Chapter 370: My Home Is Quiet Now

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, steady, one after another, slowing as they reached the last step — like someone pausing to take stock of how many people were in the room.

Shen Zhixia looked up from the file envelope. The person standing in the doorway had cut her hair short, cropped behind her ears, a gray knit sweater over a dark blue smock. The last time she'd seen her was in the hallway outside the family law tribunal — hair still tied back then, held with a black clip.

"Lawyer Shen." He Lan switched the plastic bag in her hands to her left. "Lawyer Lu is here too."

"He is." Lu Jibai turned over the paper in his hand and set it face-down on the desk.

"Sit." Shen Zhixia pulled a chair out half a foot. "How did you get here?"

"Rode in with someone. Swapped half my shift at the shop." He Lan perched on the edge of the chair, the plastic bag resting on her knees, both hands pressed on top of it. "I have to pick her up at the school gate at four-thirty."

"Then I'll talk fast."

"That's what I came for — to say things fast." She looked up. "One private matter first. Then we talk money."

"Go ahead."

"That protection order. It expires on April twenty-second." She pressed a hand against the plastic bag. "I'm not extending it."

Shen Zhixia opened her notebook, pen tip hovering over the page, not writing yet.

"How many times have you run that sentence through your head?"

"From last week to today."

"Who in your family knows?"

"My mother doesn't." He Lan said. "If she knew, she'd chew me out on the phone for half the night."

"Then let me ask three things first." Shen Zhixia stood the pen upright. "Has he come around in the past six months; has the money arrived; has the child seen him."

"He hasn't set foot in the courtyard. Since the judgment came down, not once." He Lan's answer came clean and quick. "Money — January, February, March, all before the fifteenth of each month. Fifteen hundred, not a cent short. April's isn't due yet. The child — he came twice in February, that little park below the building. Picks her up at three, brings her back before six, walks her to the unit door and watches us go upstairs."

"What does the child say."

"Nothing." He Lan thought for a moment. "Doesn't say it was good, doesn't say it was bad."

"Did you ask?"

"Asked once. She said, Dad bought me a grilled sausage." She spread her hands open, then pulled them back. "Just that one sentence."

"Did you bring the notebook?"

"I did." He Lan pulled a small hardcover notebook from the inner layer of her cloth bag, opened it, and slid it across. "Just like you said — one line a day."

It was a two-yuan ruled notebook, the bottom corners trimmed, half the pages already filled. The first few pages had dates crowded together; later, an entry appeared only every three or five days. The writing ran horizontal, and when it reached the edge of the page it dropped down — often two dates stacked in a single row.

"What's this line." Shen Zhixia pointed to the middle of a page.

"January fifteenth. I went to the bank to get a statement. The clerk checked it for me — said it arrived, fifteen hundred." He Lan's finger moved down. "This line I added myself: February sixteenth, he came to see Xiaotian. Arrived at three, brought her back at five-forty. The child didn't look back going up the stairs."

"You write that down too?"

"I do. I write everything." She said. "It makes it easier to breathe afterward."

Shen Zhixia closed the notebook and pushed it back. She didn't copy anything.

"You're not going to talk me out of it?" He Lan studied her.

"No." Shen Zhixia said. "This is your call. The court will listen to what you say. But I need to lay out what things look like after it expires. You decide once you've heard."

"Tell me."

"Any time before it expires, you can apply for an extension. The court looks at two things: whether there's been any new incident in the past half year, and whether there's still danger." She touched the pen to the paper. "After it expires, if something actually happens again, you can reapply. It's not a one-time thing you use up and lose."

"To reapply, I'd have to file another police report, write out all the papers again?"

"You would. But everything from the first time still counts — the police receipt, the hospital records, the neighbors who were willing to say a few words, the dates in this notebook. All of it still stands."

"Then I'll keep them." He Lan pressed down on the notebook. "Keep all of it."

"One more thing." Lu Jibai turned from the window. "The judgment states he was admonished and fined by the court for violating that order."

"Admonished once, fined once." He Lan said. "Right outside your building, downstairs. After that, it never happened again."

"Then remember how that one was handled." He said. "After it expires, you won't have that paper anymore. The court can't go after him directly for violating the protection order — it has to start with a police report."

"Then from that point on, I won't step out on my own."

"The moment the door opens, you step back inside, close it, and call." He said. "Whatever he knocks, whatever he says — don't answer. When the police arrive, you tell them what time he showed up today, where he stood, exactly what words he said. Sentence by sentence, so they can write it down."

"What if he just stands downstairs and doesn't knock."

"Then film it. Film where he's standing and when. Don't shove the camera in his face — make sure it shows what kind of street it is, whose doorway that is."

He Lan ran both sets of instructions through her mouth once: "Step back, close the door, make the call. If he's downstairs, I film the place, not the face."

"Right."

"And what if the day it expires, nothing happens at all?" She asked.

"Call the police." Both of them said it at the same instant, the same word.

He Lan blinked, looked from one to the other, and let out a short laugh.

"Then I'm good." She said. "You both said the same thing. I've got solid ground under me."

