Chapter 463: Behind the Pencil

She dragged the appeal bag out from under the bed, the bottom scraping a line across the wood floor. She untied the cord and spread the bag open with both hands. The slot for originals was on the left. Empty.

The three pages of interview transcripts and the disc had been handed over to the court at noon. What remained in the slot was a soft, pressed-down place—you could feel it, but not see it.

The receipt was in the innermost pocket of her bag. She pulled it out and unfolded it. Two creases bulged along the fold lines, impossible to press flat even with her thumb. She held it against the empty slot to gauge the fit: sideways it stuck out too far, but upright it was exactly right, with a strip to spare along one edge.

She slipped it in upright. It caught on the slot's seam at first; she turned it to another corner, pushed it through, pressed it all the way down.

She didn't touch anything else in the bag. The edge of the petition. The household register with its crookedly stamped square seal. The retrial decision, pressed flat at the bottom. The bag faced outward—the first line of writing was her father's name, and the bottom line read August 5.

She rewound the bag's cord and pushed it back under the bed. The cardboard box sat beside it, a streak of gray dust rubbed white where the bag had scraped past. Mid-push, her hand stilled: that slot had once held three pages and a disc. Today it held a single receipt. On the face of the bag she'd added nothing—what got added from here on ought to be the line for the judgment.

The notebook lay on the desk, with a pen on top of it. She flipped to the last used page.

"Things I Don't Know Yet"—four items, one per line.

The first one, "Where is page six," was written in earlier handwriting. The second item had a checkmark after it, and crammed beside the checkmark a line of small writing: Volume 8, March 22, asked. Below the fourth item was the answer dated June 7, written tight.

Below the first item there was blank space.

She bit off the pen cap and wrote beneath it: September 24. Chengnan District Procuratorate, copy on file, photocopy. Original unknown.

She read it over. The line sat half a digit lower than the one above, evenly spaced. The pen tip lingered on the paper—she wanted to also record everything printed on that page: twelve items, two cardboard boxes, 10:10, one checkmark, a signature line. The pen came back. All of that was already in the court's transcripts. She wasn't going to copy it a second time here.

There was another sentence she didn't write: the explanatory note on that page said the original had been transferred to the court along with the case, but in the contents list of the original trial's main file, next to "Attachment," the page number column was blank—a single pencil-marked character: missing. Set side by side, the two statements didn't match. She kept that sentence in her mind. She'd ask it on the day of the hearing.

After writing this line, of the four items only the third still had empty space after it.

A strip of light showed beneath the inner room's door. Zhi'an wasn't asleep yet. The kettle clicked; he came out holding a bowl and set it by her hand.

"There's more in the pot."

"You go to sleep first."

"When's the hearing?" He leaned against the doorframe.

"Waiting on the appraisal."

"How long will that take."

"I don't know yet."

"Oh." He stood there a moment, went back in, pulled the door to—leaving a crack.

The noodles were half-cold by the time she ate them. She put the bowl in the sink and came back to close the notebook. The window wasn't shut tight. Someone downstairs was backing up a car—beep, pause, beep—it stopped on the third beep.

September 27, two in the afternoon. The landline in the outer office rang.

He Xiufen was closest. She picked up the receiver: "Zhengping Firm."

Shen Zhixia pushed the mediation agreement to one side; her pen stopped after "Performance Deadline." Li Huilan had gone to the Legal Aid Center that morning; the cup on her desk still had a piece of paper over it. By the window, He Xiufen listened and at the same time fished a sticky note from the corner of the desk, jotting on the blank end.

"All three notified." "Mm." "Which day?" "We'll send once the date's set." "Which institution?" "Ningchuan, Qiushi." "The whole file?" "Don't unbind it." "How many days do they get?" "Ten business days."

"Who retrieves the comparison samples?" He Xiufen asked.

The other end spoke for a while.

"Good," He Xiufen said. "The court retrieves the samples itself. We don't hand over any paper from our side."

"Before the hearing, Pang Chunlai's age and what stretch of road he lives on—the presiding judge wants us to report that on the day." The other end spoke again.

"Will report. I'll drop it off at the window within the next few days."

She set the receiver down, tore the sticky note off the desk corner, and slid it toward Shen Zhixia.

Big writing, one item per line: Notify all three / Ningchuan Qiushi / Whole file, don't unbind / Ten business days.

"The court held the draw this morning," He Xiufen said. "Drawn from the roster. The draw came up Ningchuan Qiushi Judicial Appraisal Office. The main file goes over this afternoon by court courier—whole file, unbound."

"And the samples?"

"The seals on Qingyuan's old reports, the seal impressions on file, his signatures in the Chengbei District Court volume—the court retrieves all of it. The Cen family doesn't need to bring anything here."

She remembered what Cen Hong had said on the phone: Wait for the court to ask, then you hand it over. He Xiufen seemed to know what she was thinking and added, "If the court asks, give it. If the court doesn't ask, don't send it."

