Chapter 403: The Petition Window

"Take them all out," the woman said. "One at a time."

She unfolded the two creases at the mouth of the paper bag and laid the seven items in order on the counter beneath the small window. The counter had held only a stack of blank forms, a round stamp resting in its ink pad, and a ballpoint pen with a dried-out tip. Once her things were laid out, the surface was full.

The woman reached first for the petition. She pushed it in, sliding it forward an inch.

Five pages, turned without hurry, her fingertips pinching the corner of each sheet before flipping. At the last page, she looked at the signature line and the date. "You signed this yourself?"

"Yes."

"Original?"

"Yes. The two behind it are copies."

"Three copies total." The woman pulled out the two duplicates and set them to her left. "I'll keep two. One goes up with the file, one goes to the original trial court."

"The original defendant is deceased?"

"He is."

"Household register."

She slid the register across. The woman opened to the first page and lifted the booklet toward the light from the window. Her father's name was stamped diagonally with a red square seal; two spots along its rim of characters had faded from fingertips.

"That seal makes a black smudge when photocopied." The woman raised the booklet a little higher. "We need to see the original."

She turned two pages and found the column for "Relationship to Household Head." Printed beneath it was the character for "daughter."

"Who is the household head?"

"My father."

"Your mother?"

"Deceased. Long ago."

The woman asked nothing further. She closed the booklet and set it in the small empty space at the left edge of the counter. That spot was where her things went when they were returned to her.

"The release certificate."

"Here." She pushed it across, her hand already moving toward the next item, but the woman raised a palm to stop her.

"One at a time."

The release certificate lay open on the counter. The woman's eyes stopped on the date line, counted upward, then glanced down the page.

"Time served, fully executed. That was more than two years ago."

She answered with a low "mm."

"This one needs a photocopy."

"I brought it." She drew two sheets from the bag and passed them through one at a time. "This is the release certificate. This is the death certificate."

The woman took the death certificate and laid the two side by side, comparing names. The man who had been released and the man described as dead were the same person. She looked at these longer than the earlier items, asked nothing, and pushed the originals back to the left side, keeping only the two photocopies.

"After his release, did he ever file a petition himself?"

"No."

"Two years counts from the day his sentence ended. Not from the day he died." The woman said this without looking up, her pen already moving toward the next item.

She pressed her hand against the edge of the counter. In her own mind, the days had always counted from the day her father left.

Next came the judgment, the trial transcript, and the defense counsel's opinion, as a set. The woman flipped to the last page. The lower right corner was stamped "Verified Against Original," and she pressed her thumb pad against it.

"Obtained from Chengnan District Court?"

"Two years ago."

"The verification stamp is theirs?"

"Yes."

"The transcript was pulled at the same time?"

"Same time."

After that, two more pages. The woman saw the page number on the "Attachment" line left blank, and next to it a single character written in pencil: "missing." She rotated the paper and turned back to the second page, the archive inspection form. Both hands braced on the paper, and she held that posture for a while.

"Where did these two pages come from?"

"Pulled from the archives."

"Any seal?"

"No. The file index is a photocopy. That form is too."

"These two I'm keeping." She said it simply. "Where the attachment went missing—the original court will have to account for that itself."

She nodded. She had written that sentence once before in her petition, back when no one was listening.

The last item was the transparent bag. She set it in the center of the counter. Inside were the judicial appraisal opinion, the notarial certificate, two disc copies, and five pages of paper.

The woman parted the bag's opening and drew out the notarial certificate, opening it.

"What is this?"

"A disc sealed by the notary. The unsealing, the reading, the export, and the printing are all described in there. These five pages were exported and printed from it."

"Discs?"

"Two. One is the export with those pages. One is the unsealing procedure itself."

"We can't read discs here." The woman set the bag aside and pulled out the five pages, holding each up to the light from the window. The paper was thin; light passed through from behind, and the characters looked faint.

"These are printed from scans?"

"Yes."

The woman placed the five pages separately on the right side of the counter, not stacked with anything else.

"This one—we'll talk about it in a moment."

"All right."

She pressed her hand against the counter's edge again, then drew it back and let it hang at her side.

At mid-morning, the internal telephone rang. The woman answered, said only two phrases: "Window three. In process." She hung up. "Continue."

Behind her, beyond the one-meter line, the person had already changed. The woman who had first arrived clutching papers was gone, replaced by a man in a jacket who shuffled his number ticket between his hands. Farther back, an old man coughed—a fit, a pause, another fit. At the next window over, someone asked where to hand in materials, and the woman answered without lifting her head: "Window five."

When the review was done, the woman pulled a blank list from the far end of the counter, turned it sideways, and scratched the pen across the paper twice before it began to write. She worked down line by line, lifting her eyes after each item to recheck the piles on the counter.

At the petitioner line, she paused. "Who is the respondent?"

"The original defendant, Shen Qian."