She opened the plastic bag and took out a composition book, a sunflower printed on the cover, the corners curled, ruled pages inside, the characters written large — one line never quite filled before breaking to the next.

"Last month the teacher assigned an essay: 'My Home.'" She said. "Parents had to read it. I read it, kept it in this notebook, thought I'd read it to you someday."

"Read it."

"My home is quiet now." He Lan read slowly, pressing down on every word. "In the evening when I do my homework, Mom sits beside me sewing. I can hear when the needle drops on the floor. On Saturdays Mom takes me grocery shopping. The whole way home she holds my hand."

She turned a page, then turned back.

"The teacher drew a circle under that paragraph." She said. "Didn't write anything else."

Shen Zhixia waited.

"I asked her — is quiet good. She said yes." He Lan closed the notebook and pressed both palms over it. "She didn't write about before. The days before — she didn't write a single word."

There was a sound above — footsteps crossing the floor. Downstairs, water boiled over the stove, the sound surging up in waves through the cracks between the floorboards.

"Can this paragraph go into the papers?" He Lan asked.

"No." Shen Zhixia said. "That case is over, the file is closed. What she wrote goes into no file. Not anyone's."

"Then it won't." He Lan put the composition book back into the plastic bag and smoothed it flat. "I just wanted someone to hear it once. Last time at the courthouse, the judgment had that one line — 'The court has heard the minor child's views.' I've carried it in my mind ever since."

"That line was written by the court." Shen Zhixia said. "This page was written by your daughter. The two don't touch."

"They don't." He Lan nodded. "Then let's talk money. The agency fee column — from October fifteenth to today, it's said 'not yet received.'"

"That column stayed as it was because you hadn't gathered the money." Shen Zhixia said. "It's not a column I should change for you."

"Today it can be changed." He Lan pulled the envelope from under everything in the plastic bag. It was a bank envelope, the edge reinforced with tape, the flap wound twice with white cotton thread. "Two thousand. Saved in full."

Shen Zhixia pushed the envelope back to the center of the desk: "This money can't go to me."

"I know. You told me on the phone last time — a lawyer can't take a client's cash directly." He Lan looked at her. "I just want to count it out in front of you once, myself."

"Then count."

She unwound the thread, drew out the bills — twenty of them. She counted through once, one by one, then flipped the stack and counted back again, then pushed the money across the desk.

Shen Zhixia counted it a second time, then pressed it under the corner of her desk pad.

"Twenty bills. Correct."

She took the receipt book from the cabinet, slipped carbon paper under the top sheet, and wrote line by line: date, payer, purpose, amount, handler, and the firm's name at the bottom. She tore off two copies and pushed the client's copy to the middle of the desk.

"Take this one home." She said. "If anyone ever asks how much you've paid, show them this."

"One more stamp." Shen Zhixia opened the seal usage register and wrote a line first: April ninth, finance seal, He Lan case agency fee receipt, one stamp. Then she pushed the register to the center of the desk.

Lu Jibai took the seal from the drawer, pressed it in the ink pad, and stamped it on the signature line. He lifted his hand — a block of red on the paper.

"Clean red." He Lan said.

"Let it dry before you fold it." Shen Zhixia said.

He Lan waited for the red ink to dry, held the receipt up to the window light and looked it over — the seal, the date, her own name — then folded it twice and tucked it into the inner layer of her cloth bag.

Lu Jibai put the twenty bills into a kraft paper envelope and wrote three lines on the front: He Lan, agency fee, two thousand; April ninth. Then he locked it in the drawer.

"Cash doesn't stay overnight." He said. "I'll run it to the bank before close. The deposit slip goes in the ledger tomorrow."

Shen Zhixia opened the new case intake register to the remarks column and wrote one line: He Lan case agency fee, two thousand yuan, received April ninth. See old register, October fifteenth entry.

The pen tip didn't lift as she finished — her eyes drifted toward the cabinet.

The old case intake register was sealed inside a kraft paper file box. The writing on the front was He Xiufen's hand. An iron binder clip pressed down on top of it. There was no dust on the clip.

She didn't open it.

"That line in the box was written October fifteenth." She said. "The words 'not yet received' — that's where they've stayed."

"Leave them." Lu Jibai said. "A page with a beginning and an end looks more real than a perfectly clean one."

[Thud. He Lan case, agency fee two thousand, received. The books on this one are balanced.]

At three-forty, He Lan stood up and gathered her plastic bag.

"The day that paper expires — should I call you?"

"No need." Shen Zhixia said. "But if that day your heart feels unsettled, then call."

"Then I'll call." She smiled. "When I've got something on my mind, I like to find someone to say it out loud to."

Shen Zhixia walked her to the door. The stairs were narrow; they went single file. At the top of the staircase, He Lan put a hand on the railing and looked back.

"Lawyer Shen, you two..."

The second half never came. She glanced back into the room, smiled once, and went down the stairs.

The footsteps descended four steps, turned the corner, and grew fainter level by level.

"What did she say." Lu Jibai asked from inside.

"Half a sentence."

He waited. He didn't ask again.