Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 42 : It Says It No Longer Has Them

On the long table at Zhengping Firm, two pages were laid side by side: one was the draft of the Application for Order to Produce Documentary Evidence she had written the night before; the other was a copy of Defendant No. 1ʼs two documents. He Xiufen set her bowl of congee down, pulled out her page first, and read it slowly from the opening line to the closing line.

After she finished, she smacked the page back onto the desk and tapped her index finger down it, section by section.

”Three,” she said. ”The next thing I want to know. Access logs, operation logs, backup logs, and the explanation of the cleanup rules.”

”The first three are the same thing.” He Xiufen tapped her finger twice on the first item. ”What was done on that machine around July 18. You split it into three separate lines, and theyʼll answer the softest one—backup logs. You ask about backups, and theyʼll say the backups arenʼt here; theyʼre in somebody elseʼs server room.”

Shen Zhixia circled ”backup logs,” moved it behind the first item, and rewrote it as a single line: For Respondent 1ʼs backend, from July 1 through July 20, the dispatch records, account operation and access records, along with the times, server rooms, and handlers for the backups generated.

”Which day, which machine, which kind of record,” He Xiufen said. ”Words like ʼrelated dataʼ and ʼnecessary recordsʼ are not allowed to appear at all. Save yourself trouble today by writing three vague words, and for the next three months youʼll be listening to them run you in circles with those three words.”

The second item had originally read ”account information of the twenty applicants.” She crossed it out and changed it to: the activation dates, real-name verification information, and authorized order-acceptance records for the twenty accounts involved.

The third item kept the explanation of cleanup rules, with a line of small print below it: including the request, approval, and execution records for the December 10 cleanup operation.

He Xiufen looked at the third item for a long time and did not rush her. Shen Zhixia turned to the last page and started a new paragraph.

”There still needs to be a sentence at the end,” she said.

”What you want, why itʼs in their hands, and what happens if they wonʼt hand it over.” He Xiufen lifted her congee and took a sip. ”What you need is the third one.”

She wrote: Should Respondent 1 refuse to submit the above documentary evidence without just cause, the Applicant requests that the court, in accordance with the provisions in the civil evidence rules concerning documentary evidence production orders and the consequences of obstructing evidence production, find the Applicantʼs claims regarding the content of said documentary evidence established.

He Xiufen leaned in and studied this passage longer than all the ones before it.

”If the court really rules according to this,” she said, ”then itʼs the other side admitting it themselves. You donʼt have to win.”

”If it wonʼt produce it, Iʼll carry it.”

[Thud. What canʼt be produced can still be counted as evidence—provided it first puts its refusal to produce in writing.]

He Xiufen set the bowl down and pointed back at the last line. ”What if it plays the ʼtrade secretʼ card?”

”It raised that once during arbitration.” Shen Zhixia tore a sheet from the sticky note box and wrote two lines: If Respondent 1 claims trade secrets are involved, the Applicant agrees to a closed evidence examination. The above documentary evidence shall only be submitted to the court for review, and the Applicant and representative shall review the case file in the manner designated by the court.

He Xiufen read it over and pressed the sticky note back under her hand.

”Remember this piece of paper. The day it trots out that ʼtrade secretʼ claim, you slap this down in front of it.” She said, ”A trade secret is not a reason not to produce something; itʼs a reason not to let other people see it. What you want is the document, not the secret inside it.”

Shen Zhixia made a clean copy of the application, signed it, wrote down her phone number, packed it into an envelope, and folded the flap twice.

Before going downstairs, she stopped at the stairway. ”I still havenʼt found that sentence on the fourth line.”

”Which sentence?”

”What makes Hengtong count as the person behind that door?”

He Xiufen was clearing the bowls and didnʼt stop. ”That sentence is also in the things youʼre asking for.”

”Which one?”

”Same door, same account.” He Xiufen said. ”Where did you say that outgoing payment was recovered from?”

”Yunfanʼs server room.”

