Chapter 491: Receipt Acknowledged

December 15, 9:50 a.m. Chengnan District Court, first floor, Litigation Service Center. The ticket machine spat out a slip with a number printed on it. Three people ahead of her.

She stood outside the yellow line in front of the window, holding her ID card and the application form she'd filled out on the 13th. The hall was warmer than the last time she'd come. A woman sat under a heating vent hugging a cardboard box, the corner of a sheet of paper sticking out, a red stamp visible on its edge.

At exactly ten, the number on the screen jumped to hers.

"Picking up a certificate of effectiveness."

She slid the ticket and the application form through the gap beneath the glass. The woman at the window glanced up at her, took the form, tapped a few keys on the keyboard, then flipped through the register beside her hand, pulled a printed sheet from a drawer, the last line blank. She pressed the paper flat on the desk, took the court seal from the stamp box, pressed it down on the blank space at the right end of the last line, lifted it, looked down at the impression, and blew gently on the edge of the paper.

"Verify it. Cause of action, name, effective date."

She looked down. The line for cause of action still bore the same words as the judgment: obstruction of testimony. The name column read: original defendant Shen Qian. The effective date printed: December 11. Below, a few lines of fine print. She read through each line.

"Sign here. Put today's date." The woman pushed a pen through the gap.

She signed, dated December 15.

"Keep the original yourself. Use copies when you submit it anywhere else. There's a machine at the west end of the first floor, fifty cents a page."

"Will other places accept this seal?"

"Court seal. They will."

"How many copies do I need?"

"How many places are you submitting to?"

"Two."

"Then two copies."

She went to the photocopier at the west end. A man in a blue vest laid her page on the glass plate, pressed it down, closed the lid, and copied it page by page, the paper coming out warm. She lined up the two copies with the original and held them to the light by the window. The seal hadn't faded anywhere, wasn't crooked.

At 10:20, she left the court and crossed the street to a small wonton shop, took the table by the window.

When the wontons arrived, she spread the transparent file folder from her bag on the table and took things out one by one. First, the photocopy of the judgment, with a crease along one edge where she'd folded it. Then the page she'd just picked up, the original in the middle, the two copies behind it. Then the household register, blue hardcover, the first page bearing her father's name with a square seal stamped diagonally over it. The photocopy of the death certificate. Finally, the two applications: hers in front, Zhi'an's behind.

The corner of the one behind had curled up. She smoothed it down. Smoothed it twice. It still lifted a little.

Halfway through the wontons, her phone rang. He Xiufen.

"Got it?"

"Got it."

"Where to this afternoon?"

"Chengnan District Court."

The line went quiet for a moment, then the sound of a pot lid knocking against a pot rim. "Going alone?"

"Alone."

"Submit it and get the receipt. Don't come out empty-handed."

"I know."

"Your father's case came out of that building." He Xiufen said. "I'm not going with you this time. You go by yourself."

"Mm."

"Noodles are saved for you. Heat them up if you get back late."

She acknowledged, set the phone face-down on the corner of the table, and skimmed the oil off the soup with her spoon.

At 1:50 p.m., she stood at the gate of Chengnan District Court.

The building was old, north-facing, broad steps, gray walls streaked with water stains, the national emblem on top polished bright. Two e-scooters were parked to the right of the steps, one with a cardboard box strapped to the back seat.

"Bag on the tray." The security officer said.

She put her bag in the plastic bin, took out her phone and set it beside. Walked through the security gate. The person on the other side scanned her ID, handed out a visitor pass, and pointed inside.

The first-floor hall had fewer people than the one in Chengdong. A row of case-filing windows to the left, four people standing at the far-right window. A line of benches against the wall, hardwood seats, iron legs.

She'd sat on those benches once. The winter before last, she'd come here to retrieve her father's files, taken a number, waited on the benches for the files to be pulled. When they came, she went into the reading room and sat through a whole morning. The attachment page wasn't there. Someone had written "missing" in pencil on the file index.

She didn't sit on that bench. She sat at the far east end, the file folder on her knees, one hand pressing on it the whole time.

At 2:20, she stood up and walked to the far-east window. A line of text was taped to the glass: State Compensation.

Inside sat a man in his forties, white shirt, sleeves rolled to the wrist, an enamel mug on the desk with tea leaves steeping.

She knocked on the glass.

He looked up, glanced at the folder in her hand, pointed to the small door beside the window, stood and opened it.

"Got a lot of documents?"

"A lot."

"Sit over here." He led her to the long desk beside the window. A glass pad covered the top, with a few forms tucked beneath it.

He sat, moved the enamel mug to the edge of the desk, and pulled a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, put them on. "What are you here for?"

"State compensation. Submitting an application."

"Everything with you?"

"Everything."

He picked up the top application and turned through it page by page, finger tracing the lines, stopping at the section for requests.

"Shen Zhixia."

"Yes."

"The requester herself?"

"Yes."

