The safe deposit box was emptied three days later, the documents transferred to a law firm that specialised in class-action suits. Lu Chengen had met the lead attorney—a sharp, no-nonsense woman named Cai Ling, who had reviewed the files with an expression of controlled fury. "This is enough to bring down the entire holding company," she had said. "But we need witnesses. Living, breathing witnesses. The documents are the skeleton; the testimonies are the flesh. Without them, the case will be eaten alive by the company's lawyers."
Lu Chengen had nodded, understanding the weight of her words. The twenty-seven names on the list were not just numbers; they were families, widows, orphans, aging parents who had buried their children. Many of them had been silenced by settlements, by threats, by the sheer exhaustion of fighting a corporation that had unlimited resources. Su Ping had spent five years building the documentary case, but the human case—the living testimonies—were still scattered across the city, hidden in the shadows of grief.
He began the work of finding them. It was slow, painstaking, and often heartbreaking. He visited tenements and boarding houses, sat in kitchens that smelled of boiled cabbage and regret, listened to stories that had been locked away for years. Each witness was a small universe of pain—a fisherman's wife whose husband had died of liver cancer after forty years of working the contaminated waters; a dockworker's daughter who had been told her father's leukemia was "bad luck"; a grandmother who had lost three sons to the same factory that Shen Fu had owned.
But not all of them were willing to testify. Fear was a powerful silencer, and the company's legacy of intimidation was long. More than once, Lu Chengen was told to leave, to forget he had ever come, to stop digging up old graves. He did not push. He simply left his card, a note of encouragement, and a promise that the door would remain open.
It was on the fourth day of this work that he received a letter from Su Ping, delivered by hand to his flat. It was brief, written in her tight, controlled script: "You are doing well. But you are missing the most important witness—the one who can prove the contamination originated from the company's waste dump, not from the harbour. His name is Yu Zhongliang. He was the company's chief environmental officer from 1978 to 1984. He lives in the southern district, under an assumed name. Find him before the company does."
Yu Zhongliang. The name was not on the list. He had not been a victim; he had been an insider. And insiders were the most dangerous of all—to the company, and to themselves. If he agreed to testify, the case would become unassailable. But if he refused, or if he was silenced before he could speak, the entire lawsuit would rest on circumstantial evidence.
Lu Chengen spent the next day searching for Yu Zhongliang. The southern district was a maze of narrow lanes and overcrowded apartments, the kind of place where neighbours knew each other's secrets but never spoke them aloud. He asked at corner shops, at tea stalls, at the small temple that served as a community hub. Most people shook their heads, their eyes averted. But an old woman, her face weathered like driftwood, gave him a name and an address. "He lives at 17 Willow Lane, but he doesn't see visitors. He's afraid of shadows."
He walked to Willow Lane, a cul-de-sac of grey-walled houses with peeling paint and rusted gates. Number 17 was a small, single-storey dwelling with a padlocked door and shuttered windows. He knocked, but no one answered. He called out, "Yu Zhongliang? My name is Lu Chengen. I'm working with Su Ping. We need your help."
The shutter on the window to the left creaked open a crack. A pair of dark, suspicious eyes peered out. "I don't know any Su Ping. Go away."
"She has documents. She has the proof. She only needs your testimony to complete the case."
The eyes narrowed. "The case? You mean the lawsuit against Shen Fu. I heard about it. But you don't understand—I signed a non-disclosure agreement. If I speak, I lose my pension, my house, everything. I'll be destitute."
Lu Chengen pressed his hand against the window frame. "And if you don't speak, twenty-seven families will never see justice. Their names will be forgotten, their deaths will be filed as 'accidental' or 'natural causes.' You were the one who knew the truth about the waste dump. You were the one who saw the reports. You have a moral obligation—"
The shutter slammed shut. A muffled voice came through the wood: "I've heard that before. From Su Ping herself. She came to me two years ago, said the same things. I told her no. I'm telling you no. Now go away before I call the police."
Lu Chengen stood in the empty lane, the silence pressing down on him. He had failed. The most important witness had refused, and there was no way to force him. The law was not a sword; it was a key, and a key was useless without a hand to turn it.
He walked back to his flat, dejected and tired. He poured himself a cup of cold tea and sat at his desk, staring at the wall. The chalk marks were gone, but the memory of them lingered—a phantom tally that counted his failures as much as his successes.
That evening, Jiang Feng called. "Lu, have you seen the evening paper? There's a front-page story about Yu Zhongliang. Someone leaked his identity to the press. The company is already issuing a statement, calling him a 'disgruntled former employee' whose accusations are baseless. He's being publicly smeared before he's even spoken."
