Chapter 385: 19:20

The thermos cork came out with a puff of stale steam. Li Huilan carried the thermos between the two desks, topped off the cup by the window, then topped off her own, pressed the cork back in, and wiped her hand on her apron.

She hung her bag on the back of her chair. "Morning, Lawyer Lu."

"Morning, Lawyer Shen."

Lu Jibai answered just as flatly as she had, head down, pencil still moving across the page. April 27, 8:40. The window was open a half-panel. Downstairs, the noodle shop's faucet was cranked all the way open, water hammering into an aluminum basin, splashing and hissing.

The corner of the desk was still pinned down by that photocopied index, four columns. The last cell in the row for Volume Seven was empty, the paper's corner curled, frayed soft. She straightened it, folded the sheet in half, and tucked it into the very back of the drawer.

Li Huilan set the thermos on the windowsill. "The fifty-nine-year-old's materials, I'll go over them again this afternoon." Then, "Tomorrow morning I'm going to the detention center. Meeting someone. Nine o'clock slot."

"Which case?"

"Later. Can't explain it clearly today."

The inner door closed. The thermos cork stood on the windowsill, a ring of moisture slowly spreading.

At 9:10, her phone rang. Cai Qingru.

"We got a price back." There was the sound of a car on the other end, wind slipping through a cracked window. "Quoted by sampling point. Not moving a cent. I pushed one round, couldn't budge it."

"Do we take it or not."

"Take it." She paused. "The provincial capital firm will sign. They'll keep a person on site. If anything goes wrong, the name on the line matches up." Another pause. "The Center issues the commission. We cover the cost. They write the proposal. The person signing has to be one of their own. The one speaking in court is the Center."

"I'll go over the proposal once more this morning."

"I already did." Cai Qingru flipped pages audibly. "The term clause reads 'effective from the date of effectiveness.' The cell in that table—added. Photo captions list the sampling points, give the names the villages actually use. All three places changed the way you said."

"Then deliver it."

"May 7, 9:30 in the morning. I'll drive over. I'll meet you at the Intermediate Court gate."

"The 7th, 9:30." She flipped the desk calendar to May. "Will the provincial capital people be there?"

"Yes. They said the signatory will come in person."

"I'll line up the proposal one more time on my end. I'll get back to you the afternoon of the 6th."

"Get back to me about what. See you on the 7th."

The call ended. She wrote the dates into the calendar's grid: the 7th, 9:30, Intermediate Court; the 11th, District Court Mediation Room—Li Huilan's matter, nothing to do with her, but she wrote it down anyway; the 24th, she made a small dot in the corner of the box. No words.

Lu Jibai pushed the Qinghe form half an inch toward her and tapped a pencil on one cell.

"The 'Replanting Quantity Confirmer' column," he said. "The third party says they can't sign it."

"Why can't they."

"They say how much gets planted in each location is language from the proposal. The planting was done by the work crew. Their job is only to observe."

"Those who observe sign. Those who wrote the numbers sign too. This cell stays empty. Waiting for them."

"Then it stays empty." Beside that cell he wrote, in very small characters, "Pending third-party signature."

She pulled Ge Xiaoyu's file and checked through it end to end again: finalized complaint, power of attorney, ID copy, household register copy, two blood lead reports, diagnosis certificate, the April 22 follow-up form, a photocopy of the Qingshi Village judgment. On the line for the certificate of effectiveness she drew a mark and wrote, "Intermediate Court, awaiting call."

Each at their own desk, the whole morning they'd said only those few sentences.

At noon, footsteps on the stairs. He Xiufen came up carrying a tray, set one bowl at the edge of her desk, one at the corner of his, the two bowls separated by half an empty desk between them.

"Don't leave any," He Xiufen said.

"Director He, I'm going downstairs this afternoon."

"Go on down. The cabinet still has two fingers' worth of printer paper."

He Xiufen went back down. At the stairwell she called out, "Tomorrow morning I'm going to the market." No one answered.

She ate half the noodles, set her chopsticks down, pushed the rest to the edge of the bowl, then picked it up again and finished it.

In the afternoon she reprinted page three of the Qinghe proposal—the table—made her corrections, and handed it to Lu Jibai. He read two lines, handed the pen back.

"Move this column to the end," he said. "So whoever signs can see it."

"Move it then."

Two more lines went into the calendar. She touched the pen tip to one box; ink bled a small dot into the paper. She pressed the corner of a tissue to it. It wouldn't lift. So she left it.

At 5:30, Li Huilan packed up her bag, wound her scarf twice around her neck.

"I'm heading out."

"When you get back from the meeting tomorrow, what time will you be in?"

"Around three. There's something I need to talk to you about." She pushed the door half open, turned back. "You didn't go out today?"

"No."

"Mm." Li Huilan went downstairs.

At 6:00, the exhaust fan kicked on, its vibration climbing from beneath the floorboards all the way up into the window glass. He Xiufen shouted from the stove: "Dinner. Noodles for two."

Her pen stopped on the paper. She called back, "One second."

She did not go down.

Downstairs filled up: someone shouting for extra noodles, someone setting a bowl down hard, a stool dragging across the floor. After a while the sounds thinned: chopsticks knocking the bottom of bowls, coins dropped on a table corner, the door opening and shutting.

