Chapter 448: Turn Off the Light Before You Go

Starting August 17th, he sat at the desk in the inner room every day after six in the evening. A corner of that stack of grid paper was weighted down with an old teacup, to keep the draft out if wind slipped through the window cracks. The light stayed on until around ten at night before it went out.

He Xiufen came upstairs before locking up. She stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the railing, and said, "I'm heading down. You turn off the lights." A grunt of "Mm" came from the inner room. She went down step by step, her feet steady on the floorboards.

He wrote slowly. Each finished page went to his left. Where he crossed something out, he didn't blacken it; he copied a new sheet and slid it underneath the stack. She'd caught a glimpse once when she went to the stair landing to refill her water. The pages were stacked neatly at the edges, like someone organizing another person's case file.

She was on the second floor those days too. The materials for the retrial went into a new document envelope one by one, and she copied out an index, one item per line. The photocopies the firm kept for its records, she counted page by page, only clipping them in once the numbers matched. The inner door stood open, but she didn't go in. Between her desk and the stair landing sat an empty chair, and neither of them moved it.

Li Huilan went out every afternoon and came back with dust on her shoes, saying the day laborer at the construction site had his cast off, but the top of his foot was still swollen, and when he walked he put the weight on one side first.

On the eighteenth, she went downstairs at noon for noodles. The shop was full. Two delivery riders sat side by side, phones laid flat on the table, playing voice messages from their group chat one after another—something about which apartment complex's gate was hard to get into. He Xiufen worked the stove, ladling toppings, her voice carrying over the whole shop.

She sat at the smallest table in the back. He Xiufen brought over a bowl with an extra half scoop of shredded pork, pressed her apron down at her waist, sat across from her, and picked up a head of garlic to smash.

"Has the police station said anything more?"

"No."

"No follow-up, then that's how it is." He Xiufen peeled the garlic, her thumbnail digging into the skin. "I handled a case once. The witness agreed to come the day before, then the next day got to the courthouse, went in and came right back out, said he had a stomachache. His pages were in the file, but at judgment not a single one got used. After the verdict, my client sat on the hallway bench and asked me: didn't he say it?"

She lowered her head and ate her noodles.

"The person's gone, but the words are still on paper," He Xiufen said. "And words on paper need someone to stand up in court and claim them."

"I know."

"Knowing it and having someone claim it on paper are two different things."

She didn't answer. The soup boiled over on the stove, and He Xiufen got up to skim the foam. When she came back, two drops had splashed onto her apron.

"Don't go up there again this month," she said with her back turned. "The more often you go, the faster the village locks its doors. They'll think we're going to drag someone out."

"Mm."

"'Mm' means yes."

"Yes."

He Xiufen pushed the smashed garlic into her bowl and sat watching her eat.

"What about the one upstairs?"

"He'll file before the twenty-sixth."

"Help him look it over."

"We agreed I'd check the format once he's done. He's not done yet."

"Whether he finishes is his business. Whether you go check is yours." He Xiufen swept the garlic peels into a pile and shook them into the trash bag. "Once it's filed, it's someone else's problem. That certificate of his is still in his pocket. One more day in his pocket is one more day."

On the night of the nineteenth, past nine, He Xiufen called up from downstairs: "Noodles are in the pot, bring them up and eat." She went down and brought up two bowls, set one at the corner of his desk without a word. He looked up and gave a grunt. By the time she brought the empty bowl down, his was already clean.

On the twentieth at eight in the evening, Tang Guo came up carrying a watermelon, the plastic bag cutting a red line into her hand. Zhi'an was squatting on the balcony, taking apart the fan's grill. The screwdriver wouldn't bite; he held a screw between his teeth.

The watermelon cracked open to reveal grainy red flesh, the knife splitting it clean. Tang Guo gave the center piece to Zhi'an.

"There's a witness I can't find," she said.

Tang Guo's hand paused. She turned her phone over, screen down, and set it on the table.

"I won't ask," she said. "I'm here."

"Don't post anything."

"I haven't even told my mom."

"Your mom doesn't know about this."

"So that means I've told no one." Tang Guo lowered her head and ate the watermelon down to the rind. "These past couple days I've been filming the scales at Ximen Market. A jin comes up one liang two short. I filmed it for three days, and yesterday the stall owner swapped in a new scale. The new one's rigged too."

Zhi'an looked up. "There are two scales?"

"Two. One for the customers to see, one for himself."

"Then which are you filming?"

"Both. Waiting for him to set both scales on the table at once."

She finished her piece of watermelon, spat the seeds into her palm, and tossed them into the plastic bag. Tang Guo glanced at the notebook on the table but didn't reach for it.

"What about him?"

"Upstairs writing."

"Until when?"

"The twenty-sixth."

Tang Guo nodded and didn't ask again.

Before leaving, Tang Guo washed her hands, covered the remaining half with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge, saying eat it tomorrow, don't leave it three days. At the door she turned back:

"I'll say that sentence once a day. Don't get tired of hearing it."

The door closed, and the hallway light clicked on and off.

Zhi'an twisted the screw in, all the way to the bottom, and said, "When she says 'I'm here,' she really is here."

"I know."

On the twenty-first at four in the afternoon, Chai Guizhi's call came in.

"Lawyer Shen, the second section of the ditch is finished. Teacher Cai came yesterday, measured it with a pole section by section, then drew it in his notebook." The voice on the other end was loud, every word pushed outward. "Xiaoyu asked when Lawyer Shen is coming to the village."

