Chapter 450: The Defense Counsel Box

Eight twenty. The roll-up door was still down. She went in through the side door and switched on the stairwell light. A thin layer of dust lay over the cement steps; a new line of footprints crossed where she had swept yesterday.

The second-floor door stood open, and the light was on. He Xiufen already sat in the old wooden chair by the window, the cushion set straight, a sheet of paper resting on her knee.

"Household register."

"Here." She set the blue-covered booklet on the table.

He Xiufen pushed the paper off her knee toward her. It was ruled into rows of boxes, with a blank space left in the middle.

"A power of attorney. Fill it in like this."

She sat down and pulled out a pen. It was He Xiufen's; a patch of paint had worn off the black barrel.

"For the principal, write your name, then a parenthesis after it." He Xiufen tapped a box. "In the parenthesis, write whose daughter you are. For the first submission, they identify the person first and the facts second."

She wrote each stroke carefully: Shen Zhixia (daughter of Shen Qian). When her pen came to her father's name, she pressed down harder.

"Case name."

"The Shen Qian retrial." He Xiufen dictated, and she wrote as she listened.

"Next box." He Xiufen paused. "Relationship to the suspect and defendant."

She set the nib in the box, about to write "daughter."

"Don't write 'daughter.'" He Xiufen said. "Write what's printed in the household register."

She opened the small booklet. The paper was stiff and worn at the edges. She turned to her own page. Under "Relationship to head of household," the printed character was "daughter."

"Write 'daughter.'"

"'Daughter of' won't do?"

"The register says daughter, so the court checks that box." He Xiufen nudged the ink pad case aside on the table. "If you add an extra word, the person verifying has to hunt for it on the page, and if they can't find it, they have to ask. Every verification means more questions. The page has to be readable at a glance."

She wrote "daughter."

"Today's date. August 24th."

She signed the principal's signature slower than usual, flicking the last stroke upward and then stopping clean.

He Xiufen turned the paper around and went over it. Then she picked up the pen from the table and wrote her own name in the box for the entrusted party, level and steady. She did not set the pen down after; instead she added a line under the entrusted matters: To serve as defense counsel in the retrial of Shen Qian.

Then she pulled a firm letter from the drawer. The letterhead was printed in red; the middle was blank. Holding the edge flat, she wrote line by line: Our firm has accepted the commission of Shen Zhixia and hereby designates Attorney He Xiufen to serve as defense counsel in the retrial of Shen Qian.

When she reached "Shen Qian," the nib paused. The last vertical stroke of "Qian" ended abruptly, no tail.

"Director He."

"Hm."

"That stroke in 'Qian.'"

"All three years he let me copy his drafts, page after page, that was the character." Only after she finished the sentence did she write the date: August 24th. Then she set the pen down. "He wrote legal documents his whole life. I studied all these years and learned one vertical stroke."

The inner room's door hung half open. Inside, the pen paused.

When he came out, he carried the hardcover seal-usage register in one hand; with the other he pushed his sleeve up a notch.

"The firm letter." He Xiufen said.

He took the two pages and stood at the end of the table reading them. His eyes stopped on the relationship box in the power of attorney—on that one "daughter." She had written it; it was heavier than the other characters on the page.

"The seal is the firm's." he said.

"Yes, the firm's." He Xiufen said. "You press it. Then I can rest easy."

He opened the register and wrote in the last blank line: In the retrial of Shen Qian, the firm accepts the commission of a close relative and designates Attorney He Xiufen to serve as defense counsel. Dated August 24th.

The lid of the ink pad case opened. The red cake inside had begun to crust over. He pressed the firm seal into the pad twice, then set it down on the blank space above the signature block of the firm letter. When he lifted his hand, the seal was already on the page, corners even, not skewed.

He closed the lid and pushed the register back to the corner of the desk.

"Done." he said, and went back into the inner room.

The pen inside resumed its movement.

Li Huilan arrived after nine. She set her bag down as she came in, and when she saw the filled-in power of attorney on the table, she stood still for a moment.

"Signed?"

"Signed."

"Submitting today?"

"Ten thirty."

Li Huilan stacked her legal-aid case files at the edge of the desk, sat down, and went about her own work without pressing further.

He Xiufen said, "Print one copy of the practice certificate and two pages of the household register—the first page and her page."

"The copier's in the inner room." she said.

"Go on. He's writing. You won't disturb him."

She carried the household register in. Since July, she had not crossed this threshold.

In the inner room, the desk faced the window. A sheaf of green-grid manuscript paper lay on it, finished pages stacked at his left, a rejected page recopied and tucked underneath. He did not look up. He shifted the desk lamp half a foot toward the window, clearing the wall socket.

The copier stood against the wall. She lifted the cover and flattened the register. Her father's page pressed against the glass; a square seal sat stamped at an angle above his name, its edge cutting across one corner of a stroke. She lowered the cover and pressed the button. The machine let out one long sound.

The page slid out below, still warm.

The square seal printed as a black block, and the characters beneath showed through the black: Shen Qian.

For the second page, she turned to her own. "Relationship to head of household" held a single "daughter," exactly as printed in the register.

She held the two pages together. On her way out, she pulled the door closed—halfway, she remembered the door always hung ajar, and she let her hand go.

At nine fifty, He Xiufen placed the practice certificate, firm letter, power of attorney, and household register into a transparent document pouch one by one. The apron came off; she changed into a dark gray jacket and smoothed the collar flat.

