Chapter 415: Verified Against Original

"Which pages do you need?"

Comrade Chu didn't sit down. One hand rested on the back of the chair. Shen Zhixia turned the notebook around and pointed at the lines she'd just copied: "The report, five pages. The hearing record page—the one that says 'original verified in court, attached to file.' The file index page, under the plaintiff's evidence entry."

Comrade Chu looked down at it, then pushed the notebook back. "Print the index too?"

"Print it. People need to see for themselves which pages this report sits in, and who cross-examined it."

"The copier's in the back room. The file doesn't leave my hands. You follow." She closed the file, held it with both hands, and walked around the desk toward the far end of the hall.

The back room was even narrower. A copier sat against the wall, a thin layer of dust on its body, with a stack of pre-cut paper beside it. Comrade Chu set the file on a small side table next to the machine, lifted the lid, and peeled pages off one by one, laying each flat on the glass. Press the button, step back, wait. The paper came out of the lower tray still warm.

The first page came out dazzlingly white. Shen Zhixia reached for it, but Comrade Chu took it first. "Wait until they're all done. Stamp them together."

Seven sheets came out, stacked on the other side of the machine. Comrade Chu closed the file, then pulled the copies over and checked them against the originals page by page: the header, the sample, the test items, the conclusion, the issuer, the date block, the page numbers in the corners. One spot at a time. Check a page, set it down, check the next.

"You got a clear look at that thing earlier?" she asked.

"At what?"

"The seal."

Comrade Chu flipped over the fifth page and pointed at the lower right corner. "It comes out gray on a copy. On the original, that one's red, the characters crisp—the ring of text you saw with your own eyes."

"I saw it."

"Good. Copies are like that. A red seal never copies red." She flipped the page back over. "If this copy's going to count for anything, it comes down to this."

She took a rubber stamp and an ink pad from the drawer, pressed the stamp into the ink twice, tested it on scrap paper first, looked at the result, then pressed it onto the lower right corner of the first copy. One press per page, lifting between each. The paper corners were thin—on the third sheet she smoothed the surface flat with her finger before pressing. Seven pages stamped, she set the stamp aside, pulled out a fountain pen, and wrote the date in the blank space inside the stamp. Small writing. June 17. Then signed a single surname next to it.

"It's that ring that says 'Verified Against Original,'" Shen Zhixia said, reading along.

"That's right. The handling officer and the date—miss either one, and the stamp is just a red smudge." Comrade Chu capped the pen, squared up the seven sheets, and tapped them twice on the desk in front of her. "Seven pages, all stamped."

The register was in Shen Zhixia's own handwriting: number of sheets, page numbers, purpose, date, signature. In the purpose column she'd thought for half a minute before writing "Seven copied pages, for use in an evidence-retrieval application." She read it over once and didn't change it. Comrade Chu took the register, looked at it, nodded, and added a line beside it: "Received by handling officer."

"One more thing I need to be clear on." She lined up the seven sheets and laid them along the edge of the file. "I can't take the original. If the Intermediate Court comes to retrieve it, what's the procedure?"

Comrade Chu peeled off her gloves one at a time. "A higher court retrieving records goes through the retrieval procedures. Letter of request, the person who comes, page count verified. Page by page, checked off, signed, then the file goes into a bag, sealed, and travels with the person."

"The file can be loaned out?"

"It doesn't leave this building, and it's never loaned to an individual." She lifted her chin. "A court retrieving it is the court's business. You carry it out yourself, and the rules in this room might as well not exist."

"Then I'll submit an application to the Intermediate Court, stating which court, which file, which pages—"

"Whether that's sufficient is for the court to say. I only recognize procedure here." Comrade Chu picked up the file. "You write it clearly, and it's easy for them to check when they come. You write it sloppily, and they make the trip for nothing, then have to go back and ask again."

At 11:20, the file was back in the cabinet. Comrade Chu returned Shen Zhixia's things one by one, naming each as she handed it over: practice certificate, firm letter, original power of attorney, two original certificates, and finally the notebook. She stood at the desk and counted through them, then counted the seven photocopies one sheet at a time. Twice. The June 14 receipt was still in the slot on the outside of the paper envelope—she pulled it out without trouble.

"Coming back this afternoon? I can give you another hour this afternoon," Comrade Chu said.

"No," she said. "I've seen what I needed to see."

She paid the copying fee at the window downstairs—seven pages' worth. The receipt was a single slip; she folded it and tucked it into the back flap of her notebook.

At three in the afternoon, no one was eating at the noodle shop. He Xiufen sat at the innermost table trimming chives, the root ends cut off and piled beside the basin, the leaves shaken into another. Shen Zhixia ordered a bowl of noodle-water, sat down across from her, set her phone on the corner of the table, and pressed dial.

"Cen Hong, it's me, Shen Zhixia."

"Lawyer Shen." Plastic bags rustled on the other end. "Go ahead."

"I found it. The report your father signed—it's in a court file."

The barcode scanner beeped once, then silence. So quiet she could hear someone at the door asking if there was a package for them. Cen Hong didn't answer.

"In a court file," she repeated.

"Chengbei District Court. The file from his own lawsuit. Five pages, bound into the file, court-assigned page numbers in the corners."

"He never told me which file it was." The voice dropped. "He only said, that's where it'd be safest. I thought it was just talk."

"It wasn't talk."

