Chapter 424: The Factory Came Asking

She pressed the pen tip to the paper at minute thirty-nine of the recording.

Three photocopied pages lay spread across the table, Pang Chunlai's words cut into question and answer. She tapped once, listened to a line, scanned a line on the page; when it matched, the pen moved along. She rewound three times. Each time it was only her own cramped handwriting that was off. His words matched exactly.

Someone downstairs called out a name, one shout, then nothing.

When her phone rang, it drowned out the recording. Unknown number. She didn't recognize it.

She paused.

"Hello."

"Is this Lawyer Shen?"

A man's voice, young. A fan whirred in the background, steady, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away.

"This is she. Who's calling?"

"I'm Pang Chunlai's son."

She switched the phone to her other ear and set the pen down flat.

"Are you in the city, or at home?"

"I'm at the factory," he said. "Night shift tonight." A pause. "Stop coming to see my dad."

"What happened?"

"Someone at the factory came asking."

"Asking what?"

"Whether my dad's had people from the city coming to the house lately."

She gathered the three pages closer together. "What did you tell them?"

The line went quiet for a moment.

"I said yes," he said. "If I said no, who'd believe it?"

The fan was still going. She heard him draw a breath in and let it out slowly.

"When did they ask you?"

"This afternoon, at shift change. They called me out of the workshop, away from everyone."

"Who asked?"

"I'm not saying that."

"Where did they ask?"

"In the corridor." He paused. "Asked, then sent me back. Didn't say anything else."

"Does your father know?"

"I haven't told him." His voice dropped. "He can't sleep at night. Sometimes he just sits there till dawn. Stop coming."

"He—" She barely got the word out before he cut her off.

"What you asked about that day, write whatever you have to write. I never stopped you," he said. "Just don't ask him anymore."

Click. The line went dead.

She said "hello" twice. Nothing came back.

She called back. It rang until it disconnected on its own. She dialed again. This time it rang twice, then was cut off.

The number was still on the screen, long, the first digits not one she could place at a glance. She set the phone face down on the table, gently.

The recording still sat at minute thirty-nine. She closed it, squared the three pages, and slipped them into the hard-shell folder on the table. She shut the folder and snapped the clasp.

She opened her notebook to the blank pages in the back. She switched pens and wrote the date and time on the first line: July 3rd, 20:10. Below that, the number. Then one line per sentence, everything he said written down, not a word added, not a word left out. When she got to "I never stopped you," the pen hesitated, then wrote it anyway.

At the bottom she wrote one more line: Who asked, unknown.

She picked up the phone, opened contacts, typed in the number, entered a "Pang" in the name field. She looked at it for a while, deleted it, replaced it with "Baixi Village." Looked at it a little longer, then deleted the name entirely, leaving only the number in the call log.

Saving a name made it feel like you could call anytime. She couldn't call.

She pulled the paper bag out from under the bed, unfolded the two folds at the mouth, and counted through the items one by one: three original pages, a disc, the receipt slip. The slip was thin. She spread it out and read it again—the same words, saying it had been forwarded to the trial supervision division. The marker writing on the disc was her own hand. On the last page of the original, after the closing line—"The above record has been read to me and matches what I said"—the signature was written extremely slowly, each stroke crooked, with a fingerprint pressed beside it.

When he'd pressed that print, there were cracks in the pad of his finger. The red ink paste had sunk in, white lines showing through the red.

That piece of paper was in her home now. The person asking questions in the corridor this afternoon probably didn't know this paper existed, or how many pages it had.

The three items went back in the bag. She folded the mouth twice and pushed it back under the bed.

[Thud. Witness testimony obtained: one.]

[Thud. Old Case Retrial items: same as before.]

The two lines faded, and the room went quiet. She capped her pen, had to press twice before it clicked.

The factory on the mountain, three hundred-some people, half of them from Baixi Village and Qingshi Village. She remembered the number. The person who'd asked questions in the corridor this afternoon was probably among that three hundred-odd right now, back from work, eating dinner, due at work tomorrow like any other day.

Who had asked, she didn't know. She didn't fill the blank—she'd seen too many people trip over the blanks they filled in.

Her father had written on the flyleaf of his notebook: evidence speaks for itself. Paper can speak, but the mouth behind the paper has to dare open first; and once it opens, there will be people coming to ask it.

She still had the Intermediate Court's number saved, the call from June 24th, the name reading "Intermediate Court Trial Supervision Division." She lit the screen, thumb resting on the name.

What would she say if she called? That a witness's family had been questioned. They'd ask, who said so. Answer: his son, over the phone, then hung up, won't answer callbacks.

What was that? Not even a piece of paper—a thing she couldn't hold down. If she took it to court, she'd have to turn it into a document. If she brought them just a voice, they'd write her off as an anxious party.

She pulled her hand back. The screen dimmed on its own.

She wouldn't go up the mountain a fourth time either. Every trip meant the old man had to answer everything again, and his son at the factory had to answer again too. Some families live their days one cell at a time; you knock on their door once, and one of those cells caves in.

