Chapter 503: Can't Approve It

February 7, 8:50 in the morning. Only two people sat in the noodle shop.

He Xiufen brought over a bowl of noodles and set it down, the bottom of the bowl thumping lightly against the table.

"I told you not to go on the very first morning."

"Earlier in, earlier out."

"Their desks won't even be wiped down yet, and you'll already be there." She draped the rag over her shoulder. "Miss one thing, and you'll have to come back to add it. Go on the first day, and even the follow-up has to wait until the second."

"Everything checked off the list is packed."

"The list is dead."

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Li Huilan came down carrying a kraft paper document envelope, the string wound twice around the flap.

"I ordered everything according to the list." She set the envelope on the corner of the table. "Application on top, four copies of the articles of association held with a clip; the sponsor and proposed responsible person pages after the articles; venue-use certificate and capital verification at the bottom. Don't let them have to rifle through it themselves."

"Got it."

"The name field."

"Still the same."

Li Huilan pulled the string tight, wound it, fastened it, and pushed the envelope toward her.

At 9:25, the Municipal Justice Bureau service hall. The ticket machine stood just inside the door on the left, numbers jumping on the screen. A woman behind Window No. 1 was stacking a pile of blank forms onto the counter, squaring them up and patting them twice.

At 9:30, her number came up.

The contents of the envelope came out one by one onto the counter. The woman clerk moved a pen down the checklist.

"Application. Four copies of the articles." She took off the clip, flipped through two pages. "Four sponsors, and the responsible person is you?"

"That's me."

"Venue-use certificate." She pulled it out and looked it over. "Signed by the landlord."

"Signed."

"Capital verification certificate. The money's in the account?"

"It is."

"Name: Jiangzhou Shen Qian Public Interest Legal Service Center." The clerk read it aloud once, set the paper back onto the stack. "We don't review the name here. We only check whether the business scope is these four items. Whether the name gets approved or not is the Civil Affairs Bureau's end of it."

"I know."

"First day back at work, and I've already got two files backed up." She tapped at the keyboard, pulled a receipt slip from a drawer, filled in the date, signed with a surname, and tore off the bottom copy. "Materials are complete. I'll call this number when it comes out."

She recited her phone number. The clerk repeated it and wrote it down.

"If something's missing and I need it added, I'll call. No call means it's moving forward." She squared the stack against the counter corner. "When the seal goes on, there'll be a written document. You come pick it up."

The receipt slip was folded in half and slipped into the back of a register.

Outside the hall, sunlight lay on the steps. Lu Jibai followed her out, waiting until they'd descended two steps to say: "She didn't ask about that name."

"She doesn't review it."

February 9, 3:00 in the afternoon. A man in a dark work uniform came up to the second floor, a large envelope tucked under his arm.

"Shen Zhixia?" He held out the envelope, then pulled out a form. "Sign here, and put the date."

The envelope was printed with the court's name, the recipient line written down to the unit number. She signed, wrote the date, and the man tore off one copy and went downstairs.

The envelope was thick. She tore it open; inside were two sheets of paper, the same size, the same weight.

The top line read the court's name and "Compensation Decision." On her copy, the requester column bore her name; on the other, it bore Zhi'an's. The operative text on both was the same sentence: decided to award compensation for infringement of personal liberty and mental distress compensation. A middle paragraph set out a figure. She read it once and did not count it a second time. The final paragraph stated that payment of the compensation would be handled under separate procedures.

The door to the inner room stood open a crack. He Xiufen sat in the old wooden chair beneath the window, pushing her reading glasses up.

"Read me a line."

"Decided to award the requester compensation for infringement of personal liberty and mental distress compensation."

He Xiufen listened to the end, then removed her glasses. "Keep it safe."

Li Huilan set her pen down on the paper and said from across the table: "Don't fold those two sheets."

"They're not folded."

At 6:40 in the evening, she got home, the envelope tucked in her bag. Zhi'an came out of the kitchen, his hands wet.

"The court sent it?"

"Yeah."

"How much."

"It's written on the paper."

He stood watching for a moment, didn't reach for it, then went back and turned off the stove, brought out two bowls of noodles. Halfway through eating, he pulled the envelope over, slipped out the two sheets, and spread them under the lamp.

He read slowly, line by line, down to the requester column, where he stopped and pressed his index finger on his own name.

"I'm on this."

"You are."

He folded the paper along its original creases. When she said "don't fold it," he smoothed it flat again and handed it back by the corners.

The paper bag under the bed in the inner room was pulled out and set on the bed. Seven lines of writing covered its face, one pressed over another, the last line long since dried. She tried standing the envelope upright in the bag's mouth—too thick, it wouldn't fit—so she pulled the two decision pages out and laid them inside. No new writing was added to the bag's face. The mouth was wound shut, pushed back under the bed, resting against the cardboard box.

February 18, 11:00. The office phone rang. It was the same clerk's voice.

"Approved. The written document can be picked up this afternoon."

She went in the afternoon. The document was a single sheet, with the name copied exactly as she had written it, and a round seal at the end. The clerk pushed the paper out to her: "Take this original to the Civil Affairs Bureau; we keep one copy. The name column we copied as you wrote it. Whether it gets approved is their end."

"I know."

February 21, 9:30 a.m. The Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau service hall. The building stood at the end of a street in the east of the city, three or four steps at the entrance, an iron handrail.

Social organization registration was at the second window on the right. The man behind it was in his forties, his shirt cuffs rolled up to his forearms. A white porcelain mug sat on his desk, the tea steeped yellow, a binder clip resting across the mug's rim. A sheet of paper was taped to the counter: This window accepts social organization registration, changes, and deregistration.

