Chapter 498: Decision of No Disciplinary Action

He Xiufen came upstairs at a quarter to nine. She had changed into a dark gray sweater, the top button done up to her collar, her hair smoothed back. She wiped down the old wooden chair under the window—front and back—pressed down the curling cushion, sat, and placed both hands on her knees, holding nothing.

Shen Zhixia wiped the three desks down to the third one.

"You wipe them every day," He Xiufen said.

"Today they get a proper cleaning."

"Whether the desks are clean has nothing to do with what's written on the page." He Xiufen thought for a moment, then added, "Go on, wipe."

She laid her notebook open on the desk in front of her and turned to a fresh page. At the top she wrote the date: January 12. After the date there should have been a time. Her pen stopped there, half a character gone wrong, and she crossed it out, set the pen down. That blank space would fill itself in.

At nine-thirty, Li Huilan came up. Without unwinding her scarf, she pulled open a drawer and took out a pen, uncapped it and checked the refill, snapped it shut, and laid it crosswise on the edge of her desk. She poured a cup of hot water and set it on the half-section of desk by the inner office door.

"You can reach it."

"Mm," came the reply from inside.

Li Huilan unwound her scarf and draped it over the chair back, lowering her voice: "What we discussed yesterday—beyond this door, same as before."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know you didn't." Li Huilan nudged the file jacket on her desk inward an inch. "I'm talking about today."

At five to ten, that cup of water was pushed inward an inch. He Xiufen didn't move in her chair. The inner office door stood half open; inside there was the sound of paper, flipping for a while, pausing for a while, the pauses longer than the flipping. The three desks in the outer office gleamed today. The pothos on the windowsill had fresh water. No one mentioned why.

At exactly ten, footsteps came up the stairs—two people, one behind the other.

Guan Min walked in front, dark navy coat, a document envelope tucked under her arm, no scarf. Behind her came the clerk, young, who had already flipped his notebook to a blank page, pen in hand.

"Lawyer Lu," Guan Min said.

Lu Jibai came out of the inner office, pulling the door shut behind him, and stood behind the half-section of desk by the door.

"Jiangzhou Municipal Bar Association, 'Decision of No Disciplinary Action.'" Guan Min unwound the string on the envelope and drew out the paper—a single sheet—and placed it in front of him, nudging it an inch his way. "Respondent: Lu Jibai. I'll read the key points. Listen."

"I'll stand and listen."

"Sitting or standing, either is fine." Guan Min picked up the paper and read, not fast, pausing between sentences.

"The respondent, in July 2027, truthfully reported to the judicial authorities facts known to him prior to his practice that might involve obstruction of justice. Lawyers bear a duty of confidentiality regarding client matters learned in the course of practice and information clients do not wish disclosed. Any person who knows the circumstances of a case has a duty to testify. Truthfully reporting the above facts to the judicial authorities constitutes performance of the duty to testify, not a breach of the duty of confidentiality."

She turned the page. The paper made a small sound in her hand.

"The materials submitted by the respondent in applying for practice were complete: assessment opinions, internship records, practice application—none missing. The existing evidence cannot prove that he concealed information or made false statements. In that case, in that year, no one questioned him, he did not testify, and he signed no interview record."

He Xiufen glanced up under the window, then back down. Li Huilan's hand rested on her notebook, fingers pressing the edge of the paper. He turned the cup half a circle, the base scraping out a very soft sound.

"Therefore, the Disciplinary Committee does not recommend that the judicial administrative organ review and revoke the decision granting him permission to practice."

Guan Min set the paper down and raised her eyes.

"The alleged violation is not established, and the decision is: no disciplinary action. Two reasons, one paragraph each, all in this document. Clear?"

"Clear."

"If you object to the decision, you may apply for review according to regulations. That sentence is also on the page."

"I don't," he said.

The room went quiet for a moment. The clerk's pen moved across the page, went for a stretch, stopped.

"There are two more things not on the decision. I'll say them together." Guan Min closed the envelope. "The complainant withdrew the complaint on November 12. Withdrawal does not automatically terminate the process; the committee still completed its review. Second: we don't recommend it. The decision has been copied to the Municipal Justice Bureau. They issued your practice certificate."

"When does the copied one arrive?" Li Huilan asked.

"Registered mail, within the next couple of days."

"The firm keeps a duplicate."

"Keep it." Guan Min said. "Per regulations, you store your own copy. This one goes to him. Don't pass it around like a flyer."

"Pass what around." He Xiufen spoke from under the window. "Complaint filed in August, and only today do we see a single sheet of paper."

"Complaint filed August 2, questioning on September 14, October waiting for the judgment, November the complainant withdrew, December re-verification." Guan Min counted off the dates one by one for her, then said, "Slow—it was slow because each step took its own time."

"Slow paper is steady paper," He Xiufen said.

Guan Min looked at her but didn't answer that.

"Proof of service." The clerk drew a form from behind his notebook, pressed it down beside the decision, and pointed at the signature box.

Li Huilan pushed her pen forward an inch.

"I'll use my own." Lu Jibai took his pen from the inner pocket of his jacket, uncapped it, fitted the cap onto the back end, and leaned down to sign, stroke by stroke. The characters were thin, the horizontal strokes level, the final stroke pulling back. On the line beneath the signature he wrote: January 12. When he finished, he slipped the pen back into his pocket and smoothed down the corner of paper sticking up from the pocket.

