Chapter 493: A Sheet of Notebook Paper

A few minutes before ten, an old woman stood outside the noodle shop, looking in but not entering.

He Xiufen was picking vegetables by the stove, not looking up. "What'll you have?"

"I'm not eating." The old woman shifted her cloth bag to the other hand. "Is there a lawyer here?"

"Upstairs." He Xiufen pointed with her chin toward the stairs. "She's in. Go on up. Take it slow—that railing wobbles."

The old woman walked to the foot of the stairs, gripped the iron railing with both hands, and climbed one step at a time. A patch of paint had chipped off the railing, exposing rust. She wore black cloth shoes with dried mud on the uppers, her pant legs pinned with safety pins, the pins sticking outward. Halfway up, she switched the cloth bag back to her right hand, wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, and kept going.

The outer door on the second floor was open. Li Huilan glanced up at her from the table beneath the window, then lowered her head again. The inner door was shut, a strip of light leaking from under it.

Shen Zhixia stood and pulled the stool out from beside the desk.

"Sit."

The old woman didn't sit right away. She nudged the stool half an inch closer to the desk, then sat down, the cloth bag resting on her knees, both hands pressing the opening. The skin on the backs of her hands was loose, her knuckles swollen, black dirt packed under her nails.

"My surname's Sun," she said. "Sun Guilan."

"Shen Zhixia." She pushed the pen holder toward the corner of the desk. "How did you find this place?"

"The lady downstairs said there's a lawyer here who gets people's money back for free." Sun Guilan glanced at her. "I stood at the door for a long time, didn't dare come in."

"Tell me what happened first."

Sun Guilan untied the mouth of the cloth bag and pulled out a plastic bag folded several times over, the opening wound with thread. She unwound the thread and drew out a sheet of paper, pressing it flat against the desk with both palms.

The paper had been torn from a school exercise book—horizontal lines, one edge still ragged with a loose fiber. The front was filled with writing: large characters in ballpoint pen, squeezed down the lines. The back had vertical pencil calculations, stopped halfway, the horizontal line drawn crooked.

"You can read," Sun Guilan said. "Read it to me. I know a few characters, not all of them. When he read it in front of me, I couldn't keep up."

"Listen." She held the paper by both ends, tilting it toward the window.

"October 8th, Chinese cabbage, 360 jin, 1.20."

"Right. First load."

"October 14th, radish, 420 jin, 0.80."

"It drizzled that day. The road was slippery."

"October 20th, Chinese cabbage, 500 jin, 1.10."

"That load, my nephew and I lifted it up together."

"There are five more lines below, different weights." She shifted the paper toward the window, letting the light fall on it. "The last line is totaled up: 3,212 yuan. Below it is one surname signed—Fan—with a circle drawn after it."

"That's him," Sun Guilan said. "The vegetable buyer's surname is Fan. The first day I delivered, he said he'd settle at the end of the month. I said I can't read—write me a note, write it clear. He tore a page out of a notebook and wrote it out line by line for me."

"Then what."

"After that, every time I delivered, he added a line, gave the paper back to me. I kept it on me." She squeezed the mouth of the cloth bag. "After my last load in October, I stopped delivering. Everything worth picking in the field, I hauled to him."

"The money?"

"Never paid." Sun Guilan said. "I went last week to ask. I said, Boss Fan, a whole autumn's money. He said it was settled."

"Settled."

"He said, last time he counted it out for me, right in front of me." She pressed both hands against her knees. "He never even took the money out. That time I was standing under his awning, he waved his hand and said, come back next time."

"How much did he say he gave you."

"He didn't give a number," she said. "I said 3,200, and he said, I've looked at your paper, my figures are clearer than yours."

Shen Zhixia set the paper down, pressing a finger on the "total" line.

"There's no 'paid' written here, no thumbprint, no seal," she said. "Just one surname at the bottom."

"Does that count for anything?"

"It counts for half." She said. "This paper can prove how many jin you delivered, at what price, and what it's worth. If he refuses to admit it, this half won't reach far enough. If he admits it but only says you don't have a receipt, this half is all you need."

Sun Guilan thought for a while, nodded, then shook her head. "He admits it. He just says he paid."

"If he says he paid, make him show proof. Paying money is something you can see and touch: he adds a line to the note, you press a thumbprint, there's a transfer, or someone's there at the time." She paused. "He can't produce any of that."

"Then what if he won't admit the paper's mine?"

"Never mind whether he admits it." She pushed the paper back. "Remember these two things: keep this paper safe, don't show it to him. If he asks for the note to compare, tell him you can't find it."

"He asked for it last time." Sun Guilan said. "He reached out to take it. I held it to my chest and wouldn't give it."

"Holding onto it was right." She tapped the paper. "There are two loads not written on here. He's keeping track of those himself."

"How do you know."

"He said 'put it on my books.'" She looked up. "He keeps the record himself, which means there's a ledger on his end."

"There is. One book, on the table in his shed." Sun Guilan said. "I've seen him flipping through it."

"Has anyone else seen you making these trips?"

"There's a loader, at the other end of the shed every day. He's seen me plenty of times." She paused. "Don't know if he'd talk. He's hired, not a relative."

Shen Zhixia pulled her notebook over and flipped to a new page. At the top she wrote it the way her father did: December 17th, 10 a.m.

