Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 32 : Order on the List

The settlement sheet stretched across more than half the table. She worked from the leftmost row to the right, tapping each row as she went, the tip of her pen pausing on the paper.

The filter box read ”Chengnan Station No. 1.” From July 1 to September 30, there were four hundred sixty-seven rows under that station name, one row for each settlement cycle.

The first time through, she counted twenty-four accounts. The second time, twenty-three. The third time, she went down line by line with the tip of her pen, counting. Still twenty-three.

The smallest amount owed was one hundred eighty-seven yuan, the largest seven thousand four hundred twenty. The twenty-three entries added up to thirty-six thousand four hundred six.

She did the math again in the corner of the paper. When she finished, she crossed out the number and rewrote it. It hadnʼt changed.

The sheet only had a string of last digits from Rider App accounts. No names, no ID numbers, no phone numbers. The platform backend recognized accounts. It didnʼt recognize people.

[Thud. Chengnan Station No. 1 — twenty-three accounts on this sheet are owed money.]

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. He Xiufen came up carrying half a bowl of hot water and set it at the corner of the table, careful not to set it on the paper.

”Counted?”

”Twenty-three.”

He Xiufen bent over and looked at the string of last digits. ”Which number belongs to which person?”

”The sheet doesnʼt have names.”

”Then who are you going to put in the plaintiff column?”

”The company goes in the defendant column. The plaintiff column has to have people.”

”If you put people in, they have to come seal it themselves.” He Xiufen moved the bowl half an inch to the side. ”How many forms are you taking tomorrow?”

”Twenty authorization forms first. ID copies get collected on the spot. Whateverʼs missing, they can make up next time.”

”Wherever a name goes on the paper, you canʼt sign for a single one of them.”

”I know.”

He Xiufenʼs finger landed on the rightmost column. ”Whatʼs this column?”

”Payer Account Name. Wang Yuhai.”

”Old Songʼs two remarks are still sitting there.”

”Theyʼre still sitting there.”

”What he wonʼt say—” He Xiufen pulled her hand back and wiped it on her apron. ”Is it on this sheet?”

She turned to the settlement sheet page. Her pen tip hovered between the ”Payer Account Name” column and the ”Dispatching Entity” column.

”Half of it is.” She said, ”Which account the money comes from, who dispatched the orders—the machines recorded that. The other half is in his mouth.”

”Then use the half from the machines first.” He Xiufen carried the bowl downstairs. At the stairway, she turned back. ”Twenty-three people—donʼt have them all crowd the window at once. Ask the Arbitration Office first. One employer, same facts. Can it be combined onto a single paper?” She went down two more steps. ”If youʼre short on forms, I still have old ones here. Even with torn edges, theyʼll work.”

[Thud. Half of what he wonʼt say is written in the account records.]

December 15, 10:00 a.m., Back Street behind Chengnan Station No. 1.

A tarp had been rigged over the entrance to the repair shop. A bulb hung beneath it, and a dark water stain spread across the ground. The owner squatted there, peeling a battery cable apart. He looked up at the person coming in and said nothing.

The station had banned gatherings since November. The front steps faced a camera, so people came here instead. Xiao Duan had made three trips that morning. One trip brought two people, another brought three. At ten oʼclock there were six people. At ten-thirty, twelve. By eleven, the plastic stools werenʼt enough. Some people squatted at the base of the wall, parking their scooters sideways in front of them as a windbreak.

The stack of papers He Xiufen had given her was spread across the top of a stool. Twenty sheets, the blank spaces at the bottom still empty. The first page already had a name on it. Ma Jianjun had signed it. The signature sat high on the line, the strokes turning in sharp angles.

Ma Jianjun rolled the cuffs of his padded jacket up to his elbows and walked from one end to the other. Wherever he stopped, he pulled the photocopy folded into quarters from his inside pocket and spread it over someoneʼs knee: July 18, 6:40, system-dispatched order. He didnʼt read it aloud. He just pointed.

The first question came quickly. Someone in his early twenties asked, ”Does this cost money?”

”No.” She said, ”A citizen representative doesnʼt charge, and filing for arbitration doesnʼt cost money either. As long as you have your account and your transaction details, thatʼs enough.”

Someone asked, ”Can we win?”

She opened her notebook flat and didnʼt dodge. ”I canʼt promise a win. Win first instance, thereʼs still second instance. Win second instance, thereʼs still enforcement. The difference this time from last time is that the machine records are in my hands.”

”How long will it take?”

”No way to say.” She said, ”I canʼt give you a date. You give me your account number.”

By noon, there were fourteen names on the paper. She checked the accounts against the recovery sheet. After each person signed, she asked once: ”Your number, what are the last four digits?” If it matched, she made a mark on the sheet.

She checked them off row by row.

One man in his thirties said the last four digits of his number were 8841, but that number wasnʼt on the sheet. He explained that heʼd hurt his foot last winter and used his cousinʼs account for three months. The money settled under his cousinʼs name, and his cousin had gone back to their hometown.

Two others had changed accounts. One man whoʼd been riding for two years wrote his name slowly. ”My wife rides too. Donʼt put her account down yet. Let her watch for a couple days.”

She noted these in the right margin of the page: one borrowed account, two changed accounts, one family member undecided. When she wrote ”family member undecided,” she paused, left those words as they were, and added nothing else.

At the far end of Back Street stood a man, arms crossed, watching for a while. Yellow Vest. He didnʼt step forward and didnʼt make a sound. By the time she looked up, he had already ducked into the mouth of the alley, only a slice of his back still visible.

