Abstract:  Since the late 1970s, under the context of Sending Law to the Countryside, China has being promoted the legal construction in rural areas nationwide,and has completed the framework of the rural judicial system. Meanwhile, the daily lives in rural China are still to some extent regulated by patriarchal clan system, which often incurs conflicts between local ethics and judicial system. By analyzing a case over divorce dispute, this article intends to reveal the operating logic of justice in rural China as a Drying Mechanism. It observes that the judges of the grassroot courts often take out many facts which are often considered as regarding morals, habits and experiences, in order to achieve a socalled genuine and positive justice. Aiming at a formal rationality, the judges often reconstruct the case in a rigid, even somehow stubborn but authoritative way. Originating from the special design of the accept and hearing procedures of certain cases,Drying Mechanism is the result of legal formalization, to some extent featuring the socalled Veil of Ignorance in China’s courts. Drying Mechanism actually has combined the universality of law and the local, representing both rural life and judicial space. An inherent tension of justice in rural China has been exposed by this logic, which, however, is indispensable, as pragmatically,it prevents the judicial system from being overburdened despite the arbitrary of rationality shown in its operation occasionally. Thereby, it shapes a conception of Rule of Law in the rural Chinese life world. The dilemma between the court procedure and the de facto unclear course may show a limitation of the universality of justice, which actually is also local. In short, Drying Mechanism sheds light on a new recognition and explanation of the operation of justice in rural China.

Key words: operating logic,  justice in rural China, drying mechanism, practical dilemma