Chapter 328: The Plaintiff's Position

January 12, 9:00 a.m. She had just unlocked the upstairs door, the key still in the lock, when her phone rang.

The old-lady phone's speaker was always loud. She picked up and the first thing she heard was the clatter of a pot lid.

"Lawyer Shen, it's Chai Guizhi."

"Go ahead."

"That man came by again this morning."

"Xiao Wu?"

"Mm. He stood at the door, scraped his shoes on the threshold twice, didn't come in." She spoke one sentence at a time. "He asked if I'd signed. I said I hadn't made up my mind."

"What did he say?"

"He said, it's almost New Year. Sign it, and there's money for the holiday."

Shen Zhixia opened her notebook, and beside the Qingshi Village page she jotted down the date and time, then wrote after it: Xiao Wu came again, asked whether she'd signed.

"One more thing." The old woman said. "He said, if you don't sign, then when the kid gets tested again, the company can't do anything for you."

Her pen stopped.

"Remember that line exactly as he said it," she said. "If he says it again, just nod and say, 'I hear you.' Don't say anything else."

"Doesn't nodding mean I'm agreeing?"

"Nodding means you heard. Not that you agreed." Shen Zhixia said. "If he asks again, you only have one answer: waiting for my son to come home."

"What if he insists on waiting?"

"Then let him wait. Let him wait on his own. Don't let him in, and don't pour him water."

The line went quiet for two seconds, and the pot lid clattered again, like someone had moved it aside.

"Can I put it this way?" the old woman asked. "I say I haven't made up my mind."

"That works. Don't mention us here. Nothing else."

"Then I won't say it." She paused. "On the eighteenth I'll leave the house early. I've drawn a circle on the calendar, on the eighteenth."

"8:40, I'll wait for you at the hospital entrance. Pay for the blood draw yourself, and don't throw away the receipt."

"I'll pin it inside the cloth bag."

After hanging up, she copied that line onto the Qingshi Village page and added a note beneath it: waiting for her son to come home.

January 13, 10:00 a.m., Zhengping Firm, second floor.

The corners of the whiteboard still carried faint marks from last month that hadn't been fully erased. Shen Zhixia wiped it down with the eraser, drew a vertical line down the middle, and wrote "Private" on the left, "Public" on the right.

Li Huilan stood at the line, mug in hand. Lu Jibai sat beneath the window, finished the page in his hand, and laid it flat.

In the Private column, she wrote a name: Ge Xiaoyu. Below it: personal injury compensation. Below that: one word, "Wait."

"Wait for what?" Li Huilan asked.

"Wait for the second blood test on the eighteenth, for the diagnosis certificate, for his father to come home at Spring Festival and sign." She said. "All three on paper before this column moves."

In the Public column, she wrote: one ditch. The land along the ditch. The children in the village. When she finished, she left only one word at the bottom: "Who."

"Six kids, each family suing on its own. Workable?"

"It works." Shen Zhixia said. "Six cases, six sets of proof. Each family has to prove their own child drank from which water, ate vegetables from which plot of land."

"If they sue separately, they don't have to win six times." Lu Jibai said. "They get negotiated one by one. Three thousand per family."

"The four families who signed can't even become plaintiffs." Shen Zhixia said. "The paper says they won't participate in any litigation."

"Then find the ones who didn't sign."

"Six kids, four families signed—that's what she said. Of the two left, one came forward on her own, gave her name herself. The other family's name, we still don't know."

"Have Ma Jianjun ask around?"

"No." Shen Zhixia said. "If no one comes to us, we don't go knocking. That family's name has to walk in on its own."

Li Huilan said nothing, just looked at the "Who" on the whiteboard.

"Why wait on the child's money?" she asked after a moment.

"Mix it with the public matter on one sheet of paper, and the first thing they ask is how much you want." Shen Zhixia said. "That's how the three-thousand price came about."

Lu Jibai moved his mug half an inch aside. "The Private column—no price talk until the papers are complete. The Public column—there's no price to talk about."

"Then who stands in that column?"

"Someone who can speak for a whole stretch of land." He said. "That position has a name. It's called plaintiff."

Shen Zhixia drew a horizontal line under "Who."

"I know someone." Li Huilan set her mug down. "She does environmental work. Cai Qingru, Jiangzhou Qinghe Environmental Public Welfare Service Center. Two years ago, a river dispute, people's mediation. I sat across from her."

"Her center—can it be a plaintiff?"

"Civil affairs–registered social service organization, that's exactly what they do. Whether she qualifies, that depends on the papers." Li Huilan said. "But I'm not making that call yet."

"Why not?"

"People like her—if you ask vague, she answers vague." Li Huilan said. "Ask the right questions first."

"I'll ask a question tonight." Shen Zhixia said.

[Thud. One task, two matters: one has to wait, one needs a person.]

January 13, 8:00 p.m., her home.

Two bowls soaked in the sink. Zhi'an was doing homework in the living room, pen moving scratchily across the paper. Her hands were still wet when the phone rang; she wiped them twice before answering.

