Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 73 : Thirty-One Yuan and Forty-Six Cents

He Xiufen walked into the office carrying a kraft paper bag, the top folded over twice and secured with a rubber band.

She set the bag on the counter, unscrewed her thermos and took a sip, then pulled the rubber band off.

”Three accounts. All pulled.”

Shen Zhixia slung the rag over her shoulder and gave the old electric fan on the corner of the counter a nudge. The blades stuttered, then caught and spun. The draft flipped up the corner of a page sticking out of the bag.

Four sheets of paper came out. The first was a Notice of Case Acceptance—filed June 22nd, eleven households, Tang Guoʼs name in the representative column, three defendants listed in full, character by character, exactly as theyʼd been written on the long table that day. Behind it were three sheets in the same format, headed ”Notice of Property Investigation Results.” Each sheet listed one party to be investigated at the top. Three names.

He Xiufen spread the three sheets flat and tapped her pen down the balance column, one box at a time.

”Youzhu, zero. Youjia, zero. Xinhe—thirty-one yuan and forty-six cents.”

”Thirty-one yuan.” Shen Zhixia repeated the number to herself.

”Enough for three bowls of noodles, with seven forty-six change.” He Xiufen clicked the cap back on her pen. ”Last week you asked me how the court could pull their records just three days after filing. I put the April capital reduction and the June emptying of the offices on one page and submitted it together. Also bought a guarantee letter. Six hundred. The five-fifty I collected from your eleven households didnʼt cover it—I kicked in the other fifty. Applied to defer the filing fee. Approved.”

”Iʼll pay you back when this settles.”

”Weʼll talk about it when it settles.”

There were three more stacks behind the papers.

”Transaction records for all three accounts, from opening to the day they were frozen. One hundred twenty-seven pages.” She tipped her chin toward the bag. ”I flipped through them at the courthouse for a quarter of an hour. Couldnʼt get through it. Brought it all back for you.”

”Asset tracing only looks at whatʼs under the name.” Shen Zhixia said. ”The judge at the Enforcement Affairs Center told me that on the rider case.”

”She wasnʼt wrong.” He Xiufen blew across the mouth of her cup. ”If thereʼs nothing under the name, itʼs clean. What youʼre looking for is outside the name.”

The inner room door was open. Tang Guo pulled off her headphones and came out, standing at the counter to study the three sheets.

”How much is in there.”

”Zero.” Shen Zhixia said.

”Three zeros.”

”Two zeros, plus thirty-one forty-six.”

Tang Guo stared at the three sheets for a long moment, then set her headphones down on top of them.

”The two thousand I paid last month,” she said. ”Is that in this zero too.”

”All we know today is whatʼs left.” Shen Zhixia carried the three stacks over to the long table. ”Where the money went—thatʼs what we have to dig out of these one hundred twenty-seven pages.”

”Someone in the comments asked if filing the case means they get their money back next month.”

”Tell them—” she paused to think. ”Tell them today is the first day the court has actually acknowledged this case. As for whose hands the money is in, we now know half.”

”Six more households joined this week.” She opened her notebook. ”Seventeen households now have all three documents.”

”What we submitted was eleven.” He Xiufen said. ”Donʼt rush to add the rest. Once the case is filed, adding people to an existing suit is steadier than laying out the full roster at the start. Same logic for the defendant column—write whatʼs on paper first. Names that arenʼt on paper wait until the evidence is ready.”

[Thud. A year of money, six hundred-plus transactions, and whatʼs left is thirty-one yuan and forty-six cents.]

At eleven-thirty, the scallion oil hit the wok downstairs, the smell climbing up the stairwell. She moved the registration forms to one end of the long table and laid out the three stacks of statements in a row, weighing down either end with two empty bowls.

The three stacks were printed in the same format: date, summary, counterparty account name, amount, balance. She turned pages one at a time and stopped at the fifth.

”Out of all these transactions, what number comes up most.” Tang Guo leaned on the edge of the table to look.

”Twenty-four thousand.” She said. ”In is twenty-four thousand, out is twenty-four thousand. These three accounts, from September last year to today—six hundred-plus transactions in and out, almost all the same amount.”

He Xiufen came over with her cup and glanced down at the open pages.

”So whereʼs the money.”

”All out.” Shen Zhixia tapped the date column with her pen. ”Every single deposit went out the same day. Not one of them ever spent a night in these accounts.”

”Six hundred transactions, and not one of them stopped.” Tang Guo said.

”Hundreds of householdsʼ money comes in. Only a few transactions go out.” He Xiufen set her cup down. ”Theyʼre not afraid of you going through it line by line. Theyʼre afraid of you stacking these pages up and looking at them side by side.”

”Why does it have to pass through four hands.” Tang Guo asked.

”The bank disburses to the apartment company—one account, one entry, clear to anyone who looks.” He Xiufen said. ”Pass it through one more pair of hands, and the ledger gains a phrase: this oneʼs a transfer between accounts, that oneʼs payment for goods. By four passes, by the time it reaches you, the money no longer looks like the money you paid.”

Shen Zhixia pulled out a page. May 11th. That page had four transactions of twenty-four thousand. She drew a pencil line under the first one and wrote five characters beside it: Minsheng Road, Unit 502.

”Ten-oh-seven, twenty-four thousand comes in. The summary column reads: Rent Installment Entrusted Payment.” The pen moved downward, slowly. ”Ten-forty-eight, twenty-four thousand goes out. Counterparty account name: Jiangzhou Youjia Business Services Co., Ltd. Forty-one minutes in between.”

”Eleven-twenty, it comes into Youjiaʼs account. Eleven-fifty-two, it goes out again. Counterparty: Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading Co., Ltd. At one-oh-six in the afternoon, into Xinhe. Two-twelve, out of Xinhe.”

