Chapter 481: Acceptance Inspection

"Tomorrow, 7:30, Zhongshan Road intersection." Cai Qingru said. "I'll drive. Judge Luo will make his own way over—9:30 at the village entrance, 10 o'clock to look at the ditch."

November 22nd, 3:00 p.m. The call came through to the second floor.

She lifted her pen from the paper. "How many from the third party?"

"Two. From the provincial capital. One handles the measuring rod, one keeps records." There was the sound of papers flipping on the other end. "I'll go over the plan once more this afternoon. The three dimensions on the drawings have to match the supervision form. If they don't line up tomorrow in front of everyone, there's no explaining it."

"Who signs in the factory's column?"

"Their office called back this morning. Lawyer Song is coming."

"Song Qiming."

"He said he'll report based on what's in the records." Cai Qingru paused. "He also asked whether both of your side's representatives would be present. I said yes."

"Yes. Both places get signed."

"I'll bring the originals. Bring your copy too—when we sign, we check page by page."

"I'll bring it."

After hanging up, He Xiufen tapped the stack of receipts in her hand against the desk corner to even them out.

"Signing tomorrow?"

"Signing."

"Everyone who can be there has to be there." He Xiufen stood the receipts upright in the cardboard box. "If one person's missing, later someone will say that column doesn't count."

"The judgment lists who signs where. It's written down."

"Whoever's on the paper is whoever it is." He Xiufen said. "Your father spent those years going up the mountain, and all he ever said when he came back was that the water wasn't good. For those words to finally land on a signed sheet of paper—that's something he never got to see."

She didn't answer.

At 5:50 p.m., the half-door to the inner room pushed open. He came out to pour water, then stood there and said, "Tomorrow I'll be there at 7:20."

"7:30."

"I'll come early. The box is heavy—it needs to be loaded first." He set the thermos back in its place. "Fold down half the back seat and everything fits."

"Mm."

On the 23rd, at 7:29 a.m., under the plane tree at the Zhongshan Road intersection sat Qinghe's white van, its rear hatch open. Cai Qingru was loading a roll of drawings, three folding stools, and a white plastic crate with "Qinghe" written on the lid in marker, with "Samples" added on a line below. He was at the back, wedging a bundle of measuring tapes along the crate's side.

"Shen, you sit in back." Cai Qingru pushed the drawings further in. "The front seat's too cramped—you'd have to hold this roll in your lap."

She ducked into the back seat, setting her cloth bag on the folded half of the seat. He closed the rear hatch and went around to the passenger side.

The van left the city heading west. The roadside passed rows of sand and gravel yards, loaders dumping earth inside, dust settling on the windows in a film. After a cement archway that looked like a toll gate, the road narrowed with fruit trees on both sides.

"Three sites." Cai Qingru said while driving. "Ditch bed sediment, the farmland alongside the ditch, and the primary school playground. In the plan, the sediment item calls for clearing down to the original soil, with replacement soil trucked in from the town's soil yard—one trip, one ticket, all in Qinghe's file. The farmland item is turning over thirty centimeters, spreading lime, then covering with a layer of clean soil. The playground item is removing fifteen centimeters, replacing with new soil, and laying another layer on top."

"What about the drainage ditch beside the playground?" he asked.

"Included. It's on the plan and marked on the drawing."

"The replanted saplings—the counted numbers are on the form?" she asked.

"They are. Counted at Point No. 4." Cai Qingru glanced at her through the rearview mirror. "For the confirmer column, Auntie Chai pressed her thumbprint, and I wrote her name. I read it aloud to her before she pressed."

"Pressed after the name."

"After."

The van started climbing the ridge, winding through one bend after another. The roll of drawings in the back slid down; she reached out and steadied it, propping it upright in the seat corner. He turned from the passenger seat. "There's a blue sheet in there—a sediment cross-section. Don't fold it."

"It won't fold."

Soil yard, brick kiln, a cleared patch of forest—all passed by the window. Down the ridge was Qingshi Village. At the village entrance, a clothesline was tied to the old locust tree, with two school uniforms hung across it.

At five minutes to ten, the van stopped on the tractor path beside the ditch. Judge Luo's car was already there, pointed outward. The court clerk stood at the ditch's edge holding a hard-case clipboard, her feet on damp soil, having hitched up her pant legs. The two from the provincial capital had just lifted a measuring rod and shovel from their trunk—the man held a roll of tape, the woman tucked a stack of forms under her arm. Song Qiming stood on the other side of the tractor path, collar buttoned to the top, briefcase clamped under his arm. When he saw the van arrive, he nodded once but didn't approach.

