Justice System: I Litigate for the Whole City

Chapter 172 : The Batch That Went Back

March 27, morning. First-floor pharmacy window, inpatient building.

Yao Qian sat inside, a few unfilled prescriptions pinned under her hand. Her fingertips tapped the keyboard twice, paused. Shen Zhixia set her folder on the counter without opening it.

”Iʼm not here about your notebook today,” she said. ”One question about inventory: carbetocin injection, one-hundred-microgram ampoules. Any left in the pharmacy stock.”

Yao Qian looked up, typed twice. A line of text scrolled across the screen.

”One left.”

”Thatʼs all?”

”Thatʼs all.”

”The batch number on the box—can I take a look? I wonʼt touch it. You set it on the counter and Iʼll copy it.”

Yao Qian pressed her hand against the counter, stood, and went through the white metal door at the back. When the door opened, plastic bins inside knocked together in a light rattle; someone was moving things on the shelf side. She came out holding a carton and placed it on the window counter, her palm resting on top.

The side facing her bore a small printed line. Batch number: 240517. Valid through March of next year. Place of origin, four characters: Hengyue Pharmaceutical.

She copied the six digits into her notebook, checked them, then checked them again.

In the Evidence Echo, the box had a crushed corner. This one on the counter had four sharp, even corners; not so much as a crease on the face of it.

”Last month, this spec—was a whole batch sent back?”

Yao Qianʼs hand drew back from the carton. She shifted it half an inch toward herself, then put it away behind the window.

”I canʼt say.”

”Iʼm not asking you,” Shen Zhixia said. ”If stock gets returned, the storeroom has paperwork.”

From behind the white metal door someone called ”Xiao Yao,” voice flat. Yao Qian lowered her head and typed. Half a minute later, the keyboard sounds stopped.

”If you want to ask about the storeroom,” she said, ”donʼt ask here.”

On the bench in the corridor, she opened her notebook and wrote out the time, the window, the name, the exact words, line by line, and dated it. On the batch number line she wrote the six digits sheʼd verified against the box, then added a note: One unit currently in pharmacy stock, batch 240517—not the unit used on the day of the incident.

Qi Xiuyun pushed a medical records cart down the corridor. One wheel wasnʼt quite round; it creaked with every revolution. The cart stopped in front of her.

”The storeroom has been going through paperwork these past two days,” Qi Xiuyun said, straightening the charts on top without looking up. ”Going through the return slips. Two days straight.”

”Who asked them to.”

”I donʼt know.” She smoothed a chart flat. ”Xiao Yaoʼs quieter than ever these last few days. Donʼt hold it against her. Last week she asked me what color lawyers wear to court.”

”Iʼll remember that.”

”Remember it or not, up to you.” Qi Xiuyun nudged the cart forward half a step. ”I need to get moving.”

[Thud. The one on the shelf isnʼt the one they used.]

* * *

Evening. Four sheets of paper laid out on the long table at Zhengping. She took a pencil and drew three vertical lines across the top sheetʼs margin, dividing it into three columns.

Left column: Procurement and Acceptance Record. Under it she copied the line from the carbon copy—Carbetocin Injection, 100 mcg per ampoule, one ampoule, supplier Hengyue Pharmaceutical, batch number legible only in the first two digits: 23.

Middle column: Ledger Outbound Column. Under it she drew a diagonal slash, then left half a line of space beneath. Small note beside it: Paper surface abraded, faint blue residue, writing illegible.

Right column: Pharmacy Stock. Under it, six digits: 240517.

Three columns in a row. Numbers at both ends. The middle column empty.

He Xiufen came up with her tea mug, set it on the corner of the table, and stood watching for a while.

”Three places, supposedly the same drug,” she said. ”First one left half a number. Middle one, someone scraped it. Last one, that ampouleʼs still on the shelf. Tell me: is the one on the shelf the same batch as the one that went into a personʼs body on the twenty-seventh.”

”No,” she said. ”The numbers donʼt match.”

