The Prosecutor Is Accustomed To Waiting For A Rabbit To Hit A Stump - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lin Fan instructed Ying Chaoyang to complete the documents, such as the police report, and watched the money successfully transfer to the account, after which the debtor signed the necessary papers.

It was already dark outside. Since the judgment debtor was indeed elderly, they had the driver take him home to prevent any incidents on the way.

Before the debtor left, Lin Fan couldn’t help but add: “I know you transferred all your assets to your children. I don’t have the evidence to charge you with refusal to comply with a judgment, but Grandpa, you are quite old; please just be a good person. This money is trivial to you, but to the execution applicant, it’s a lifesaver!”

The old man glanced at Lin Fan, said nothing, and left with the driver.

Lin Fan sighed. Some elderly people become righteously stubborn with age. This man was clearly responsible for hitting another elderly woman with his electric scooter, sending her to the hospital.

The old woman was still bedridden, her bones shattered, and she wouldn’t recover anytime soon.

The traffic police’s accident report clearly stated that the debtor was fully responsible, but he simply refused to pay the required compensation. He must have listened to someone’s advice because he processed the transfer of his assets the same week the accident occurred.

Ying Chaoyang sighed, “This person has a heart of stone. Transferring all his demolished property compensation to his children, not treating the old woman’s life as precious.”

Lin Fan also sighed. “These cases are the most frustrating. We don’t have direct evidence to prove he transferred the assets, but even if we did have evidence to charge him with refusal to comply with a judgment, how would the prison execute the sentence on someone so old? But thankfully, you didn’t expose my bluff just now, or we wouldn’t have been able to ‘trick’ the money out of him.”

“Sister Fan, we are public servants; we shouldn’t use the word ‘trick.’ I didn’t understand at the time either. I was wondering why you insisted on taking him to the hospital when I clearly remembered the detention center doesn’t accept people that old. Now I know you were just trying to scare him.”

“It’s pathetic,” Lin Fan lamented. “I’m a public servant, an officer in the court’s enforcement bureau, and I have to scare and ‘trick’ people just to complete a case execution. This job is becoming more and more depressing.”

“I feel the same way. It’s not like what the professor said at all.”

Ying Chaoyang graduated last year, passed the exam to enter the court, and was assigned to the same office as Lin Fan, temporarily working under her. “The pay isn’t great, we have to work overtime, and during the last major enforcement operation, I was even bitten by a debtor’s family member. That wound still hurts.”

Lin Fan leaned over to take a look. The teeth marks were still quite visible. She smiled, pointing at the marks, “This family member seems to be missing a tooth.”

She burst into laughter, completely lacking in coworker sympathy.

“Sister Fan!” Ying Chaoyang, who was thin-skinned, felt a little exasperated.

“Alright, alright.” Lin Fan became serious in an instant. “The execution applicant is still in the hospital. Let’s send this money to the hospital first and try to finish our overtime before 9:30!”

The work of enforcement is genuinely difficult, and the enforcement officers understand this very well.

Not only is the job arduous and exhausting, but the main problem is that it doesn’t have a good reputation.

Among the three justice departments—the court, the procuratorate, and the police—this is the most obscure job.

In the minds of ordinary people, mentioning the police evokes images of guardians of peace.

Mentioning a prosecutor evokes images of envoys and representatives of justice.

Mentioning a judge evokes images of upholders of social justice.

But when mentioning enforcement officers, the public’s reaction is either complete ignorance or simply seeing them as debt collectors.

Yes, to put it nicely:

Enforcement is meant to safeguard the rights of the winning party, ensure that a court’s judgment is effectively implemented, and establish the authority of judicial rulings.

But to put it bluntly, it means that after a party wins a lawsuit and files for enforcement, the enforcement officers, including the enforcement judge, go to the judgment debtor to demand money.

Step one: investigation and control—checking the debtor’s bank cards, real estate, movable property, and other assets. If assets are found, freezing the funds.

Step two: locating people—judgment debtors are also called deadbeats. Deadbeats either stall or hide.

Step three: execution—auctioning assets if they exist, negotiating if they don’t. If execution is truly impossible, the case is closed due to lack of assets.

It sounds simple, but the actual execution is incredibly difficult.

This was Lin Fan’s fourth year working in enforcement. She had been hardened from a simple, innocent girl into a slippery veteran whose mouth was quicker than her brain.

With the cute, innocent appearance of a little white rabbit, she concealed cunning within.

She was becoming more and more like a white rabbit. After all, the white rabbit is arguably the most deceptively innocent-looking species in the world.

They may be known for having “three burrows” (meaning they are tricky and prepared), but everyone just sees the white, soft, long-eared creature that is good for stroking.

Here, the “little white rabbit,” Lin Fan, drove to the hospital with Ying Chaoyang.

When the head nurse led them over, she couldn’t help but sigh, “The old lady’s Alzheimer’s seems to have worsened recently. Today, she didn’t recognize her own granddaughter at first glance. Your money arrived just in time. If the medical bills were owed any longer, we really couldn’t bear the burden. The fact that we can prescribe this medicine now is because our director and the department themselves are covering the costs. Alas…”

The ward door was pushed open. Four patients occupied the four beds.