”Then you still have to make it produce the account book.” She carried the bowls toward the kitchen. ”Words said aloud, nobody in court remembers; words on paper, it has to answer them one by one. Those two points of theirs are meant to saw your table legs off, but thatʼs for the day of trial. The defense period runs to the twentieth; donʼt rush to answer. Today, first get the things on the table.”

January 9, 4:30 p.m., behind Chengnan Station No. 1, on Back Street. A folding table was set up beneath a tarp.

A copy of the seven-day statement was spread on the table. Xiao Duan pulled his phone from his pocket and laid it sideways next to the paper, screen facing up.

”I borrowed an account,” he said. ”Still working. Recorded this at noon yesterday.”

”Which station is he from?”

”The new station. Doesnʼt know our bunch.” Xiao Duan said. ”I just borrowed his phone and tapped around. Didnʼt tell him what I was up to.”

His finger moved across the screen: Home—My Account—Help Center. The Help Center had four sections: Account Issues, Order Issues, Settlement Issues, Fee Issues. Each section opened into questions, one question and one answer, the kind like ”How do I change my phone number?” and ”What day does the money arrive this month?”

Only at the very bottom was there a fifth entry: Online Customer Service.

He tapped into it. The words Smart Assistant popped up on the screen. Below there was an input box. He typed two words: Account Ban.

”Please refer to the in-app notification for the result of any account action.”

He typed again: Appeal.

”No related issues found. Please try a different phrasing.”

He typed: I want a human.

”Current consultation volume is high. The Smart Assistant has made a note of your request.”

Xiao Duan swiped back to the Help Center and clicked through all eleven questions in the four sections again, from top to bottom. Eleven questions, and not one was about account bans.

Lao Song sat in the cargo bed of a three-wheeler, his notebook open on his knees. He looked up. ”The recording has a beginning and an end, right?”

”Yes. From 12:47 p.m. to 12:59 p.m.”

Lao Song wrote in pencil: Xiao Duan, screen recording, January 8, 12:47 p.m.–12:59 p.m. Then he closed the notebook. ”I just record the time. If anyone asks, Iʼll say at that time somebody was doing this.”

Ma Jianjun had been standing the whole time. He stared at the screen for a moment. ”Whatʼs this entry good for?”

”Nothing,” Shen Zhixia said. ”You canʼt get in through it.”

”Then why record it?”

”There are three sentences on that page of theirs.” She pulled out the statement and ran a fingernail under the second sentence—the batch action was based on a system determination. ”The first says: your account was banned based on rules it wrote. The second says: twenty accounts at once, and a machine made the call. The third says: if you disagree, go appeal through the Help Center.”

She flipped the phone over and laid it face down on the paper. There were two other pages on the table: one was a screenshot of the account ban notice, a single line of explanation, with no ”entry point” anywhere from beginning to end; the other was a written transcript of her phone call, seven minutes and twelve seconds, in which customer service said, ”the entry is in the notice.”

Four items, three routes, and not one led anywhere.

”A screen recording canʼt prove there is no entry,” she said. ”It can only prove that every place you tapped looked like this. If you canʼt prove ʼthere is none,ʼ then at least record ʼI walked this way.ʼ”

Xiao Duan played that ”I want a human” line again. No one under the tarp said anything. Only the kettle on the stove could be heard.

Around dark, Deng Wei came over. Over his work uniform he wore an old padded coat. From inside his coat he took a folded piece of paper and shook it open: two columns of names, ten in each column.

”All set,” he said. ”Three of them are on shift at the cold storage. I got them to sign at work.”

Shen Zhixia looked it over line by line. All the names were there. Some of the handwriting was crooked, some shaky. Behind the last name, someone had drawn a circle, and inside the circle was a fingerprint.

”Who drew this circle?”

”Luo Cheng,” Deng Wei said. ”He said once you signed your name you had to leave a mark, so nobody else could add another name to it.”