Chai Guizhi came from the far end of the ditch in a blue cloth jacket, mud on her trouser hems, a plastic bag in her hand holding several washed radishes.

"Shen." She shifted the radishes behind her. "I figured you'd come, so I pulled some radishes this morning. Take them home at midday."

"Auntie Chai, let's look at the ditch first."

"Look at the ditch first, then."

Judge Luo took up a position at the ditch's edge, voice low. "Three sites today. Look at one, record one. When we're done, sign over by the playground. The third party checks against the plan, says whether there's any discrepancy. Agreed?"

The man with the measuring rod answered, "Agreed."

The ditch came down from the ridge and turned east at the village entrance. The bottom now showed stone; the water was small and clear enough to see a layer of fine sand. The rod man climbed down into the ditch, took a shovelful, squatted to look at the color, then picked up a handful, crumbled it between his fingers, smelled it, and sealed it into a plastic bag. He affixed a label, read the number aloud, and had the recorder copy it down.

"Cleared to the original soil." He stood and probed downward with the rod. "This bottom layer is the original. The replacement soil above is around forty centimeters—the plan calls for no less than thirty."

"Ten over." Judge Luo said.

"Over is good." The rod man grinned. "Two extra trips hauling soil."

"The tickets are here." Cai Qingru pulled a checklist from the drawing roll. "The two extra trips are listed here, signed by Qinghe."

Judge Luo took the list, compared two lines, and handed it to the clerk. The clerk read in a low voice, "Forty-seven soil-hauling trips, two of them supplemental, ticket numbers..." She stopped midway, flipped the paper over to check the back, and continued.

Chai Guizhi squatted at the ditch's edge, dug a bit of earth from the wall, and crumbled it open in her hand.

"This ditch, after a rain back in the day, would have a white layer along the edge." She said. "The mud at the bottom was so sticky it clung to the hoe—you had to wash it off with water. Now you can see stone."

"Where did the gray water come from? Do you remember?" Judge Luo asked.

"Up there." Chai Guizhi tilted her chin toward the ridge, not saying "the plant" or naming anyone. "Doesn't come anymore."

Song Qiming wrote two lines on his clipboard, looked up, and said, "The defendant has no other opinions. What's written in the plan, we've seen today; what's not written, I don't report."

"What about the overflow pipe item?" Judge Luo asked.

"Sealed in May. Already inspected once." Cai Qingru answered. "I went around last month to look. The concrete surface hasn't cracked, no water at the pipe mouth."

"We won't inspect that one again." Judge Luo closed his notebook. "The farmland along the ditch."

Six plots of farmland ran along the ditch, all turned over, the upturned soil lighter than the slope above. Four were empty, two planted—a row of radishes and a row of greens, leaves lying flat against the ground.

"Counting from the top, the second one's mine." Chai Guizhi said.

"Planted this year?" she asked.

"Planted half a row of radishes." Chai Guizhi pointed over. "Had one meal from it already."

The rod man went down into the fields, probing shovelful by shovelful to thirty centimeters, then backfilled the soil and tamped it with his feet. The date the lime was spread and the amount—Cai Qingru flipped it out and read aloud, then passed the paper over. The recorder checked boxes on the form one by one, then held the form up for Judge Luo to see.

Last was the primary school playground.

The school's whitewashed perimeter wall stood bright, the gate open. Half the playground was new soil, compacted, firm underfoot. The concrete ping-pong table by the wall was still there, its surface covered in a thin concrete skim—patching done later. The third party took a reading at each of the playground's four corners and recorded it. Judge Luo walked a circuit, pausing at the foot of the wall where the newly patched drainage channel ran.

"This one's new too." Cai Qingru said.

"Classes still in session over there?" Judge Luo asked.

"Yes. They have classes this morning."

Behind the classroom window, a small face pressed against the glass, nose flattened, eyes following the people on the playground. She recognized Ge Xiaoyu. The child pressed his palm to the glass; the palm showed white.

