Chapter 411: Three Signatures

There was no elevator in Building 3 of the Qingyuan Testing family compound. Tape had been wrapped around the stair railings; the wrapped sections had gone hard, rough against the hand. Two coal stoves and an old washing machine were piled at the landing between the fourth and fifth floors, forcing a person to turn sideways and lift their feet to pass. The light socket on the fifth floor was empty; the bulb had gone missing, leaving it dim even in daylight.

At 3 p.m. on June 8, she reached the fifth floor. A small bundle of mugwort hung on the door of Unit 502, leftover from the year before, its leaves curled at the edges and the string bleached white.

There was movement inside. The door opened a crack, the chain still on. Auntie Wang studied her through the gap for a long moment, then unhooked the chain.

"Lawyer Shen." She pulled the door open. "Hong told me you were coming."

"Auntie Wang."

Inside, a square table was covered with a plastic tablecloth worn white in one spot. A floor fan turned slowly at the table's corner, its breeze dissipating before it reached anyone. On the table sat a medicine box, an enamel mug, and a pair of glasses with a temple mended with adhesive tape.

Cen Hong sat by the window, her blue cloth apron removed and folded over the back of the chair. In front of her lay a box of red ink paste and a damp towel, folded into a neat square.

"Mom asked three times this morning," Cen Hong said, shifting her chair closer to the table. "She kept asking if we had to go to court against someone."

"No." Shen Zhixia set her things on the table one by one: a kraft paper envelope holding two pages, a notebook, a pen. "This trip isn't about suing anyone. Just going to the court to look at the stack he submitted."

Auntie Wang sat down across the table, hands resting on her knees. "I know about that stack," she said. "He worked on it half the night. His hands were black in the morning. I asked what he was doing, and he said don't ask."

"First we have to be allowed to look." Cen Hong pulled the top page to the front and pointed it out to her mother. "Mom, I'll read. This page is addressed to the court. I'll read it line by line, and you listen."

She read slowly, at the pace of reciting a tracking number, pausing between each phrase:

"To retain Lawyer Shen Zhixia of Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm to apply to the court on our behalf to review and copy the archived case materials in the labor dispute between Cen Shouye and Jiangzhou Qingyuan Testing Technology Co., Ltd."

Auntie Wang's eyes followed her finger from top to bottom.

"Read it again."

Cen Hong read it again. On the second pass she stopped at the word "copy," looked up, and asked Shen Zhixia, "Copy—that means photocopy?"

"Photocopy what can be photocopied, page by page, each stamped with the court's verification seal." Shen Zhixia said, "The originals stay put."

"Why can't the originals be taken out?" Auntie Wang asked.

"Court files don't leave the building." She placed both hands on the table. "If one gets lent out and comes back missing a page, nobody can explain it."

Auntie Wang nodded slowly, as if weighing the words in her mind. She reached over to shift the enamel mug; its bottom left a faint ring of moisture on the tablecloth.

"Is this the same document we heard about last time?" Auntie Wang suddenly asked. "The five pages Hong read to me."

"The same one." Shen Zhixia said. "Last time it was printed from photos. This time we'll be looking at the original pages he actually submitted to the court."

"What good are the originals?"

"I need to see them first. Only after I see them will I know if we can do anything."

Cen Hong turned to the second page and read the purpose clause. When she reached the word "retrial," Auntie Wang's lips moved.

"That line was in last time."

"Not a single word changed." Shen Zhixia said.

"What does retrial mean?"

"The court will hear that case from nine years ago again."

"And when it's done—will he be able to hear about it?"

"No."

Auntie Wang lifted her hands from her knees and set them back down. The fan swung to one side, and the corner of the paper lifted slightly; Cen Hong pressed it down.

"Go ahead and press," Auntie Wang said.

Cen Hong opened the ink pad. The red surface was scored with fingertip grooves. She handed over the damp towel. Auntie Wang pressed her thumb into the pad twice, then raised it to inspect—a layer of red covered the pad of her finger.

"Here." Cen Hong pointed to the first line of the second page. "After your name."

Auntie Wang pressed down, three firm presses before lifting. A fingerprint on the page, its edges fading into a lighter ring.

"Put one in the corner of this page too." Cen Hong slid the first page over and pointed to the lower right corner. "Anyone holding this page has to see your fingerprint."

Auntie Wang pressed again. Cen Hong wiped her finger with the towel, twice before it came clean, leaving a red smear on the cloth.

Then Cen Hong took a pen from her apron pocket and signed after her own line, adding the date when she finished.

"My brother's spot's still blank." She spread the two pages flat, turned off the fan, and held her phone directly above. "I'll send him a photo."

The first shot came out washed white from the flash—deleted. The second worked. She photographed each page and sent them one at a time. No reply came.

"He's on the workshop floor. Can't check his phone during the day." Cen Hong slid the signed page into a courier envelope, filled out the address, and put the sender as the courier hub. "Air freight. Arrives in Shenzhen tomorrow afternoon. He signs it and mails it back same day—it'll be here by the tenth."

"That fast?"

"I work in this business."

She tore off the label, stuck it on, pressed the flap flat, and said she'd hand it over tonight; courier service ran as usual for the Dragon Boat Festival.

Shen Zhixia put the first page back into the kraft envelope, which hung half empty. She stood, closed her notebook, and was about to say goodbye—

"Hong." Auntie Wang's hand still rested on the tablecloth, a trace of red on her fingertip. "That missing page. Page six. Any luck finding it?"

The pen in Cen Hong's hand stopped.