"Zhixia? It's Zhou Yu."

"Mm."

"Last time, you said you wanted to ask about a road for the village." He said. "I've thought it over for a few days. There are a few things I can say. Once I've said them, that's it."

"Go ahead."

"First, individuals can't bring this kind of case. Environmental pollution harming the public interest—the law says 'the authorities and relevant organizations designated by law.' If you sue on your own, the court won't accept the filing. Same for the children's parents—they can sue for their own losses, but they can't sue for a ditch."

She uncapped her pen and pulled over a sheet of paper.

"Second, qualified organizations have thresholds: registered with civil affairs authorities at or above the level of a city divided into districts, engaged exclusively in environmental protection public-interest activities for at least five consecutive years, and no penalties for operational violations within the last five years."

"Third, the procuratorate has a public-interest litigation department. Anyone can report leads. Once reported, they verify on their own."

She wrote line by line, and at the bottom of the last line she noted: phone call, January 13, Zhou Yu.

"Parents don't need to be the plaintiff." He said.

"Understood."

"That's as far as I can go. How you proceed from here—go by the paper, not by people."

"I understand."

"Why did you suddenly ask about this?"

"Just asking."

"Mm." He didn't press further. Two seconds passed. "Has Zhi'an eaten?"

"He has. He's in his room doing homework."

"Almost New Year." He said. "Your firm gets the holiday off, I assume."

"We do."

"Good."

He hung up. She clipped that sheet of paper into her notebook, tucked behind the Qingshi Village page.

January 14, 3:00 p.m., Zhengping Firm, second floor.

Li Huilan used the office landline, pressed speakerphone. Three people gathered around the long table. It rang three times. The first sound after pickup was a chair scraping the floor.

"Qinghe, Cai Qingru."

"Teacher Cai, this is Li Huilan, Zhengping. The river mediation in the west of the city two years ago—I sat across from you."

"I remember." A pause on the other end. "You're not at Chongzheng anymore?"

"I moved over in December."

"Zhengping." She repeated the name slowly. "Talk."

"Qingshi Village, west of the city." Li Huilan said. "A ditch at the village entrance, running down from the mountain. There's a factory on the mountain with a stormwater outlet. Children in the village have elevated blood lead. Factory people are going door to door with an agreement—sign it, get three thousand, and the paper says you'll take part in no litigation. We know of four families who signed."

The other end listened, then said nothing at first.

"Anything else?"

"Two families left. One is willing to give us her name. We have one child's test report, printed directly from the hospital's own machine. The diagnosis certificate hasn't been issued yet."

"One family." Cai Qingru repeated it. "The ditch belongs to the village?"

"The land is the village's. The ditch runs down from the mountain, passes the village entrance, heads east." Shen Zhixia spoke. "We've only checked the public records: the factory is the Baixi Plant of Jiangzhou Hengyue New Materials Co., Ltd., operating premises at East Hill, Baixi Village. The listed pollutants on the permit include lead and its compounds. In September 2025 there was a penalty: lead concentration in the discharge from the stormwater outlet exceeded the standard."

"Public records I already know. No need to read them to me." She said. "What I need to ask, I'll ask in person."

The line went quiet a moment. Through the door on her end came the sound of someone dragging a cardboard box across the floor.

"Tomorrow morning at ten, come over. North of the city, the old textile factory building, third floor. No sign at the stairs. There's a water-system map taped to the door. Bring what papers you have—the ones fit for others to see."

"We don't have a conference room here." She added. "Three desks pushed together."

The call ended. Li Huilan set the receiver down.

"Tomorrow, what she asks won't be in the public records." She said.

"Agreeing to meet isn't agreeing to sue." Lu Jibai said.

Shen Zhixia stood, and under the "Who" on the whiteboard she wrote line by line: Qinghe Environmental Public Welfare Service Center. Cai Qingru. January 15, 10:00. When she finished, she stepped back and read both columns top to bottom.

[Thud. The plaintiff column now has a name.]

9:00 p.m., her home.

Book Two, read to the last page. Jiangbei Brick Factory, thirty-seven people's wages, from case filing to enforcement, page after page marked "see file volume—." The page headers carried the same date and time notation as always. At the edge of the final page was one small line: All thirty-seven came. The courtroom couldn't hold them.

Below it, a new entry: have Old Zhou sit at the front alone; the rest wait at the door.

She closed the book and opened the table of contents page. Four columns per page; the first row was already filled. In the second row she wrote cell by cell: Book Two; March 17, 2006, to September 2008; the case inside—Jiangbei Brick Factory, thirty-seven people's wages. The page-number column left blank; tomorrow she'd count from the first page to the last and fill it in.

Nine books sat stacked at the corner of the desk. She reached down and pressed her finger against the spine of the bottom-most one for two seconds, then drew it back, and pulled up Book Three instead.

Under the desk lamp, the first page of Book Three carried the same date-and-time header as Book One, same format, with a small line beneath it.

The stack leaned slightly to the left. At the very bottom, half a spine was visible, lettering turned inward, impossible to read.