She folded the paper, put it in the filing envelope, and placed it with the application.

[Thud. The way out it wrote down, it blocked off itself. That obstruction has to be counted against it.]

At 9 a.m. on January 10, at the materials intake window of the District Peopleʼs Court Litigation Service Center.

Behind the window was a young woman. She took the envelope, pulled out the contents, and flipped to the last page. ”The civil case? What are you filing?”

”An Application for Order to Produce Documentary Evidence. One application, one evidence list, and a supplemental Representative Election Form.”

The woman counted down the list with her finger: copy of the seven-day statement; screenshots of the twenty account ban notices; recording and transcript of the customer service call; screen recording and transcript of the Rider App Help Center operation; recovered December 10 cleanup work order. Five items.

”One duplicate.”

Shen Zhixia handed in the duplicate. The woman stamped the end of the original with a receipt stamp, wrote in January 10 by hand, then tore off a receipt slip for her to sign.

”Will this application be forwarded to the assigned judge?”

”It goes to the Case Filing Division, then the assigned judge handles it.” The woman pushed the receipt and the envelope back together. ”Wait for notice.”

At a little past 2 p.m. on January 13, the landline downstairs at Zhengping Firm rang. He Xiufen answered, listened for a moment, and called her name upstairs.

”Court.”

The clerk spoke quickly: Defendant No. 1 had submitted a written opinion on the application to compel document production; she should come get a copy.

At 4:30 she returned from court, went upstairs, and spread three pages beneath the desk lamp.

The heading read: Opinion on the Applicantʼs Application to Compel Production of Documentary Evidence. The signature block had two lines: Hengzheng Law Firm, Lu Jibai, Lü Hang.

Item 1: The backend records the applicant seeks are the respondentʼs core business data involving trade secrets, and the respondent has no obligation to disclose them to an outside third party.

Item 2: According to the rules in the Data Retention Statement, the respondentʼs platform data is retained for only ninety days. The operation records related to the accounts in question have far exceeded ninety days from the date they were created. Objectively, they no longer exist, and the respondent has no way to submit them.

Item 3: The source and completeness of the ”off-site backup recovery item” cited by the applicant cannot be verified, so it cannot serve as a basis for requiring the respondent to submit the original data.

She read it once, then read it a second time.

On the three pages, whether they existed, whether they were in their possession, and whether they should be produced were all spelled out clearly. As for what was actually written in those records, there was not a single word. Same as the two arbitration sessions—he would not touch the content of the documents.

On the second read, she stopped at the phrase: objectively no longer exist.

She copied the phrase into her hardcover notebook and, after finishing, stared at it for a while. If logs are gone, theyʼre gone. If a ledger is burned, itʼs burned. It looks the same to anyone. Why insist on adding the word ”objectively”?

He Xiufen came up to clear the bowls and glanced over her shoulder at the three pages.

”Count ninety days from July 18.” Shen Zhixia moved the three pages aside and set them on top of another document on the desk. ”October 16.”

The page underneath was the recovered December 10 cleanup work order. In the approval column was the name Wang Yuhai. After printing it out, she had kept it inside the case file the whole time; the corners were already frayed.

”Its own written rule says ninety days,” she said. ”Something that should have been gone by October 16, on December 10 it was still looking for someone to clear it.”

He Xiufen laid the two pages side by side, straightened them, and studied them for a few seconds.

”You say it doesnʼt have them,” she said. ”Then it has to produce how they were made to disappear.”

”The rule, the records, and who approved it,” Shen Zhixia said. ”Those three are exactly in my third item.”

[Thud. To say something no longer exists, it first has to produce how it stopped existing.]

She didnʼt roll the three-page opinion into the case file. She spread it out on the long table and held one corner down with the case file. She opened the hardcover notebook to the page marked First Trial Round: The Defendant Column. The two lines at the bottom were still there: Why should it pay; The second item was written by me. On a blank line, she wrote: It says it no longer has them.