Chapter 440: The Marker on the Hill

The lid came off the pot with a puff of steam. The rice was still warm.

August 5th, 8:00 p.m. She hung her bag on the back of the chair, washed her hands first, then came back to serve herself rice. Zhi'an was crouched by the door cleaning a pair of sneakers, working an old toothbrush along the edges. The sides had yellowed, and the brush carved out a white stripe. When he finished, he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.

"I didn't touch the rice. The dish is in the pot—tomato and scrambled eggs. It's cold now."

"Cold's fine." She pushed the bowl toward him. "I want to show you something first."

She took two sheets of paper from her bag and set them on the table, the edges facing him.

Zhi'an didn't reach for them right away. He bent over and read the words aloud: "Retrial… Decision."

"The Intermediate Court made the call. It arrived at the firm this morning. I signed for it."

He wiped his hands on his pants again before picking the pages up. He read slowly, line by line. She lowered her head and ate, and halfway through the bowl she saw his finger stop—Original Defendant: Shen Qian (Deceased).

"That parenthetical note."

"The file already records that he's gone. The retrial judgment will say the same."

"Dad's gone and they can still retry him?"

"Yes. When a person's gone, the trial can proceed in absentia."

Zhi'an turned both pages over, checking the date, the red seal, then flipped back to the first page. "What does 'in absentia' mean?"

"Means he can't appear, but the court still goes ahead. Evidence presentation, cross-examination—everything proceeds step by step. The judgment comes down all the same."

"He doesn't get to say a single word?"

"Someone speaks for him."

"Who?"

"The defendant can appoint defense counsel. In absentia proceedings, close relatives can appoint counsel on his behalf."

"Then who are you appointing?"

"Haven't gotten that far yet."

[Thud. Gone, and the trial still goes on.]

He waited a moment. When she didn't continue, he set the two pages back on the table and ran two fingers along the paper's edge, pressing down a corner that had curled up. The fan swung back around, and the corner lifted again, just a little.

"Up top it says 'new evidence.' What is it?"

"What we submitted. Five pages of originals, three pages of interview records, one witness's statement, plus nine pages the Intermediate Court pulled. They looked at all of it together, decided it might affect the original conviction. That's enough to grant a retrial." She paused. "The word 'might'—that's enough."

"And if he's acquitted?"

She set her chopsticks down. "The judgment will state he's innocent."

"Then Dad's license."

"Won't be reissued. A revoked certificate isn't reissued even after death."

"Then what's the point?"

"The point is what gets written on paper." She said, "This piece of paper—he waited years for it. He never got to see it."

Zhi'an stared at that line for a while, then smoothed the pages once more. This time he smoothed them only once before pulling his hand back.

"Which court hears it?"

"Chengdong District. The Intermediate Court assigned it to Chengdong District Court. Chengnan District won't touch this case anymore."

"Where's Chengdong District?"

"East side, near the river. The same building where Auntie Kang's judicial confirmation was last year. First floor, east-facing windows, a row of chairs."

"I'll go on the day of the hearing."

"The date hasn't been set."

"I'll go once it's set."

"We'll see."

He carried the bowl to the sink. Water ran for a while. When he came back, his hands were still wet. He stood by the table, looking at the two pages. "I'll go tell Dad."

She looked up. "Day after tomorrow, morning."

"What time?"

"Leave at eight. Get up the hill by eight forty."

"I'll be up at seven thirty." He finished, folded the two pages, and handed them back with both hands.

She put the papers into her bag. Before bed, she took them out once more, lifted a corner of the glass desk pad, slipped them underneath, on top of that blank sheet of paper. The blank sheet was face-down; you couldn't tell what it was.

It rained for a stretch that night, and the next day the courtyard was still damp. The mailbox downstairs was empty as usual, a layer of dust settled around the keyhole. The first few days of August went on as they always did at the firm: Li Huilan's day-labor hours filled up three pages; He Xiufen set aside a bowl of noodles for her every noon; Lu Jibai sat in the inner office with Qinghe's forms and one document, and no one asked about it.

On the evening of the 6th, everyone had left. She opened the cabinet, took out the unmarked kraft envelope from the top shelf, and put it in her bag to take home. The cabinet was locked; the key stayed on her ring. This particular piece of paper—she didn't want it squeezed in with anyone else's case files.

August 7th, 8:40 a.m., the cemetery gate at the foot of the hill.

Only two of the flower stalls under the stone archway were open, their shade canopies angled askew. White chrysanthemums soaked in blue plastic buckets, two petals floating on the water's surface.

"How much for white chrysanthemums?"

"Twenty-five." The woman in the sleeveless shirt waved a palm-leaf fan. "No one comes up the hill this time of year. During Qingming they're thirty-five. You asked last time."

"I did come during Qingming." She pulled out a bunch and slid the paper wrapping down to check the blooms. "Don't shake the water off. The sun's strong on the way up."

Zhi'an counted out the money beside her—twenty-five—handed it over with both hands, and asked for two bottles of water.

"One's enough."

"The marker needs washing."

The steps up the hill radiated heat; she could feel it through her soles. Pine needles carpeted the path, slippery underfoot. The cemetery was profoundly quiet in August. Cicadas shrieked from the pines on the slope. Halfway up, a family crouched in front of a grave, a plastic container set out before them, no one speaking.

The last marker in the west row, on the upper slope—gray stone, facing southeast.

The porcelain vase in front of it still held the two bunches of white chrysanthemums from April, long since dried out. The flower heads drooped; they crumbled at a touch. She reached out and pulled them free, tucked them into her bag, squeezing the flower stems once before letting go.

