Chapter 332: Five Directors

When Cai Qingru laid the two sheets of paper on the table, only three of the five chairs were filled.

January 21, 6:00 p.m., third floor of the Qinghe center. Three desks pushed together into one long table, spread with things photocopied that afternoon: two acceptance notices from the Chengnan Notary Office, photocopies of two lab report sheets (the name field covered with a strip of white paper, the strip printed with "Ge"), and a photocopy of a Diagnosis Certificate. Two thermoses of hot water, a box of tissues, three enamel mugs printed with the center's name.

Two faces on the screen. One in Sanya, an open window behind, palm trees outside the window. One in a county town, a daughter's living room, TV on, muted.

"Five people, three here, two online," Cai Qingru said. "No time-tracking today. We finish when the questions are done."

Lu Guangsheng was sixty-three, retired from the hydrology station. He fished reading glasses out of his faded navy jacket and reached first for the lab report photocopy, holding it up under the light to examine the white strip.

"The names are your doing."

"They are," Shen Zhixia said.

"The originals?"

"In a kraft paper envelope, locked in a steel cabinet at Zhengping."

"The covered spots match the originals?"

"They match. The originals are verified in court."

He set the paper down and nodded.

Yu Min was in her fifties, managed the center's funds and the annual reports. She opened a hardcover ledger, chewed on the pen cap for a moment, paged through it on the desk, and only then removed the cap.

Cai Qingru did not read from the paper. "I'll only say three things," she said.

"First: who we're suing. Jiangzhou Hengyue New Materials Co., Ltd. The plant is up in the hills east of Baixi Village. Lead is among the pollutants it's permitted to discharge, and it has one stormwater outlet. In September the year before last, the water discharged from that outlet exceeded the lead standard, and they were fined once. All of that is on the public information pages. On the twentieth, we had the notary office go through the website page by page and issued two acceptances."

"Second: what we're suing for. That water coming down from the hills passes through Baixi Village, reaches the edge of Qingshi Village, goes under the highway through a culvert at the village entrance, and runs east along the roadbed. The locals call it Huishui Ditch. The land on both sides of it, the playground of the village primary school — and the blood of six children."

"Third: who's going to court. Two lawyers from Zhengping. Public interest representation, no agency fee."

The person on the county-town screen shifted. "On the afternoon of the twentieth, someone stood across the ditch, holding up a phone, filming the notary. Does the center know about that?"

"We do," Cai Qingru said. "I told every one of you."

"So he knows we're suing."

"He knew long ago. People from the plant have come to the door. The first few times they asked whether we'd signed. This time they asked what illness the child was being treated for."

Lu Guangsheng took off his reading glasses and spun the temple halfway between his fingers.

"I have one thing to say," he said. "Do we have, in our hands, a single piece of paper that says 'this water was discharged by them'?"

The room went quiet. The stopper on a thermos gave a soft pop.

"No," Shen Zhixia said.

"Not one?"

"Not one. We have the permit, the one penalty, the state of the ditch today, and a 206 reading. Not one line on any of it says who discharged it."

"Then we just go to court?"

"The court authorizes the appraisal. Sampling is the court's business and the appraisal institution's. We won't know in advance which institution the draw picks. On sampling day, the plaintiff can be present, and so can the defendant — both sides watching. We can ask the notary office to come along, and the seals on the bottle get signed one by one."

"What good does a witness's signature do?"

"It ensures that for a year, no one can claim that this sample spent a night somewhere."

Lu Guangsheng looked at her and folded his reading glasses back into their cloth.

"People of my generation know that ditch," he said. "When I was at the hydrology station, I took samples from it. Only samples. Never wrote anything." He snapped the cloth case shut. "Someone should have written long ago."

Yu Min's pen tip pressed against the paper. "If we lose, what does the center bear?" she asked.

"Four things," Lu Jibai said.

"Go on."

"Litigation costs. We'll apply to defer payment when we file. Deferred is not waived — if we lose, we pay up. The appraisal fee comes from the center first, and after judgment it's borne by the defendant. If we lose, what's already been advanced doesn't come back. That one's the heaviest. There's also notarization, public notices, travel — every item has a receipt. And the center's name will appear in the judgment. On a losing judgment."

"Who bears all this?"

"The center. Not any individual director personally," he said. "And there's one thing in the other direction: the center cannot take a single yuan from this case. Whatever restoration fees or compensation the court awards go into a court-designated account. The center never handles them."