The clerk took the proof of service back, glanced at the date, and tucked it into his notebook.

"Have some water," He Xiufen said from under the window.

Guan Min looked at the cup on the desk, picked it up and took a sip, then set it back down with a small knock. "One more matter downstairs." She buttoned her coat.

"You've come a long way," He Xiufen said.

"A twenty-minute trip." Guan Min reached the door and turned back to Lu Jibai. "Lawyer Lu, this matter ends here. Going forward, you practice as usual. The firm no longer needs to report this item to the Bar Association."

"Thank you," he said.

Shen Zhixia walked her to the stairwell. Guan Min went down two steps, then stopped.

"Lawyer Shen, this one was thicker than yours. I reviewed it too."

"I remember," she said. "Yours, you reviewed for three days."

"This one was more than three days." Guan Min continued down, and at the turn of the landing added, "Your father's case—I can't review that one. Everything I can review is on this sheet of paper."

She stood at the top of the stairs, watching that figure go down half a flight, and didn't follow.

Back in the outer office, He Xiufen was still under the window; her chair hadn't moved.

"Held on to it," He Xiufen said.

"Held on to it," Li Huilan capped the red pen and opened her ledger to write a line. "January 12, decision. Noted in the firm records."

Shen Zhixia sat back at her desk, picked up her pen, and filled in the time that had been left blank at the top of the page: 10:00. Below it she added a line: No disciplinary action; no recommendation to revoke; copied to Justice Bureau. Having written, she looked at the page. There was nothing else to add.

Lu Jibai didn't return to the inner office. He picked up the decision and read it from the first line, slower than Guan Min had read it, and when he reached the end he turned the paper over to look at the back. The back was blank. He set the paper down on the desk, corners squared.

"The paper is white," He Xiufen said.

"Both sides," he said.

"Then put it away." He Xiufen shifted the cushion forward. "With this kind of thing, the cleaner the paper, the better. That stack from last year had so much written on it, and not a single useful sentence."

Li Huilan added from beside her: "What's written on this one is the truth."

At noon, the pot downstairs was already boiling. He Xiufen went down first, turned the flame up, and lined four bowls up on the cutting board.

"Noodles as usual," she called up toward the staircase.

The four came down. At the long table against the wall, Li Huilan moved the vinegar cruet and chili jar inward. He Xiufen dropped the noodles, scooped them out, scattered scallions, and carried them over one by one, the last bowl for herself. She ate two bites standing by the stove before sitting down properly.

"Not ordering out today?" Li Huilan asked.

"I'm cooking," He Xiufen said. "You all eat. No talking."

But halfway through the meal, He Xiufen spoke first: "Huilan, did that day laborer ever call?"

"He did." Li Huilan picked up a chopstickful of noodles. "He asked me whether this money was something you asked for on his behalf, or something you got back."

"What did you tell him?"

"I said we got it back." Li Huilan swallowed her noodles. "He said, 'Then I'll remember that.'"

He Xiufen made a sound of acknowledgment and lowered her head to eat. The water in the pot was still hissing. Two customers came in at the table by the door, and she draped her dish towel over her shoulder and got up to ask what they'd have.

Lu Jibai ate slower than usual. She ate slowly too. The two of them sat across the corner of a table from each other, the chili jar between them, neither passing anything the other's way.

The afternoon upstairs went on as usual. She filled out legal aid forms through the third one, pulled out household register photocopies and checked them twice. After finishing that form, she flipped the notebook back to Sun Guilan's page and saw the line she'd written last time: "Ask the loading man. Have to stand inside the shed." She looked at it for a moment and flipped back. No action before the New Year; after the New Year, they'd see.

He Xiufen sorted a stack of old file jackets under the window. The binding threads were loose, and she dug out a spool from the drawer and rethreaded them one by one, tying knots on the back, trimming the thread ends to an even inch.

"How many years old is this stack?" Li Huilan asked.

"Older than my years in court," He Xiufen said. "Thread breaks, you rethread. As long as the paper doesn't split, the work goes on."

At seventeen-forty, the inner office door opened. Lu Jibai came out carrying his overcoat and walked to the half-section of desk by the door. The decision lay exactly where it had been. He draped the coat over his forearm, picked up the paper, folded it once, then again, pressed the crease with two fingers, opened the inner pocket of his jacket, and slipped it in.

That pocket held three other papers, she knew. The court appearance notice from last October, folded the same way, to the same size; the victim notification from the car case in November, photocopied once, the original folded in with the rest; and that one-page reply the procuratorate had mailed, which he'd put away in front of the two partners, saying only "I'll keep it." Now there was one more: today's document.

He pressed the pocket flat, took his coat back into the inner office, hung it over the back of his chair, and sat down again. The inner office door stood half open; the sound of pen on paper started up.

Downstairs someone called, "One bowl of noodles, no scallions." He Xiufen answered from under the window: "Coming down." The thread in her hands hadn't been finished.

She closed her notebook and pressed the pages flat one by one. Downstairs the stove sat on low flame, the broth still stirring in the pot.