Chapter 405: Turn Off the Light Before You Go

At seven in the evening, the exhaust fan downstairs was still running.

Li Huilan clipped the two pages from the meeting into a folder, hugged it to her chest, and walked to the stairwell. "I'm heading out first."

"Okay." She looked up.

"Director He called up from downstairs. Says there are steamed buns. You want me to bring two up?"

"No."

"I'm off, then. I'll copy the archive box over tomorrow."

The wooden stairs creaked a few times. The door downstairs opened and then closed again.

Two people remained on the second floor. The light in the inner room was already off, leaving only the one by the window. One section of the fluorescent tube glowed whiter than the rest. The cup on the windowsill was still there, half full of water. The Qinghe case file lay open in front of him, a blank sheet of paper on top, pen in his right hand, held but not touching the page.

The commotion of the day had passed. After five, this floor went quiet, and the sounds from below changed gradually: first, people crouched at the door eating noodles, someone holding a helmet; later, a parent came with a child, someone stood on the steps with a bowl; after that, all that remained was the exhaust fan and the murmur of one or two voices. On her desk, the ruler still pressed down on Ge Xiaoyu's page. The receipt binder was closed, its corners frayed from how many times she had flipped through it.

This past month, everything the two of them had said to each other landed on this desk: which line in the seal usage register, who signed which column on the Qinghe form, what date fell on the thirtieth day, what date fell on the hundred eightieth. One sentence after another, said and done. After each was said, each went back to their own files.

She squared her stack of papers against the desk, tapping it twice, then opened Ge Xiaoyu's file and began turning pages one by one, loud enough to hear.

She had ordered these two matters in advance: the petition—say nothing for now, wait for the Intermediate Court to write; that other sentence—say even less, let it cool on its own. That afternoon, while sorting the paper bags, she had pulled out the Materials Receipt List, glanced at it, and put it back, creasing the edge. Once the crease was there, she knew she had to speak today.

Only one thing needed asking: whether he knew. Ask, then leave.

She reached page three and stopped.

"Lawyer Lu."

"Yeah." He didn't look up.

"I filed a petition. Intermediate Court. Day before yesterday."

He set the pen down sideways on the paper, the barrel aligned with the page edge, and looked up.

"They accepted it?"

"They accepted it. Issued a list. One line per item."

"What's missing?"

"The original of the re-test report. I only have those five pages in hand."

He glanced at the blank page on his desk, then back. "If you're claiming new evidence, the evidence has to be attached."

"I wrote that. The window clerk checked off three items. I can supply two myself. The third one—I don't have it."

He nodded, very lightly, and then went still.

[Thud. Two days.]

He didn't ask which item was missing. She didn't continue either.

She closed the notebook, set it on top of the file, and laid both hands on it.

"May 13th. I went to Hengzheng and met with Han Chongli."

His hand withdrew from the paper and came to rest on the edge of the desk.

"He said my father confessed on your behalf."

Downstairs someone called for another soda. He Xiufen answered. The exhaust fan drowned out the words. The whiter section of the fluorescent tube was buzzing.

She noticed a paper cut on the back of her hand, shallow, and couldn't remember which day it had happened.

"He said my father's three years bought you your practice certificate."

He didn't move.

She still remembered the glass door of that reception room—a half fingerprint on the glass, names hanging row by row on the wall outside. She had stood at the foot of that wall before leaving, stood there without thinking anything at all.

Those fifty minutes she had transcribed line by line. The copy sat in a drawer at home. She hadn't brought it today. She had considered it. If she brought it, she would have to read it, and reading it would make it something she handed him to hear, and then this room would contain one more thing, pressing down on this floor, impossible for either of them to step around.

She said none of that.

"So he said." He finally spoke.

"Did you know?"

"I guessed." he said. "No one ever told me."

"How long have you been guessing?"

He reached out and nudged the pen on the paper, realigning it with the page edge. Then he withdrew his hand and rested it on his knee.

He didn't answer.

[Thud. Guesswork doesn't count as testimony.]

She ran the sentence "I'm not here to settle accounts with you" through her mouth once but didn't speak it. She had come for one thing only: Han Chongli's words had entered her ears, and she couldn't let them rest on her alone. Whether he would repay it, and how—that was his own ledger now.

The exhaust fan stopped, then started again. Someone in the alley pushed a cart past, metal hooks clanging. A neighbor opened a window and called down. No one answered.

"I'll go."

She heard herself say it: "Don't repay my father's debt for him."

She lifted her hands off the notebook. "My father's matter—I'll file it myself."

He looked at her, eyes steady, not looking away.

"All right." he said.

Downstairs He Xiufen called, "Two bowls of pork rib noodles, take them."

She stood, pushed her chair under the desk, and shouldered her bag. She didn't gather the stack of papers on the desk, only slid the notebook out and into her bag. The pen pressing the top of the pile—she didn't take it.

Two steps toward the stairwell, she remembered the third item checked on the notice slip: Where is the original, and who can confirm it. Without the original in hand, that was the one thing missing. A moment ago, the man had said he would make a trip. With one sentence, she had pressed that path shut. Which court, which file—what lay behind it was still blank.