”Thatʼs the one new fact you got today.” He Xiufen took the pencil from her hand and drew a circle above each of the three columns. ”Before, what weʼd pinned down was ʼnobody acknowledged it going in, and somebody scraped it going out.ʼ Todayʼs column says: the stock on its own shelf doesnʼt match the numbers on its own paper.”

”I looked up the gist of the regulations.” She turned over another sheet. ”When a medical institution buys drugs, it has to verify the supplierʼs qualifications and the drugʼs certificates of conformity. It has to keep genuine procurement and acceptance records, and those records must include the product name, spec, quantity, supplier, and batch number. The batch number has to be traceable from the manufacturer all the way through use. If the batch canʼt be traced, you canʼt trace which batch that one ampoule belonged to.”

[Thud. Statute Quick Search: Procurement requires acceptance; batch numbers must be traceable.]

”A batch number is a drugʼs ID card,” He Xiufen said. ”They canʼt produce the purchase receipt for the batch they used, and they canʼt produce that batchʼs certificate of conformity. Which means they canʼt tell you whether that ampoule was a compliant ampoule or not. But donʼt ask them ʼis there something wrong with the drugʼ—ask that, and theyʼve got a hundred answers waiting. You ask only one thing: what was the batch number of the ampoule used on the twenty-seventh, and where is the receipt.”

”What if they write down a number for me?”

”If they write down a number, you verify it.” He Xiufen picked up her mug and blew on it. ”Check it against the supply slip, the acceptance record, the current stock, the returns. Ask about the product, ask about the batch. Donʼt ask about people. People are here today and gone tomorrow. A batch number is printed on the box. It canʼt run away.”

She spread out the Supplementary Evidence Collection Application and began writing. One: purchase receipts for the same batch number of the drug specification involved in this case. Two: current stock status of that specification. Three: recent return-to-warehouse and destruction records for that specification. Reason, in the blank line, the same as before: to determine the source and conformity of the drug involved in this case.

On the third line, she paused.

”Will the return item make it look like Iʼm reaching too far?”

”What was returned was the same specification.” He Xiufen said. ”If theyʼd returned glucose, Iʼd tell you to cross that line out.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Peng Weidong came up in a washed-gray work uniform, ink staining the creases of his fingers. He stood in the doorway without coming farther in.

”Lawyer Shen, Iʼm on night shift, just passing by, saw the light on.”

”Come in, sit.”

”I wonʼt.” His eyes paused on the papers on the table, didnʼt understand them, didnʼt ask about them. ”Just the one question, the same one—who gave the order to use it.”

”That one has to wait,” she said. ”First ask about the product, then ask about the hand. Once the productʼs trail is established, someone will have no choice but to answer that.”

Peng Weidong nodded.

”The baby cries at night. Has to be held to sleep,” he said. ”I just keep thinking, when heʼs older, I want to have a piece of paper to show him.”

”There will be.”

He went back down. His footsteps on the stairs thudded all the way to the bottom.

She pulled out her phone. The message at the top of the list was still there: That half-sentence, Iʼll write it myself. She opened it. The cursor blinked twice in the input field. She backed out.

[Thud. They have to state clearly, first, which batch that ampoule came from.]

* * *

The morning of the twenty-eighth, she filed the application with the First Civil Division. The clerk flipped through two pages: ”This one—we just checked it on the twenty-fifth.”

”Three lines added today.”

The presiding judge came out, spread the three-column table on the windowsill, and tapped a finger across the three boxes.

”Three places. One where only the first two digits are legible. One scraped off. One still sitting on a shelf.” He set the paper down. ”On the first two, Iʼll issue letters: current stock status for that specification, and recent return and destruction records. On the second, I wonʼt write—the purchase receipts for that batch, Iʼll directly order the defendant to produce them. Within five days.”

”Can I add one thing,” she said. ”Make them put the batch number of the ampoule used on the twenty-seventh in writing.”

The presiding judge tapped his pen against the corner of the paper.

”Keep the request small and theyʼll have an easier time answering,” he said. ”The letter will read: within five days, explain in writing the batch number of the drug involved in this case, and submit the purchase receipt for that batch.”

