Chapter 416: That One Line at the Stairwell

"Xing Shuqin's case—I've put those bail papers in the file."

Li Huilan came out from the inner office, a stack in her hands, tapped even on the desk edge, clipped, slid into the case bag, zipped to the end.

June 18, 18:50. Only two lights remained on the second floor.

"Her son came by this morning." Li Huilan slung the bag over her shoulder. "I'll go back to her place the day after tomorrow. She's asked about the passbook twice."

"What did her son say?"

"Says it's with him. Can't remember the password."

"Put that sentence in the record."

"Done." She reached the stairwell, turned back. "I'm not chasing it down for her. If I do, they'll think I'm after the money."

"The day after tomorrow morning? I'll come with you."

"No need. Her eyes are bad—I'll read it through once, she signs and thumbprints, and I'm back." Li Huilan started down, her voice floating up from the steps. "Don't stay too late, you two."

Halfway down the stairs, someone answered from the noodle shop. She couldn't make out the words.

She walked over to his desk and set the paper bag on the corner. A photocopy of a defense statement lay spread across his desk, two pencil marks in the margin, the pen resting on the paper. The seal usage register sat open at his left hand, still turned to the June 14 page, the purpose column filled in her own handwriting.

"The one on the twenty-second." She spoke first. "What did Song Qiming submit?"

"A mediation opinion, with a medical expense list attached." He turned the paper around and pushed it toward her. "Examination fees, nursing fees, nutrition fees—all as claimed. Mental distress he put a number on, half of what we asked. Follow-up treatment not acknowledged; he wrote it as a separate claim."

"Who's paying? Did he say?"

"He says the company will pay." He shifted his chair back half an inch. "His exact words were 'I don't ask where the money comes from.'"

"Then we negotiate on the claim as filed, and the mental distress number doesn't come down." She pushed the paper back. "I'm bringing Auntie Chai on the twenty-second. Before mediation starts I'll say one thing to Judge Teng—if the defendant is willing to mediate, we settle it all in one sitting."

"Not waiting for him to raise his offer?"

"Even if he does, I need the number on a signed piece of paper. Two thousand more isn't worth ten extra days."

He put the opinion letter into a folder, closed it, and closed the register as well. She didn't leave.

"One more thing."

He looked up.

"The original has been found. At the Chengbei District Court, in the Cen Shouye and Qingyuan file."

The folder stopped in his hands—not set down, not reopened.

"Five pages, stapled into the file, page numbers added by the court when the volume was assembled. The letterhead is Qingyuan Testing Center. Sample: Baixi Village well water, second sample. Item: cadmium. Result: over the limit. The signature line is in his own hand, dated April 1. The red seal is clear—every character in the ring is legible." She relayed it sentence by sentence, as if reading from a notebook. "There isn't a single word from my father in that file. He put the document in, and he didn't write a single word."

"The sixth page."

"The plaintiff's evidence index lists only five pages. The last line of page five notes an attachment: 'Sample Handover Form (photocopy).' The page itself isn't there. Not in this file either."

"When did you file it?"

"This morning at 10:30, Intermediate Court Litigation Service Center. Evidence collection application, specifying the court, the file, the pages. A seven-page photocopy set went to the court."

"The seals on those seven pages—can they be verified clearly?"

"Clearly. On the original the red seal is clear; the photocopy comes out gray. The handler wrote the date, signed a surname beside it, and the register logged the page count."

"The receipt slip."

"It's in my paper bag."

He didn't reach for it.

Downstairs the exhaust fan turned; wind slipped through the window crack and flipped over a few trimmed slips of paper on the corner of the desk. She reached out and pressed them down.

"The day the original stands up in court, I said I'd read it aloud."

Her voice was low, no different from when they'd just discussed the mediation.

"I don't want to hear it."

The words landed harder than she'd intended. Reading to one person was a private matter—afterward nobody owed anything. What she wanted was those five pages standing in open court, word by word entering the record, read for the people who should hear. If he chose a day to read it aloud, and to whom—that was his own affair.

She picked up the paper bag, walked around the desk corner toward the stairwell.

A chair leg scraped against the floor. He didn't call her back, didn't follow. She held the handrail going down, and at the fourth step switched the bag to her other hand. She didn't look back.

The noodle shop lights were on; two tables had their stools put up. He Xiufen sat at the far table, a bowl of noodles finished, a thin layer of broth left.

"Have you eaten?"

"I'll eat at home."

"There's still a bowl in the pot." He Xiufen pushed her bowl aside. "When you came down, the light upstairs was still on."

"He has one more document to review."

"I wasn't asking about him." He Xiufen stood with the bowl, voice flat. "I was asking about you."

"Half a bowl. I'll take the rest home."

"Noodles can't be taken home—they go soggy." She set the bowl in the sink. "Sit. I'll make you a small bowl. A couple of chopsticks' worth."

She sat. The noodles came, scallions floating on top. She was halfway through when He Xiufen spoke from the sink. "Chengbei's all done?"

"Done."

"Done, then eat your noodles."

June 20, 4 p.m. The noodle shop was empty. The meat grinder hummed in starts—stopping, starting again.

She sat at the table by the door, phone pressed to her ear.

"It's Shen Zhixia. If you're in the middle of something, we can talk later."

"I'm fine, just filling out a form." Papers rustled on the other end. "Go ahead."