The chair behind her scraped. "Lawyer Shen."

She stopped. The exhaust fan hummed, the wok spat, customers laughed. She waited. He didn't continue.

She took the railing and went down.

Halfway down the stairs, the light was broken. She ran her hand twice along the railing. Heat came up from below, carrying scallion oil and garlic.

At the stove, He Xiufen knocked a strainer of noodles twice against the rim of the pot and glanced up at her. The look was brief, and she didn't speak.

She reached the glass door, hand on the handle.

"The bowls are all ready." He Xiufen said.

She took her hand off the handle and sat at the innermost table, against the wall, a single bulb hanging overhead.

The noodles arrived, a layer of scallion oil floating on the broth, minced garlic sunk to the bottom. She took two bites. Too hot. She pushed the bowl out a little, lifted the noodles with her chopsticks, blew on them twice, and set them back.

He Xiufen moved between the two burners, flour on her apron, sleeves rolled to her forearms. Last month, on the twenty-eighth, it had been the table by the door: a bowl of noodles set before her, He Xiufen saying just one line, eat up. From that day to this, a full month, and He Xiufen had not once asked about the matter upstairs.

At the stove, He Xiufen ladled out another bowl and covered it with a plate, setting it beside the far pot. She didn't say who it was for.

"He hasn't come down to eat once today." He Xiufen said with her back turned.

"Mm."

"I brought a bowl up at noon. He ate two bites and left the rest to go cold. That cup upstairs has been sitting there since morning."

She laid her chopsticks flat on the rim of the bowl and didn't answer. He Xiufen didn't say more either, just pushed the garlic bowl back toward the stove.

The door swung open. A delivery rider came in, helmet tucked under his arm. "One beef, to go. Hurry it up, I got three more orders."

"Eight minutes." He Xiufen said.

The rider stood by the door scrolling his phone, the screen light hitting his chin. He switched his helmet to the other hand and tilted his chin toward the stairs. "Lawyer Lu not coming down today?"

"Not coming down."

"So has he eaten dinner or what?"

"What's it to you whether he's eaten?"

The rider laughed, took the bag, and left. The door was half a beat slow to swing shut.

He Xiufen slung the rag over her shoulder and said across the tables, "Garlic went up twenty cents today."

"How much?"

"One-eighty. One-sixty yesterday."

"Mm."

"If it goes up, I'll use less." He Xiufen said. "You wouldn't taste the difference anyway."

An old woman came in to buy half a portion of noodles, pulling out a handful of small bills and counting them on the counter. At the third one-yuan note, she took one back. He Xiufen pushed the change over. "If it's short, add it next time."

The old woman said there wouldn't be a next time and left with her bowl.

She pushed her bowl aside, took the notebook from her bag, and opened to a blank page. She wrote: Agree to mediation presided over by the court with the authorized agent present. Any mediation proposal must be confirmed in writing by the principal.

She stopped there. Below, a space needed to be left for a signature, and the person to sign was in Guangdong. The last paper the child's father had signed and sent back had two lines of pencil on the back: saying to listen to the lawyer on matters concerning the child, and that the factory hadn't come looking for him in the past two months. That paper was clipped into the file. The signature was written slowly, each stroke dragged downward.

At 9:40, the last two tables of customers left. He Xiufen lifted the stools onto the tabletops one by one, the legs scraping the concrete, one sound after another.

At 9:50, she lifted the plate off the bowl by the pot and poked with her chopsticks. The noodles had congealed into one lump and wouldn't separate.

"Gone sticky." He Xiufen carried the bowl to the bucket and poured it out. Water ran twice. The bowl landed upside down in the sink.

At ten, He Xiufen wiped her hands on the rag and headed for the stairs. "I'll go up and check."

Footsteps on the stairs, on the floorboards, walking from one end to the other.

He Xiufen's voice was lowered, but it still carried through the floorboards: "Turn off the light before you go."

No answer from upstairs.

After a pause, it sounded like she said something more, even quieter, so faint it didn't carry down. Then the floorboards creaked again and she came down the stairs. A ring of keys landed on the stove, brass on tile, one crisp clink.

"Not a single word written." He Xiufen said. "The paper on the desk is still blank. He's just sitting there, hands on his knees."

She scrubbed the rag in the sink and wrung it out. "I told him—turn off the light before you go. He said all right."

Water from the rag ran down her wrist and dripped onto the stove.

She closed the notebook, put it in her bag, and stood. "I'm heading back first."

"Mm." He Xiufen said. "We open at six-thirty tomorrow. If you come early, come in the back. I'll be out front sorting vegetables."

"Got it."

The rolling shutter came down halfway, the metal descending to just above knee height, leaving a gap you'd have to crouch through.

"He can pull it down himself when he comes." He Xiufen said.

She turned sideways and ducked out under the gap.

There was wind in the alley. The locust tree leaves flipped one way, then the other. An empty tricycle leaned against the wall, two coils of straw rope left in the bed. The lamp at the mouth of the alley was lit, a ring of small insects stuck to the edge of the bulb.

She reached the alley's end and looked back.

The window on the second floor was still lit. Through that washed-out cloth curtain, the light spread across the windowsill, reaching the cup.