Outside the window, the sky darkened gradually onto the glass. She had turned on only one lamp, the one at the corner of her desk. On Lu Jibai's side, his desk lamp clicked on. Two pools of light fell across the same long desk, a strip of unlit desk a foot wide between them.

She pulled over the bulging paper bag from the Qingshi Village matter, slid out a sticky note, glanced at it—"Mail checked. Nothing." The "Lu" beneath it: horizontal strokes level, the final stroke hooked back. She tucked the note back in and slid the bag into place.

19:20.

She pressed the cap onto her pen with a click. She laid the pen flat on the paper, tip facing inward. Her finger pressed once against the edge of the desk, then lifted.

"Lu Jibai."

He looked up. The pencil still in his hand, tip hovering over the paper.

Under the lamp she could see the red in his eyes—a day of reading paper, red.

"We're breaking up."

The room went still. Downstairs the exhaust fan kept turning, one floorboard away, grinding it dull.

He didn't answer at once. After a few seconds he set the pencil down, on the edge of the paper, flush with the margin.

"Okay."

Just one word, neither high nor low, flat as the sentence she'd just spoken.

On the walk to the stairwell she had planned one more sentence, planned to say this wasn't anger, wasn't asking anyone to leave. Now, with the moment actually here, the words sat in her mouth. She didn't let them out.

Her throat moved.

"The firm's affairs—"

"I'll follow your lead." He answered fast, as if it had been sitting there waiting for her.

"So will I."

She closed her notebook, put it in her bag, stood, and pushed her chair back under the desk. The chair leg scraped against the floor.

At the stairwell she heard him shift a stack of paper on the desk behind her. The sound of paper against paper, very soft. He did not stand.

The wooden railing had a layer of dust on it—swept this morning, settled again. She kept her hand on the rail going down, and by the third step her palm was all dust.

The noodle shop lights were on. The table by the door was empty, a vinegar bottle on it polished to a shine. He Xiufen stood at the stove, stirring the pot.

"One bowl?" He Xiufen asked.

"One bowl."

She sat at the table by the door, back to the stairs. The noodles came, steam hitting her face. He Xiufen nudged the vinegar bottle half an inch closer to her hand.

She lifted a chopstick's worth, blew twice, ate.

At the cutting board, the knife fell against the block in a steady rhythm, not stopping. He Xiufen asked nothing.

She finished the whole bowl, laid her chopsticks together across it, stood, and pushed the stool back under the table.

"Director He, I'm heading out first."

"Watch the traffic."

She pushed the door open. The alley wind was colder than upstairs. Under a streetlamp sat a bicycle, an empty delivery box in its basket.

Thud. April 27. No case today.

The door swung shut behind her and the glass wavered once.

He Xiufen turned the stove flame down. She collected the bowl from the table by the door. The bottom was spotless; not even the broth remained. She put the bowl in the sink and turned around. The stairwell light was still on. Upstairs: no sound.

At 8:10, the stairs creaked.

Lu Jibai came down. He did not go to the table by the door. He sat at the one nearer the stove, set his folder on the corner, and placed both hands flat on the tabletop.

He Xiufen scooped noodles from the pot. They'd been dropped in at six o'clock; by now they'd soaked, going soft and thick in the broth.

"I'll cook a fresh bowl," she said.

"No need. Reheating is fine."

"They're ruined."

She took that bowl away and dumped it, dropped fresh noodles into the boiling water. When the water rolled, she asked, back to him: "She ate, then left."

"Mm."

She didn't ask anything else. Noodles into a bowl, broth ladled over, scallions sprinkled, set in front of him.

He ate very slowly, and a long time passed between the first bite and the last. The last of the broth he pushed around with his chopsticks. He didn't drink it.

"Director He, put it on my tab."

"Put it on what tab." She took the bowl away. "Come eat in the morning."

He stood, folder in hand, and walked to the door, then turned and looked once at the stairs. The light was still on.

9:00 p.m. Her apartment.

She didn't turn on the light right away. She hung her bag on the back of the door, stood by the shoe cabinet for a while, then reached out and pressed the switch.

On the table, the stack of notebooks was tidy. Volume Eight sat beside it, a gap left between it and the rest of the pile. She didn't touch it.

She opened the notebook to a new page. At the top, in her father's format, date and time first: April 27, 19:20.

Below, a new line: Broke up.

She sat after writing it, pen still in hand. The lamp's light fell on the page, bleaching those two characters white.

The inner room's door sounded. Zhi'an came out for water, slippers shuffling. He crossed to the table, poured the last of his cup into the basin, turned the tap to fill it, turned back.

He glanced at her, then at the open notebook on the table. He didn't bend to read what was written.

"Jie."

"Mm."

"I left hot water on for you."

"Got it."

He carried his cup back to his room. The door didn't close all the way, leaving a crack. A thread of light slipped through and lay across the hallway floor, reaching all the way to the leg of her chair.

She flipped back a page. On the Qingshi Village page, the line beneath "That Night" was still empty. Clean, blank space.

She sat facing that empty space for a while, then flipped back to today's page and capped her pen.

Outside in the alley someone was closing up a stall. Metal racks scraping against concrete, once, and again.