"The victim is?"

"My father. Shen Qian."

He flipped the first page back and forth, checked the writing in the upper right corner. "The one reversed on retrial, acquitted."

"Yes."

She answered steadily, but her throat tightened. She slowed her next breath.

"The detention period—what did you base it on?"

"The judgment. It's also on the release certificate."

"Original with you?"

"Yes." She pulled the release certificate and judgment from the folder and laid them on the glass pad.

He compared the two pages, turned each to the last page, his finger resting on the line with the start and end dates, then looked up. "Keep the originals. We'll keep copies."

"All right."

"Any other heirs?"

"My mother passed away early. Just me and my brother."

"Your brother's application?"

She pushed the one underneath forward, the corner still curling up.

He flipped through two pages, looked up. "Why didn't he come in person?"

"He's in school."

"He wrote this himself?"

"At home."

"Proof of inheritance relationship?"

"The household register is in there."

He opened the household register. The blue hardcover fell open to the first page, her father's name beneath a square seal stamped diagonally, the red already dark. His finger paused on the seal for a moment, didn't ask, turned the pages to hers. Under "Relationship to Household Head," the character for "daughter" was printed. He turned to Zhi'an's page.

"This proves it." He closed the register and pushed it back toward her. "The original death certificate?"

She took it out for him again. He looked at the name and date, glanced up at her briefly, very briefly, then lowered his head and matched the original against the copy. Verified, he pushed the original back too.

"Two requests." He read them flatly. "Compensation for infringement of personal liberty. Damages for mental distress."

"Two."

"For the mental distress claim—you wrote your reasons?"

"I wrote them."

He turned to the next page, read for a while, didn't read it aloud. That page was in her own handwriting, three lines, the last line saying her father never lived to see this sheet of paper.

"Written in detail." He said. "If you need to supplement it later, submit any time."

"All right."

"The compensation obligor organ—you wrote this court."

"Yes."

"This case's retrial was tried by Chengdong District Court, but the compensation stays with us, according to law—the court that issued the original effective judgment. Any objection?"

"No."

"You're a lawyer?" He looked at the handwriting on the application.

"Yes. Zhengping Firm."

"Filing it yourself? Not getting another attorney?"

"Filing it myself."

He nodded, opened the computer, wrote a number in the upper right corner of the homepage, and while typing asked for her phone number. She gave it. He verified the digits one by one and read it back.

Then he took a form from the drawer, spread it on the glass pad, and filled it in item by item with a pen: what was received, how many copies, which date. When he finished, he looked up. "Count and check if the list matches."

She counted. Judgment copies in a stack, one copy of the certificate of effectiveness, one copy of the household register, one copy of the death certificate, two applications. She checked them against the list one by one.

"Matches."

He took a small stamp from the stamp box and pressed it onto the lower half of the form. The red impression lifted, the edges still damp, a few lines of small print squeezed together in the center. He tore the form along the perforated line in the middle, filed one copy in the clip below, and pushed the other toward her.

"Keep this one. The receipt date is on it."

She looked down. The date: December 15.

"Within two months, we'll issue a decision." He said. "Before deciding, we'll need to hear your views."

"How will you hear them?"

"By phone, or we'll ask you to come up. Whatever you have to say, say it first; whatever we're required to tell you before a decision, we'll tell you first."

"How will the decision get to me?"

"In writing, delivered to you." He took off his glasses and held them in his hand. "If you disagree, appeal to the compensation committee of the next higher court."

"All right."

"Any supplementary materials, submit them anytime. Bring this receipt with you." He stacked her papers in order, clipped them with a black binder clip, put them in a kraft document folder, wrote a line on the side, and stood it at the corner of the desk.

She stood and gathered her file folder. "This case—when can I come ask about it?"

"Within two months. Asking or not makes no difference. When the time comes, I'll send it to you."

"Materials are complete." He picked up his mug. "You can go."

At 3:10, she walked out the main gate.

The wind on the steps was stronger than inside. She came down step by step, walked to the right side of the courtyard, and stopped.

There was a row of windows on this side, stretching to the east end. The fourth window had a curtain half-drawn, the light inside was on, shadows of shelves crossing one another. That was the archive room. The winter before last, the file she'd waited for had been pulled from that room.

She stood for half a minute. Didn't go in.

The bus stop was across the street, past a strip of greenery. She crossed and stood under the sign. The bus came slowly. She counted two other routes pass while the wind rattled the plastic casing of the sign.

The bus came. She got on, swiped her card, walked to the back and took a seat by the window.

Bag on her knees. She took her notebook out. Tucked in the back pages were folded papers: the case acceptance receipt from November 1, folded twice, one section of the crease rubbed white.

She folded today's single sheet along its center line, twice, tucked it behind the acceptance receipt, pressed it flat with her fingers, pressed again.

The bus passed two stops, the signs along the road sliding past one after another. She closed the notebook.

The police paper and the court paper, together in one place.