She set the pen down.

”Ten-oh-seven to two-twelve. Four hours and five minutes. This money passed through four hands across four accounts, and never warmed the seat in any one of them.”

She flipped further back, all the way to the last page. June 11th. That page also had four transactions of twenty-four thousand, following the same route: Youzhu, Youjia, Xinhe. After that, nothing.

”One transaction going astray—you could call it a slip of the hand.” She lined the two pages up side by side. ”Two transactions walking the same path—thatʼs a rule.”

Tang Guo turned the last page around and read down line by line, stopping at the final line. It was the last entry in all three stacks: 2:12 PM, twenty-four thousand, out.

She flipped back several pages to March. On March 19th, Xinheʼs account showed an outgoing transfer of twenty-two hundred. The counterparty account name that line was a private name. She set the page next to Zhao Guangtianʼs statement on her phone—same day, same amount.

”Zhaoʼs side goes dark after March 19th.” She said.

”The batch of outgoing transfers around the tenth of every month after that—all blank.” He Xiufen rested her cup on the paper. ”But the incoming side never stopped. Money was still coming in as late as June 11th.”

”People out there are still paying.”

”The money inside has stopped going to the landlords.”

[Thud. The incoming flow is still moving; the flow out to the Unit 502 landlord stopped on March 19th.]

She moved her pen tip to the last column of that line. Summary: two characters: current-account transfer. The counterparty account name column was longer than any of the lines sheʼd read aloud before.

”Read this one.”

Tang Guo leaned in and read it out, character by character: ”Jiangzhou Youyu Housing Rental Service Co., Ltd.”

”How many characters.”

Tang Guo counted along the paper with her finger: ”Fourteen.”

”Look at the three defendants—ten characters, twelve characters.” Shen Zhixia brought the three investigation sheets over. ”This line. Fourteen.”

He Xiufen pulled the three sheets toward her and dragged her fingertip left to right, stopping on that long string of characters.

”Jiangzhou Youzhu Information Technology, Jiangzhou Youjia Business Services, Jiangzhou Xinhe Trading—these three names, Iʼve seen them all in the business registry. All under Zhou Keming. This string here—Iʼve never seen it.”

”The first four characters, ʼJiangzhou Youyu,ʼ are the same. But in the middle there are six extra characters: ʼHousing Rental Service.ʼ It looks like them.”

”Looks like them. Isnʼt them.” He Xiufen leaned back in her chair. ”Whatʼs behind these fourteen characters—which business license, who opened the account, and when—you canʼt tell from this page. The place you need to ask isnʼt the business registry.”

”Where.”

”The bank.” He Xiufen said. ”All four of these accounts ran through the same bank. The paperwork, the account numbers, who handed that entrusted payment document to the bank—all of itʼs in the bankʼs records.”

[Thud. The last line of the investigation sheet: that name has fourteen characters.]

[Thud. Item one on the checklist moves down a slot.]

[Thud. No Proxy Inquiry.]

[Thud. It only hands you one word: entrusted payment.]

Tang Guo pulled out her phone, swiped a few times, and brought up a saved file, scrolling through page by page.

”My contract—what name does it say.”

Page three of the loan contract, left-hand column, four characters: Merchant Name. Right-hand side, four characters: Youyu Apartments.

She zoomed in on that section and held it up to Shen Zhixia.

Shen Zhixia flipped her notebook to last weekʼs page. That day in the corridor on Wenchang Road, sheʼd copied two names with a blank line between them: the payee from Jiang Boʼs statement, twelve characters, and the payee from Tang Guoʼs deposit receipt, four characters. Today she filled in the blank line with a third. Fourteen characters.

”Last week you told me not to write ʼYouyu Apartmentsʼ in the defendant column.” She said.

”Whatʼs on paper as four characters—none of those are its real name.” He Xiufen said.

Shen Zhixia copied it out carefully and wrote the two strings vertically on a fresh page.

Contract merchant name: Youyu Apartments.

Last line on the statement: Jiangzhou Youyu Housing Rental Service Co., Ltd.

Four characters, lined up against fourteen.

Tang Guo stared at the two lines for a long while.

”On the 20th of next month, I still have to pay two thousand more.” She said. ”All the way to May next year. Whoever actually holds that apartment, my four characters are sitting there in the bankʼs ledger.”

”Theyʼre sitting there.” Shen Zhixia said. ”Which is exactly why these two names have to be matched up.”

”The bank disbursed according to the contract.” She went on. ”But once the money left the bank, it crossed four ledgers in a single day, and landed under this string of characters nobodyʼs ever seen.”

”So who did the money actually go to.” Tang Guo asked.

”These two names donʼt match.” She tapped the pen cap against the paper. ”Donʼt match—thatʼs the seam.”

Tang Guo sat looking at the page for a while, then flipped her phone over and set it face-down on the table.

”Jie, do we know anyone at that bank.”

”Knowing someone wonʼt help.” Shen Zhixia set her own phone face-down too. ”Banks donʼt recognize people. They recognize paperwork.”

He Xiufen fished the two bowls out of the sink, dumped the dregs, slung the rag over her shoulder, and started for the stairs. She turned at the door.

”If you go to the bank tomorrow, donʼt ask for the name. Ask for the account number.” She said. ”Names are written by people. Account numbers are issued by machines.”

Shen Zhixia opened her notebook to the last page. At the very bottom were the four characters sheʼd written last week: Where is the money. After them, three more: Check the bank. Now she added two more: Account number.

When she finished, she gathered up the statements from the long table, stack by stack, matching page numbers as she went. One hundred twenty-seven pages, all in order. She pulled out the top page and folded down a corner.