Chapter 495: The One Crossed Out

Two bundles of dried noodles wrapped in paper, tied twice with red string, lay across He Xiufen's lap. The bus pulled out of the station at 6:50. A white film of fog had formed on the windows. He Xiufen freed one hand and wiped a palm-sized patch clear with her sleeve, then pressed her eyes to the glass.

Heading west out of the city, the streetlights blinked out one by one behind them. The sky was still gray. The sun rose from beyond the slope—a pale white disk, no warmth in it. The corn had long been harvested, stubble standing row after row in the frost. In some fields, a few bundles of sorghum stalks were piled, frozen stiff. The bus crossed a stretch of repaved road, and the sound beneath the wheels changed.

"Today's the winter solstice." He Xiufen pulled her head back. "Daylight's just this short stretch. After today, the days grow a thread longer."

She pressed down on the bundle in her lap. Two things inside: a hard-shell folder holding two photocopies of a judgment; and a hardcover notebook wrapped in an old cloth.

"Brought the notebook too," He Xiufen said.

"Brought it."

"Did he ask you about the notebook last time?"

"No. Last time he only told his own side—those three pages." She kept her eyes on the frost-covered fields outside the window.

He Xiufen shifted the noodles on her lap. "What if he asks today?"

"We tell him the truth."

—

They reached the town at 9:20. A three-wheeled cart idled at the market entrance, its bed lined with an old padded mat, corners curled up. The driver, a man in his forties, heard they were heading to Baixi Village and waved them aboard, then pointed at the two bundles of noodles. "Tuck those in, don't let them snap from the bouncing." The mountain road climbed in uneven stretches. Wind poured in at their collars, the cold rising up through the iron floor of the cart. Sitting for a while numbed their legs. A few persimmon trees grew along the slope, leaves all fallen, a few deep-red persimmons still hanging at the top, nobody picking them.

They reached the village entrance at 9:50. The shop's door curtain had been swapped for a padded one; the wind lifted it, let it fall, lifted it, let it fall. The shopkeeper sat inside on a low stool, an enamel basin spread across his knees, shelling peanuts. He looked up and gave them a nod.

"You're up."

"We're up," she said. "The third household—he's home, right."

"He is." The shopkeeper cracked a peanut open. "Haven't seen him come down the hill these past few days. Sweeps the yard in the mornings. Slow about it."

They didn't stop, just kept walking up. The old locust tree had shed every leaf; a plastic bag was caught in its branches, twitching. A thin film of ice covered the two concrete steps. He Xiufen went down first, then turned back and offered a hand. She helped her down.

They rounded the village committee's two-story building. Along this back row of houses, the sun hadn't yet climbed over the rooftop, and the shadow under the eaves pressed down on the doorways.

The third household.

The courtyard gate stood half open, the door resting against the wall. A pair of cloth shoes sat on a stone stool, soles up, dried mud caked across them, the edges curling. Firewood was stacked in the yard. Two scallions by the wall had leaves frozen purple but still stood. There was smoke in the kitchen lean-to.

She stopped below the steps and called out, "Sir."

A stool leg scraped across the concrete inside. He came out, a padded jacket draped over his shoulders, not worn, one hand braced against the doorframe.

"Lawyer Shen."

"Sir." He Xiufen held out the noodles. "Brought two more bundles."

"I said last time, don't bring any."

"You said it. I brought them."

He took them, went inside to set them down, came back out and pulled on the jacket, buttoning only the bottom two buttons. He was thinner than he'd been at court in October—the skin over his cheekbones stretched tight. He coughed twice, then raised a hand and waved it once.

"Come inside," he said. "It's cold out."

—

Ten o'clock, inside. The table in the middle of the room had been wiped clean. The enamel mug at the corner had been replaced with a lidded one. He moved a dustpan from the table onto a stool, so she could set her bag down.

She took out the hard-shell folder, pulled out the photocopies, spread them flat on the table, then turned them around so the header line faced him.

"On the phone last time, I read it aloud to you. Today I brought the paper."

