Chapter 345: Empty, Because Someone Made It Empty

At 8:57 on the morning of March 2, she pulled the copy of the Judicial Appraisal Opinion out of the folder marked "Separate File: Under Review."

The paper corner where the clip had bitten left a white crease, curled at the edge. She smoothed it twice, then walked to Lu Jibai's desk and set it down beside his enamel mug.

The mug held coffee, long cold, a ring of pale brown staining the inside. No one had taken a single sip.

"December the year before last," she said.

He closed the case file in his hands and looked up at her.

"Before that hard drive went in for appraisal, you said something to me. Beyond testimony, there was one more thing—older than testimony."

"I said it."

"I asked you which day you said it. You told me to wait until its name stood on paper by itself."

"I said something else too." He pushed the file to the side.

"I remember every word you've said." She said, "The other line was: if you spoke of it now, it would cost you your life."

Outside the window, someone was unloading vegetables in the alley. A metal cart bed knocked against the ground with a clatter, then the scrape of plastic crates dragging across concrete. He didn't answer, and he didn't look away.

"That line still holds today," he said.

She pushed the copy forward half an inch and pressed her index finger beneath the last line of the opinion section.

"Two findings. First: no readable data files were detected in the test material. Second: the test material contains one folder, named 'Second Water Sample,' its contents empty. The original files have been deleted, and the residual file headers are corrupted beyond recovery."

She finished reading and withdrew her finger.

"The name has stood on the disc," she said. "The thing itself hasn't."

Lu Jibai picked up the sheet.

He read it slowly, top to bottom, line by line. At the phrase "contents empty," his eyes stopped and didn't move, his fingertip pressing back and forth along the paper's edge until a thin fuzz of fiber rose from it.

Downstairs went quiet for a moment, then the sound of chopping came up through the floor. He Xiufen was mincing scallions on the cutting board, fast and even, and even through the ceiling you could hear the dull thud of the cleaver hitting the block.

"Those two boxes of samples last week," she said. "One real, one fake. Whoever faked it didn't just take the real ones away—he swapped them. And when he was done, he traced four names onto fifteen seal tags, one stroke at a time, neater than the four originals done in daylight. If no one had been awake that night, we'd be holding fifteen fake samples right now, and nobody could prove a thing."

"You're saying an empty room isn't born empty."

"This opinion says 'the original files have been deleted.' Deleted means they were there to begin with. It only says unreadable—it doesn't say what was inside." She laid her palm flat on the paper. "And there's more. Last time, when Master Qiu came down off that machine, he gave one version with his mouth and another on paper. On paper he wrote 'empty.' With his mouth, he said something else—I wrote it in my notebook. He said someone had already been inside that disc. And he showed me the screen that day. It flashed a mess of things that didn't form a single readable character."

"Garbled data isn't evidence," he said. "Garbled data is process. An opinion letter only records results, so on paper all we get is 'empty.'"

"Then get one that records process."

Lu Jibai set the copy back on the desk, all four corners squared.

"Send it," he said.

She waited for him to continue. When he agreed to something, he always finished the conditions in the same breath.

"Three things on paper first." He pulled a sticky note from the desk corner and held the pen cap between his teeth. "One: Custody of Personal Effects. Last time, all three heirs signed the authorization together. This is a re-examination, not a pickup—the purpose has changed, so all three sign again. The one in Shenzhen, mail it back."

"Mm."

"Two: rewrite the entrustment scope. Recover the unallocated space. For any encrypted files recovered, attempt passwords based on clues provided by the commissioning party. Record every attempt—which clue, which number, what result—one by one." The pen paused above the paper. "Don't write 'recover that report.' We don't know what's in there. Anything written on paper is something the other side will read aloud in court someday."

"Three?"

"The opinion letter doesn't say 'it's empty.' It says 'here is what's inside.'"

"And if all he sees is emptiness?"

"Then write that all he saw was emptiness." He pushed the note toward her. "Let the paper speak for what we saw, not for what we think."

She took the note and added a line at the bottom: From the moment of unsealing, please have the Notary Office present.

"Ning Ping was there last time too," she said. "This time, from unsealing to export, every step—have her there."

"Who was present, the exact time, which hand touched those two seal strips first." He said, "None of that goes in the opinion letter. It goes in the notarial certificate. If anyone asks us on what grounds someday, we don't have to answer. We slide the paper across."

"The password," she said. "We're not guessing passwords, but the clue has to come from somewhere."

"First, get a clear look at the room," he said. "Is there anything inside or not? What is it? Is it locked or stripped bare? Once you see clearly, then decide what key to bring. The order can't be reversed."

"Where does this disc get logged?" she asked. "It's Cen Shouye's personal effects. It has nothing to do with that plant in Qingshi Village."

"Same format as the December 12 entry. List it under 'Separate File: Under Review,' its own subcategory." He looked up. "It does not go into the Qingshi Village case file. The moment it does, the first person to know where it is will be Han Chongli."

