Chapter 399: The Argument Sent to the Intermediate Court

The lunch rush at the noodle shop had just ended, the exhaust fan still spinning. He Xiufen stacked the last bowl into the crate and wiped her hands on her apron. The stock pot had been taken off the heat, a ring of white congealed along the rim.

Shen Zhixia came down from upstairs, stepped around two stacked stools, and sat on the low bench by the stove. The table hadn't been wiped; grease shone under the light. The rag sat by the basin, a layer of scum floating on the water.

"Have you eaten?" He Xiufen didn't turn around.

"Yes."

She hadn't. The notebook sat on her lap, both hands pressing down on its cover.

He Xiufen wrung out the rag twice, turned around, pulled out the stool across from her and sat down. One look at her, and she settled into the seat with a steadiness that said she already knew she wasn't here for noodles.

"Director He, one question. Where do I file a petition for review?"

"Which court was the final ruling?"

"Chengnan District Court. First instance took effect; no appeal."

"Then it starts with Chengnan District Court." He Xiufen smoothed the hem of her apron over her knees. "One level up is the Intermediate Court. If you file there, they can send you back down to Chengnan District Court, or they can hand it down for the District Court to hear. If it's a difficult, complex, or major case, the Intermediate Court can also take it up itself."

"What do I need to do to get them to take it themselves?"

"You have to write clearly why." He Xiufen said. "If you don't write it clearly, they'll pass it down. Passing it down doesn't count as rejecting you—it just means your pages make a round trip and end up back in the same cabinet."

The word "cabinet" landed in this room, emptier than the alley outside.

"Some people file up at the provincial level." He Xiufen went on. "If you skip over the Intermediate Court and file upward, they'll tell you to file downward. The letter goes out, comes back, a month on the road, and nothing about your case moves a single day."

"I'll file with the Intermediate Court." She said.

He Xiufen looked up at her.

"The attachment in that file went missing from the Chengnan District Court's own cabinet." She said. "In the file index, the page number on the 'Attachment' line is blank. The archive inspection form notes the missing item, dated one month after the judgment. The missing page went missing at the step where the original trial court archived and stored the file itself."

The pot on the stove still made sounds; steam pushed through the gap in the lid, dissipating and rising again.

"Then write that sentence in." He Xiufen said. "Don't write it as grievance. Write it as 'I ask you to look into this.'"

"Mm."

"When you file, bring all the originals, check them page by page against his list. When he's done checking, take your set back. If they take anything, only let them take copies. Whatever they take, make them write you a list, with their stamp on it."

"I'll remember."

He Xiufen gave her a look. "Does the firm know?"

"Not yet."

"Fine." He Xiufen stood, carried the basin to the sink, and the sound of poured water drowned out everything else. "After you file, don't check the mailbox every day. It's slow. You can't rush it."

She answered with a murmur, stood, and stepped around the stool.

"Come down for noodles tonight." He Xiufen added over the water.

At the foot of the stairs, she turned back. "Director He. When my dad submitted materials, did he also ask around trip after trip?"

He Xiufen turned off the water, her hand still resting on the rim of the basin. After a pause she answered: "He didn't ask. He'd write it all up at night and deliver it the next morning. Said people's heads are clearest in the morning." She squared the basin. "He picked mornings. Don't you pick nights."

That afternoon on the seventeenth, she'd asked only this. After it was answered, she went upstairs.

On May 18th at ten o'clock, Cai Qingru's call came up to the second floor.

"The overflow pipe at Pond No. 3 was sealed this morning." The wind on the other end was strong; Cai Qingru had to raise her voice. "I brought two people to look. Both ends of the pipe have steel plate welded over them, cement smeared around the outside. They measured the pipe diameter with a tape measure and took photos. One section of the rain-sewage separation pipe still isn't connected. The workers say it'll be done by the 22nd."

"Do the photos show the edges of both pipe ends?"

"Yes. Welds, cement, and the ruler all in the same shots."

"Label every photo with the date, time, and who went." She tapped her pen on the paper. "The judgment says 'sealing off.' What exactly the sealing looks like—we need something that shows it."

"I know. I'll bring the supervision records along too." Cai Qingru paused. "Attorney Shen, the box for the 30th—it's coming up."

"Six more days."

After hanging up, Lu Jibai pushed the remediation supervision form toward her, his pen point resting on the "30th" box.

"Six days left until the 30th." He said.

"I know."

"Develop the photos, attach them behind the supervision form, write the shooting time on the line beneath each photo." He withdrew his pen and clicked the cap on. "The rain-sewage separation finishes the 22nd. Someone should go up the hill that day to take a look."

"You go."

"I'll go." He turned a page and said nothing more.

At eight in the evening, she went downstairs and stood by the sign at the alley entrance, calling Zhou Yu.

He picked up and gave his name first, the sound of turning paper in his voice, like he'd just looked up from a stack of files.

"Zhixia?"

"Senior, I want to ask a few things. All procedural questions on paper. Nothing else."

He was quiet for a second. "Ask."

"A criminal petition for review—who can file it?"

"Close relatives can. The victim's side can too." He said. "An attorney can represent you. You qualify on both counts."

"Where do I file?"

"The court of final judgment. Whatever court made the final ruling, it starts there."

"What about one level up?"

"One level up can directly take over a case that is difficult, complex, or major." He spoke slowly. "They can also inform the petitioner to file with the final judgment court, or hand it down for trial and then notify the petitioner."

"What if I skip two levels and file higher?"

"They'll tell you to file downward." He said. "That's procedure, not obstruction."

"After the penalty is served, is there a time limit?"

