Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 27 : The Erased Cell

”The third item is still blank.”

He Xiufen stood beside the desk, holding a stack of freshly stamped receipts, and gestured with her chin toward the sheet of white paper.

At the top of the page was written ”Application for Evidence Collection.” Beneath it, three lines: 1. Who has it—the dispatching system operated by the defendant, records stored on its own machines. 2. What happens if it wonʼt be provided—in this case, ”who dispatched the order” cannot be found anywhere else. 3. (blank)

Wind came through the gap in the window and lifted one corner of the page under the desk lamp. She pressed the corner back down.

”I can fill in the first item,” Shen Zhixia said. ”And the second. But this third one—I donʼt know which columns to ask for.”

”When youʼre asking after whatʼs on a machine, you have to ask in detail.” He Xiufen set the receipts on the corner of the cabinet. ”You write ʼdispatch records.ʼ The court takes this page there, and their table has dozens of columns. Which name, which day, which fine—the judge canʼt pick them out for you. If you canʼt pick them out yourself, they wonʼt give you anything.”

”If only I knew whatʼs on it.”

”Then write it out item by item.” He Xiufen looked at her. ”Name column, time column, money column. Whichever cell matches this case, write that cell. If you canʼt write it down, then go look again. Donʼt overstate it.”

”I have a table in my hand. It was printed from that machine.”

”The paper is in your hand.” He Xiufen said. ”The look of it before the paper came out is on the machine. Lines drawn by a person will fade. Words on a machine donʼt get up and walk away.”

Her footsteps sounded one at a time on the stairs as she went down.

Still resting on the corner of the desk were the two papers delivered that morning: a Notice of Acceptance and a notice of the Evidence Submission Deadline. She had copied the deadline onto the first page of her notebook. Ten days left. In ten days, she had to make the court understand exactly what it needed to go take from that machine.

Shen Zhixia tucked the receipts into the case file and went into the inner room. The key to that cabinet was in her pocket. She unlocked it and pulled out the stack of papers from the bottom. The second sheet was that table.

At the top of the table, a line of bold type: Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd. Chengnan Station No. 1 Attendance Summary. A column of names ran down the page, cut across by several pen strokes, pressed so hard they tore through the cells beneath them. Below, on an empty line, was the signature ”Sun Jianhua.” The edges of the paper were curled and smudged with dust.

She sat back down at the desk by the window, spread the table flat, and pressed a finger onto the bold header.

The Justice Points in her account had come from Lao Wangʼs load of corn. She had already done this math: redeem once, and the account would empty; once per case, and when it was gone, there would be no second use. Not a single cent from Ma Jianjunʼs case had come in yet.

[Thud. Evidence Echo. One use per case.]

”Use it on this table.”

[Thud. Half a caseʼs Justice Points. After redemption, the balance will be cleared to zero.]

The paper was cold. She pressed her palm against it. ”Redeem.”

[Thud. Redeemed.]

The first things to reach her were the smells—hot plastic, the rubber of a network cable, a kettle of water boiled and never poured.

The room was the one she had stood in before. Gray walls, a paint-peeled desk against the window, a monitor on the desk with papers tucked beneath its base. In the corner of the desk, an electric kettle steamed from its spout. Behind the door hung a reflective vest, its hem reaching the floor. A power strip stretched out from under the desk, its cord running along the baseboard to the wall. By the doorway, in the walkway, sat that mail basket, three envelopes pressed inside, address sides up.

The printer hunched beside the desk, humming, spitting out paper. One sheet, two sheets. The bold header on the first sheet read: Jiangzhou Sutong Delivery Service Co., Ltd. Chengnan Station No. 1 Attendance Summary.

The door was opened with a key. In came a man in his forties, the hair at the back of his neck shaved short, his padded jacket hanging open. He tossed a set of keys onto the desk.

He straightened the monitor and tapped the mouse twice.

On the screen was a logged-in page. In the upper left was a line of text with the platformʼs logo at the front. In the upper right hung the logged-in account: a few letters at the front, then a string of numbers. On the left was a menu column. The first line read ”Capacity Management.” Below it: ”Orders,” ”Attendance,” ”Settlement.”

He typed ”Ma Jianjun” into the search box.

One line came up.

To the right of that line was a small arrow. He clicked it open. Inside, it said ”Chengnan Station No. 1,” and below that, in smaller type, was the personnel assignment. He moved the mouse over and clicked. The name cell emptied, and he typed in another name—one she had never seen.

He paged down. He clicked ”Attendance” and pulled the months back one by one. Back to July, a dozen or so rows lined up. He stopped on the rows in the middle: click, press, and the words in that cell were gone, leaving a blank cell. Farther down, those cells emptied too.

He went back and clicked ”Settlement.” A column of figures ran down, deductions marked in red. The cursor stopped on one row. At the end of that row, it read Overtime Deduction, 30. He stared at it for two seconds, then pressed it, and that row also emptied.

The printer spat out another sheet. He turned it sideways, scanned it from top to bottom, and slashed a few lines across the table with a pen. When he finished, he signed in the blank space at the bottom. Then he stood, pressed the paper to the wall, and taped down all four corners, directly opposite the desk.

His phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up and answered, his voice hoarse, as if there were sand in it.

”Doing it.”

Two seconds passed.

”Got it.”

He set the phone face down on the desk. His shoulders sagged a little, and he turned back to keep typing away.