The pen tip hung over the blank space. Condensation on the window ran down in a streak and stopped midway. Downstairs, someone knocked something against the stove, the sound rising through the floorboards.

In the past, at this step, things would surface on the desk: one item per line, laying out what she needed to go find out, and she'd copy it into her notebook and run it down, come back and check it off. Today nothing appeared on the desk. She held the pen and waited; the tip bled a small dot into the paper.

She wrote the line down:

The things that were taken—money, those trips, an autumn.

When she finished, she looked up. "Let's count the trips. If you can't remember the dates, think of what else happened that day."

"Can't remember exactly. Ten-odd trips." Sun Guilan said.

"Think one by one."

"First trip was three or four days after the last delivery. I went to ask. He said the money hadn't come in yet."

"Second trip, it rained. I stood under the awning half an hour, shoes soaked through. He came out and said, a couple more days."

"Third trip he wasn't there. Just the loader. He said the boss went into the city."

"Fourth trip was a waste. The purchasing point was locked. I waited at the gate over an hour, till noon."

"Fifth trip I'd gone into the city for medicine, stopped by on the way. He said, why are you in such a hurry."

"Sixth trip..." She stopped, her eyes drifting toward the window. "That day there was someone else sitting in his shed. He poured me a glass of water and said the money was on its way."

"Seventh trip I brought him two packs of cigarettes."

"Eighth trip he told me, don't keep coming around, people are starting to talk."

"Ninth trip, last week. He said it was settled."

Shen Zhixia wrote nine lines. After the ninth she left a blank space and drew a short dash.

"How much was the bus fare."

"Three yuan each way, six round trip."

"Did you keep the tickets?"

Sun Guilan looked at her for a moment. "Who keeps those?"

"From now on, keep them."

"From now on..." The old woman swallowed the rest.

She didn't push it. She read the nine lines back to her. At the fifth line, the old woman said, "That day I wore the padded shoes." At the eighth, she said, "He was grinning that day."

Footsteps on the stairs. He Xiufen came up, rag still in hand, one apron string loose.

"I came to check on things." She walked to the desk, spotted the paper, picked it up, and held it to the window to read. When she finished, she turned it over to the back, then back again.

"Same as Wang Changshun's." He Xiufen said. "Notebook paper, line by line." She put the paper back on the desk and pressed the rag into the corner of the desk. "I handled that one. He carried that paper for three years, went to ask trip after trip. Twenty-seven trips."

"Three years." Sun Guilan repeated.

"He'd heard the same thing back then—that it was settled, and the other party even produced a piece of paper." He Xiufen said. "These things move slowly. But slow has an end."

Sun Guilan turned her head. "Lawyer Shen, this thing... how much will it cost?"

"We'll talk about money later." She pushed the notebook a little toward the old woman and pointed at the nine lines. "First, write down the trips you made—already written down. I'll read them again. If anything's missing, think it over when you're home, remember it, and tell me next time."

"I can't read."

"Then remember something about each one." She said. "Which trip, what you wore, who was there, what he said. You can't read, but things remember you."

She stood, carried the receipt to the photocopier beside the metal cabinet, lifted the lid, set the paper straight, and pressed the button. The machine made a sound and a page came out, still faintly warm, the corners slightly curled. She pressed the copy under the corner of the desk, picked up the original, folded it back along the old creases, tucked it into the plastic bag, wound the thread around twice, and handed it over.

Sun Guilan took the bag, pressed it with both hands, and suddenly asked: "Those two loads that aren't written down—can we get those back?"

"Can't say yet." She said. "How much we can get depends on that ledger and how much the loader's willing to talk. Sort out what we have first, then worry about what we don't."

"I've lost the land. Nothing left to deliver." The old woman said. "This paper's all I've got."

He Xiufen stood by the window, rag draped over her hand, and said nothing except: "Go downstairs and have a bowl of noodles before you go."

"I'm not eating."

"On the house."

"On the house I still won't eat." Sun Guilan hung the cloth bag over her wrist. "I don't owe anyone."

He Xiufen smiled, didn't insist, turned, and went down first, her footsteps thumping down the iron stairs one at a time. Shen Zhixia walked the old woman to the top of the stairs. The old woman gripped the railing and descended one step at a time, turning back halfway down.

"Lawyer Shen, then I'll go home and think."

"Think."

"If I think of more, I'll come back."

"Come."

The railing rattled a few times, the sound sinking downward, stopping at the bottom. In the noodle shop below, someone shouted "two bowls, thin noodles." He Xiufen answered. The door curtain rustled, wind sweeping up.

She went back to the desk and sat down. Three things lay spread before her: the case jacket Li Huilan had pushed over, the photocopy pressed under the corner of the metal cabinet, and her own notebook.

She flipped the notebook back to that page.

At the top: the date and the hour. Below, the line beginning "The things that were taken," then the items arranged one per line: money, those trips, an autumn.

She'd copied lists like this many times over the years. When she copied them, she never asked why they began that way, never asked why they only listed what had been taken and never wrote what should be done about it. Line by line she copied, and then she went and ran them down.

Today's page she'd begun herself, arranged herself. It was shorter than before, and cruder—the money was written on the paper, the trips still in the old woman's head, an entire autumn reduced to a single sentence.

She tucked the photocopy further under the case jacket and closed the notebook. She fiddled with the pen cap, then clicked it on.

She didn't cross anything out.