She folded the sticky note once and pressed it under the stack of photocopies at the corner of the desk. Once the three items were all in place, things began moving on their own: the court drew lots, the court retrieved samples, the appraisal office wrote reports, the appraisal office sent someone to verify. That file would leave the Chengdong District Court this afternoon, bound for Ningchuan. From now on, to look at it she'd have to wait for it to come back. All she could turn through before the hearing were the seven pages she'd verified at the Chengbei District Court on June 17—stamped with the verification seal, kept at home.

"What about the hearing notice?"

"Once the date's set, the notice goes out. All three together." He Xiufen said, "Pang Chunlai's old, and his legs aren't good. The court says they'll send a car."

"A car."

"I'll have the defense statement written in October." He Xiufen squared the photocopies and tapped them twice. "Don't rush me. Rushing won't help."

"I won't rush you," she said. "I won't even read a single word of it."

He Xiufen gave a short grunt, didn't look up.

It wasn't mere politeness. If she knew before the hearing which questions He Xiufen meant to ask, then sitting at that table, her eyes would drift in one direction. That day she'd just listen.

The next morning at ten, the landline rang twice. She got up to answer it, but the phone in the inner room rang first, and she pulled her hand back.

The door was shut. The voice on the other end didn't carry through; all she heard was him speaking on this side.

"This is Lu Jibai."

A pause.

"Mm."

Another pause.

"All right."

The receiver went back down, very softly. Inside, paper rustled once, then no other sound.

He Xiufen glanced at the door, lowered her head, turned a page of the photocopies.

"From the court?" she asked.

"From the court," He Xiufen said.

A moment later the door opened and he came out to get water. The water cooler stood against the wall at the far end of the outer office. He walked over, filled his cup, turned back, and closed the door behind him. Three people in the room, and no one said a word.

That afternoon the inner room's door didn't open once. In the evening, when she packed up to leave, the strip of light under the door was still on. That night she wrote the date in her notebook: September 28, the court notified him to appear. Hearing date to be sent separately. When she'd written it, she added one more line below: He knows now.

September 29, eight in the evening. The home phone rang.

"Shen the lawyer's daughter."

"That's me."

"He went and talked. The police station gave him a slip of paper."

She set her cup down on the corner of the table. "Which station."

"The town one. That row of buildings at the corner, two signs hanging by the door."

"When did he go."

"Late afternoon." The old man paused, catching his breath. "They questioned him until dark. Asked twice, both times about what happened that night. My son came home white in the face, couldn't even eat two bowls of rice."

"What's written on the slip?"

"I can't read all of it. There's a red round seal at the top." He said, "My son read it aloud. I couldn't make sense of it."

"Tell him to keep the slip himself," she said. "Don't fold it, don't tuck it in a book. Put it somewhere dry."

"He says he set it on top of the cabinet."

"Mm."

"The hearing—I'm going."

"There'll be a car."

"A car." He repeated it after her. "I'll wait."

"What day does it start?" he asked again after a pause.

"Not set yet."

"Give me word when it is."

"Once it's set, the court sends you the notice. I won't pass it along for them," she said. "The car—you wait for that notice too."

"All right."

There was wind on his end, chopping his cough into pieces. She waited for the fit to pass.

"It's cold out there now," she said.

"I'll sit at the door a bit and then go in."

"Go inside."

"All right." He moved the receiver aside a little; his voice came from farther away. "Shen the lawyer's daughter, let me tell you something, and don't you mind the extra words—I've said those lines once before. The first time was sitting in my own house. This time my son walked in and said them himself. Nobody dragged him. Nobody gave him money."

"I'll remember."

She hung up and sat at the desk for a while longer. The half-cup of water had gone cold through. She drank it in one go and set the cup upside down on the corner of the desk.

September 30, three in the afternoon. He Xiufen took a call by the window, said a few words, and set the receiver down.

"All three witnesses have been notified," she said. "Hearing notice goes out once the date's set."

"And the one from Hengzheng?"

"Also notified."

He Xiufen glanced at her, squared the photocopies. "Everyone knows now."

That night she opened the notebook flat and read the four items from the beginning.

One. Where is page six. Below it, the newly added line, ballpoint ink, still glossy.

Two. The third sentence at the cold storage—did he ask it? A checkmark after it.

Three. Who is the old man at the pump house. Pencil, paler than the other lines.

Four. Which volume did Director Cen put it in. The June 7 answer, crammed below.

The third line had been added in May. Back then all she knew was that there was such a man: watched the pump at night, lived alone, surname never asked, name never written. She remembered how the message in the group chat was phrased—looking for an old man from Baixi Village, seventy or older, wears reading glasses, coughs. That message had no name in it; no one knew the name of the person they were looking for.

Later the name was found. It landed on court paper, on the original of the July 1 interview record, his signature and thumbprint at the bottom of the page. The original was handed over to the court on September 24. The name stayed on this page of hers.

She looked at that line of pencil marks. Pencil runs pale. Written on the grid line, every stroke clear—just faint.

She didn't erase it, and she didn't draw a line through it.

The pen tip landed after that line, a small space away, and wrote the name down: Pang Chunlai.

Ballpoint ink is heavy; it pressed into the same ruled line. The pencil half before it faint, the half after it dark.

She capped the pen and closed the notebook.