The people staying with them were still awake and all looked over. There were three adults staying with the patients, except for the bed closest to the restroom, where a young, tender face peeked out.

A little girl with braids, wearing a school uniform and a red scarf around her neck, looked at Lin Fan with wide eyes. Recognizing her uniform, she obediently put on her shoes and walked out. “Big Sister, are you here for me?”

Despite being a child, her small face had already lost the innocence of youth, appearing mature and weathered.

The head nurse sighed again. “Children of poor families grow up fast. Nuan Nuan, I brought you some fruit. Come find me at the nurse station later.”

“Thank you, Auntie!”

The head nurse stroked Cheng Wennuan’s head. What an adorable, pitiable little girl. “Then you talk. I’ll go back to my work.”

After the head nurse left, Cheng Wennuan looked at Lin Fan and smiled shyly at the uniformed big sister and big brother. “Your uniforms are different from Big Sister Gu’s. Are you from the court?”

Ying Chaoyang was dumbfounded. Could this elementary school student be the execution applicant for this case?

Lin Fan bent down, giving Cheng Wennuan a cute, adorable smile, attempting to build rapport with the little girl. “Yes, Nuan Nuan, we are from the court. The person who hit your grandma has already paid the compensation to the court. We are here to bring the money to save your grandma. Where are your grown-ups? We still need a signature.”

Cheng Wennuan listened quietly, then calmly shook her head, her palm-sized face serious. “There are no grown-ups. It’s just me and Grandma at home, Big Sister. I’ll sign. Grandma is sick and can’t remember anything, and she’s asleep now.”

The little girl’s words stunned Lin Fan. She and Ying Chaoyang exchanged glances, both shocked. What did “no grown-ups” mean?

But the child was so young, still a person with limited capacity for civil conduct. Lin Fan certainly couldn’t let her sign.

She imitated the head nurse and stroked the little girl’s head. “Nuan Nuan, how about this? I’ll come back tomorrow, and I’ll visit again when your grandma wakes up.”

“Big Sister, I’m grown up now. I can be responsible.”

“That’s right, Nuan Nuan is very capable, but Big Sister also wants to apply for judicial aid for you, and that requires preparing some additional materials. I can only come back to see you tomorrow.” Lin Fan had no experience with comforting children, and she was clumsy and overly cautious, but this exceptionally mature child made her feel involuntarily sorry for her.

“Then can you come after I get out of school in the afternoon?”

“Of course. You can jot down my phone number. You can call me if you need anything. I’m the person in charge of your grandma’s enforcement case. You can trust me.”

Lin Fan was moved with compassion. Normally, she would absolutely never give out her personal cell phone number to a party.

Due to the specialized nature of judicial officers’ careers and the inherently volatile nature of enforcement work, giving out her number arbitrarily could lead to many risks regarding discipline and conduct.

The little girl raised her wrist. A child’s phone watch, with a delicate watch face that didn’t look cheap, slid out from the cuff of her school uniform.

Lin Fan found this a bit strange. When the case first came to her, the assigned judge had specifically called and said that the applicant’s family was very poor and that the money was truly life-saving, asking her to pay extra attention.

But this child’s phone watch was genuinely expensive.

Cheng Wennuan saved Lin Fan’s phone number into her watch’s contacts, muttering as she saved it, “The first one is Big Sister Gu’s. Big Sister Lin, you are the second.”

Lin Fan, in her familiarity, leaned over to look. The first line of the contacts read “Big Sister Gu,” followed by a string of phone numbers scrolling below.

Having a good memory, after dropping Ying Chaoyang off at home, she entered that string of numbers into a work-related app (like a government directory app).

It was a casual attempt, blindly guessing that this “Big Sister Gu” was an insider in the system.

She was right. The app interface popped up.

In the simple app interface, “Gu Ye” was written in black bold font. Below was her main position: Ding’an District – Procuratorate – District People’s Procuratorate – Head of the Public Prosecution Department.

Next to the name was her blue-background ID photo. Her features were cold and beautiful, her gaze directed straight ahead, as if looking through the phone screen at Lin Fan.

Inexplicably, Lin Fan felt her face flush as she stared at the photo.

Oh my god! How can someone look this beautiful even in an ID photo!

Lin Fan couldn’t help but tap the portrait, trying to enlarge it.

Unfortunately, the app didn’t offer that function. She could only sigh regrettably, but for some unknown reason, she took a screenshot of the interface and saved it to her phone’s photo album.

As she performed the smooth operation, she thought: It looks like the Big Sister Gu the little girl mentioned is the Prosecutor Gu Ye, the “First Flower on the Lofty Mountain of Anjian.” But why would they know each other?

Also, regarding the little girl’s statement that “there are no grown-ups,” did everyone in her family pass away? Is it just her and her grandmother left?

Lin Fan couldn’t figure out these questions and decided to ask the assigned judge for the case the next day at work.

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