Chapter 409: Cen Hong's Courier Hub

The roll-up shutter door was halfway up. Inside, a scanner beeped once after another, the sound punctuated by the rip of packing tape.

June 7, 10:10 a.m., at the mouth of a lane in Chengbei. The lane was too narrow—electric scooters lined both sides all the way to the shutter door, forcing people through sideways. The plastic curtain of the deli stall next door swayed, someone behind it stirring a basin with a ladle. A three-wheeler backed in, honking twice, pushing two people picking up packages flat against the wall.

Two plastic bins sat stacked by the door, filled with broken-down cardboard boxes, wadded-up tape, and three packages that had been sitting unclaimed for three days.

Cen Hong wore a blue cloth apron, a barcode scanner tucked into its pocket. She flipped through packages with one hand and shoved them onto shelves with the other. When she looked up and saw Shen Zhixia, she gave a slight nod toward the back. "Go on in and sit. I cleared the table off."

The back room was just big enough for a folding table. An old newspaper was spread across it, a white porcelain cup resting on top, and next to it stood a metal tin. The tin's mouth had been sealed with a ring of tape, now mostly torn off, the torn edge whitened and curling upward. The room was stuffier than outside. A ceiling fan wobbled overhead, pausing mid-arc before swinging back.

"That tin my dad left." Cen Hong's voice carried in from between the shelves. "Opened it yesterday. It's been sitting all this time, so the flavor's faded. Don't mind it."

Shen Zhixia sat down. The tea was still hot, and the first sip tasted old, with a faint sweetness trailing behind. She set her bag on her lap, opened her notebook, and laid her pen on the page.

People came in from outside.

"Last digits?"

"Four-seven."

"Second shelf, by the door."

The scanner beeped twice. The door curtain flipped once, then fell back.

"Hong-jie."

"Yeah."

"After your dad was removed as director, did he still go to work?"

The voice from behind the shelves paused.

"He did. Every day." Cen Hong came over carrying a cardboard box and crouched down to slide it onto the bottom shelf. "They removed him, but he was still there. They left him the desk farthest in. Meetings didn't include him; he didn't ask. In those six months he barely spoke. After dinner he'd just sit out on the balcony."

"Did he ever think about quitting?"

"He did. Then he got stubborn." She stood up and brushed dust from her apron with two quick pats. "He said he was still director that day, so what right did they have to say he wasn't. He went to arbitration first, and when arbitration didn't give him anything, he took it to court."

"What did the arbitration side say?"

"They said he'd already been removed, and if he disagreed he should sue." Cen Hong tossed the roll of tape in her hand into a bin. "Dad came home and clipped that arbitration paper to the very front of his stack of documents, said this one would come in handy too. I said the paper says you lost. He said I didn't understand—file it first, argue later."

"When was this?"

"The year after your dad's case wrapped up." Cen Hong looked up at her. "Dad said it was the second year after the Baixi Village case."

Shen Zhixia wrote in her notebook: The second year after the Baixi Village case, he sued.

"Which court?"

"Chengbei. The plant was there, he lived there, so the hearings were at the Chengbei court."

"How many hearings?"

"Two. The first one, he went alone." Cen Hong headed toward the door, then turned back halfway. "Came home saying all they asked about was which day he stopped being director. They never asked a single word about the well water. And he was smiling when he said it."

"And the second one?"

"The second one, he got a ruling. Won half."

"What does half mean?"

"The removal wasn't done properly, so they had to make up several months of back pay. The rest, nothing." She lifted the door curtain. "He said that was enough. Enough for what, I don't know. Listening to it made my chest tight."

A woman carrying a baby came in and set a plastic bag on the counter.

"Shipping to Guangdong. A return."

"Want insurance?"

"No."

The label printed, she tore one strip off and stuck it on. The baby reached for the barcode scanner, and the woman pulled its hand back.

Only after the curtain fell did Shen Zhixia speak. "When he sued, who wrote the materials?"

"He did." Cen Hong came back and sat down across the table. "He hired a lawyer, two pages of drafting, and he didn't use any of it. Said what the lawyer wrote wasn't his case."

"How much did he write?"

"A whole stack." She marked a height against the edge of the table with her hand. "Punched holes in every page, then threaded them, blue string, and made the cover himself from hard board. Worked half the night. Next morning his hands were black. I asked him why he couldn't just print a copy, and he said if you're going to submit something, you submit it like that."

"Did you ever see what was inside?"

"He wouldn't show me." Cen Hong shook her head. "He said it was for the court to see, not for you."

Another customer came in, an old man who got his last digits wrong three times before they matched. His package had a pharmacy receipt stuck to it, one corner of the box crushed in. Cen Hong got him a different bag, and the old man shuffled out, glancing back at the door number as he went.

Then a girl in her early twenties came to return a dress, said the size was wrong. Cen Hong pulled the dress out of the bag, shook it open, measured the waist, called out a number, and checked the scale.

"Twenty grams over. You'll need to pay two yuan extra."

"It's only twenty grams."

"That's what the scale reads." Cen Hong printed the label and handed it over. Only after the girl left did she continue. "After my dad fought that case, he stopped wanting to talk to people."

