by Liu Zhenyun
On this day he was falling-down drunk. It was a Wednesday, in his home county, and with legal colleagues, all contrary to his career rules. But there was a reason. It was former Chief Judge Cao’s birthday. Cao had turned the position of Chief Judge over to Xun, whom he had taken under his wing upon his retirement three years earlier. So Xun put aside his drinking restrictions to celebrate the elder leader’s birthday. Cao drank too much, so did Xun. In reality, Cao’s cultivation and mentorship had caused Xun considerable anguish. On the eve of Cao’s retirement, there had been four deputy chief justices, and Xun Zhengyi had not been Cao’s favorite; that honor had fallen to Deputy Chief Ge. Back when Cao had not been adjudicating legal cases, his sole recreational interests had been boozing and playing bridge. Deputy Chief Ge had also been a bridge player. The game of bridge is an ideal test of a man’s character. Having gained knowledge of Ge’s character via the game, Cao had anointed him as his successor, confident that he would not be disappointed. Which is what made what happened a month before Cao’s retirement so shocking. After some heavy drinking during dinner with some classmates, Ge had climbed into his car and sped down a one-way street in the wrong direction, sending oncoming cars swerving frantically out of his way.
“Don’t traffic laws apply to you morons,” he cursed, “driving the wrong way! It’s this flawed legal system of ours. I’ll take you all to court tomorrow!”
As he was cursing, up ahead, a fourteen-wheeler with a load of coal was unable to avoid a head-on collision, hurtling Ge’s car into the opposite lanes. Ge did not survive the crash. His death opened the door for Xun Zhengyi. The job was his, for which he owed thanks not to Cao but to the driver of the coal truck, or better yet to the quantity of alcohol Ge had consumed and to Ge’s classmates. At least that’s how Xun looked at it. But not Cao, who considered anyone he handed the position over to be his protégé, which meant that by ascending to the position of chief justice, Xun was in Cao’s debt; and since that was how the retiree felt, Xun went along with it. Once he settled into the chief justice’s chair, he greeted former Chief Justice Cao by saying, “Lacking virtue and talent, if not for the guidance of the elder statesman, this job would never have been mine.”
Finding nothing to fault in that, the former chief justice began to accept Xun Zhengyi as one of his own. Cao knew better than to interfere in courthouse affairs, but he did not hesitate to call upon Xun in regard to personal problems. That clear distinction was all Xun needed to see that Cao was a sensible person, and that he could help his predecessor in his personal life at little cost to himself. For three years, he’d treated Cao with the respect due a former leader. He held a birthday party for him every year, opening the festivities at the dinner table with:
“Kept busy all year long, I have not been a dutiful visitor to our former leader. But on his birthday, I see it as my duty to host a party for him.”
One short comment to make up for a year’s neglect, but better than nothing, and Cao beamed with delight. The party this year was held on the second floor of the Pine and Crane Hotel, where the birthday celebrant drank a great deal. And since there was a reason to drink, Xun Zhengyi tried to keep up with him. While still sober, he announced, “Our former leader knows that I have five restrictions against drinking. But one day a year I make an exception and join him in drinking to my heart’s content.”
Cao’s happy face glowed. He had been a big drinker all his life, while Xun Zhengyi, who seldom drank, was not. After a lifetime of boozing, Cao had created a unique drinking style, which revolved around cigarettes. “The saying goes,” he would say, “that ‘smoking and drinking go together.’” For him that did not mean alternating drinks and puffs. No, it was using a pack of cigarettes to determine how much alcohol to pour into a glass. First the pack lies flat, alcohol is poured to that height, and drunk in one gulp. Then the pack lies on its side, alcohol is poured to that height, and it too is finished off in one swallow. Finally, the pack is stood to full height, alcohol fills the glass, and it is drunk down. The height of a flat pack is one ounce, on its side, two ounces, and full height, three ounces. A three-stage pack equals six ounces of alcohol, a so-called “open door red,” considered to be the true beginning of a drinking party, launched by finger-guessing games and accrued penalties. By that time it’s hard to say how much has been drunk. What Cao did not know was, now that he had retired and Xun Zhengyi was his successor, the people who drank with him—deputy chiefs, heads of the political section and disciplinary group, the office manager, and other leaders—all once his subordinates but now subordinates of Xun Zhengyi—poured mineral water into Xun’s glass but real liquor into his. After eight rounds, Cao was drunk and so was Xun. But Cao was blotto, while Xun still had a ways to go. The banquet ended with Cao being carried downstairs from the second floor. His successor too was carried downstairs, where Li Xuelian accosted him.