"The remediation supervision form says inspections every two months. When's the next one?"

"The twenty-fourth." Cai Qingru answered fast, as if she'd memorized it. "Effective date April 24, so this is the first. Seven o'clock from the mouth of your lane. I'll pull the car up to the building and wait—once you're down, we go. Late and the traffic gets bad."

"That early."

"Two and a half hours each way. We get there, first look at the village primary school playground—that section's been fenced off—then follow the ditch. Three sites in a day, three sign-offs."

"Noted."

"One more thing—" Paper rustled on her end. "Your Lawyer Lu says he's coming. He'll do the record for their side. Four people, one car, it'll fit. Is Director He coming? If she does, there's one more name on the sign-off line."

"I'll ask her."

"Ask. Inspectors sign, unit name goes on the line below the name. That's what the form requires."

"Will do." She flipped to a blank page. "I'm going further up from Qingshi Village, to Baixi Village. Does the road wind up that far?"

Half a second of silence on the line.

"It winds up there. Left at the village entrance, climbs two ridges, twenty minutes or so to the Baixi village entrance." Cai Qingru said, "I've passed the village above. Never been in."

"After the inspection, can you give me a ride over?"

"I can. I leave whenever you come down."

"It might take the whole afternoon."

"Then it takes the whole afternoon." Someone called out on her end; she muffled the mouthpiece and answered, then returned. "The twenty-fourth, seven o'clock, lane entrance."

"Seven."

She hung up. The grinder had stopped too. He Xiufen wiped her hands with a cloth, slowly.

"The twenty-fourth, going up to Qingshi Village?"

"Qingshi Village." She said, "And a stretch further up."

"Another village up there?"

"There is."

He Xiufen draped the cloth over the basin edge and looked at her for a while. She didn't ask more. "Change your shoes—thick soles. The mud by the ditch looks dry, but it's soft when you step on it."

"Mm."

"The water in that village up there flows down from above Qingshi Village."

"I know."

"As long as you know." He Xiufen picked up the basin. "That's all I'll say."

"Cai said for the form's signature line—are you coming?"

"Depends on the day." He Xiufen didn't stop moving. "If the pot's on the stove, and I can get away, I'll go. If the name has to be signed, I sign it myself."

June 20, 9 p.m. Her place. Only two things lay on the table.

One was Volume Eight, open to the March 22 page. The other was the hardcover notebook from the cardboard box under the bed, turned to the Baixi Village section. The paper of the two notebooks came from different years: the hardcover's pages yellowed, edges frayed; Volume Eight's paper stiff, the fountain pen ink still bright.

She'd read that page in Volume Eight several times. The first line read "March 22, morning," and beneath it: Pump house. The man who watches the pump. One man. Didn't ask his name. Below that came the night's events: on the twentieth, around 1 a.m., he'd gone to check the pump. A car was parked behind the Village Committee's back gate, headlights off. Two people carried small buckets into the building, then out again, for about twenty minutes. In the end the car left toward the town road. Then came the question and answer: asked if he had a paper with a name written on it, he said no; asked if he'd be willing to put it down in writing, he said he didn't dare. The last line was in her father's hand: He doesn't dare speak. No name written down.

Someone had seen something that night, and she didn't know the name of the person who saw.

The hardcover notebook's passage—she flipped through, counting pages. The Baixi Village visits, house to house: names, family size, well locations, written densely, characters crammed into the lines. Halfway through, one blank was off: where a name should have been, a single horizontal stroke had slashed it out. Pressed hard, the pen tip had gouged the paper up into a fuzz. What remained on the left was half a character—like the head of a word—with the lower strokes buried under black ink.

She laid the two notebooks side by side, weighted the four corners, and held that half-character to the light twice.

She couldn't make it out. She didn't take a pencil and trace stroke by stroke to reconstruct it either. Her father had crossed it so heavily because he didn't want that name traveling with the paper. If she filled it in, she'd be pushing back onto the page the person he'd protected for nine years. What she needed was the mouth that could speak, not ink on paper.

She closed the hardcover notebook, pulled over her own notebook, and wrote at the bottom of the page:

Behind the Village Committee. Pump house. Old man who watches the pump. That year, he didn't dare.

She read it over, then added a line: June 24, go up to Baixi Village.

Zhi'an came out of his room to pour water. His cup knocked the corner of the table; a few drops splashed onto the surface.

"Sis, you still up?"

"Going to sleep."

He stood looking at the two notebooks. "Dad's again."

"Mm."

"What's written inside?"

"A village. A well. An old man who watches the pump." She closed the notebook. "No name written."

"No name—how do you find him?"

"Ask. Someone in the village knows the pump keeper."

Zhi'an wiped the table with his sleeve and turned at the door. "You're going up the mountain on the twenty-fourth?"

"Daytime."

"I'll come with you."

"You have class."

"I'll ask for leave."

"Not allowed." She set the hardcover notebook on the stack of volumes. "Stay home. Get the congee started. I'll eat when I come back at night."

Zhi'an didn't argue further. Before going in, he said, "Then come back earlier. Don't wait until after dark to get to the lane again."

The lights were off for a while before she sat back down at the table in the dark and stacked the two notebooks again. The slashed half-character was rough under her fingers—you could feel it. She counted what she had so far: a village. A pump house. An old man who watched the pump.

Three things, all writable. Only the name still blank.

No name. But a date, now.