Chapter 344: A Stolen Old Computer

February 28, 8:00 p.m. She was the only one left on the second floor.

Lu Jibai had gone downstairs to get noodles. Footsteps came up and down the stairs; cooking fumes drifted up through the stairwell gap.

The page for tomorrow's filing lay spread on the desk. She'd reached the third point, and her pen had stopped after "authenticity and integrity." She'd meant to write "to be determined by the court," but crossed it out and replaced it with: We won't vouch for the data's authenticity. We only show where it came from.

Her phone buzzed on the desk.

"Lawyer Shen. Word's going around the village."

"What word?"

"People are saying someone broke into the village committee office at night." Chai Guizhi's voice was low. "This morning I went to the store for salt, and someone asked if court people had stayed in our village. I said I didn't know."

"Who's saying it?"

"Several families. They're saying a few nights ago, the back window was pried open."

"What does Director Fu say?"

"Director Fu says a stolen old computer."

Her pen stopped on the paper, motionless.

"That computer in that room hasn't turned on in years. It's been sitting there forever," Chai Guizhi said. "Who'd steal it?"

"What else did you hear people asking?"

"Someone asked where the court's bottles and jars got moved to. I said I didn't know. I didn't know anyway."

"What about the factory?"

"Xiao Wu came by again yesterday. Asked when my grandson's next follow-up is, asked whether I'd signed any papers."

"What did you tell him?"

"Child's seeing doctors. I don't understand anything else."

"Keep answering that way."

"I'll remember."

She switched the phone to her other ear. The stairs sounded again—Lu Jibai came up carrying two bowls of noodles, set one at her elbow, and sat down without touching his chopsticks.

"Listen to me again," she said. "From today on, no matter who asks, say you don't know. That computer of Director Fu's—pretend you never heard about it."

"Then my mouth has nothing to say."

"Nothing is best."

The old woman paused. "Those things—are they still there?"

"Still with the court. Every last one."

"Then I'll say no one's allowed to touch those things."

"Don't say that line. Just say you don't know."

"Understood." Chai Guizhi said. "My grandson asked yesterday when the court people are coming back."

"The day of the hearing."

"I'll tell him that."

After hanging up, she condensed the call into three lines: Word in the village. Director Fu says a stolen old computer. The old woman claims to know nothing.

"Who?" Lu Jibai asked.

"Chai Guizhi. The whole village says the room was burglarized. Director Fu says a stolen old computer."

He nudged his own bowl an inch closer without picking up his chopsticks.

"I saw that computer in the room on the 24th. Screen facing the wall," she said.

"He knows that too."

"Then why would he say that."

"Say that one line, and no one in the village asks who came at night." He tapped his chopsticks against the rim of the bowl. "What he's shielding isn't the court's property. It's the mouths at the village entrance."

"But he wasn't in that room at night."

"He also knows no one was in that room at night." He said, "That's why he can say it was an old computer that was stolen, and can't say who took it."

She lowered her head and wrote one more line: Director Fu shielded the court from the questions behind it, and shielded himself from the one in front.

March 1, 2:00 p.m. Intermediate People's Court Litigation Service Center.

The page went through the window. The clerk inside smoothed it flat. "Is this a response, or materials?"

"A response to the defendant's written opinion of February 26. The attachments are three items of evidence, to be forwarded to the presiding officer."

The clerk checked each item: the four-page handover registration, the notarial certificate, the page from the duty log. When done, she made two lines of notes on the receipt form and had Shen Zhixia sign and date it.

"Could I get a receipt."

"The receipt form is the receipt. This copy is yours."

She photographed the form, and glanced at her phone on the way out. 2:20.

At 4:00 p.m., the court clerk called.

"Lawyer Shen. The public notice period ended today. The thirtieth day fell on a rest day, so it's extended to today."

"Did anyone apply to join?"

"No. Not one." Papers rustled on the other end. "I'll enter the record in writing today. Going forward, anyone who wants in can only file a separate lawsuit."

"What about the procuratorate?"

"A unit supporting the lawsuit is not a party to it. You understand that." A pause. "The hearing date stands. I'll notify you of any changes."

"Noted."

She wrote in her notebook: Public notice period ended. No applications to join.

[Thud. This fight—no one else is coming.]

She looked up. Lu Jibai was moving the two bowls to one side, clearing space for her writing.

"No one came," she said.

"I know."

"When did you know."

"Since the day the notice went up. No one would come."

"Why."

"Those who qualify can do the math." He straightened his chopsticks. "Win, and the money never reaches their own pockets. Lose, and their fees aren't a penny less."

"Then who are we fighting this case for."

"For those six children," he said.

"When the judgment is handed down, will their names be on it?"

"No."

"Then how will they know they won?"