He felt around on the windowsill, produced a tin box, opened it, took out his reading glasses, wiped the lenses with the inner hem of his shirt, put them on. Both hands on the edge of the table, he leaned toward the paper. He Xiufen moved the small stool by the door closer and sat down.

She read slowly: "Chengdong District People's Court of Jiangzhou City... In the matter of the original defendant Shen Qian, obstruction of testimony..."

When she reached the defender's line, she paused briefly, then read it anyway: "Defense counsel, He Xiufen."

"Why read that part," He Xiufen said.

He didn't look up. "You read it right."

She continued. At the operative part, she first drew a breath:

"The original judgment is revoked. The original defendant Shen Qian is acquitted."

The room went quiet. The kettle in the kitchen lean-to started to hiss. He Xiufen got up, lifted the kettle off the heat, came back, sat down again.

"Read it again," he said.

She read it again, one character at a time. When she reached "acquitted," she kept her voice low. He sat motionless; on his lenses were two patches of white from the window.

After a long moment, he slid his glasses down his nose and looked at her over the rims.

"So that's it."

"The operative part is just those two lines. Below it, there's the court panel's findings."

"Read."

She went on. When she reached the passage on the original judgment's unclear facts and insufficient evidence, she read more smoothly than before. At the final line—"amended by law accordingly"—she pushed the paper toward him.

He reached out a hand, one index finger searching the paper. "Where's your father's name written."

"Here." She pointed.

He leaned closer, pushed his glasses up, looked, then set his finger on that name, tracing from the first stroke of the surname through to the final stroke of the last character. The back of his hand was red from the cold; his fingertips were cracked and chapped. His hand withdrew and wiped against his knee.

"And the man who switched the water."

"Separate case. He's inside now."

"And the two who carried the buckets that night."

"That case has a deadline. By law, it's still running."

He nodded once and asked nothing more. She pulled the paper back, folded it neatly.

He took off his glasses, laid them beside the paper, both hands spread flat on his knees. Then he suddenly spoke:

"Your father's notebook. Is it still around."

Her hand stopped in midair.

"It is." She pulled the cloth bundle over, undid one corner, took out the hardcover notebook, and set it in the middle of the table. The hard edges of the cover were worn white. She opened it, flipped to a chart in the middle, and pushed the notebook toward him.

It was a Baixi Village visit form—name after name, each followed by sample receipt numbers copied from the first batch through the third. The handwriting was dense, strokes trimmed to their barest, so at a glance only the outlines were legible.

One line had its name crossed out with a single stroke. It had been drawn hard—the pen tip pressed a groove into the paper, the impression visible from the back, half the original characters now unrecognizable. Beside it, a small line of writing.

He stared at that line for a long time. The only sound in the room came from the water vapor in the kitchen.

"The one your father crossed out in that notebook. That was me, wasn't it."

"It was you."

"Was the line drawn hard."

"Very hard. It showed through to the back."

He took off his glasses and gripped them in his hand, the temple digging into his palm.

"That was him putting strength into it for me."

"Read that small line beside it," he said.

She lowered her head. She'd copied that line once; she could recite it from memory. She read it straight off the paper: "'He didn't dare say it.'"

He dropped his chin to his chest and coughed twice. After the coughing, he raised a hand and waved, telling her not to fuss.

"He was right," he said. "That year, my son had been in the factory three months. He came twice. I barely answered him both times."

"Volume Eight, the page dated March twenty-second—the last line says the same thing," she said. "No name written."

"He didn't write one." He raised his hand and tapped the air above the notebook without touching it. "He knew I didn't dare speak, so he crossed the name out. If anyone saw my name written on that paper, I couldn't have kept this courtyard."

She closed the notebook and wrapped it again in the cloth.

"Put it away," he said. "Paper left in my house—people come in here. You take it with you."

"I'll take it." She tucked the cloth corner in and slid it back into her bag. "Not many people have seen this notebook."

"Seen it today?"

"Seen it today."

He tugged at his jacket collar, glanced toward the door, then turned back.

"This paper," he said, lifting his chin toward the photocopy. "Could you leave me one sheet."

"Of course. I brought two." She pulled the other from the folder and handed it over with both hands.

