Bai took the shipment codes to the courier yard where Ruo had worked before joining the clinic effort. The yard sat between the canal and a row of storehouses. Carts came and went while clerks checked tags against a wall ledger.
Ruo met them beside the records desk. She had brought copies of three route slips, each with a different hospital name and the same destination stamp: a crescent with a nick on its left edge.
“Those are the copies I made when I worked here,” she said. “I kept them because the destinations did not match the labels on the crates.”
Ruo separated the slips by date and destination. The earliest one went to a district hospital, the second to a refinery clinic, and the third to the border office. The stamp appeared on all three, but the handwriting differed.
“Did one clerk fill these out?” Zhen asked.
“No,” Ruo said. “Different hands. The stamp was added after the route was assigned.”
Zhen compared the impressions under a small lens. The crescent nick appeared in the same place each time. He could confirm the office, but not the person who used the stamp.
Bai kept the originals inside his case while Zhen copied the contract number. “I can leave you duplicates. I won’t hand over the only set until the clinic has logged them.”