Lu Chengen felt his stomach drop. Su Ping. She had known where Yu Zhongliang was. She had sent Lu Chengen to find him, knowing he would refuse. And then she had leaked the information to the press, forcing Yu Zhongliang into a corner where his silence would be interpreted as guilt. She had outmanoeuvred him again, turning his refusal into a weapon.
"Jiang, I need you to find Su Ping. Tonight. She's gone too far."
Jiang Feng agreed. They met at the harbour an hour later, the wind sharp and cold. The fishing boats were dark, the pier deserted. They walked in silence, scanning the shadows for any sign of her.
They found her sitting on a crate near the old seafood market, a thermos of tea in her hands, her grey coat buttoned against the chill. She looked up as they approached, her face composed, unrepentant.
"I knew you'd come," she said. "You read the paper."
"Yu Zhongliang's name was on your list," Lu Chengen said, his voice tight. "You wanted him to testify. But you also knew he'd refuse. So you forced him. You made him a target. If he doesn't speak now, he'll be branded a coward and a liar."
"He'll speak," Su Ping said calmly. "He has no choice. The company's statement has already painted him as the villain. The only way he can restore his reputation is to tell the truth. I gave him the motivation he needed. You gave him the push. Now he'll do what's right."
"This isn't justice," Jiang Feng said, his journalist's indignation flaring. "This is manipulation. You're using his fear as a lever."
"I'm using his fear to achieve a greater good," she replied. "You can call it manipulation. I call it strategy. The company has been manipulating people for years—threatening, bribing, silencing. I am merely using their own tactics against them. If that offends your moral sensibilities, I suggest you take it up with the twenty-seven families who have been waiting for justice."
Lu Chengen stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, urgent tone. "And what about you, Su Ping? When does your strategy end? When all the guilty are punished? When the last tally is drawn? Or when you finally feel that Wu Bin and Guanghua have been avenged?"
Her composure faltered for a fraction of a second—a flicker of pain, quickly masked. "You don't know what it's like to lose two men you loved, both to the same system. You don't know what it's like to watch the guilty walk free, year after year, while you sit in the shadows, powerless. I will not stop until the system itself is changed. Not just Shen Fu, not just the company, but the entire culture of silence that allowed them to thrive."
"And what happens when you succeed? What happens when the system is changed, but you're still holding the chalk, still drawing tallies, still unable to let go?"
She did not answer. She looked away, her jaw tightening. The silence stretched between them, heavy and unresolved.
Jiang Feng broke it. "Yu Zhongliang called me tonight. After the paper came out, he left a message at my office. He said he's willing to testify, but only if he's guaranteed protection. He's scared, but he's also angry. Your strategy worked, Su Ping. But at what cost?"
"The cost of a man's fear is less than the cost of twenty-seven lives," she said, but her voice was softer now, less certain. "I never said the path was clean. I only said it was necessary."
They left her at the pier, her thermos cold, her eyes still fixed on the dark water. Lu Chengen walked home, Jiang Feng beside him, the city's lights flickering in the distance. He had been given a role—a witness, a co-architect, a man of ink and paper. But he had not been given peace. Peace, he was beginning to understand, was a luxury that neither justice nor vengeance could afford.
The next morning, Yu Zhongliang's testimony was recorded at a secure location, under police guard. His words were damning—detailed accounts of the waste dump, the falsified environmental reports, the orders from Shen Fu himself to "dispose of" toxic chemicals in the harbour rather than transporting them to proper facilities. The evidence was now complete. The class-action lawsuit was scheduled to proceed in two weeks.
Lu Chengen watched the news coverage, his tea growing cold. He had done his part. He had signed the affidavit, found the witnesses, delivered the documents. The cycle was moving forward, propelled by forces he could barely control.
But as he reached for the remote to turn off the television, he noticed something on the windowsill. A small white stone, smooth and oval, identical to the one he had thrown away. On its surface, painted in black ink, was a single word: "Fourteenth."
He picked it up, his heart sinking. The count had resumed. The cycle had not ended. It had simply paused, waiting for him to let his guard down.
He looked out the window. The street was empty, the morning quiet. But he knew, with a certainty that had become his constant companion, that the judge was still watching—not Su Ping, not Chen Weiguo, but someone else, a new player who had been waiting for the right moment to enter the stage.
He placed the stone back on the windowsill, next to the plant that had once been his wife's. He did not throw it away. He let it sit there, a reminder that the count was never truly complete, that the violence of silence was a wound that would never fully heal.
He walked out the door, into the grey morning, and began the long, slow work of living—one step at a time, one day at a time, one tally at a time.
The fourteenth was waiting. And he knew, with a quiet, weary acceptance, that the fifteenth would not be far behind.
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