"What did you tell him?"

"I said people in the city are busy with many things." Chai Guizhi paused. "He said he can wait."

She held the phone by the window. Downstairs someone was taking a bamboo pole to the blanket airing on the wire, shaking it, thump thump.

"Tell him I remember his number."

"One hundred forty-seven." Chai Guizhi said, "He remembers it himself, writes it on the cover of his notebook in red pen. School's starting soon and he needs a new notebook. He said he'll copy it over."

"Let him copy it."

"Lawyer Shen, does your voice sound off?" Chai Guizhi said suddenly. "Last time you sat when you talked, said a sentence, rested a moment."

"I'm fine."

"Good. The medicine, twice a day, his grandmother watches him take it."

After hanging up, she opened her notebook and wrote a line: August 21st, second section of the ditch completed. She looked at it for a while, flipped back to the page for April 24th, where the two lines at the bottom were still blank, and flipped forward again.

On the twenty-second at nine in the evening, she went downstairs. The roll-up door was half lowered, the light by the door still on—He Xiufen had left it. She bent down to go through, felt her way along the wall to the stairs, and went up step by step. She'd left a document envelope on her desk during the day.

The mail basket at the top of the stairs was empty, an old scratch mark across the tin. As she passed, she pressed a hand against the box door. Nothing rattled inside.

The whole second floor was lit. He was in the inner room, sleeves pushed to his forearms, his pen moving across the paper.

She stood between the two desks.

"Pang Chunlai," she said. "The man who saw something that night. He's gone."

The pen stopped. He raised his head, waited a beat, then set the pen down.

"I understand."

"August thirteenth, Chengdong District Court asked for witnesses. I reported his name and number. On the sixteenth I reported again, said he couldn't be reached."

"How couldn't he be reached?"

"Called his senior phone three times. Off every time. On the fourteenth I went up the mountain. There was a lock on his door, locked from outside. The old woman next door said a car came at eleven-something on the night of the tenth. His son helped him into the car, carrying a bag, and the car headed toward town."

"His son."

"At 1:50 p.m. his son returned the call. Exact words: I took my dad out for medical treatment, he's staying with relatives out of town, stop looking."

"Did you ask which relatives?"

"I did. He didn't answer. Hung up. Called back twice. Phone off."

"The police?"

"Filed it. The man's an adult, family says they know where he is. Not treated as missing."

"What's the son's name?"

"I don't know."

He set the pen back on the paper, the tip pointing at the line he'd been writing.

"The court will ask," he said.

"I know."

"Then you can only answer that you don't know."

"I did. The morning of the sixteenth, the police asked me the same thing."

He said nothing more and picked the pen back up. She walked past his desk and saw that the stack of grid paper had grown thick, the top page half-written, two lines crossed out, then continued.

She sat at her own desk, unwound the string on the document envelope, and pulled out the three photocopied pages.

The first page was the entrance the questioning had produced: a stone stool, the door facing east, the third house from east to west. The second page was that night: the car with its lights off, two people carrying small buckets in and out, twenty-some minutes, the rip of the tape. The third page, at the bottom, were her written words, and beside them his thumbprint—photocopied into a flat black smear.

In July these three pages had gone to the Intermediate Court, which had questioned him, and the record had moved with the case to Chengdong District Court. The paper was in the file, and the words were in the file. But what the courtroom needed was a person standing there, letting the other side ask, letting him answer.

She read from first page to last, pressed flat a curled corner, flipped back, and read again.

Two sounds remained in the room. His pen moved across the grid paper, stroke by stroke, very slowly. A motorcycle passed in the alley outside, far to near, near to far.

After a while, he pushed the thermos on his desk half a foot toward her without looking up. She poured herself a cup with her own mug and pushed the thermos back.

Close to ten, he turned a page on his side.

"I'll file on the twenty-sixth."

"Will you finish?"

"I'll finish."

She glanced at the desk calendar at the corner of her table. The square for the twenty-sixth was empty. She tapped her pen inside the square, wrote nothing.

Past ten, she stood, tucked the document envelope under her arm.

"Turn off the light before you go."

"Okay."

She walked to the top of the stairs and pressed the stair light on before going down.

Downstairs the tables were wiped, plastic stools stacked upside down against the wall, the smell of scallion oil mixed with damp. The light by the door was still on, the roll-up door still half-lowered. She bent to go out, straightened, and didn't pull the door down. He Xiufen's rule: the last one down turns off the light. Tonight she wasn't the last one down.

The alley was short. At the mouth she turned and looked back: the second-floor window was lit. There was a shadow in it. It didn't move.

At the other end of the alley someone pushed a three-wheeled cart past, an empty bucket tied to the rear rack, the bottom of the bucket knocking against the frame, rattling all the way.

She stopped, took the notebook from her cloth bag, and flipped to the April 24th page. At the top was the line she'd written that day. Below it, one line in pencil: the tape on the box opening wasn't the same strip as the night before. Below that, added in July: Pang Chunlai, saw it. Below that, two lines written on the night of August 15th.

Half a sentence she still hadn't put to paper—the car headed toward town. She thought about it, then didn't write it.

The pen tip went down.

August 16th, police station. Not treated as missing.

One row lower on the page, there was only the printed line.

She closed the notebook, tucked the pen inside, and walked toward home. The streetlights went one lit, one dark.