Chapter 412: The Seal Usage Register

The stack of firm letterhead sat beneath files in the second drawer of the iron cabinet. The printed header in red read: Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm Letter. The blank lines below were empty, the paper thinner than printer stock—run a fingernail across it and it left a white mark.

He Xiufen had said something when she bought that paper: once a letter goes out, the firm is speaking. So Zhengping Firm produced only a handful of letters a year, and every one that went out was recorded in the register.

At 8:20 on the morning of June 14, she opened the cabinet and saw, first, the kraft paper envelope on the bottom shelf. The first line on it was in her own handwriting, noting what was inside, what day it had arrived, and where from. Beneath it, another line added in Lu Jibai's hand: attached are scanned printouts and a disc; the original report and original seal are not included. She slid the cabinet shut, pulled out a sheet of letterhead, and laid it on her desk. Downstairs, the steamer was just building pressure; the sound came up through the floor like someone slapping a table in the far distance. She drafted the text in pencil on the back of scrap paper first, reading every word twice before committing it to the letterhead.

The inner office door opened. Li Huilan came out with her cup, her eyes still carrying that look of someone half-lost in a document.

"You're in early."

"I need to issue a letter."

"What time do you need it?"

"In hand before nine."

Li Huilan went to the water dispenser to fill her cup—an old-fashioned glass with a ring of green flowers printed on it. "I'm going to the detention center on the sixteenth to see her," she said. "Her son waited at the gate twice, brought a vest. I'll see if they'll let me pass it through."

"Xing Shuqin?"

"Yeah. The bail decision should come back any day now. If it's approved, she can come home."

She carried her water back toward her office, glancing at Shen Zhixia's desk. Four items were arranged there: a printed copy of the judgment, a two-page power of attorney, a form completely filled in except for the date, and a thin envelope. Inside the envelope were two photocopies—one of Cen Shouye's death certificate, one of the kinship certificate for the three Cen family members. On the eleventh, when Cen Hong had come to pick up the signature page at the courier hub, she'd held the paper down with the barcode scanner and run it through the machine in the inner room. The originals had also been handed over and now sat in Shen Zhixia's desk drawer.

"Lend me your stapler." Li Huilan pulled open the second drawer. "Ours jams on a staple, and once it jams I have to take the whole thing apart."

Shen Zhixia handed it over. The inner door closed, not quite shut, leaving a crack; through it came the intermittent sound of a keyboard, then silence.

On the letter, the first line she wrote: To: Chengbei District People's Court, Jiangzhou City. The body began on the second line, stating that the firm, entrusted jointly by the three heirs of Cen Shouye, assigned its lawyer Shen Zhixia to appear before the court to obtain the test report and related materials submitted by the plaintiff in the archived file of the labor dispute between Cen Shouye and Jiangzhou Qingyuan Testing Technology Co., Ltd.

When she reached the words "test report," she paused. The letter could not mention the village well, could not say whether it exceeded limits, could not specify which page she was after. Once those words landed on firm letterhead, the recipient would have questions—and questions started a different matter entirely. She copied the phrasing from the evidence section of the judgment, shortening it further.

The three names she traced stroke by stroke, following the power of attorney's writing order. The third was in Shenzhen, signed quickly, the final stroke trailing off into a slight flourish—she copied the flourish. That person had called late one night to ask two things: whether it would cost money, and whether the factory would find out. She thought about how a few photocopies cost only a few yuan, and that she'd need to tell Cen Hong so she could pass word back.

For the practice certificate-number box, she took her certificate from her bag, laid it beside the letterhead, checked digit by digit, then put it away.

For the signature line, she wrote only the firm's name, leaving the date blank.

The register was in his drawer, and the seal was in his drawer too. Neither sat on his desk, so no one could touch them. She picked up the letterhead and walked over.

"Lawyer Lu, I need a firm letter issued."

He looked up from his pen, flipped over the page he'd been working on to cover it, and pulled open the bottom drawer. The wooden box, the ink pad box, and a hardbound register came out together, set along the edge of the desk.

The register's spine was blue cloth, worn white, the corners frayed. She turned to the bookmarked page. First she saw the inscription on the flyleaf in He Xiufen's hand: one seal, one entry; no entry, no seal. Beneath it, another line added in blue-black ink: the finance seal goes through her hands first.

Further in, entries ran line after line. One from March, purpose: legal aid assignment materials, one copy. One from May 7 in his own name: third-party remediation plan, one copy. One from June 4 in Li Huilan's: application to change compulsory measures, one copy.

His pen was on the desk. She set the register before her and filled in the date first, then the seal type. For number of copies she wrote "two"; in the handler column she wrote her own name. The middle box was for purpose.

That box, she considered three times.

The first time she wrote "application to review archived civil case files." That would hold up; the court would accept it; no one would have to ask anything further. The pen tip hovered over the paper, then didn't land.

The second time, she added "Baixi Village re-test report" after it, looked, and crossed it out. Purpose was where you wrote what you were going to do, not what you were looking for—those two things looked close, but on a page that would carry the firm seal, they were two different matters. She remembered He Xiufen's rule: fill in the purpose exactly as the source document states it, don't add a single word. Add one clause, and they'll ask one more question.