"A petition submitted within two years must be accepted. Beyond two years, there are restrictions; only certain circumstances are accepted, one of which is the possibility that the original defendant should be acquitted." He paused. "For what you're asking, I'll answer according to the statute, not add a single word."

"If the ground is new evidence, what needs to be brought?"

"Evidence materials must be attached at the same time. If you're asking the court to investigate and collect evidence, you must attach leads or materials." He said. "Just one explanation, nothing attached—they won't open a case."

"Mm." She lifted her pen from the paper. "That's all."

There was half a minute of silence on his end, then the rustle of paper.

"Zhixia." He said. "Your father's case—I won't touch it, and I shouldn't know the details. This one, you walk it yourself."

"I was just asking general questions."

"I know." He said. "You don't sound like you're asking generally."

She didn't answer that. The wind at the alley entrance knocked the cord beneath the sign against the steel pole, tap after tap.

"Call if anything comes up." He hung up without waiting for her thanks.

Back on the second floor, the lamp on the desk was on. She opened the notebook and wrote on a blank page: Intermediate Court; one level up can take it themselves; must write clearly why; two years; new evidence must be attached. After writing, she read it over and clicked the pen cap on.

On May 19th at nine in the evening, hers was the only light left in the firm.

Li Huilan had gone to the detention center in the afternoon, came back, dropped her bag, and left. Lu Jibai went downstairs at a quarter past six, said "the printer's down to half a ream" as he passed her desk, and she'd answered. He Xiufen was closing up downstairs; the roll-up door was halfway down when she looked up: "So late."

"Revising something."

"Your noodles are in the pot." The roll-up door went all the way down.

The printer sat by the window, its green light blinking. She spread the five handwritten pages she'd brought from home that morning to the left of the keyboard, opened a new document, and typed from the first line of the first page.

At the top of page one was "To," and the line beneath it was blank. When she'd written this page on May 4th, she'd left that line white—where to file it, she hadn't known herself back then.

Today, when she reached that line, she didn't leave it blank. She typed: Jiangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

Once that line was set, she typed line by line from the handwritten draft, all the way to the last paragraph.

After the last paragraph, she began a new line and added:

"3. Grounds for requesting this honorable court to review the case directly. The original review in this case was a first-instance judgment by the Chengnan District People's Court, which took effect without appeal. In the original-trial main file, the page number on the 'Attachment' line of the file index is blank. The archive inspection form notes the missing item, dated one month after the judgment was rendered. The missing page went missing at the step of archiving and storage by the original trial court. The petitioner currently holds a photocopy of the re-test report, the judicial appraisal opinion, and a notarial certificate. These only prove where those pages came from and what was written on them; they cannot replace the page missing from the original trial file. To investigate this page, one cannot avoid the original trial court's own file, its own cabinet. The original defendant, Shen Qian, is deceased. The petitioner is his daughter, and this petition is filed by law through the petitioner."

She stopped, fingers leaving the keyboard, and read the paragraph through.

She hadn't written the words "difficult, complex, or major" anywhere on the paper. What she'd written was something that could be checked: what was missing from the paper, at which step it went missing, and whose hands that step passed through.

Then she went back and deleted two paragraphs.

The first paragraph, about her family—originally it said how old she was when her mother died, how she'd worked and studied to raise her younger brother. She deleted it line by line, the whole passage gone, leaving only one sentence at the end: The petitioner is the daughter of the original defendant. Whoever read this paper didn't need to know how she grew up.

The second page told the whole story of the Baixi Village matter. Following the two opening sentences, there had been descriptions: how big the well-water incident blew up that year, how many people were watching. She crossed out the adjectives and kept only dates and facts: who served as counsel, who was sued, how many batches of water samples, what the testing found, what the judgment determined. The facts were heavy enough on their own; no extra weight was needed.

When she finished deleting, the pages shrank back, leaving half a page blank at the end of page four. She pulled the "Claims" section upward, altered not a word, only adjusted the line spacing evenly. The page count in the bottom-right corner jumped to five.

She hit print.

The pages came out one by one, landing in the tray, still warm. She picked them up, squared them on the desk, and checked page by page: header, parties, claims, facts and grounds, this paragraph, signature block. Pages one, two, three, four, five—no gaps.

The bottom of the last page was empty. She took out her pen and signed after "Petitioner": Shen Zhixia. Below that she wrote the date: May 19th.

When she finished, she set the pen down and pressed her hands on the edges of the paper. When she'd signed on May 9th, she'd written harder, the strokes biting into the page. Today the stroke was light, held in check.

At nine fifty she shut down the computer, turned off the light, folded the five new pages and the five handwritten pages together, tucked them into an old folder, and carried it downstairs. The alley lamps were lit every other one. When she reached her door, the sound-activated light in the stairwell came on.

Zhi'an's room was dark already, the door left with a crack open, no light in the gap. She set down her bag, washed her hands, and took the kraft envelope from beside the stack of volumes.

The three lines on the face of the envelope were written on May 9th: Shen Qian; Petition for Review; Shen Zhixia. The characters were written neatly, each stroke separate.

From the folder she pulled the five handwritten pages—the set signed on May 9th. She pinched both ends of the paper, pressed it down against the edge of the desk, and tore it in half, then folded and tore again, throwing the pieces into the plastic wastebasket beside the desk.

The sound of tearing paper was loud in the night.

She tapped the five new pages on the desk twice, squared the edges, and slipped them into the same spot in the envelope. Five pages, edges neat, weight steady.

She uncapped the pen and added a new line beneath the three on the envelope: Filed to the Jiangzhou Intermediate Court.

After writing, she capped the pen, stood the envelope at the corner of the desk, leaning against the nine volumes. Lamplight slanted across it. The first line and the last line on the envelope were in the light; the two middle lines lay in shadow.