Chapter 497: The Pen Cap, Closed

At 8:50 on January 4th, the roll-up shutters along Zhongshan Road lifted one by one. The stove at the Zhengping Noodle House downstairs was already fired up, scallion oil drifting up the stairwell, mixing with the rust smell of the radiator on the second floor.

A new calendar hung on the wall. January's page was thin, corners curling upward. He Xiufen had taped one corner down with a strip of clear tape; the tape's edge still stuck up.

Shen Zhixia arrived early. She cracked the window open a sliver, wiped down all three desks, spread her notebook open, laid her pen across the page.

At nine, the inner office door opened. Lu Jibai came out holding a white porcelain cup, steam rising from the rim. He set the cup on the small desk by the inner office door, then turned around.

"Morning, Lawyer Shen."

"Morning, Lawyer Lu."

"Those three days over New Year's, nobody downstairs was collecting mail for the office." He placed a pickup slip on Li Huilan's desk. "I went and got it yesterday afternoon."

"You didn't take New Year's off?"

"I did. Stayed home reading papers." He nodded once, went back into the inner office, leaving the door not quite closed.

She lowered her head and wrote the date in her notebook: January 4th. Over the three New Year's days at home she had gone through Sun Guilan's things again—copied the receipt from the exercise-book paper, added up the bus fare: six yuan a round trip, nine trips, laid out on the paper as short horizontal marks. The three lines she'd written on December 29th were still on a fresh page, none of them crossed out.

At 9:20, Li Huilan arrived. Scarf wrapped twice around her neck, a bag of steamed buns in her hand, dropped onto the desk: "The fourth."

"The fourth."

"Did the court say when the money would transfer over?"

"They said the account's still processing. Once it clears to the card, that's it."

"My case," Li Huilan unwound her scarf and draped it over the chair back, "the client's a day laborer, the money's wages, same road. The road's slow; the man's waiting." She broke a bun in half and held out one piece. "Cold. Heat it on the stove downstairs and it'll soften up."

At ten, she picked up the outer office phone and dialed the number she'd saved.

"The purchasing point outside the city." She pulled her notebook close, picked up her pen. "Hello, those few men who loaded vegetables for you in the fall—what are their names?"

A woman answered, first asked who she was looking for, then said, "People come and go, I can't remember." She said her surname was Shen, a lawyer, asking about Sun Guilan's vegetable payments for the whole fall, needed to find the men who loaded the trucks.

The woman paused: "Boss Fan already said about this one. Settled."

"The receipt doesn't say settled. It says owed."

"I wouldn't know. For money matters, find Boss Fan." The call ended.

She wrote these words at the bottom of Sun Guilan's page: January 4th, phone call, other side says settled, the receipt doesn't. She still didn't have Boss Fan's number, so she had to leave it blank. When she finished writing, she set her pen down and looked at the page. He Xiufen had said not to go out to the city outskirts alone before New Year's, so she hadn't gone. Everything on this page she'd counted out herself, trip by trip, through that fall.

Li Huilan listened without looking up: "Those people know money. They don't know the men."

"Only the loaders saw who reached out for it."

"Then you need to stand inside the shed." Li Huilan stuffed the last half-bun into her mouth. "After New Year's."

At 10:20, He Xiufen came upstairs to get the empty thermos, stood by the desk and glanced at the page: "Did you find out anything?"

"Couldn't. They say it's settled."

"Settled is settled. Whose pocket the money's in—that's another matter." He Xiufen switched the thermos to her left hand. "Sun Guilan's the type who won't dare keep asking unless you give her a definite answer. When she comes by, tell her straight."

"I know."

"You know. She doesn't." He Xiufen carried the thermos downstairs.

January 9th and 10th, nothing major at the firm. On the 10th at ten, the outer office phone rang. This time a man, unhurried, each word landing on paper: Chengnan District Court, the State Compensation case. First he verified her name, the date she'd filed, then asked the first question—any additional materials to supplement?

"Nothing to supplement," she said. "As written in the application."

"Do you want to come in and discuss it in person?"

"No need. The application states it clearly." She paused. "The line in the judgment is already there. Ask for nothing more in the compensation claim."

The man repeated those two sentences, wrote them down: "Shen Zhi'an's portion—filed together?"

"Filed together. The notice will be mailed to the firm; I'll forward it to him."

"Then it goes together." He verified the address again. "A decision within two months. By February 15th. If you think of anything to add, think it over and then call this number."

"Alright."

After hanging up, she recorded the call in her notebook: January 10th, ten o'clock, Chengnan District Court, hearing on the claim.

"Who was it?" Li Huilan asked.

"The court. The compensation side."

"What did they say?"

"Hearing on it. Two months, they said."

"Two months from the date of acceptance." Li Huilan spun her red pen between her fingers. "Count it."

"I'm counting."

The morning of January 11th dawned sunny, colder than the day before. All morning on the second floor, nobody mentioned the Bar Association. The inner office door stood half-open, the sound of paper turning from inside—a while, then pause, then again.