Shen Zhixia nudged her cup aside to make room for her notebook.

"After the ruling, what happened to that stack of papers?"

"Submitted." Cen Hong said. "Once the originals went in, they never came back."

"You didn't tell him to go get them?"

"I did. I said the court only needs to keep a photocopy—you should get your originals back." She folded the empty bags on the table, pressing each fold flat. "He said no. He said they'd be safest right where they were."

On the third fold, her hands stopped.

"I didn't know what originals he was talking about at the time." She added. "I thought he meant the judgment paper."

Shen Zhixia's pen hovered over the page, not touching down.

"He said that on the day of the ruling?"

"Not that day. A while after, in the summer." Cen Hong thought for a moment. "He was sitting on the balcony, and he told me he'd put that one thing away, that it was safest where it was. I asked him what thing, and he said don't ask."

"Did he ever bring it up again?"

"Once." She set the flattened bags aside, her voice lower. "He was sitting there smoking, and he said: the Baixi Village matter is still inside."

The fan swung back around, and the corner of a page lifted.

Shen Zhixia wrote that line down too, slowly: The Baixi Village matter is still inside.

"In his last six months, he went to the old building every day." Cen Hong said. "Said he had to go through the papers in the cabinet and identify every one. My mom said he'd lost his mind, and he didn't even answer back. Out the door at six in the morning, shoes gray with dust by evening."

"Did he finish?"

"He was still at it the day he passed."

She reached over and screwed the lid back onto the tin, tucking the torn tape edge inward.

"The five pages I read out at my place last time—the copy my dad signed—is that the same thing as the one under our cabinet at home?"

"I think so."

"You think?"

"Thinking isn't enough." Shen Zhixia said. "I need to see that other copy."

Cen Hong nodded and didn't press.

The rush outside had passed. A beam of light leaked under the shutter door and landed on the counter, dust floating in it.

"Attorney Shen, let me ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"What you're looking for—is it the thing he meant when he said, 'If someone comes asking about Baixi Village, then you take it out'?"

Shen Zhixia drained the last of her tea and set the cup down on the newspaper.

"I don't know. I won't know until I see it."

"All right." Cen Hong nodded firmly. "I'll talk to my mom. If she asks, I'll say a lawyer came to pick up a delivery."

"Don't get into details. If she asks what it's used for, read it to her the way you did last time."

"Same as last time." Cen Hong repeated it back, then remembered something. "Last time the paper said: 'To investigate the truth of the Baixi Village matter, which may be submitted to a retrial, or may be submitted as a report.' Write it the same way this time?"

She had it memorized word for word. Shen Zhixia said, "Write it that way."

"My brother's in Shenzhen."

"I know."

"He has to sign too?"

"He does. Your mother's thumbprint, your signature, your brother's signature. With all three, the firm issues the letter, and then I can go to the court to check."

"I'll take photos and send them to him this afternoon."

"No rush to get it done in the next couple of days." Shen Zhixia closed her notebook. "The court won't process this over the next few days anyway. First explain the purpose to your mother clearly. Where she doesn't understand, read it line by line. When she presses that thumb down, she needs to know what she's pressing on."

"And what do I say if my mom asks: what difference does it make if you find it?"

Shen Zhixia paused.

"Tell her: as long as the papers exist, no one gets away."

Cen Hong looked at her without speaking.

"That's what my dad said." She said after a moment.

"I know." Shen Zhixia said. "I was quoting him."

"How far along is your dad's case now?" Cen Hong suddenly asked.

"It's been submitted."

"And submitting it counts?"

"No." Shen Zhixia capped her pen. "There's still one thing missing."

"And the missing thing is in my dad's stack?"

"Maybe. Or maybe not." She put the notebook back in her bag. "If it's not, then I'll have made the trip for nothing, come back, and think of something else."

Cen Hong didn't answer. She stood and nudged the tin toward the back corner of the table, as if afraid it might get knocked over.

Shen Zhixia rinsed her cup at the sink and set it upside down on the table. The notice slip she'd brought back from the court window still pressed against the bottom of her bag. All the words she'd rehearsed on the way over—not one of them had been needed. The question from the Intermediate Court window—"Where are the originals, and who can confirm them?"—had changed shape in her hands into: those papers had once been submitted somewhere, and where they went still had to be asked.

[Thud. Court: found. File and page: not yet.]

At eleven, she headed for the door.

"Hong-jie, I'm heading out."

"Wait." Cen Hong leaned out from behind the shelves, pen still in hand. "That file you're looking for—what if you can't find it?"

"If I find it, I'll know where it is. If I don't, at least I'll know it's not there." Shen Zhixia hitched her bag strap higher on her shoulder. "Either way is a step forward."

Beneath the courier hub's awning, the sun had already climbed to the second step, white light glaring off the scooter seats.

She stood at the mouth of the lane for a moment, pulled out her notebook, and added a line beneath her notes: Chengbei District Court. Then another: Cen, Wang, the brother in Shenzhen—three signatures.

"Attorney Shen."

She looked back.

Cen Hong was leaning halfway out the door, the scanner still in her hand.

"That year when he bound that stack, I was the one who lent him the hole punch."