Lao Song stood at the outermost edge of the group, and he hadnʼt stopped smoking. He tapped the ash against the rim of a metal barrel, then walked over. He didnʼt reach for a form.

”I canʼt sign this one.” He said, ”I signed last yearʼs paper, and I took my fifty percent. If I sign yours for the same account, the station will accept it, but their side wonʼt.”

”I know.” She said.

”I wonʼt go to court.” Lao Song turned his phone over, swiped twice, and a string of numbers scrolled down. ”Iʼve made seventeen calls in the last half month. The ones who could come are all here. The rest either went back home, or theyʼre like me—already signed a paper.”

She counted the people under the tarp. More than yesterday.

”That folding table,” she asked, ”who moved it into the station?”

Lao Song didnʼt answer right away. He put the cigarette back in his mouth and said vaguely, ”The station bought it. Sun Jianhua had people carry it in. One of the four legs was short, so they propped it with half a sheet of paper. I carried the two back corners.”

She wrote it down. When she finished, she looked up. ”Can you say that?”

”I carried the table, so I can say it.” He said, ”But I wonʼt go to court.”

”If you wonʼt go, I wonʼt force you.”

Lao Song stuffed his phone back into his pocket. He walked a couple steps away, then turned back. ”And donʼt learn from me. Last year I took half. The other half—that damn thing bought my mouth right along with it.”

At eleven-thirty, Deng Wei arrived. He still hadnʼt taken off his yellow vest, and his cap was tucked under his arm. He was thirty-two and had been riding in Chengnan for six years. The cold had left white chapped streaks across his face.

”Deng Wei.” He laid his ID on the paper but didnʼt sign right away. ”Let me ask one thing.”

”Ask.”

”If I sign this and my account gets banned, what do I do this month?” He said, ”My son just came from our hometown this year. Heʼs in elementary school here. Tuition, food, the school bus—it all rides on this account.”

Nobody under the tarp spoke. A charger buzzed against the wall.

”I donʼt know whether theyʼll ban you.” She said, ”I can tell you two things. One, the account ban notice will state a time and a reason. Those are their own words. Iʼll copy them down, and they can go into the record. Two, Iʼm the one working this case. The names behind it are yours, and I wonʼt take a cent from any of you.”

Deng Wei picked up the pen and wrote his name on the ”Client” line. He wrote for a long time.

By the time the twentieth line on the paper was filled, the wind had lifted a corner of the tarp. She counted twice. The second time, when she reached the last line, the ink hadnʼt yet dried.

[Thud. Unsettled Ledger: Chengnan Station No. 1, Ma Jianjun — beneath that, another twenty lines of small writing have appeared.]

At 11:57 p.m. on the 15th, her phone lit up.

Xiao Duan sent a screenshot. The image had only two lines: ”Your account has shown abnormal transaction activity and has been permanently restricted from taking orders.” Below that, there was no appeal option. Not even a button.

A minute later, a second one. Then a third. She turned her phone face down on the table, then after a while turned it back over. By 00:19, screenshots from all twenty people had come in, not one missing, all filed in the same folder. The longest gap between any two was four minutes.

She opened them one by one and checked the times. 23:57, 23:58, 00:01 ... 00:19.

It went down line by line, exactly the same as the sheet of signatures from yesterday.

On the morning of the 16th, she went back to the tarp. All twenty came. Three or four who hadnʼt signed the day before came too.

She sat on a plastic stool and copied them one by one. Name, time the notice was received, the reason written on the notice. The reasons were all the same line of text, not one word different. By the twelfth or thirteenth one, her wrist ached. She shifted position and kept copying. When she finished, she drew a box at the bottom of the page. Inside the box she wrote: Reasons identical. Times concentrated between 15th, 23:57 and 16th, 00:19.

When she finished, she didnʼt close the notebook. She read the names on the paper in the order theyʼd signed yesterday, then rearranged them in the order the notices had been received.

The two orders were the same.

The first line was Ma Jianjun both times.

She copied that line into the notebook too, then set the pen down. Yesterday, under this same tarp, the people who had seen that signed paper, including Lao Song, had numbered in the twenties. She didnʼt count any further.

Three days until the 19th.

The phone rang while she was still sitting on that plastic stool. The screen showed an unfamiliar number. She answered, and the voice on the other end gave a name first.

”Lü Hang.”

”Iʼm listening.”

”Two things.” He said, ”The supplementary opinion for the reconsideration was submitted this morning.”

”That one, I can see.”

”Second thing. Iʼm reading it exactly.” He paused. ”Our client asked me to bring you a message: next fight, settle it completely.”

”Who said that?”

”Verbatim.”

”Does Lawyer Lu know?”

There were a few seconds of dead air on the other end. Then he said, ”Iʼm the one delivering the message.”

”You still havenʼt answered.”

”Iʼve delivered it as far as here.”

The call ended. Outside the tarp, the wind lifted a corner. The hanging lamp swayed twice on its hook.

She copied that sentence beneath the list. When she finished, she held the paper down and looked up. Twenty people crowded under the tarp, twenty helmets hanging from handlebars, lined up in a row. None of them had left.

”The first line is Brother Ma.” Xiao Duan said.

”I saw.” She said, ”Save every notice. Donʼt delete a single word. Tomorrow morning at nine, Iʼll be waiting for you at the office.”

Ma Jianjun didnʼt leave. He took his helmet off the handlebar and tucked it under his arm. ”Last time they banned eleven accounts, and I carried it alone. This time the list runs twenty in a row. Iʼd like to see who breaks first.”