The third time, she wrote it out stroke by stroke: application to review archived case files at Chengbei District Court (entrusted by Cen Shouye's family).

She lifted the pen slightly when she finished. That name, once written into this line, he would see; she could have left it out. The register, once finished with, would go back in the drawer, and the next person to use the seal would open it and see this line too.

"The letterhead," he said.

She passed it over. He held it with both hands, one supporting the back of the paper, reading from top to bottom. When he reached the phrase "appear before the court to obtain," his pen came down, crossed out "obtain," and wrote beside it "review and copy." The strike-through was light; the original wording was still legible beneath it.

"'Obtain' is the court's verb," he said. "A letter from our firm can only ask them to let you look."

"Mm."

That word "obtain" had been copied from an old letter at the bottom of the box; she hadn't looked closely at the word when she'd copied it. She kept this to herself and didn't mention it.

"If you need photocopies after the review, say so clearly in the letter. Don't get to the window and mention it then—they'll ask why it's not written, and send you back to revise it."

"It's written."

"The client column—how was the paperwork completed for all three?"

"Auntie Wang gave her thumbprint, Cen Hong signed, and the Shenzhen page was mailed back. The death certificate and kinship certificate are in that envelope."

He read down to the last line, then looked back at the register box.

He tapped the copies figure with his finger. "Two's not enough. Make it three."

"One for the court, one for the firm's records."

"And one that goes into the envelope with the letter. When they receive your letter, you need a copy in your hand that shows it was received." He nudged the register back toward her. "Change it yourself—one line through, don't scribble it out."

She crossed out the two and wrote three, a single clean stroke. The ink bled slightly at the edge of the strike-through.

She went back to the iron cabinet, pulled two more sheets of letterhead, and at her desk wrote out two clean copies following his corrected version, "review and copy" written directly into the body, the signature line left as just the firm's name. She squared the three sheets and handed them back. He checked each against the others, then set them beside the register.

"When you get to the archives office, give them whatever they ask for," he added. "Don't slip in an extra sheet they didn't ask for. If they didn't request it, adding it is just creating problems for them. If they ask the purpose, read it off the form as written—don't explain further."

Only then did he look at the purpose line.

His eyes moved down from "application to review," past "Chengbei District Court," past "archived," into the parentheses, and stopped. "Cen Shouye" was in her handwriting, properly formed, not cramped. His finger pressed against the paper, not pointing, not moving away.

The register sat under his hand. He said nothing, and did not close it. Outside the window, the noodle shop's steamer gave another hiss, and the exhaust fan kicked on behind it.

Then he capped his pen and opened the wooden box. The seal was round, with a wooden handle worn smooth in a ring where hands had held it. The face bore the firm's name, character set beside character along the edge. He pressed it twice into the ink pad, lifted it, checked the remaining ink on the pad's surface, then stamped the signature line of each letterhead one by one, holding each down without moving, counting before lifting.

The red circle of characters was clear, but one spot hadn't picked up full ink—very faint. He held it to the window light, pressed his fingertip to that spot. The character on the paper became solid.

He wiped the seal face twice with the gray cloth at the desk corner, returned it to the wooden box, and closed the lid. Then he picked up the pen and signed the last column of the register. His name came fast, the final stroke flicking upward.

[Thud. A document with a seal—that's official business.]

"The date," he said.

She wrote June 14 on all three signature lines.

"Want someone to go with you?"

"No need."

He returned the wooden box, ink pad box, and register to the drawer one by one, pushed it shut, and left it unlocked.

She picked up the letters—three copies, the paper still carrying the faint scent of ink paste. The one with "obtain" crossed out stayed with the firm for records. When she folded the other two, she avoided the red circle, creasing between characters in the blank spaces, folding again, sliding each into the paper envelope with "Cen" written on the corner. The register page stayed with the firm, that line stayed too—anyone who flipped through it later would see it.

It was five to nine when she went downstairs. The concrete steps outside the noodle shop had been splashed with water, a damp layer; He Xiufen swept down from the top step with a bamboo broom, the water carrying garlic skins to the side.

"Off to Chengbei again?"

"Yeah."

"Letter stamped?"

"Stamped."

"Then go." He Xiufen switched the broom to her left hand. "They open the window and the first one in waits the least. Coming back for lunch or not?"

"Can't say yet."

"If you're late, call. I'll save you noodles—don't come saying it in the afternoon."

She answered and stepped over the wet stoop. He Xiufen swept twice more, then stopped.

"Did he ask you anything?"

"One thing."

"What?"

"Whether I wanted someone with me."

He Xiufen brushed the garlic skins to the base of the steps, very thoroughly. "What did you say?"

"I said no."

"Mm." She stood the broom upright against the doorframe. "Then go alone. If they let you look, you can finish looking on your own."

She walked on, and after a few steps glanced back at the second floor.

The window up there was half open. Beneath it sat the old wooden chair, one of He Xiufen's old jackets draped over the back. He stood inside the window, one hand resting on the frame, looking down. She didn't lower her head; he didn't step back. The two of them, separated by a courtyard of less than ten meters and one floor, looked at each other.

Then he took his hand off the window frame and withdrew into the room.

She switched the envelope to her other hand and left the alley. Five items in the bag, none missing.

Chengbei was two streets away.