“Chief Justice Xun, you have to take up my case.”
Being stopped on the street by people with complaints was a regular occurrence for a chief justice. But it was nighttime and he was drunk; caught unprepared, he was thrown off balance. He had to act drunker than he really was, since the former chief justice was there beside him, and he did not want his fright to be obvious. But the office manager, who had helped carry him down the stairs, did not try to hide his alarm. He grabbed Li Xuelian’s arm.
“Let go!” he demanded. “Can’t you see the chief justice is drunk? Anything you have to say can wait till tomorrow.”
He shoved Xuelian out of the way and helped Xun Zhengyi over to the car, but was stopped by a shout from former Chief Justice Cao at the hotel entrance:
“What’s going on there?”
His speech was slurred, but that did not stop him.
“Does someone need legal action? Come tell me what it is. Things like this are always happening to me.”
If he had not been drinking so heavily, Cao would never have stuck his nose into courtroom business. But the alcohol had dulled his recollection of having retired three years before, and he was caught up in the remembered excitement of dealing with a legal case. Realizing what Cao was about to do, the others left Xun where he was and moved to hustle Cao into the car.
“It’s just a peasant woman, Chief Justice, nothing to concern yourself about. Your health is what’s important, and you need to go home to rest. Chief Justice Xun can handle this.”
They picked Cao up and carried him to the car. Still struggling, he rolled down the window, pointed at Xun, who was standing by the second car, and, in an official tone of voice, said, “Zhengyi, you to investigate this case. I’ve said in the past that any official who doesn’t stand up for the common people might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes.”
Zhengyi stumbled up to Cao’s car.
“Leave it to me, Sir,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten all you taught me over the years. I’ll get to the bottom of this and report to you tomorrow.”
The car drove off with Cao muttering in the back seat. Xun did not climb into his car as a result of what Cao had said to him, not out of a fear of what Li Xuelian might do if she had heard it, but because the next day, after Cao had sobered up, his mentor might recall what he’d said and would expect Xun to carry out his promise, even though he hadn’t really meant it. It would not look good to agree to things that were said sober, but not things said drunk. He could lose a lot by trying to save a little. A retired official might be in no position to offer help, but he could still make things hard on people. He would have IOUs from those above and below over many years in a position of power, and rain from the next passing cloud could pour down on someone’s head. So even though he was fairly drunk at the time, Xun Zhengyi knew that he had to deal with Li Xuelian; but precisely because he was fairly drunk, there was a testy quality to the questions he asked:
“What’s with you?”
“I want to lodge a complaint against somebody.”
“Who?”
“Dong Xianfa.”
Actually, as we know, her first target had been Qin Yuhe; she had then moved on to Wang Gongdao, for it was he who had ruled against her. But that was then; now the object of her complaint was Dong Xianfa, with whom she’d had no quarrels before their one and only meeting, where he had turned down a request to reexamine her case; that would have put an end to the matter if only they had not engaged in a conversation in front of the courthouse that had become increasingly acrimonious and drawn a crowd. That had been more than he could stand. “Get out of here, you troublemaker!” he’d bellowed. And that was too offensive for Li to let pass. I’m suing to right a wrong, she was thinking, and that’s the business you’re in, so how dare you call me a troublemaker and tell me to get out of here! So she went looking for Chief Justice Xun, Dong Xianfa’s boss, to take Dong to court before carrying out her complaint against Qin Yuhe and Wang Gongdao. Poor Xun Zhengyi could not make heads or tails out of what she was telling him.