"When the well water is safe to drink, they'll know before we do." He pushed the two bowls toward her. "Eat first. It's getting cold."

March 1, 7:00 p.m. The downstairs had just finished a rush. He Xiufen came up with her own bowl of noodles, sat in the chair by the window, and pushed her reading glasses up onto her forehead.

"Anyone come today?" she asked.

"No."

"A month the notice was up." She lifted noodles and blew on them. "Not a single person."

"No."

"Then it's just the two of you holding up this table."

"Qinghe is the plaintiff."

"Qinghe is a name." He Xiufen said, "The people doing the running are people."

"What about that child in the village?" she asked. "Is the form written into the papers?"

"It is. Name covered."

"Good it's covered. Some places don't cover it, and then a child's name gets nailed to that well forever—anyone mentions it, everyone knows it's him." She swallowed. "Six families, and you got only one form signed."

"Five families won't put their names down."

"Then you fight for the other five first." He Xiufen lifted her bowl to make way as Lu Jibai came out of the back room with two sheets of paper. Halfway through her noodles, she said suddenly, "People coming means it's a case. No one coming means it's your own business." Then she took the remaining half-bowl downstairs, her apron draped over the back of the chair.

The footsteps on the stairs faded. Only the faint hum of the fluorescent light remained.

"Two routes for the samples. When did you think of it?" she asked.

He pressed the two sheets under the corner of the desk, not answering right away.

"Everything you said at the pretrial meeting was written on the night of the 17th." She said, "I'm not asking about the paper. I'm asking about the person."

"I thought about it for a long time." He said.

"How long."

"Very long."

"How far back."

He didn't answer. He lined up the pens on the desk one by one, then laid his hand over the corner of the paper.

"I can't put this one on paper." He said.

"If it isn't on paper, you won't say it."

"Right."

She wrote that down after "thought about it for a long time" and didn't press further.

"Fifteen seal tags, four columns of names." She flipped back through her notebook. "The forger must have had samples of all four people's handwriting."

"Mm."

"The one he copied of mine is neater than my own."

"He copied from a paper you signed when your hand wasn't shaking."

"So he had a paper first."

"He had a paper first. Couldn't copy without one." He pushed the water glass to her elbow. "Who held that paper—that's not a question for me."

"Yes it is," she said. "Only a few people would know how those names should be written."

"Those few people's names are on the paper too." He said, "You're suing a company. Who held that paper—this case can't answer it. Higher up, I haven't seen yet."

At 9:30, she packed her bag. Not a single page remained on the desk—all filed. As she locked up, he switched off the hallway light and waited for her at the top of the stairs.

They parted at the alley entrance. Both directions were cold. He said tomorrow he'd archive the draft response to the defendant's three points. She murmured acknowledgment. A dozen steps out, he looked back and said, "Six families. One at a time."

March 1, 10:00 p.m. Her home.

Zhi'an was doing homework in the living room. The TV was on, volume low. She came in; he set down the remote. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"There's still some in the pot."

"Go to bed when you're done."

"You too," he said.

She took two things from the cabinet and laid them on the dining table.

A hardcover notebook, opened to the middle pages: the Baixi Village visit forms, column after column of names and addresses. After that, sample-receipt numbers from the first batch to the third. One name had been struck through with a single stroke, with a note beside it: He doesn't dare speak. The two lines on the flyleaf she could recite from memory: father's name, and beneath it, Evidence speaks for itself.

A photocopy: the Judicial Appraisal Opinion from the examination in December the year before. Two findings: no readable files on the disk; and one folder named "Second Water Sample"—empty inside, the original files deleted and unreadable.

She nudged the notebook half an inch to the left and set the photocopy on the right. The space between them was the width of a palm.

Zhi'an finished a page of homework and came over for a look. "This is Dad's notebook."

"Yes."

"What about this one?"

"That's the disk opened in December. The appraisal office's opinion."

"Why are the two things next to each other?"

"Haven't figured that out yet."

He turned the desk lamp toward them, lighting up the palm's width between, then went back to the sofa and his homework.

Last week's two boxes of samples—one real, one fake—were already on paper: one went to Ningchuan, one became evidence at the police station. The four columns of names on the fifteen seal tags she'd copied over by hand during the day, not a word more.

There was one more line, written on the last page of the ledger in her heart: Two water samples, one real, one fake. In her father's case, she'd only ever touched the shadow of the "fake" end; the other end was a room with a doorplate nailed to it, and the room was empty. She didn't open that ledger. She didn't write it in the notebook.

[Thud. Two things, one table.]

She turned the notebook to its last page. Master Qiu's words from a year ago were still there: Names are doorplates. The room is empty. The plate stays nailed on.

She wrote on the paper:

Second Water Sample—names are doorplates.

And left a blank line beneath.