Chapter 430: This Is Yours

Li Huilan squared the pages, slid them into the cloth bag, pulled the zipper halfway, and glanced up at the clock on the wall.

"I'll head out first. Lao Kan's case—I'll go to the Enforcement Bureau tomorrow afternoon."

"Take it slow on the way back," Shen Zhixia said.

Li Huilan walked to the top of the stairs, her foot pausing on the loose pine board at the turn, then went down. The roll-up shutter rattled below for a while, then stopped. He Xiufen said something to her downstairs, the words swallowed by the floorboards.

Two people left on the second floor.

The fan swung its head back and forth; the blades swept past, and the edge of a page on the desk lifted, then settled. He stood at his desk, the dark patch on the back of his shirt dry now, leaving only a faint ring. His briefcase sat open on the chair.

"I told you," she said. "Don't pay it back for my father."

He pulled his hand back from the briefcase.

"It's not paying it back for him," he said. "It's the testimony I owe him."

"You know what you'll lose."

"I do."

She picked up the pen in her hand and clicked the cap on—it took two tries.

"He wouldn't want you to pay it back like this."

"Even if he doesn't want it, I still owe it."

Outside in the alley, someone called out for scrap, the voice fading with each call. She set the pen down; it rolled half an inch across the desk.

"Then show me."

Six twenty.

He drew several sheets from the inner compartment of his bag and handed them over. Her fingers touched the edge first. Beneath the sheets, two torn strips of grid paper still showed, their edges ragged—the kind of rough edge left from writing one page, tearing it off, writing the next.

Three photocopied pages. Black and white, the strokes gray, the horizontal lines still level.

Page one began on the night of March 20th: the back room of the village committee office, two cardboard boxes, small plastic buckets inside, both boxes sealed by him personally. Page two described the morning of the 21st, when he moved the second box and a staple tore the skin beside the knuckle of his left hand; the box mouth facing him, the tape a fresh strip, the seam on the right, the torn edge from the night before pressed underneath, the old staple holes still there, new staples driven in beside them. Page three: he signed the sample submission form, delivered it to Qingyuan, the receiving clerk signed off; the line in the report that came back in April—"inconsistent with initial test"; no one ever came to question him that year, he never signed an interview record, never appeared in court. The last line read: "I am willing to testify in court."

At the words "I had thought," two lines were struck through—still visible in the photocopy—and a new line began after it. Dates, times, number of buckets—all aligned to the grid.

Where it came to the person who sent him and the person who received the sample, he had left only one line: I will say it in person.

She rubbed the pad of her thumb over that line.

"These two positions—this is all you wrote."

"I'll say the names in person."

"Why not write them down."

"Written down, the page has one more name on it," he said. "Said in person, they go verify it."

"Nine pages. Did you say it all?"

"I did."

"What did they ask?"

"They asked what I saw. Why I stayed silent for nine years."

"What did you answer."

"I answered truthfully. The box passed through my hands overnight—I told them. The first person to be questioned is me."

She flipped back to the last page. The reproduced signature sat in the lower right corner, horizontal strokes level, the final stroke curling back, with July 6th written below. She looked at the date twice, then turned the sheet over. The back was blank.

[Thud. Testimony, one copy, paid.]

The fan kept spinning.

She squared the three pages against the edge of the desk—two taps—and handed them back.

"This is yours," she said.

He took them and tucked them back into the inner compartment, beneath the two ragged strips, and zipped the bag shut.

She slung her own bag over her shoulder and walked to the stairs. On the way down, her foot slipped half an inch on the loose pine board at the turn; she caught the wall for support before continuing.

July 8th, 9:50 a.m., Intermediate Court Litigation Service Center.

The chairs in the hall still stood in rows. A man stood at the photocopier against the wall, spreading his materials on the windowsill to count pages, then counting again from the start. He was two numbers away. At the next window, a woman divided a stack of photocopies into three parts, smoothing each one flat. The screen jumped to his number—ten o'clock sharp.

A woman sat inside the window, a computer in front of her, a stack of forms pressed under her hand.

"What do you need?"

"Submitting witness materials. Shen Qian's petition case."

She pushed her glasses up and typed, then looked up. "You're the witness himself?"

"Yes."

He slid his ID and practice certificate through, followed by two documents: a copy of the three-page statement, and a one-page "Written Declaration of Willingness to Testify in Court." The declaration had been written the night before: regarding the petition of Shen Qian, witness Lu Jibai, with a phone number at the bottom.

"Where's the original?"

"The original statement was left with the Chengnan District Procuratorate yesterday."

"Then I'll note that in the register." She flipped to the last page to check the signature, then back to the beginning. At the third page she paused, shifted the paper toward the window, and read aloud: "I am willing to testify in court."

"Yes."

"What is the petitioner to you?"

"A lawyer at the same firm."

"What's your relationship to the original defendant?"