[Thud. Make them put a number on paper themselves.]

* * *

March 29, 9:00 a.m. Third-floor file reading room at the courthouse. The same long table, four chairs, two kraft paper envelopes—one tied with string, one with a rubber band.

Director Xu arrived before her. Jacket, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. The clerk opened the envelopes and announced the contents: one page, Drug Stock Status. One slip, Return to Warehouse.

First, the Drug Stock Status. A table dated March 29, item after item by name. Carbetocin injection, 100 mcg per ampoule. One unit in stock. Batch 240517. Matching the six digits sheʼd verified at the window against the box. Not a single digit off.

Then the return slip.

March 22. Carbetocin injection, 100 mcg per ampoule. Two ampoules. Batch 230915. Returned to supplier: Hengyue Pharmaceutical.

Reason for return: blank. Handler: one signature. Reviewer: blank.

230915. First two digits: 23.

She turned up the procurement and acceptance record and laid it next to the return slip. The two blurred digits from the carbon copy lay right in front of her—23, exactly. The four after them, she was seeing for the first time, complete.

”This sequence belongs to that ampoule,” she said.

”The return is a different batch,” Director Xu said.

”Same first two digits as the one that was used.”

”Plenty of batches share the first two digits.”

”Then please write down the batch number of the ampoule used on the twenty-seventh.” She pushed the pen toward him, nib pointing his way. ”Penʼs here. Paperʼs right by your hand.”

Director Xuʼs hand didnʼt move.

”I canʼt write down the pharmacyʼs records.”

”You said youʼd go back and check. What day is it now.”

”Some things canʼt be written down until theyʼve been clarified.”

She smoothed the slip flat and pointed it out for the clerk: reason for return blank, reviewer blank, only a single handlerʼs name on the page. She counted out the three blanks, reading each one aloud. The clerk wrote a line in the margin: Defendant failed to state the batch number of the drug involved in this case.

She read the slip through once more from the top, and caught something sheʼd missed.

December 26: the procurement and acceptance record showed one ampoule received. March 22: two ampoules returned. Same product name. First two digits matched. One in. Two out.

”Where did the extra ampoule come from.”

”The pharmacyʼs books arenʼt the Medical Affairs Officeʼs to keep,” Director Xu said. ”Iʼll have to check that as well.”

”Then leave that blank too.” She slid the slip back toward him. ”Iʼll record every blank, one by one.”

The return slip had a date but no time. She added a line in her notebook: Returned March 22, no time recorded.

[Thud. The batch that went back—the date was one day after her price inquiry.]

March 22. That morning sheʼd filed the application at the First Civil Division, and the clerk had her sign the receipt stub. The day before was the twenty-first. She had stood at the pharmacy window and asked only one question. The price.

* * *

That night, the smell of scallion oil drifted up the stairwell from downstairs. She sat down to draft the Written Objection and wrote ”cannot explain” four times in a row. He Xiufen knocked three of them out with the end of a pen.

”Write one word four times and the judge stops reading by the third,” He Xiufen said. ”Put the numbers down. Let him see for himself.”

The final draft kept this passage:

The defendantʼs drug in-out ledger, procurement and acceptance record, pharmacy stock status, and return-to-warehouse slip are inconsistent in three places regarding the batch number of the carbetocin injection involved in this case: the batch number recorded in the procurement and acceptance record is legible only in its first two digits; the batch number field in the ledgerʼs outbound column has been altered, and the original writing is illegible; the drug currently in stock bears a different batch number. To date, the defendant has provided no written explanation of the batch number of the drug actually used in this case.

Further: the procurement and acceptance record shows one ampoule received on December 26; the return slip shows two ampoules returned on March 22. The quantities also do not match.

She finished copying, clipped the three photocopies into the folder in order. Three numbers laid out—23, the scraped-empty box, 240517. Only one of the three was complete, and it stood at the bottom of the ”returned” column.

She closed the folder and reached over to flip the desk calendar to March. The circle He Xiufen had drawn on the thirty-first was still there. Someone had traced over it again.