The replanting site was on the ditch slope. A row of holly shrubs ran along the slope, not tall, leaves dulled by frost. The rod man measured out three sections of twenty meters each with his tape, counted one by one, wrote a line on the form, then looked up and read, "Three sections. Forty-one plants in one, thirty-nine in another, forty-two in the third. Matches the count from November 4th. The whole slope's total matches too."

"One thousand two hundred forty." Cai Qingru said.

"One thousand two hundred forty." he repeated.

Judge Luo turned the supervision form to that page and pointed at the bottom column. "Whose thumbprint is this?"

"Mine." Chai Guizhi wiped her hand on her jacket.

"Who wrote the name?"

"Teacher Cai wrote it. Read it aloud to me after."

"Someone was present when you pressed it."

"Teacher Cai. And two people from the village."

Judge Luo nodded and handed the form back to the clerk. The clerk clamped it under the clipboard; the wind lifted one corner of the paper, and she set a water bottle on it to hold it down.

At noon, the signing took place at the edge of the playground. The clerk spread the acceptance opinion on the ping-pong table, weighing down the four corners. The two third-party people signed first—one wrote his name and dated it; the other added "see attached opinion" alongside.

Cai Qingru signed in the plaintiff's column, set the pen down, and stepped back half a pace. Then her. She wrote her name, added the date, and wrote "Plaintiff's Authorized Agent." When she finished, she slid the pen to him. He signed in his own name's box, added the date, and set the pen back in the center of the table.

Song Qiming came over, reached into his inner pocket but came up empty, picked up the pen from the table, bent down, and signed in the defendant's column—his name small, strokes tight, the date beside it. When he finished, he handed the pen to her without a word.

She took it. The pen was still warm.

Chai Guizhi pressed her thumbprint last. Cai Qingru wrote her name in the village representative's column, read it aloud, and Chai Guizhi pulled a small ink-pad box from her pocket, unscrewed the lid, pressed her right thumb into the ink twice, pressed it to the paper, lifted it to check the print's clarity, then pressed once more for good measure.

The clerk turned the paper over to dry for two minutes before slotting it away.

"Three sites today. The third party reports no discrepancies." Judge Luo tucked his notebook into his briefcase. "I'll take the opinion back to the court—one copy in the file, one for each of you. The 3.12 million item: as of today, it no longer applies."

[Thud. The Qingshi Village matter—acceptance signed. Full entry recorded.]

She set the pen back on the table. Wind crossed the playground wall, lifting a corner of the backing paper on the table; the clerk reached out and held it down. Someone called for a child at the school gate. The classroom door opened and a crowd of small ones poured out, their shoes kicking up a layer of dust.

Ge Xiaoyu didn't follow. He was still behind the window, his hand taken from the glass, then pressed back against it.

At 12:20, Chai Guizhi came around to her side and gave her sleeve a gentle tug.

"Shen, Xiaoyu says he copied the one hundred forty-seven number into his new notebook when the semester started." The old woman's voice was kept lower than usual, yet louder than everyone. "He wrote ninety-six underneath."

"Which page?"

"On the cover of the new notebook, in red pen. Two numbers, one above the other. Didn't leave either out."

"Good that he copied them." She said. "Let him copy. One copy and he'll remember for a year."

"He also asked whether there'll be more tests."

"The doctor said to test on schedule. When the date comes, call me."

"I will." Chai Guizhi agreed, pressing the bag of radishes toward her van. "They're clean—washed them once this morning."

The two from the provincial capital left first, backing their car out of the tractor path, the kicked-up dust dispersing under the trees. Song Qiming was the last to leave. Before going, he slipped his copy of the acceptance opinion into his briefcase, said to Judge Luo, "Let me know when you get back to the court," nodded once at her, got in his car, and drove off.

At 4:30 p.m., the Qinghe van left the village. The white crate sat empty on the folded half of the back seat, the drawing roll leaning against it. The climb up the ridge was slower than the descent; Cai Qingru eased the accelerator on and off along the way.

As the van came down Qingshi Ridge, the ditch was below to the right, following from the village entrance to the sluice at the ditch mouth, then east out of sight. Cai Qingru glanced at the back seat through the rearview mirror.

"This one—Qinghe considers it done."

"It's done." he said.

She turned her face to the window. The ditch retreated piece by piece: first the stretch where the stone gleamed, then the row of darkened saplings on the slope, and last the old locust tree at the village entrance and the two school uniforms on the line, all shrinking into a line before the ridge blocked them out.