"Not family," he said. "Nine years ago I was interning at Hengzheng. The samples in that case—I delivered them."

The woman in the window raised her head and looked at him once, then went back to typing. She searched the register for a moment: "This one has a handler already. Trial Supervision Division. I'll log the materials and forward them over." She tore off a printed receipt, stamped it, and pushed it out. "Keep this. We take witness materials; when and whether you'll be called is for the division to decide."

"Understood."

"Do you want to send a copy to her as well?"

"No need." He folded the receipt in half and tucked it into the inner compartment of his briefcase. "It's in the file. She'll see it."

At the next window, an old man set a plastic bag stuffed with materials on the counter and asked what a petition required. The clerk answered slowly: "First write clearly your son's name, what year he was sentenced, and what the sentence was." The old man fished a paper folded eight times from his pocket, spread it on the counter, and pressed it flat with his hand.

Outside, he stood on the steps and pulled out the receipt for another look. There was a black line along the edge where the printer had dragged. He folded it again and put it back in his bag.

The noodle shop was still half full at twelve-thirty. Steam from the stovetop had fogged a patch of the glass by the door white.

He sat at the table near the back. Li Huilan came down from upstairs and sat across from him. He Xiufen brought her a bowl first, then set his down in front of him.

"Director He, wait a moment," he said. "Lawyer Li is here too. There's something I need to say."

He Xiufen draped the rag over the edge of the stove.

"Yesterday morning I went to the Chengnan District Procuratorate. About the Baixi Village case, nine years ago. I went to testify." He spoke slowly. "The record was taken, I signed it. The three-page statement was filed at the Intermediate Court at ten this morning."

Li Huilan's chopsticks froze in midair.

"The procuratorate laid out four points," he said. "Whether my own actions fall under any of them—they'll review that separately according to the law. Whether anyone else committed a crime that night is a separate matter. If the court requests materials, the procuratorate will provide them." He paused. "There's one more: I'm a practicing lawyer. Under the regulations, they may report these circumstances to the Justice Bureau."

The pot on the stove gurgled.

"The firm needs to be prepared," he said. "For the position of responsible person—if something happens to me, I'll speak up first. The firm seal and the seal usage register are both in my hands. I'll write out how the handover should be done."

Footsteps moved across the floor upstairs, from inside to outside, then back. He Xiufen glanced toward the stairs.

"Does she know?" she asked.

"Yesterday afternoon she read the note I left."

"What did she say."

"She said, this is yours."

He Xiufen set the rag down on the stovetop.

"Then it's yours," she said.

Li Huilan lowered her head and ate a mouthful of noodles. When she finished, she set her chopsticks down. In her mind, she ran through the firm's affairs: a general partnership, changing the name of the responsible person—it wasn't just swapping out a sign on the door. The charter, the filings, the accounts, one after another they'd follow. She swallowed the list back down and didn't ask.

When the noodles were done, she pulled Lao Kan's case materials from the cloth bag and spread them across her lap, checking page by page, three times over. The last page was still blank, and she didn't dip the pen.

He Xiufen tightened the apron strings at her back and tapped her chopsticks against the rim of his bowl.

"Eat first," she said. "Once it clumps, it's no good."

He picked up the bowl.

July 9th, noon. She came downstairs and found the place full. Riders had set their helmets on table corners, phone voice messages playing one after another until someone paused them halfway. The table by the door was empty. She sat down and settled her bag on her lap.

He Xiufen brought the noodles over, chopsticks resting across the bowl, the bottom clacking against the table.

"The moment words leave your mouth, they're paper," she said, voice low enough for only this table. "He understands that better than anyone."

She looked up.

He Xiufen didn't wait for an answer. She wiped her hands on her apron and went back to the stove.

The noodles were tossed in scallion oil, two slices of meat buried underneath. She moved the vinegar bottle aside, mixed, and ate two bites. At the next table, a rider was talking about an order that got bounced back yesterday, holding up his phone to show a screenshot. Another leaned in to look and laughed twice.

Yesterday, just after nine, he'd gone downstairs, bag on his shoulder. Back at eleven twenty, bag set down, saying nothing. She hadn't asked.

At twelve twenty she finished the last of the soup, pushed the bowl forward, toward the door side—a plastic crate sat stacked there, and everyone who cleared bowls knew to put them in that spot.

She thought of the kraft paper envelope at home. The flap folded shut—he'd given it to her downstairs on the last day of last year. It had stayed empty all this time, waiting for a single sheet worth putting inside. Today she hadn't put anything in it. The three pages he'd handed her—she'd pushed them back.

As she stood up, she saw the table near the back.

His bowl was empty. Chopsticks laid across the rim, soup drained clean, nothing but a film of oil at the bottom. The man wasn't there. The middle table stood empty, both desktops polished to a shine.

Two bowls, one table apart.

She stood looking for a moment, pushed her chair back under the table, and turned to go upstairs.