"Take a cab."

"Twenty minutes." She held the document pouch in her hand. "We'll make it."

"Before they break for lunch."

The car stopped at the curb outside the courthouse. At the security check, phone and keys went into the tray; the document pouch passed through the machine. She went through first and waited on the other side. He Xiufen came around and took the pouch back.

Outside the criminal division office, a row of plastic chairs lined the wall. Inside, someone was on the phone. The court clerk looked up: "Shen Qian case?"

"Yes."

"Come in."

She laid the four items out on the desk one by one: power of attorney, firm letter, photocopy of He Xiufen's practice certificate, two pages copied from the household register.

The clerk examined each one carefully. When she reached the relationship box on the power of attorney, she read it twice.

"You filled this box in yourself?"

"Copied from the household register." He Xiufen said.

"The original register?"

"We brought it." He Xiufen handed the booklet over.

The clerk opened it and checked the names against the copies, checked that page, then flipped back to the cover for a glance before pushing the booklet back.

"A close-relative commission." she wrote on a registration form. "Principal: Shen Zhixia. Defense counsel: He Xiufen."

When she finished, she took a receipt book from the drawer, tore off a slip, and tapped the nib on it twice.

"For defense counsel."

He Xiufen accepted it, folded it once, and tucked it into the inner pocket of her jacket.

"The 27th, nine a.m., come to review the case file." the clerk said. "Bring your practice certificate. Nothing else."

"What about the witnesses?" she asked.

"The letter went out before close of business yesterday afternoon." The clerk flipped through the stack of papers on her desk. "The police station hasn't replied yet. When they do, I'll call that number."

"What about the hearing date?"

"Until the witnesses are nailed down, no date can be set." The clerk put her pen back in the holder. "The presiding judge said this one won't be rushed."

She nodded.

On top of the pile on the desk lay a case file, blue-gray cover, a white label pasted to the front. "Shen Qian" was printed, not handwritten.

She looked at it for two seconds.

The clerk followed her gaze and slid the volume half a foot closer to herself: "Transferred from the Intermediate Court. On the 27th you'll review the copies. The original is in the file."

"Okay."

Out of the criminal division, the window at the end of the corridor stood open. The sound of leaves came up from below. Eleven twenty; the sun lay white on the courtyard ground.

On the steps, He Xiufen shifted the document pouch to her other hand. "The 27th I'll come alone. You don't need to."

"I'll wait at the noodle house."

"No need to wait."

"I'll eat noodles at the noodle house."

He Xiufen smiled. "Fine."

Back at the office by noon. In the afternoon, He Xiufen made marks on a file by the window. The light in the inner room never went off.

She straightened the desk calendar and pressed the tip of her pen onto the 27th, in the upper right corner. The ink dot on the 26th was still there, pressing on the number. The two dots sat one box apart.

The household register went back into her bag in the afternoon, went home with her at night, and was placed again into the bag under the bed.

At five thirty, the stove downstairs fired up and the range hood began to spin. She put the document pouch on the top shelf of the metal cabinet and went downstairs.

Ma Jianjun came in with his helmet clamped under one arm; a ring of sweat had soaked a mark into his collar.

"Large bowl, extra noodles, add an egg." He set the helmet on the table, then picked it up and clamped it back under his arm.

"Sit at the inside table, against the wall." He Xiufen called from the stove, the ladle in her hand never stopping.

He sat, pulled out his phone and glanced at it, put it face down on the table, then picked it up and looked again a moment later.

"Lawyer Shen."

She looked up.

"You haven't said a word in the group chat these past few days." He turned halfway toward her. "Anyone asks a question, nobody answers. You said before—if there's news, say something in the group."

"The firm's got a case these past two days. It's keeping me busy."

"Busy or not, say something." He pulled chopsticks from the holder. "The people in that group don't know much, but they trust your words."

She lowered her head and worked her chopsticks through the noodles.

"Ma, there's a witness we can't find."

The chopsticks stopped mid-air.

"What witness?"

"An old man from Baixi Village. In July he described an incident from nine years ago. After he spoke, someone from the factory came asking at his door. On the night of August 10th, his son took him away."

"Took him away?" He laid the chopsticks across the bowl. "Where?"

"The son says he's at a relative's place out of town, getting medical treatment."

"So someone's holding him."

"The notice the court sent to the village came back. Door padlocked. They tried delivery twice."

His hand pressed against the table edge, making a small sound.

"What else can I do." he said. "Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. Running errands, knowing the roads, standing up and speaking for you—those I can do. The rest, no."

"I haven't figured it out yet."

"Then figure it out." He pushed his bowl forward a little. "I finish this bowl, and if you haven't figured it out, I'll come back tomorrow and ask again."

"I'll tell you tomorrow morning."

"What time?"

"Morning."

He lowered his head and ate. Halfway through, he suddenly looked up again: "The group's got over twenty people. You say one thing in there, it moves faster than you running around alone."

"The words have to be right first." she said. "One wrong sentence and that door slams shut. This time it can't shut again."

He finished the remaining half bowl and stacked it by the stove.

"Next time, soak your own bowl." He Xiufen said.

"Soak." He took the helmet in his hands, put it on, tried once—the strap missed the little buckle. He pushed it with his finger, tried again, and this time it caught. At the door he turned back. "I won't take any orders tomorrow morning."

The roll-up door hung half down; he stooped and went out.

Outside, the car engine turned over. The sound slipped in under the door, then faded into the distance.