“What did Dong Xianfa do to you?”
Dong hadn’t done anything to Li, except to call her a troublemaker and tell her to get out of there, hardly actionable offenses. But she was pressed to say something, and so:
“Dong Xianfa is on the take!”
Obviously, this was a groundless accusation. While he might have been on the take sometime, somewhere, definitely not in regard to Li Xuelian’s case. Granted, Dong’s wife had accepted the gift of cotton and a couple of hens, and though that did not rise to the level of bribery, Dong himself had accused his wife of accepting a bribe when he’d seen the chickens stewing in a pot at home.
A gust of cold wind swept past at that moment, eliciting a shudder from Xun Zhengyi. If he hadn’t been drunk before that gust of wind, he was now. A prudent man when sober, he had an explosive temper after drinking; alcohol made him a different man, and that was one of the reasons he avoided the stuff most of the time, the underlying cause of his five proscriptions.
“You can say anything else about him,” he reacted impatiently, “and I’d look into it. But not accusing him of being on the take.”
“Then who will look into it?”
“The Public Prosecutor’s office.”
He was telling the truth. As a public servant, if Dong Xianfa had ruled incorrectly on a case, it was a matter for the chief justice. If, however, he was accused of being on the take, that was out of the chief justice’s jurisdiction, and became a matter for the Public Prosecutor. This was all unfamiliar territory for Li Xuelian, and was beginning to take its toll on her.
“Everyone I talk to sends me to somebody else. I want to know who I’m supposed to talk to!”
What she said next really set Xun Zhengyi off:
“As chief justice, you should not be on the take like Dong Xianfa.”
Now Chief Justice Xun could have been on the take sometime, somewhere, but definitely not in regard to Li Xuelian’s case. Sober, he might have let this comment pass. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.
“You and I have just met!” he shouted into Li Xuelian’s face. “How dare you accuse me of being on the take! You really are a troublemaker, so get out of here!”
Even the words were the same as Dong Xianfa’s.
8
Li Xuelian met County Chief Shi Weimin—For the People Shi—in front of the government office building. Shi was in the back seat of his car enjoying a bowl of rice porridge when a woman suddenly appeared in front of his car. His driver slammed on the brakes, sending Shi lurching forward, where his head collided with the back of the seat in front, spraying porridge all over him. He rubbed his forehead, sat back, and looked up, only to see a woman kneeling in the road directly ahead, holding up a cardboard sign with a single word scrawled on it: INJUSTICE.
A county chief would not be expected to go to his office on a Sunday, but Shi never took a Sunday off, not with the multifarious affairs and daily lives of a population of more than a million, including workers, farmers, merchants, and intellectuals, to look after. Every day more than a hundred directives from the Central Government, provincial officials, and municipal authorities arrived on Shi’s desk, demanding his attention. Workers put in an eight-hour day; Shi Weimin logged fourteen or fifteen, not counting the nightly meetings. Hardly a day passed without someone from the provincial or municipal level coming to inspect county work, and he was responsible for entertaining the members of at least eight senior inspection teams from the more than one hundred provincial and municipal departments on a daily basis, which meant sixteen lunches and dinners. And since they were all functional departments, he had to steer clear of the slightest hint of offense. Shi Weimin’s stomach suffered grievously from all that food and drink. He was often heard to grumble to his subordinates, hands pressed against his belly:
“County chief is no job for a human being.”