Zhi'an pulled a newspaper-wrapped object from his backpack and unwrapped it layer by layer. It was a white porcelain vase—narrow mouth, a ring of faint lines around the belly.

"Twenty kuai. The bowl shop at the market entrance." He said, "Last time you said next time we'd bring a porcelain vase. You've been busy, so I bought it first."

She took it and examined it, picked off a scrap of newspaper stuck to the base. He opened one of the water bottles and filled it about eighty percent. She put the flowers in, rotated it half a turn so the blooms faced outward.

Then he took an old towel and wiped from the top of the stone downward, working into the carved characters. He used a fingernail to pick at the moss, but it wouldn't come loose after two tries, so he switched to a corner of the towel and rubbed. She stood off to one side and poured water over the face of the stone, watching it run down through the grooves of the inscription.

"Dad," she said.

Wind came over the back of the hill, rattling the flower wrapper.

"It's been accepted for retrial."

She said that and nothing more. She had rehearsed it the whole way up—the date on the document, which court was assigned, the exact wording on the page. Standing in front of the marker, none of it made it out.

A little less than half the water remained. Droplets slid down the bottle one by one, falling onto the stone step, drying the instant they landed. She screwed the cap on, then off again, and poured a little around the base of the marker.

The bag sat at her feet, the stems of April's dried flowers poking from the opening. A gust passed, and one dried petal tumbled out of the bag and landed on the marker's base. She bent down, picked it up, put it back, and folded the bag's opening over once.

Zhi'an lifted his head and glanced at her, but didn't ask.

He stayed crouched, picking pine needles out of the crack in the marker's base one by one. The crack was still there—it looked wider than it had in April. He worked slowly, dropping each needle into his other palm, and when he was done he held them in his fist, not tossing them on the ground.

"Dad," he said. "The hearing date isn't set yet. Once it's set, I'll come along."

"You have school."

"I'll ask for leave."

"We'll see when the time comes."

He folded the towel, put it in the bag, and crouched a while longer. "Dad, sis got this one done."

"Zhi'an."

"Last time I said she stays up really late." His voice went lower. "She goes to bed earlier now."

"I'm telling the truth," he added.

She didn't stop him again. The wind flipped the flower wrapper over, and she pressed it down, nudging the chrysanthemum stems deeper into the vase.

Zhi'an stood and looked down the slope, then again a moment later. Someone was coming up the steps—a man holding a small bunch of yellow chrysanthemums. He walked past.

"Nobody else is coming up today."

"I didn't tell him it was today."

"Last time he just stood up here. Never moved."

"Yeah."

"Today it's the three of us."

She didn't answer. She worked the last knot of the wrapper loose, turned the blooms upward, and set them straight. At 10:40, she checked her phone. "Let's go. The sun gets worse in the afternoon."

On the way down, Zhi'an went first, taking two steps at a time. After ten or so steps, he stopped and waited for her.

At the shop by the mountain gate, he paid for two sodas and handed her the cold one. She walked to the stone archway and stopped, looking back up the slope: at the last marker in the west row, white chrysanthemums stood in the new porcelain vase. The August sun fell on them, and the petals were so thin they almost glowed.

August 8th, 8:00 p.m. Zhi'an had finished his shower, hair still dripping, sitting in the living room looking at his phone. The fan oscillated between the two of them. Downstairs, an e-bike honked once, a short blast.

She opened the top drawer of her writing desk, took everything out—old receipts, two dry pens, a stopped wristwatch—emptied it and laid down a sheet of newspaper. She took the two pages out of the unmarked envelope, placed them inside, and shut the drawer. It closed with a soft click, like the top shelf of the cabinet at the firm. From now on, this drawer would hold only this one thing.

When she pulled the paper bag out from under the corner of the desk, the edges were dusty. The bag's opening had been folded over twice. Inside were the petition, several photocopies, a one-page materials list. She added the two pages she'd brought home, letting them slide down to the bottom.

On the face of the bag, the writing had accumulated line by line since May: Shen Qian; Petition; Shen Zhixia; Submitted to Jiangzhou Intermediate Court; June 18, Evidence Retrieval Application, Submitted.

She smoothed the bag's opening flat, took up a pen, and added a line at the very bottom: August 5, Retrial Decision, Chengdong District Court. She wrote it small, squeezed into the margin, not overlapping the lines above.

Zhi'an came over from the living room and stood in the doorway, watching for a moment. "More writing on the bag."

"One more line."

"What's it say?"

"It says the paper has arrived."

He took two steps forward, then stopped, knocking a hand lightly against the doorframe. "The day the judgment comes down—" He paused. "You tell me first."

"I'll tell you first."

He went back to his room, leaving the door ajar.

She capped the pen and stood the bag up, reading it through from the beginning. At the top was her father's name. Below it, "Petition." Her name. Below that, the lines about submitting to the Intermediate Court, the evidence retrieval application. At the very bottom: "Chengdong District Court."

There should have been one more line in the middle.

The pen tip went down again and hovered over the paper without writing. That line would say Sample Delivery Record—it hadn't arrived yet. For everything written on the bag, she followed an old rule: if it was written on the outside, it had to be in the bag. Whoever first said that rule, on the stone steps below the noodle shop—she'd never written it down on paper.

[Thud. Three things. One still missing.]

She put the pen back in its holder. She gathered the bag's opening but didn't press it all the way shut, leaving a gap the width of a finger.

Wind came through the crack in the window. The gap stirred.