On the corner of the desk sat a plastic bag. Several cards with lanyards stuck out of its mouth, dust settling on the plastic.

In the lower-right corner of the screen was a line with the date. She saw the month and the day. The hour and minute flashed once, but she couldnʼt catch them.

The scene faded. All that was left in the room was the printerʼs hum and that kettle of water still never poured.

[Thud. The lines on the paper were drawn by a personʼs hand. The words on the screen were erased by a hand.]

A ringing rose in her ears first, and the sounds of the room receded far away. She sat with her eyes open for two seconds, her temples throbbing.

Heat flared behind the bridge of her nose.

She reached out and pushed the table six inches aside. Blood landed on the brown-paper cover of the case file, spreading into a small dark stain. She grabbed two tissues and pressed them under her nose, head lowered, waiting for the heat to fade.

Her hands were shaking. She turned one over and looked at it. The cold of the paper still lingered in her palm. Downstairs, the rolling shutter rattled twice; the sheet metal quivered, and the lightʼs filament wobbled with it.

[Thud. What was seen cannot enter the file.]

No more red appeared on the paper. The first thing she did was check that attendance summary table, holding it page by page under the lamp: the header, the crossed-out lines, the signature column. The surface was clean, unstained. She put the table back into the case file, then turned her hardcover notebook to a fresh page and wrote line by line:

In October, that room on the fifth floor. One machine, one account.

The July 18 row. The name was erased and replaced with another.

That morningʼs attendance, deleted cell by cell.

In the settlement column, the overtime deduction entry was gone too.

The printed table is in my hands.

A new line below: After the changes were made, the room was vacated.

Another line: A plastic bag on the corner of the desk, several cards on lanyards.

Another line: What was seen doesnʼt count. I need the records inside that machine.

[Thud. The evidence isnʼt in the image; itʼs in that machine.]

It was close to nine when she went downstairs. Two tables of customers still remained in the noodle shop. The pot on the stove was running, the smell of scallion oil covering a faint trace of dish soap.

Ma Jianjun sat at the table by the door, half a bowl of noodles abandoned. Xiao Duan sat across from him, wiping his phone screen with his sleeve.

”The table,” she said as she sat down.

”Which table?”

”July 18.”

”That rainy day.” Ma Jianjun set down his chopsticks. ”I clocked in at 6:40. The rain was so heavy I could barely see the road. I worked until nighttime, never stopped all day.”

”Take a look.”

He pulled out his old phone, a crack running across the screen. His fingertip swiped twice, flipping to July. He opened that cell. Inside, it was empty, leaving only a faint gray line in small print: No orders recorded for that day.

”I ran until night that day,” he said.

She looked at that line of small print. The screen was coated with grime, fingerprints smeared together.

”They also fined me thirty that day,” Ma Jianjun said. ”I remember because I fell that day.”

”Scroll down. See if itʼs there.”

He swiped a few times. The bottom of that column was empty, and the fine row was nowhere to be found.

”With one line erased, does that day still count as me having worked?” He moved the phone back half an inch.

”It counts,” she said. ”What was erased was their record, not the road you ran.”

Xiao Duan pushed his bowl away. ”I had a day like that in early November too. I ran over a dozen trips in the morning. At night, I counted and came up three orders short. My accountʼs grayed out, so I canʼt check, but I remember.”

”Which day?”

”I canʼt remember exactly,” Xiao Duan said. ”Just those first few days of the month. I thought Iʼd counted wrong, so I counted twice.”

”Go back and dig out those days. The dates, the number of trips, which orders disappeared—the more detailed the better. Donʼt post it in the group. Send it to me.”

Xiao Duan nodded and turned his phone toward her. ”I got a photo of Xiao Xuʼs form. Sent it to your account last night.”

She opened it. The photo was a little crooked. The text on the form was printed; Xiao Xuʼs name was written in a box, small. The business-scope column was filled in with delivery services, loading and unloading—the same wording as on another sign.

”What cards are those in the bag?” He Xiufen came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

”Cards on lanyards,” Shen Zhixia said. ”They look like work badges.”

”The station took our work badges,” Ma Jianjun said. ”Said it was a system upgrade.”

He Xiufen put a hand on her waist. ”They can take the badge, but they canʼt take the name. Thereʼs a name on the badge, and a number under the name.”

Shen Zhixia didnʼt pick up that thread. After a pause, she asked, ”That table you have—who signed it?”

”Sun Jianhua.”

”Which machine did the table come out of?”

”The one in his room.”

He Xiufen wiped her hands on her apron again.

”A station contractor—how does he get access to your defendantʼs backend?” she said. ”The key in his hand wasnʼt something he had copied at the market himself.”

Ma Jianjun held his bowl without moving. After a long moment, he said, ”The things on that machine—can they be gotten?”

”They can,” she said. ”But the court has to go get them.”

Back at the office, she pulled that white page out of the case file. The first two lines were filled in. The third line was still blank.

At the bottom, she added a line: Account creation, authorization, and operation records within the operating system.

After writing it, she looked at the page and did not lift her pen. A collection request took time—filing, service, the court sending a letter—lined up one step after another. Ten or so days would be fast. Erasing and altering didnʼt need time. One key pressed in the middle of the night was enough. At the edge of the paper, she started a new line and wrote two words: Evidence Preservation.

The tip of her pen pressed down on that line, poking a small dot through the back of the page.