She placed the materials onto the counter one by one.

He took them and checked them one by one. Registration application, the business supervisory unit's approval document, four copies of the articles of association, venue-use certificate, capital verification certificate, responsible person's identification.

"The responsible person is you."

"That's me."

"The start-up capital is in the account, and the capital verification is issued by the bank."

"Yes."

"The four lines of business scope in the articles match the approval document." He flipped two pages. "Written solid. Some people write a page of empty talk, and I send it back."

"The four lines are what we can actually do."

He pulled the application over in front of himself, his finger coming to rest on the name field. He stopped and looked up.

"This one—we can't approve it."

She said: "What's the issue with it."

"Names have their own rules." He took his hand off the paper. "Using a natural person's name as the distinctive part requires that person's consent. If the person is deceased, it has to be someone who made major contributions in this field, with a name that resounds at home and abroad. I've read your basic information on this page. It's solid. By this clause, it won't pass."

"What if it goes up for review."

"Same clause even if I send it up." He set his pen down. "If I let it through, when the inspection comes later, it gets revoked anyway. Once revoked, the plaque comes down, and everything you did before—none of it counts. I'm not trying to scare you. The name is the first gate. It doesn't pass, and nothing after it gets reviewed."

Someone came up from behind with another matter. He turned to answer, then turned back.

"If you don't change it, I'll return all your materials." He glanced at the stack. "But if you change it, don't touch anything else. If the business scope changes, the Justice Bureau's approval has to be re-reviewed, and you'll make another trip for nothing."

She stood in front of the counter, her hand still on the surface, her fingertips pressing down on the application.

Lu Jibai picked the document envelope off the counter and stepped back half a pace, making room for the person behind.

She took the application back and spread it on the counter.

The name field was in her handwriting; the ink had long dried. She pulled the pen from her pocket and set the tip down after the character for "City." One horizontal stroke slashed through, starting from the left of "Shen" and ending at the right of "Qian"—straight, no second pass.

Half a finger's width of blank space remained above the strike. She wrote "Gongdao" there, the horizontal strokes level, the final stroke unhurried.

The man looked down, then turned the paper around to face him properly.

"That name's easier to approve than the last one." He paused. "With the name changed, the business supervisory unit's approval document has to be swapped out. Get it changed, then come back. And the name field in the articles of association has to match."

"I know."

"Nothing else has been altered?"

"Nothing."

He stacked the materials back the way they'd come and pushed them over, then looked up at her once more: "Sure about this?"

"Sure."

"Same window when you come back. I'm here all morning."

At 7:00 in the evening, the noodle shop. The envelope sat on the table by the door.

"They couldn't approve it," she said.

He Xiufen was ladling soup into a bowl, her hand stopping in midair. "Which word didn't pass."

"My dad's name."

"So what now."

"Change it."

"Changed to what?"

"Gongdao."

He Xiufen carried the bowl over and set it in front of her, straightening the chopsticks.

"That name won't look bad on the plaque." She turned back toward the stove, and after two steps turned again. "Just one question. When people ask, what will you say."

"Couldn't get it approved, so we changed it."

"That's not what I'm asking you to say."

She picked up her chopsticks. The exhaust fan hummed. He Xiufen stood at the stove, back to her, and didn't ask again.

February 22, 10:00. Municipal Justice Bureau window. The application and a written explanation went in together. The clerk finished reading the explanation and looked up.

"Name's been changed."

"Yes."

"Business scope untouched?"

"Untouched."

"The approval document has to be reissued. Come pick it up tomorrow afternoon." She slipped the explanation into the file. "And the name in the articles has been changed too?"

"I'll change it this afternoon."

"All four copies have to match. Don't let each one look different."

At 3:00, three tables on the second floor were pushed together, four copies of the articles spread open, flipped to the name field.

"One each. Strike your own, write your own." He Xiufen put on her reading glasses. "Strike through the old name. Don't blotch it into a mess."

Her copy was struck through clean and straight. Lu Jibai's was done quickly, the new characters tight together, the horizontal strokes still level. Li Huilan held the paper down with a paperweight and struck a line straighter than anyone's. He Xiufen wrote last, then pushed her glasses up, signed with a note in the margin beside the alteration, and added the date below it.

All four had been signed once before; this time they signed again beside the altered field. Li Huilan checked each one in turn: "All match."

He Xiufen took off her glasses and wiped them on her sleeve: "Last time I wrote that name, I cleaned my glasses before I said a word. This time, striking it out—one stroke and it was done."

February 23, 3:00 p.m. The new approval document was in hand. The name field read "Jiangzhou Gongdao Public Interest Legal Service Center." The characters had been swapped, the red seal pressing over the last small stretch of the name.

She pulled the old one from the envelope and handed it back. The clerk took it, wrote a mark in the corner, and clipped it into a folder behind her.

"Take this original to the Civil Affairs Bureau. We keep one copy."

February 24, 9:30 a.m. Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau, second window on the right.

The man took the materials and checked them one by one. When he reached the name, he read the line aloud, typed on the keyboard, then looked at the screen.

"No duplicates in the registry." He picked up his pen and circled one spot on the application. "This name can be approved. Use it for all future business."

He pulled a slip from a drawer and filled in the date.

"A decision within sixty days, counting from today. If anything needs to be added, I'll call this number."

She recited her phone number.

"Accepted." The slip slid across the counter.

Outside, the frost on the steps had melted, the cracks between bricks still damp. He folded the empty document envelope twice and stuffed it into his coat pocket.

"Within sixty days."

"I'll count them."

She folded the slip and tucked it into the back of her notebook. Where this name had come from—she didn't say; he didn't ask.