A pause on the other end. "If my mom asks—"

"Don't say anything yet. I can't take it out. Today I only made seven photocopies, stamped. Tomorrow I'll submit an application to the Intermediate Court to have it retrieved."

"When can we see it?"

"I can't say when it'll be read. Once I file it, they route it, they review it."

"What about the sixth page?"

"It's not in this file either. The index lists only five pages of plaintiff's evidence. The sixth page still isn't there."

The scanner beeped again, this time farther away. Someone called her name; she said "Just a minute," footsteps shifted, and when she came back her voice was close to the receiver: "The year he bound that stack, I lent him the hole punch. He punched page by page, threaded the binding until midnight. I handed it to him twice. He stitched it neater than the printers."

"I could tell."

"Lawyer Shen," she said, "whenever it gets read, give me a call. My mom and I will go."

"Alright."

He Xiufen never looked up, the chive roots cut clean and even. When Shen Zhixia hung up, she pushed the noodle-water toward her. "Coming home for dinner? I'll keep the soup for you."

"I'll be back."

June 18, nine in the morning, second floor. The window was half open, steam from the steamer downstairs drifting up, a hint of scallion oil.

Three things on the desk: the seven stamped photocopies, the judgment printed out on June 7, and her notebook. From the metal cabinet she pulled three sheets of paper—blank ones, no red firm letterhead. She'd considered using formal firm stationery, but put the thought aside when her pen touched the first line: this paper wasn't from the law firm. It was from her. The petition already bore her own name.

The fountain pen came down. The first line read "Application for Evidence Collection," written horizontally across the top.

On the applicant line, she wrote her name, "Attorney, Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm," "Daughter of Shen Qian." The license number box she copied character by character from her certificate, then went back and double-checked it.

She wrote the request section twice. The first draft said "Request retrieval of Qingyuan Testing Center's re-test report." She read it over and set it aside—neither crossing it out nor keeping it made sense—then folded that sheet in half and tore it in two. On a new sheet she wrote it properly: requesting that the court retrieve from the Chengbei District People's Court the five original pages of the test report contained in the plaintiff's evidence in the filed labor dispute case of Cen Shouye v. Jiangzhou Qingyuan Testing Technology Co., Ltd.

The lead information she wrote in three lines. Line one: the civil judgment in that case is publicly available on the judgments website, and the evidence section lists one test report, issued April 1, issuer being the plaintiff, and states that the original was verified in court and attached to the file. Line two: on June 17, with approval from the archives room of the Chengbei District People's Court, the above-mentioned original five pages were reviewed within the plaintiff's evidence in that file, with page numbers assigned at the time of binding. Line three: copies were applied for the same day—five pages of the report, one page of the hearing record, and one page of the file index, seven pages in total—each stamped "Verified Against Original," signed by the handling officer with date noted, attached to this application.

When she reached "The facts this evidence seeks to prove," the pen stopped for a moment. She wrote it as a single sentence, no added tone: Beyond the re-test conclusion on which the original judgment based its conviction, there exists another re-test report issued by Cen Shouye, dated April 1, with the sample being the second water sample from the Baixi Village well, the test item cadmium, and a conclusion exceeding standards; the original of that report is currently in the above-mentioned case file at the Chengbei District People's Court.

On the bottom half of the second page: applicant's signature, with the date box left blank. Below that, a line: "Attached: seven photocopied pages."

She read both pages from beginning to end, checking that the "five pages" and "seven pages" were correct, that "Verified Against Original" matched the characters on the stamp exactly, and that no sentence carried a tone it shouldn't. She revised two places: "can prove" became "request retrieval to prove," and a missing comma was added. The printed judgment lay open beside her—she checked the evidence paragraph against it word for word, not adding a single character.

[Thud. Written clearly: court, file, pages.]

She left the house at 10:15. She'd walked the route to the Intermediate Court a few times before; today, it was the same window as always. At 10:30, four or five people stood in line at the ticket machine in the Litigation Service Center. She took a number and sat in the second row, in a chair near the door.

The petition window was staffed by the same woman as before, short hair, sleeves rolled to her wrists.

"The Shen Qian petition case. Supplementary materials."

She filled in the date box at the window: June 18. Then she passed the two-page application through, followed by the seven photocopies. "Application, two pages. Photocopies, seven pages."

The woman at the window spread the papers out, counted page by page, counted twice, then looked up. "One set?"

"One set for the court. I'm keeping one for myself."

"Keeping one is right." She typed something on the keyboard, gathered the materials in, and pulled a receipt slip from the drawer, her pen moving across it: cause of action, material names, number of copies, number of pages, receipt date, and finally a stamp. She reached through the window and handed it over. "Registered. Forwarding to the Trial Supervision Division."

"When will it reach the division?"

"Forwarding is forwarding. Who reads it, when it gets read—I don't know that." She pulled her hand back, already reaching for the next stack.

[Thud. The paper went in.]

She walked down the front steps of the Intermediate Court, seven or eight steps down, then stopped. The paper envelope was tucked under her arm. She pulled out the receipt slip and looked it over twice: date, page count, nothing missing. Then she crouched down, laid the envelope flat on the steps, opened the flap, and felt through the back of her notebook for the pen.

The lines on the face of the envelope were in her own handwriting: Shen Qian, petition, Shen Zhixia, filed to Jiangzhou Intermediate Court. Below the last line, she added one more: June 18, evidence-retrieval application, submitted.

She tucked the receipt slip inside, pressed the flap flat, stood up, and kept walking down.