridor fell across the floor in front of the plaintiff's bench. Lin Qi walked in through that strip of light. Dark blue down jacket, zipped to the top, phone in hand, screen facing down.

She passed behind Peng Weidong. He sat with both hands braced on his knees, head bowed, not looking back. She passed the defendant's bench—the person at the far end pressed down the front of his jacket without his eyes following her.

She stopped before the witness stand. The surface was about a foot wide, holding a few pages and a pen.

The presiding judge closed the two-page application.

"Witness Lin Qi, state your name and occupation."

She set her phone on the surface, screen down, then raised her head. In this room sat the people who, over the past months, had handled paper tied to her.

"My name is Lin Qi," she said. "Obstetrician at Chengbei Hospital. Currently without a practice certificate."