He took it, folded it in half, then in half again, slipped it into the pocket of his inner shirt, and pressed it once from outside. Then he pulled it back out, unfolded it and looked again, before folding it back.

—

Eleven o'clock. He Xiufen boiled a kettle of water in the kitchen lean-to, poured three bowls, and carried them to the table. His bowl had an old chip in the rim. The three of them sat drinking water. He didn't bring up the notebook again. He said the snow hadn't come down yet this year; the ground was frozen solid, and the wheat could hold through it. He Xiufen asked whether he coughed at night. He said he coughed for a stretch, then it stopped by dawn. He Xiufen offered to get him medicine from town. He refused—"hot water gets me through."

"My son comes back tonight." He set the bowl down. "I'll show him this paper."

"Do that," she said. "He can read."

"A few characters." He thought for a moment. "If he asks me what the paper means—"

"Read it to him. If there's any part you can't read correctly, have him call me." She pointed to the operative lines on the paper.

He fished an old cellphone from his pocket, flipped it open, looked at the screen, and snapped it shut again. "I'm not much good with this thing. When he gets back, I'll have him dial."

—

At 11:30, they got up to leave. He saw them to the gate and stood by the stone stool, one hand on the doorframe. They'd walked a few steps when he bent down, picked up the cloth shoes from the stool, and set them just inside the threshold, heels facing outward, neatly aligned.

The fourth household's gate was open. An old woman came out carrying an aluminum basin, walked to the wall, and slowly poured the water over the two scallions. She looked up and saw them, resting the basin against her hip.

"The scallions are still alive," she said. "When he came back, I told him—these two, I kept them for you."

"You kept them," He Xiufen said. "And you water them every day."

"In winter they don't need much, just a little wet." The old woman wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "The morning he came back, I thought it was a scrap collector. Then I heard him coughing in the yard and knew it was him. The moment the door opened, the first thing I said was—I kept your scallions watered alive."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything." The old woman smiled faintly. "He just looked at them and said 'thank you.'"

They asked about his son. The old woman said he left for work at seven every morning and came back around dark, cooked his own meals, the rice from a sack hauled up last time. She said the old man had half a sentence more to say these past few months than before—answered whoever asked—but the cough still hadn't cleared.

She glanced toward the back gate of the village committee again. Same iron gate as before; the lock shackle was a mass of rust, impossible to tell what year it had been hung. The boards nailed over the small upper window were still there, nails rusted, one plank edge split and stuffed with dust.

That night nine years ago, the car had stopped just outside this gate. Which year the boards had been nailed up, and by whom—no one had ever put that on paper. The wind curled around from behind the building and rattled the boards once.

"Let's go," He Xiufen said.

—

At the village entrance, someone was shopping inside the padded door curtain. They didn't go in, just stood by the road and waited. The three-wheeler arrived at the village entrance at four, same old padded mat in the bed. They got to town at 4:20; the market had broken up, vegetable leaves and water left on the ground. He Xiufen bought flatbread by the station—two this time, one wrapped in paper and pressed into her hands.

—

The last bus pulled in at 4:30. Not many aboard—an old couple up front, a woman holding a child in the middle; the child slept in her arms, head tilted. He Xiufen chose a row near the back. She sat by the window, He Xiufen by the aisle.

The bus left town heading east, slowly climbing. The sun had dropped behind the mountain; a layer of gray-white remained over the slope, and the red persimmons on the trees were no longer visible. He Xiufen moved the cloth bundle from her lap to the floor, said, "This ride's killing my back," leaned back, and closed her eyes.

The bus began descending. A long slope, many bends. The driver braked in stretches and let off in stretches. Through one curve, the headlights swept across the rock wall, flashed white, then shrank back.

On the stretch down Qingshi Ridge, He Xiufen's head bobbed, then finally settled against her shoulder. She didn't move. She pulled the bag closer against her knees and looked out the window. Below the ridge, the city lights weren't all on yet—patches and stretches of them, the distant ones turning gray. The person on her shoulder breathed evenly; the cloth bag's strap slipped halfway down her leg. Night was falling early.