She remembered the man standing by the stone stool, one hand braced on the door frame, watching them pass the village committee's two-story building, only looking away once they turned the corner.

The door creaked. Zhi'an came in holding a popsicle, the wrapper already half torn off, melting in rivulets down the wooden stick.

"Jie, the freezer at the convenience store lost power for a while. These are all soft." He held out the untouched one. "Here, you eat it."

"You eat it." She got up to pour water. "Don't buy from that freezer again tomorrow."

"Who called just now?" He bit into the popsicle, words slightly muffled.

"Firm stuff."

"Oh." He shuffled over toward the fan and sat down, no more questions.

Lying in bed that night, she held two sentences together in her mind: the one from the recording—"He's dead, and I'm still alive"—and the one from the phone—"He can't sleep at night. Sometimes he just sits there till dawn."

The two lines sat side by side, neither yielding to the other. She rolled over and pulled the blanket up to her shoulder.

At noon the next day, the noodle shop was packed. Two electric scooters were parked out front, one delivery box open, one closed. The ceiling fan turned slowly, pushing down warm air.

A rider called in from the doorway: "Two bowls, one without cilantro." He Xiufen answered without looking up, hands still moving.

She was at the cutting board, chopping scallions—a big basin's worth, the knife falling fast, rat-tat-tat on the board.

Shen Zhixia sat down on the low stool by the stove.

"One bowl for me."

"Hold on."

"Director He." She rested her hands on her knees. "Pang Chunlai's son called last night."

The knife didn't stop. "What'd he say?"

"He said, stop coming to see my dad. Someone at the factory came asking."

The knife still didn't stop, two bits of scallion jumping off the board.

"Asking what, exactly?"

"He didn't go into detail. Yesterday afternoon they called him out of the workshop and asked whether his dad's had people from the city coming around recently. He said yes."

"He said yes." He Xiufen repeated it, voice flat.

"He said, if I'd said no, who'd believe it?"

The knife knocked once against the board, clearing the bits from the blade.

"His son eats at the factory," He Xiufen said. "Remember that. Don't hold it against him."

"I don't." Shen Zhixia watched the board. "He also said, what you asked that day, write whatever you have to write, he never stopped us."

"Never stopped us." He Xiufen said the words slowly. "That's because he's afraid too."

"He wouldn't say who asked."

"If you don't know, don't guess. You guess a name, and from then on you'll see that person in every sidelong glance."

"I'm not guessing," she said. "The documents went to the Intermediate Court on the 2nd."

"They went." He Xiufen nodded. "Three pages, a disc, an application—not a man's voice. That's on the court's side now."

"Should I mention this to the firm?"

"Mention what?" He Xiufen said. "That an old man on a mountain got asked a question?"

"The firm's only got a few people."

"Few people, but ears don't come in fewer." He Xiufen set the knife down at the edge of the board. "If you're going to tell, tell the person who needs to hear it. If someone hears it on their own, that's their ears doing the work."

"I thought about calling the Intermediate Court last night."

"And say what?"

"That the witness's family was questioned."

"Who told you?"

"His son."

"Would his son repeat it to you over the phone again? Would he repeat it on paper for the court?" He Xiufen's hands were moving again. "No. So it's not something you can submit. If you're going to submit something, make it a document. Submit a voice instead, and they'll note one thing—the party's anxious."

She said "anxious" extra lightly.

"Then I'll wait." Shen Zhixia moved the vinegar bottle away from her bowl.

"Wait," He Xiufen said. "Wait for the court's own people to knock on that door. That's the court's door. If you go now, it's your door. Knock on yours, and they'll know the court's about to come out."

The water in the pot was boiling. He Xiufen shook the noodles out, slid them in, gave one stir with the chopsticks, and covered the pot.

"So I don't need to go see the old man again?"

"You still want to?" He Xiufen glanced back at her.

"I won't."

"Good. If you go, his son has to answer again at the factory. And when he's done answering, they'll ask him, what exactly did your father say? He won't have an answer."

The noodles floated up. He Xiufen lifted the lid, added half a ladle of cold water, and waited for it to boil again.

"Not much happening upstairs these two days." She scooped the noodles into a bowl and poured a ladle of broth over them. "He's up on the second floor all afternoon, boxing up his case files."

"Mm." Shen Zhixia straightened her chopsticks.

He Xiufen pushed the bowl in front of her, wiped her hands on her apron, and said suddenly: "Jibai's asked me twice what you all are doing going up that mountain. I told him, ask her."

Shen Zhixia held the bowl, chopsticks still.

"He won't ask me."

"How do you know?"

"He hasn't." She nudged the bowl half an inch forward. "And he won't. He knows that if he asks again, he'd be begging for it."

He Xiufen glanced at the big heap of scallions on the board, water dripping off the edge.

She pushed the scallions to the side of the board. "Then he'll have to keep asking me."