"Then it doesn't go in," she said.

At 10:50, He Xiufen shouted up from downstairs: "If the noodles go soggy, don't blame me."

Neither of them went down.

At 11:00, she took her phone to the window and pulled up the number saved as "Cen Hong·Courier Hub."

The other end picked up. First came the rip of a tape gun, then a sharp slap of pressure.

"Cen Hong, it's me, Shen Zhixia."

"Go ahead."

"That hard drive from before—the appraisal opinion, you've heard me read it." She paused. "It says: there is one folder, named 'Second Water Sample,' and it's empty."

Silence on the other end. The tape gun sounded again, one long rip, then stopped.

"Empty." Cen Hong said.

"Yes. But I don't accept that this disc is empty." She pushed the window open a finger's width. Wind came in, stirring the corner of a paper. "Last week in Qingshi Village, someone went in and swapped an entire crate of fifteen samples, then put the seals back exactly as they were, even traced the names. Someone who does that doesn't leave an empty room for us to look at. They either haul the contents away, or they lock the door."

"You want to send it in again."

"Yes." She said, "I need all three heirs to re-sign a new authorization. The purpose section—I'll read it aloud to your mother, face to face. Only when she nods do we take the fingerprint."

"What will it say?"

"It will say: I consent to the re-examination, recovery, and decryption of the hard drive my father left behind; the purpose is to investigate what happened in Baixi Village, and it may later be submitted for retrial, or as part of a formal complaint."

A few seconds of silence.

"She presses it herself?"

"She presses it herself. She can't read, so I'll read it sentence by sentence. If there's a sentence she doesn't understand, I stop there. I don't keep reading."

"How much," Cen Hong said suddenly. "How many days."

"I'll ask about the cost tomorrow and write it out for you. Who bears it—I'll ask about that too. I won't decide for you."

"Our family can afford it." Cen Hong's voice was flat. "Don't scrimp on my behalf."

"This has to be done in front of both of you," she said. "If your mother doesn't nod, I take the paper back with me."

"Come," Cen Hong said. "My mother will come too."

"She might not understand."

"She doesn't understand and she still comes. She wants to watch."

There was the sound of plastic sheeting on the other end, like someone shifting a stool against the wall. Cen Hong's voice dropped. "Lawyer Shen, I'll tell you something. Just listen. You don't need to respond."

"Go ahead."

"My mother, these past few years—every afternoon she pulls a stool out and sits by the entrance of the courier hub. Whenever someone walks through the alley, she looks up to see who it is."

"Waiting for news?"

"Not waiting for news." Cen Hong said, "She says she's waiting for someone to come ask."

"Ask what?"

"Ask about my father."

The tape-ripping sound was gone. From somewhere far on the other end, someone called out for a pickup. Once. No answer.

"Before my father died, he said something to me," Cen Hong said. "He said: one day, someone will come asking about Baixi Village. When that happens, take out the thing I left you. I repeated those words to my mother, and she's held onto them till now. You came and asked. The thing is in your hands. And she still sits there every single day."

She held the phone and said nothing. Wind through the window crack lifted the sticky note on the desk corner once, then let it fall.

[Thud. That stool by the door—she's still sitting on it.]

"The day after tomorrow, 3 p.m. I'll be at the hub," she said. "I'll bring the authorization and read it sentence by sentence. If she doesn't nod, I take the paper back, not a word changed."

"Then come," Cen Hong said.

Before the line went dead, the tape gun sounded once more on the other end.

She set the phone on the windowsill and walked to the metal cabinet behind the door. She crouched, opened the bottom drawer. Evidence Envelope No. 2 was still in place.

Two seal strips across the kraft paper—one pressed over the perforation, one angled, half the signature on the envelope and half on the paper. The strips hadn't lifted at the edges, and there were no new creases on the surface. She studied it for a while, took a photo with her phone, closed the cabinet door, and locked it two turns.

Back at her desk, she wrote three lines in her notebook: re-submit for appraisal; all three heirs re-sign authorization; notary present from unsealing onward. When she finished, she slipped the sticky note into the notebook.

Then she turned around.

Lu Jibai stood at the window, his back to her.

The window was open a crack, and the wind lifted a small fold of his shirt and let it fall. In his hand was that pen. He pressed the cap on, then pulled it off. On, off. Each motion light, tapping out a rhythm that crossed against the sound of chopping downstairs.

That morning, when he'd looked at the paper, his eyes had lingered on the line reading "contents empty" longer than anywhere else. When other people stopped at a line, they were reading. When he stopped there, it looked like he was counting.

"Lu Jibai."

"Mm."

"What's wrong with that pen."

He pressed the cap on. This time he didn't pull it off.

"Nothing," he said. "The paper's thin."

She didn't understand, and she didn't ask again. Back at her desk, she returned the copy to "Separate File: Under Review" and added a line beneath the last entry: Empty—because someone made it empty.

When she looked up from writing, he was still at the window, the pen cap turning half a circle between his fingers before pressing back into place.