"Not yet," Shen Zhixia said.

Auntie Wang turned her face toward her.

"When you find it, read it to me." She said, "I can't read."

"I will."

Auntie Wang braced herself on the table's edge and stood to rechain the door. The chain clinked twice against the frame.

On June 9, the Dragon Boat Festival, at noon. An aluminum basin sat on the small stove outside the noodle shop, zongzi soaking inside, a few reed leaves floating on the water. He Xiufen crouched on the steps peeling garlic; the skins fell at her feet and skittered along the ground whenever the wind blew.

"Come up." She nudged the basin's rim with her knee. "Help yourself to zongzi. Savory ones—pork and chestnut. Don't be picky."

Shen Zhixia took one. He Xiufen stuffed two more into a plastic bag.

"These two are for Zhi'an. He can eat three in one sitting—don't give them all to him."

Zhi'an leaned out the noodle shop door, a bowl of noodle broth in his hands, called out "Sis" from the steps, then went back inside.

"Signed over at Chengbei yet?" He Xiufen's hands kept peeling.

"Two signed. The third's in Shenzhen, being mailed back."

"All three before the letter goes out." She said, "The court won't let you look at the file without the letter. And the purpose line stays exactly as written—don't add a single word. Add one line and they'll ask one question; if you can't answer, you go back and redo it."

"Got it."

"The day you review the file, bring your pen." He Xiufen pushed the garlic skins aside. "Write down what you see. Don't write your own words."

Back home she spread the printed judgment across the dining table. Zhi'an set the broth bowl aside and pressed both hands on the top corners to keep the paper from curling.

"This line." She traced her pencil under the evidence section. "From here to here. I'm copying it."

Zhi'an leaned down and studied it for a while. "What does 'attached to file' mean?"

"It gets put into that stack, numbered, and stored at the court."

"For how long?"

"Until the case is fully resolved. And even then, it stays."

"Like the drawer at home?"

"Different." She held the pen cap between her teeth and spoke around it. "I can open our drawer. But I can't open a court file."

Zhi'an asked nothing more. His hands pressed flatter, his palms going red from the pressure.

She copied half a page. When she reached the line "the original of the said report was verified in open court and attached to the file," the pen paused, then moved on, word by word. When she finished, she skipped two lines beneath it.

[Thud. What she copied into the notebook was a passage. The original is still in someone else's file.]

At 4 p.m. on June 11, at the entrance to Chengbei Alley. After the holiday, the courier hub was piled high, plastic crates stacked two deep. Cen Hong paced between the shelves, the barcode scanner wedged between her ear and shoulder.

"It's here." She pulled the scanner away. "Second shelf. I set it aside this morning."

The envelope had been slit open with scissors, tooth marks still on the edge. Shen Zhixia slid out the page inside: the first line bore Auntie Wang's fingerprint, the second Cen Hong's signature and date, and the third now had a new addition. The name was signed fast, one stroke running into the next, dated one day later than the first.

Inside the envelope was also a note, torn unevenly at the edge, two lines in pencil: Signed. If it costs money, tell me.

"He called in the middle of the night." Cen Hong shoved a cardboard box aside to clear half the table. "Two questions: does it cost money, and will the factory find out."

"What did you answer?"

"I said reviewing files doesn't cost anything, photocopies run a few yuan." She wiped her hands on her apron. "The factory question—I didn't answer. Couldn't."

"Reviewing the file gets logged at the court. Qingyuan won't come looking." Shen Zhixia put the signed page into the envelope. "When we submit it further along—then they'll know."

"When will that be?"

"I don't know."

Cen Hong stood still, the scanner rotating half a turn in her hand. "Then they'll know." She said, "My brother signed."

Shen Zhixia pulled the printed judgment from the envelope and laid it on the table. The pencil outline around the evidence section was still there, the corners uneven.

"Your father's judgment is publicly available online. This is the section I marked."

Cen Hong braced both hands on the table's edge, her lips moving with the words. Halfway through she stopped and went back.

"The original of the said report was verified in open court and attached to the file."

"Yeah."

"My dad used that phrase." She looked up. "He said 'attached to file' means the court's keeping it for you. Once they keep it, it's not yours anymore—but not anyone else's either."

"He was right."

"He told me that on the balcony back then. I thought he was bragging." Cen Hong pushed the paper back. "He wasn't."

At 9 p.m. that night, she took the dark blue certificate from the envelope and pressed it flat under the desk lamp, copying the numbers onto the form by lamplight. After copying, she checked it once more before putting the certificate away.

She filled in the form box by box. Applicant. Law firm. Practice certificate number. In the client column, three names, written one at a time; after the third she added a note in parentheses: in Shenzhen. For the case file to be reviewed, she wrote: Chengbei District People's Court, Cen Shouye v. Qingyuan labor dispute, archived. Method of access: review and copy. In the purpose field, she wrote the line that had been read aloud twice, then checked it against the original—not a word extra.

The last box was for the date. She left it blank.

The date doesn't get filled in at home—you write it at the service window. Her father's materials had been handled the same way: everything else filled out, only the date saved for that day.

[Thud. The papers are complete.]

She folded the form and slipped it into the paper envelope with "Cen" written on the corner. The envelope now held three things: the printed judgment, the two-page power of attorney, and this form.

Still missing one thing. A lawyer going to court to review a file needs a letter from her firm, stamped with the firm's seal. The firm seal was in Lu Jibai's hands.

Auntie Wang's question after pressing her fingerprint still lingered in her ears: Page six—any luck finding it?

Not yet.