She wrote "Shen Qian." The pen paused at that spot. She looked up at her, then lowered her head and filled in the following column.

When she finished, she turned the list halfway around and pushed it toward her. "Check it over. If something's missing, say it now."

She read line by line. The petition line noted two copies. The household register line noted "one photocopy." The release certificate and death certificate each had their own line. The judgment, transcript, and defense opinion were written as one line. The file index and archive form were one line. The last line listed the judicial appraisal opinion, the notarial certificate, two discs, and the printed scans.

"Address." The woman said it flatly. "Write one where you can actually receive mail."

She wrote the house number from Old Town District, set the pen down when she was done.

"Sign."

She signed. The last stroke of her name pressed heavier than the rest.

The woman took the list back, picked up the round stamp from the ink pad, tapped it once on the pad's rim, and pressed it to the upper right corner. The red imprint landed, bleeding slightly at the paper's edge.

"Keep this page." She handed the list back out. "Everything I've taken is on it. If anything's missing later, bring this—don't come empty-handed."

The review had started at 9:30. The clock on the wall now read 10:20.

The woman rummaged through the stack of forms, pulled out a pre-printed slip, and laid it sideways between them. Lines of printed text ran down the page, each preceded by a small square. She switched pens, and she checked the first three squares, adding a few small characters after each check.

"Three items." She looked up. "Listen to all of it before you ask."

"Item one. Your original judgment was first instance at Chengnan District Court. No appeal. It took effect at first instance?"

"Yes."

"It has never reviewed this case itself. This court is its superior." The pen point tapped the first line. "By procedure, I can tell you to go raise it at Chengnan District Court. I can also send it down for them to review. If a case is difficult, complex, or major, this court can review it itself."

She set the pen down. "Your petition has a section requesting direct review by this court. That decision isn't made here. The file moves up to the Trial Supervision Division. They decide."

She nodded. The mouth of the paper bag creased in her grip.

"Item two." The woman's pen moved to the second square. "From the day the sentence was fully served to now, more than two years have passed. A petition after two years is only accepted under certain circumstances: if the original defendant might be acquitted; if a petition was filed back then and never accepted; or if the case is difficult, complex, or major."

"You wrote that there is new evidence, and that the original judgment found the facts wrong." She looked up at her. "That falls under 'might be acquitted.' It has to be supported by something."

[Thud. Two years. Long past.]

"Item three."

The pen stopped just past the third square.

"On what grounds are you petitioning?"

"The original judgment found the facts wrong. There is new evidence."

"Where is the evidence?"

"The last five pages."

The woman took the five pages from the right side of the counter and placed them in the center, squaring the edges.

"Printed from scans."

"Yes."

"A scan is a reproduction." She spoke slowly. "When you cite new evidence, you must attach the evidence itself. What you attach has to be readable and verifiable. Your notarial certificate proves these pages came from a certain disc, and that they were exported from it. Whether the report itself is real—the certificate doesn't say."

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"Where is the original?"

At the far end of the hall, the intercom was reciting a queue number; halfway through, the voice turned rough through the speakers.

"Who can verify it?"

Both her hands gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles white. The countertop was cold underneath, and the chill climbed up through her palms.

She had said this once before, in another room, and it had meant the same thing: in court, only the original counts.

[Thud. This one, you can't answer.]

The woman waited a while, then pushed the five pages forward half an inch.

"I'm not making this hard for you. The person reviewing the file sees only what's on the page." She paused. "If this item isn't strengthened, it stays a reproduction no matter where it goes."

"Strengthened with what—" She started, her voice dry. "What could I add?"

"Something that can be checked against the original. Or something that points to where the original is." The woman's tone stayed level. "Mail it or bring it in. Mark it with the petitioner's name and the case."

"Is there a deadline?"

"No deadline. If you don't add anything, it just sits here."

She pushed the notice slip out through the small window by an inch.

"Once it's complete, it'll be forwarded to the Trial Supervision Division for review. Whether it's accepted or not, you'll be told in writing, sent to the address on your list. No need to come asking every day."

"All right."

She held the notice slip in her fingers, not yet slipping it into the bag. The glass carried a thin reflection, shrinking her into a small patch between the two of them.

"Comrade."

"Yes."

"What if the original is in another court's case file?"

The woman looked up at her. The band of the old watch gleamed pale under the light.

"Then write clearly which court and which file, and apply for this court to retrieve it."

The woman returned the ballpoint pen to its holder, and her voice dropped. "Write it clearly. If it's not clear, no one will guess it for you."

She nodded, stepped back half a pace, and gathered the mouth of the paper bag, folding it over twice.

Before leaving the corridor, she stopped by the row of connected chairs, flipped the notice slip to its blank side, then pulled out the materials list clipped to the top of her petition and turned that over too.

The last line was where she had stopped writing the night before: "The original—where?"

She added a line beneath it: "Write clearly which court, which file; apply for this court to retrieve it."

When she finished, a small blank space remained after "which court." She did not fill it in.