She pushed forward on her work as usual: added a line to Sun Guilan's page—"To ask the loaders, must stand inside the shed"; filled half a Legal Aid form, the household register copy pressing under the notebook. The desk calendar still sat on the January 10th page. She glanced at it; her hand didn't reach over.

At 10:35, Li Huilan's phone buzzed on her desk. She looked at it, then slid it to the middle of the table: "It's here."

"What's here."

"The day laborer's case. Seven thousand four hundred."

"All of it?"

"All of it. Not a fen short." Li Huilan picked up her phone, turned it face down on the desk, sat up straight. "This one, I'll cross it out in my own notebook myself."

"You've sent it to him?"

"Sent it. He was at work, said, 'It's here, good enough.'" She smiled, very briefly. "That was all he said."

"He's still working at the same place?"

"Still. Work hasn't stopped; the money's just slow." Li Huilan paused. "Last time he asked when the money would come, I said a day earlier or a day later. He said he only remembered signing his name once."

At noon, the three of them went downstairs for noodles. A delivery rider sat at the table by the door, helmet on the stool beside him, noodle bowl pushed inward to make room.

"Director He." Shen Zhixia stood at the stove. "Extra fried egg."

"For who?"

"For you."

He Xiufen's hand paused: "Here, you're treating me to an egg."

"The day laborer's case came through. Treating you to an egg."

He Xiufen didn't ask more. She took an egg from the bowl, cracked it, dropped it into the pot. The oil scattered, the egg floated up in the broth. She carried the bowl with the extra egg to the table by the wall, pulled up a seat herself, stood eating two bites before settling in.

"An egg's an egg," she said.

Li Huilan looked at her: "You can eat his egg like that?"

"When the money's in the person's hands, I can eat it." He Xiufen rested her chopsticks on the bowl's rim. "That day laborer's seven thousand four is wages. Wages—one day earlier or later, the days a person lives aren't the same."

The afternoon on the second floor grew quieter. Sunlight slanted over, falling on the old wooden chair by the window; the cushion was fraying. At three, Li Huilan finished checking a stack of Legal Aid papers, stacked the file jackets in order.

At four, the inner office phone rang. He answered on the second ring.

The room went quiet for half a minute. The door opened; Lu Jibai stood in the doorway, still holding a pen.

"The Bar Association," he said. "Review's done. Tomorrow at ten, they're coming here to deliver the decision. They want the person present."

"Guan Min's exact words?"

"Review's done, tomorrow at ten, delivering to the firm, the person must be present—that one sentence. Anything more, she didn't say."

Li Huilan capped her red pen: "What time?"

"Ten."

He Xiufen stood up from beneath the window, the rag in her hand folded once, folded again: "Tomorrow I'll come upstairs and sit."

"You're upstairs every day," Li Huilan said.

"Tomorrow I'll sit. Tomorrow I'll wear something clean."

"Sitting or not, what does it matter what you wear." Li Huilan said.

Lu Jibai still stood in the doorway. He switched the pen to his left hand: "What's written on the paper, I don't know either."

"You'll know when they read it out tomorrow." He Xiufen draped the rag over the chair back.

"Should we prepare anything?" she asked.

"Prepare one name," Li Huilan said. "They'll bring the proof of service; he signs."

"Nothing to prepare." He Xiufen said. "The Bar Association delivers paper, not guests."

"This matter tomorrow—once it leaves this door, no one talks about it outside." Li Huilan pushed the drawer shut. "If word gets out, others find out before he does."

Lu Jibai nodded once, went back into the inner office.

She wrote a line in the outer office notebook: January 11th, Bar Association review. The space after was blank; she didn't fill it in.

Li Huilan made a mark, put the stack of papers into her drawer, wrapped her scarf twice, called from the stairwell: "Tomorrow I'll come up at nine-thirty."

"Good."

At 5:40, he came out from the inner office, the white porcelain cup empty in his hand. "I'll head down first," he said.

"Mm."

She waited until the footsteps on the stairs reached the bottom, then put away the notebook and file jackets from the outer office desk into the drawer, one by one, and turned off the light last. The inner office was still lit.

She walked over to turn off the light. The door halfway open, her hand stopped on the switch.

A sheet of white paper lay on the desk. A fresh sheet, not a single crease along its edge. Dead center, a pen lay horizontally across it, cap closed, perfectly straight, nib pointing toward the door. Not one character on the paper. The stack of file jackets on the desk corner sat neat; this one sheet lay spread out alone in the middle.

On August 12th last year, his desk had also held a stack of paper—green-grid manuscript paper, the first page topped with the word "Defense," the pen lying across it the same way, nib toward the door. That stack he'd written for fourteen days, sitting in the inner office every day after six, the light on until around ten.

She pressed the switch. The room went dark. The window glass held one patch of streetlight from outside.

Before locking the door, she looked back once at that doorway, as if the bit of white were still glowing.

At the bottom of the stairs, He Xiufen looked up: "Lights off?"

"Off."

"He's eating noodles."

She walked over and sat at the table by the door. The row of windows upstairs were all dark now.

A blank sheet of paper, a pen with its cap closed.

She didn't ask what he would write tomorrow.