Chapter 419: That Phone Call by the Ditch

At five to seven, the roll-up shutter at the mouth of the alley was still only halfway up. Qinghe's minibus backed down the lane, its rear end facing the building entrance, the back door swinging open.

Cai Qingru came around from the driver's side and shoved a plastic bucket and two battered hard hats into the cargo bay. The bucket held half a bucket of water; each slosh rattled against its walls.

"Director He, you first. The back row's the roomiest."

He Xiufen came out of the building, a cloth bag over one arm, the blue fabric washed a shade darker than Chai Guizhi's, the top of the bag rolled over twice. She braced herself on the door and climbed up, settled into the seat, and laid the bag across her lap, both hands pressing it flat.

Shen Zhixia followed behind. Her notebook, two pens, and an envelope with money inside—all had been counted through on the table the night before, and now went into the bag slung across her body. She shut the door.

The passenger door opened. Lu Jibai got in, a kraft-paper folder resting on his knees. He didn't slam the door, but the latch still clicked loud.

"All set." Cai Qingru flipped the rearview mirror one way, then back. "Seven on the dot. Moving."

The van cleared the factory alley and took Chengxi Road. Rush hour hadn't built yet; they sailed through four lights in a row.

"Ground rules for the form first." Cai Qingru kept one hand on the wheel, reached up to the sun visor with the other, pulled down the stiff-backed clipboard, and passed it back. "Three locations. Sign all three after we inspect them. Whoever signs, the unit goes on the line below the name. Today you sign, and I sign."

Shen Zhixia opened the clipboard. A one-page form, ruled lines, three blank columns waiting to be filled. Below each: a line for a signature, and beneath that an empty line for the unit. The last column was printed with "Replanting Quantity Confirmer"—no grid, just blank space.

"That replanting column won't be used today," Cai Qingru said. "The saplings don't arrive until after autumn."

"I'll sign."

"Whoever puts their name down—if this form goes to court someday and the court asks about any of these sites, someone has to be able to stand up and answer." Cai Qingru caught her eye in the rearview mirror. "So I'm asking you now: everything we look at today, you look at it carefully yourself."

"I will."

"Then sign at the ditch. Don't wait until we're back in town and fill it in later. I've seen backfilled signatures—every stroke lands differently. Put to paper, that's a hole waiting to be torn open."

He Xiufen said from the back seat, "I'll sign my own name. Nobody writes it for me."

They passed the first town. A breakfast stall was just lifting its steamer baskets, white vapor drifting out across the road. At the fork toward the second town the pavement roughened; Cai Qingru hit the brakes once, and the cloth bag on the back seat slid to the floor mat.

Lu Jibai reached down between the seats, pinned the bag with the back of his hand, didn't turn around.

"Dried noodles," He Xiufen said. "Two bundles. Crushed, they won't carry well."

"Mm." He pulled his hand back and gripped the front seat's armrest.

Cai Qingru glanced at the bag through the rearview. "There's a service area up ahead. We could stop for water."

"Don't stop." He Xiufen lifted the bag back onto her lap. "The earlier we get there, the sooner we're done."

Around nine-twenty the van hit the two switchbacks on Qingshi Ridge. The road was narrow; when they met a car coming the other way, one side's tires crunched onto the gravel shoulder, a brief grinding rattle. He Xiufen cracked her window a sliver. Wind came in carrying wet earth and diesel.

At nine-thirty, they parked at the edge of the village primary school's athletic field.

The hoarding was blue sheet metal, panel after panel wired together, a few small flags stuck along the top. When the wind came up, the cloth corners pressed flat against the metal, then sprang loose again. Inside the hoarding the ground had been cut open; the soil was wet, a deeper shade than the ground outside. The ditch ran along the field's lower edge, dropping from the head of the slope, then bending east.

An excavator worked the upper reach. Bucket down, bucket up, a shake, the muck landing on the mound at the top of the channel. The noise came in waves—stopping, then starting again.