"That should be written into the resolution."

"It should."

Yu Min turned a page in the ledger. "That report for the 2022 fiscal year — I'm the one who missed filing it," she said. "The Civil Affairs Bureau issued a notice in March 2023, ten-day deadline. We got it in by the eighth day counting from receipt. The receipt is in the cabinet."

"That notice and the receipt get attached to our materials," Lu Jibai said. "No administrative or criminal penalties for business activities in the five years before filing — that's the only way to establish a clean record. An order to correct within a deadline is not a penalty decision, and the word 'penalty' doesn't appear anywhere on the notice. The originals get verified at court in person."

"What if they don't accept that?"

"Then we say it in court. If that doesn't settle it, it goes in the judgment. What we can do is have every piece of paper ready. The rest can't be fended off from this room in advance."

The person from the county town asked, "How long will this one go?"

"Public notices, appraisal, scheduling — none of it is fast," Shen Zhixia said. "I can't say whether it finishes this year."

The face in the lower-right corner of the screen had been listening the whole time. Now he lifted his chin. Teacher Zhu was seventy-eight, a retired geography teacher, wintering at his son's place in Sanya.

"I'm seventy-eight," he said. "That judgment — I may not live to see it."

"Even if you don't, there'll be a piece of paper on record," Cai Qingru said.

"It's not the judgment I'm waiting for," Teacher Zhu said. "I'm waiting to see someone dare to stand up there."

[Thud. All five present. On this one, the plaintiff itself has stepped to the front.]

Vote. Cai Qingru picked up a page from the table, written that morning, the characters packed tight. She read:

"One: in the name of the center, initiate environmental civil public interest litigation against Jiangzhou Hengyue New Materials Co., Ltd. for environmental damage to Huishui Ditch, the farmland along it, and the village primary school playground. Two: retain Shen Zhixia and Lu Jibai of Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm as litigation agents, public interest representation, no agency fee. Three: restoration fees and compensation obtained in this case do not belong to the center but go into a court-designated account. Four: litigation costs are to be applied for as deferred payment; appraisal fees are to be advanced from center special funds; any shortfall to be decided separately by the board."

"Raise your hand if you agree."

She raised hers first. Lu Guangsheng raised his. Yu Min set down her pen and raised hers too.

On the screen, one thin hand rose to the side of a face and trembled slightly — Teacher Zhu. The person from the county town said, "I agree."

"Five votes," Yu Min wrote in the ledger. "No opposition, no abstentions."

"Signatures." Cai Qingru passed the pen to her right. "Those present today sign. Both online directors come in and sign next time. The minutes will note: consent expressed via video."

Three pens went to paper. When Yu Min finished, she turned the page toward the screen.

Then the engagement contract and the power of attorney. Lu Jibai took a flannel pouch from his bag, loosened the drawstring, and tipped out a firm seal with a brass handle. Cai Qingru took a flat iron box from her own bag — the center's official seal inside.

"The agency fee column," she said, pointing at the blank line.

He wrote: Public interest representation, fee waived.

Yu Min paused. "Can't we just leave it blank?"

"Write it clearly," he said. "Written clearly, no one ever has to ask later."

Cai Qingru signed and pressed the center's seal down, holding until the red paste had fully bitten before lifting her hand. Lu Jibai signed in the person-in-charge column, the firm seal stamped beside the date.

The power of attorney was spread open. The authority column was a full paragraph. He read it to her line by line: to admit, waive, or alter litigation claims on the client's behalf; to enter settlement; to file counterclaims or appeals.

"Slow down one line," Cai Qingru said. "On settlement and waiver — I want to say something first."

"Go ahead."

"There has to be a written word from me. That word has to be on paper."

He pulled over the power of attorney and added a small line in the margin. When he finished writing, he read it aloud: Settlement, alteration, or waiver of litigation claims shall require written consent of the principal. Then he passed the pen over, and below that line, each of them signed once.

7:45 p.m., downstairs.

Cai Qingru locked the door and bounced the key once in her hand. "On the twenty-first I promised you I'd get all five together," she said. "They're together."

"They were harder on you than last time," Lu Jibai said.

"It's a matter of raising your own hand. Hard questions are a good thing."

8:00 p.m. Shen Zhixia called Ge Changlin from the stairwell entrance.