And yet, ascending to the position of a county boss had not been easy. It was a dream shared by a million residents of the county, but wormwood does not grow on all ancestral tombs. The main reason was the ease in which a person can fall into the trap of government work. A township boss strives to become a county chief, who then strives to become a municipal or provincial boss. A man in that position has no one to blame but himself. This did not escape the attention of Shi Weimin, who had no regrets, despite his grumbles. If liquor was ruining his health, it was up to him to nurse himself back to health. Lunch and dinner invariably involved liquor, but for breakfast he ate rice porridge, to which he added pumpkin and yam, coarse grains that were a boon to his ailing stomach. There were times when the previous night’s meeting did not end till very late and he overslept the next morning, forcing him to eat his porridge in the car on the way to the office.
Li Xuelian’s experience with Xun Zhengyi, the chief justice, had taught her an important lesson: rather than meet the county chief at lunch or dinner, she’d confront him first thing in the morning. Important people tend to drink during the lunch and dinner hours, but their heads are clear in the mornings. So she accosted him in front of the government office building early that morning.
Shi Weimin was on his way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new restaurant called Peach Blossom Heaven. This so-called “heaven” was very much earthbound, located amid a grove of trees some twenty li southwest of town, with an occasional bird and a few spotted deer that belonged to the owner. What added splendor to the restaurant was the spa and bathing facility directly behind it, equipped with a sauna, massage rooms, and everything normally associated with such a place. Enterprises of this nature sometimes dealt in illicit activities, and that should have kept the county chief from attending the ceremony. But the owner happened to be the brother-in-law of a provincial bigwig, and since the rented land fell within Shi Weimin’s county, as “landlord” he had no choice but to attend. Besides, once Peach Blossom Heaven was open for business, there would be taxes to pay, and generating revenue was one of his important responsibilities. The ceremony had been planned for a Sunday morning in order to attract as many people as possible. But last night’s meeting had dragged on so late that the county chief had overslept and was eating his porridge in the car. It was already 8:30, half an hour before the scheduled ceremony, and Shi was getting anxious. That anxiety intensified when his car was stopped almost as soon as it left the government compound. But Shi was a paragon of serenity compared to his driver, whose anger stemmed not from a concern that they would be late or that his boss had banged his head against the back of his seat or even that the county chief was now covered in porridge; no, it resulted from the sudden appearance of a woman kneeling in front of his car, which had made him slam on the brakes and break out in a cold sweat. He rolled down his window.
“You got a death wish?” he barked.
This was not the first such incident experienced by Shi Weimin, a man with more self control than his driver; in fact, for county chiefs, these things came with the territory. He reined in the driver, opened his door, and stepped out of the car. After brushing off the porridge that clung to him, he w
ent up and helped the woman to her feet.
“Come on, get up and tell me what this is about.”
Li Xuelian stood up.
“Who are you looking for?” Shi asked her.
“The county chief.”
He knew that a woman like this could not own a TV set and so would not have seen local news programming, which made him a stranger in her eyes.
“What do you want with him?”
Li Xuelian raised her “Injustice” cardboard sign.
“To bring legal action.”
“Against which person?”
“Persons, not person.”
Shi Weimin chuckled.
“How many altogether?”
“First against Chief Justice Xun Zhengyi, second against Judicial Committee Member Dong Xianfa, third against Justice Wang Gongdao, fourth against my husband, Qin Yuhe, and fifth against myself.”
What confused Shi Weimin was not that she wanted to bring legal action against all those other people, but that she ended her indictment with “myself.” First time he’d ever heard anything like that, and he knew this was going to be no easy case, and was probably going to take more time than he had at the moment. He looked at his watch—already 8:40.
“I’ll go find the county chief for you.”
He turned to run back to the office building with two goals in mind: one, to be on his way to the Peach Blossom Heaven ribbon-cutting, and two, since he couldn’t attend spattered with porridge, to change clothes in his office. Li Xuelian reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
“Stop,” she said. “I think you’re the county chief.”
Shi Weimin flicked bits of porridge off his clothes.