Chai Guizhi stood on the ditch bank, the washed-out blue cloth bag looped over one arm.

"Auntie Chai. What are you doing here?"

"The land's mine. I came up to take a look. Am I allowed to look?"

"Of course you are. Looking is what today's for."

Cai Qingru spread the clipboard across the top rail of the hoarding and pulled out a tape measure and a thick pen. "First location: the village primary school field. East wall to the ditch edge."

Lu Jibai opened his folder. Inside: a stack of photos, the earliest from April, the top few from the week before. He held them up level with the hoarding, studied them for a while, swapped one for another, swapped again.

"Lawyer Lu, which day was this set taken?"

"The nineteenth." He didn't look up. "The hoarding's moved half a meter inward. This stretch along the ditch edge hasn't shifted."

"That matches." Cai Qingru wrote the line down, added the date and time, then drew a horizontal slash with the side of the pen. "This field location: excavated and backfilled, the footprint stayed inside the hoarding."

Shen Zhixia pulled a folded sheet from her bag and held it out. "Auntie Chai. The mediation order. This is a photocopy; the original's in the firm's case file. The one in your hand—if anyone asks, just take it out and show them."

Chai Guizhi took it, folded it in half, then in half again, and tucked it under the rubber band inside her cloth bag, pressing it flat.

"And the money they're paying?"

"Within ten days. The order takes effect on the twenty-second; count to the second of July."

"The second." Chai Guizhi repeated the date under her breath and looked up. "I drew another circle on the rice jar. On the inner side, near the back."

"Why near the back?"

"Rats gnaw the outside."

She hugged the cloth bag closer to her chest and looked down into the ditch. "The water's cleared up some. The year before last I washed sheets in this ditch—the water was gray. When they dried, there were streak marks from one end to the other. Today you can see the stones on the bottom."

"The sediment below still has to be cleaned." Cai Qingru said. "This section's the upper reach. Cleared first. Farther down it crosses another stretch of field—the second location's that way."

"The stuff they've dug out's piled on that bank. It stinks." Chai Guizhi said. "I walk around the long way."

"Once it dries, they'll haul it off."

Three zhangs away, the excavator dropped another bucket. The sound came at them sideways, vibrating up through the soles of their feet.

Cai Qingru climbed down onto the inner slope of the ditch bank, took a few steps, then turned and reached out a hand. "Director He, this soil's loose. Don't come down."

He Xiufen stood at the top edge, both hands braced on the hoarding rail, looked down, and pulled her foot back. "I'll stay here."

"Then sign here." Cai Qingru passed the clipboard up.

He Xiufen fished her own pen from her coat pocket. The barrel had an old crack in it, wrapped round with clear tape. She leaned down, laid the clipboard on the hoarding, and wrote her name stroke by stroke. Below it, on the next line, she wrote "Jiangzhou Zhengping Law Firm." When she was done she looked it over and capped the pen.

Shen Zhixia signed on the line below He Xiufen's, with the firm name on the line below that.

Chai Guizhi stood off to the side, not moving, not reaching for a pen.

"Auntie Chai doesn't sign," Cai Qingru said. "This isn't a court transcript. It's a supervision form. The people who sign are the inspecting unit and the inspecting individuals."

"I can't read many words." Chai Guizhi said. "And I don't press thumbprints either. I'll just stand here."

"You standing here is best," He Xiufen said. "With you standing here, we look all the more carefully."

Nine-fifty. They were halfway through the second location. This stretch of ditch ran along the farmland; the weeds had been trampled flat, and the remaining mud in the channel bottom was dark brown. Where it had been turned over, yellow clay showed through.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She tucked the notebook under her arm, fished the phone out and glanced at the screen, then walked several steps up the slope, back to the ditch, one hand pressed over her other ear.

"Lawyer Shen? This is the Trial Supervision Division, Jiangzhou Intermediate Court."

"Go ahead."

"That case of yours: a review case was opened this morning. A presiding judge has been assigned—Judge Zhuo."

"Judge Zhuo." She repeated the name after him.

"Written notice goes out in the next couple of days, mailed to your firm. From here on it's his case; he'll be going over the materials."

"Is there anything else I need to supplement on my end?"

"He'll contact you when there is. Today's call is just to tell you this." Papers rustled on the other end. "One more thing, and remember it: case-filing review is not retrial. A decision must be made within three months, no more than six at the latest. If no one reaches out to you in the interim, it doesn't mean nothing's happening."

"I'll remember."

"The seven pages of photocopies you submitted—page numbers and labels all check out. The originals listed on the materials inventory: keep hold of them yourself. If the court needs to pull them, it'll be done through formal channels with separate notice to you."

"Understood."

"That's all. We'll mail you the paperwork."

She hung up, slid the phone back into her pocket, and braced the notebook against her knee to write. The wind swept down the slope and lifted the page; she pinned it with one palm and wrote, word by word: June 24. Intermediate Court opened review case. Presiding judge: Zhuo. Notice mailed to the firm.

[Thud. The petition case has its presiding judge.]

When she finished she closed the notebook and stood there a while. Below, the excavator kept on: bucket down, a shake of mud, bucket up. She listened for a while before heading back down.

Cai Qingru looked up. "Was that the office?"

"The court."

"Oh." Cai Qingru reset the pen tip on the paper and continued writing up the second location.

He Xiufen uncapped a bottle of water and handed it to her. She drank two mouthfuls and passed it back. He Xiufen screwed the cap on, asked nothing.

Lu Jibai crouched on the ditch bank, knees resting on a sheet of paper. He glanced up at her once, then lowered his head again to the photos in his hands, pulled one out, and slid it to the bottom.

"Lawyer Shen, look here." He held the photo out toward the ditch. "The original color of the bottom sediment in this stretch—it's recorded in the photo. Compare it yourself."

She crouched down and looked from the photo to the ditch bed.

"In April this section was gray, almost whitish," she said.

"Now the turned-over section shows yellow clay." He tucked the photo back into the folder. "There's still a stretch farther down that hasn't been turned. We'll get to the third location before we talk about that."

At eleven-twenty, the last location was up on the slope. The mouth of the pipe from No. 3 Pond stuck out of the hillside, aimed squarely at the head of the ditch. The pipe mouth had been bricked over and cemented on the outside; dust had settled on the cement.

Cai Qingru walked over and tapped it twice with the hook of the tape measure. The sound was solid. "Seal's intact. No sign of seepage."

"No water marks on the cement." Lu Jibai crouched low, studied the base of the pipe, then the grass on the slope above. "Dry under the grass roots too."

"Write it down." Cai Qingru wrote: "Overflow pipe sealed, no leakage."

When she finished, she put the tape measure away and took photos. Clipboard held to her chest, page by page—straight-on shot, then an angled one for backup. Done, she closed the clip.

"Eleven-thirty, all three locations inspected," she said. "All three signed. When I'm back, I'll copy it out properly: one for Qinghe, one for Zhengping. Yours gets delivered downstairs tomorrow."

"No need to deliver it," Lu Jibai said, closing the folder and clipping his pen into the inside page. "I'll come down and get it."

He Xiufen lifted the cloth bag and brushed the dust off its bottom. Chai Guizhi shuffled a step toward her.

"The road up top's slippery," Chai Guizhi said. "Moss on the stone steps. Step in the middle, not on the edges."

"I'll remember." He Xiufen said.

Cai Qingru stuffed the clipboard into her pack and pulled the zipper halfway. Then she looked up at the thin strip of sky above the ridge. "As agreed, I'll drive you up. Left at the village entrance, two ridges of switchbacks, twenty minutes or so."

Lu Jibai tucked the folder under his arm, the pen still in his hand, tip pointing down over the unfinished line.

"I'll write the record," he said.

He lowered his head and kept writing. He didn't ask what they were going up there to do.