There was fan noise on his end, and the rattle of a sheet-metal awning in the wind. He'd just gotten off work, voice out in the open air.

"Master Ge, there's a paper needs your signature."

"Read it."

"It's called a Consent Form. The signer has to be the child's legal guardian. That's you."

"What's it for when I sign?"

"Consent to use the child's papers in this case: the lab report from December 21, the one from January 18, and the diagnosis certificate from January 19."

"The name?"

"Covered. Covered as 'Ge.' What goes to the court, the procuratorate, the appraisal institution, and opposing counsel all has that line. The original gets mailed back to the firm and is handed to the judge in court for verification, then goes back in the envelope."

"What about people in the village?"

"They'll know," she said. "They know your mother, and they know Xiaoyu. I can't cover that part. I won't lie to you."

The fan spun twice on the other end. He coughed once.

"Did my mother sign anything?"

"She never signed a thing. She only spoke her own name."

"Then I'll sign it," he said. "Read it slowly, and I'll fill it out as you go."

She read the form header grid by grid: name, ID number, relationship to the principal, purpose of consent, signature, date. He wrote slowly. When he got to the "date" field, he asked what day it was today.

Three minutes later her phone buzzed. A photo: the paper spread across a knee, yellow light, the writing tilted upward, the signature half out of frame.

She enlarged the photo and looked it over.

[Thud. From this page forward, the child is left with only a surname.]

She called back. "Got it. Mail the original tomorrow morning, to the firm. Don't send it through someone."

"Mm. Someone's called the factory asking about us," Ge Changlin said. "Asking how the treatment's going and how much it's costing."

"From now on, if he asks again, just say the child's seeing a doctor. Nothing else."

"Mm."

After hanging up, Lu Jibai was waiting at the stairwell entrance, still holding the flannel pouch.

"Signed," she said.

"Mailing tomorrow?"

"Mailing tomorrow."

"Arrives the twenty-fifth. Can be filed the twenty-sixth."

January 22, 10:00 a.m., reception room on the first floor of the Municipal Procuratorate.

Not a large room: one long table, a nameplate, a stack of blank receipt lists. Prosecutor Qi was in his early thirties, thin-framed glasses, a dark sweater over a white shirt. He pressed the page in his hand onto the table. "Who is the applicant?"

"Jiangzhou Qinghe Environmental Public Welfare Service Center." Cai Qingru handed over the registration certificate.

"Who's the defendant?"

"Jiangzhou Hengyue New Materials Co., Ltd."

"The child's papers — who signed?"

"The legal guardian. Signed in Guangdong, mailed this morning, arrives the twenty-fifth."

He wrote that item into the list, then added after it: Supplement.

"When it arrives, bring me a copy."

"Will do."

One page per item as he ticked through: an Application for Procuratorial Support in Litigation, signed by Cai Qingru, center seal stamped; two photocopies of lab report sheets and one diagnosis certificate, the child's name covered; a photo of the Consent Form; two acceptance notices from the notary office; a screenshot of a public map, showing a watercourse running down from the hills, with the direction marked.

"On this map, where does this watercourse begin?" he asked.

"From the hills, through Baixi Village, to Qingshi Village, under the highway at the village entrance, then east," Cai Qingru said.

He wrote "Baixi Village" into the list without stopping his pen.

"What do you want us to do?"

"Support the litigation."

"The procuratorate's forms of support are limited: provide legal advice, submit written opinions, assist in investigation and evidence collection," he said. "We do not litigate for the plaintiff. Those two things are separate on paper."

"We know."

"There's one more thing I'll say up front." He set his pen down. "We will not simply write from the materials you've submitted. The Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau has supervisory monitoring data and enforcement files — we'll pull those. The plant's discharge permit, environmental impact assessment, acceptance reports — we'll pull those too. And if necessary, we'll go into the village and talk to people face to face."

"When you go, don't bring our people," Cai Qingru said.

"We won't."

He turned to the second page and studied it for a while. "There's only one child in these materials."

"The other families didn't give paper," Cai Qingru said.

"How many families?"

"Six," Shen Zhixia said.

"Six children, one set of papers." He wrote that line into the list too, then looked up. "We'll make this clear: the materials contain only one set, not six."

He pushed the list across for Cai Qingru to review and sign. Her signature landed in the last cell, the red seal pressed over her name.

10:40. He saw them to the door.

"You'll have our answer in early February," he said. "The procuratorate's support is not the same as fighting for you."