Chapter 9
Edward Quan ·
“If Mingming gets the money, he can buy Mom a small apartment and settle our family’s debts too.”
I looked at her.
“You’ve worked it all out.”
She immediately changed her tune.
“I was just talking.”
I took out my phone.
“Say it again.”
She turned and left.
After a few steps, though, she looked back.
“Song Wanqing, don’t think you’re so clever. Mingming still has a card up his sleeve.”
8.
I kept thinking about what Zhao Xue had said.
Zhao Ming still had another card to play.
What could he produce besides that loan agreement?
Three days later, the court held the first mediation session.
Zhao Ming arrived with his lawyer. His mother and Zhao Xue sat in the public seating area.
My lawyer and I sat on the other side.
The judge first asked about the apartment.
Zhao Ming’s lawyer submitted the loan agreement and argued that Zhao Ming had contributed two hundred thousand yuan to its purchase after marriage. They asked for it to be recognized as joint marital property.
We submitted Dad’s transfer receipt, the housing payment records, and the bank statements.
After examining them, the judge asked Zhao Ming:
“You say the money was handed over in cash. Do you have a withdrawal record, a witness, or any other documentation?”
“It was too long ago. I haven’t kept any of that.”
“Who drafted this agreement?”
“I’m not sure. She may have written it.”
“If you were lending her money, why was there no repayment deadline?”
He couldn’t answer.
His mother grew impatient.
“They’re husband and wife. Why would they need to write out every little detail of a loan?”
The judge looked up.
“Members of the public must remain silent.”
Zhao Ming’s lawyer requested handwriting analysis.
I agreed.
The mediation produced no settlement.
As we left the courthouse, his mother hurried after me.
“Happy now? You just had to humiliate Mingming in front of everyone.”
“He produced the agreement.”
“Dragging a marital dispute into court disgraces the Zhao family.”
“The apartment is in my name. The Zhao family’s reputation has nothing to do with it.”
She pointed at me.
“One day your own children will abandon you.”
Zhao Nian stepped in front of me.
“Grandma, don’t insult Mom.”
My mother-in-law froze, then wailed even louder.
Zhao Ming hurriedly pulled her away.
Before getting into the car, he glanced back at the children.
There was reproach in his eyes, and helplessness too.
I knew he wanted them on his side.
But they had already seen too much.
After we got home, my lawyer called.
“The examiners have found something. There’s a problem with the original the other side submitted.”
“What problem?”
“The paper was manufactured within the last few years, but the agreement is dated more than ten years ago.”
I went still.
“Are they sure?”
“At this stage, they can only say there’s a discrepancy between the age of the paper and the ink marks. We need the formal report for a firm conclusion.”
“So the agreement may have been drawn up later and backdated?”
“That’s possible.”
I told Mom.
She immediately remembered something.
“Didn’t Zhao Ming take an old seal of ours in your second year of marriage?”
I thought for a moment.
“He said he needed it to settle the renovation expenses.”
“And what happened to it afterward?”
“I never saw it again.”
I searched the drawers and finally found, in an old box, the worn impression from the base of that seal.
Dad had given it to me for the property paperwork.
Beside the fingerprint at the bottom of the agreement was a faint seal impression.
My lawyer said, “This may help establish that the agreement was created later. But we still need to establish where the seal came from.”
I called Zhao Ming.
“Does the agreement you have bear my seal?”
“You signed and stamped it yourself. Why ask me?”
“You took my seal back then.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why is there a seal impression on the agreement you submitted?”
Silence.
Then I heard his mother beside him.
“Has she found out?”
The words came through perfectly clearly.
He hung up at once.
I saved the recording.
So this was the card Zhao Xue had mentioned.
They thought a convincing-looking agreement would make me give in under the pressure of the children and the lawsuit.
They hadn’t expected the paper itself to refuse to support their lie.
When the formal examination report was issued, my lawyer and I went to court to submit it.
It stated that the paper had been manufactured after the alleged signing date, the signature showed signs of copying, and the seal impression differed from the one I had used for the earlier property formalities.
The judge asked Zhao Ming whether he accepted the findings.
His lawyer requested a second examination.
The judge asked: