Before the East Gate closed, Qi Du spotted a mismatch in the final digit of a container number and stopped the truck from leaving. The dispatcher and Lei Qiu, the yard crane foreman, forced the barrier up anyway. The container truck turned onto the ramp and sent its container tumbling into a ditch of black water. The audit team demanded that Qi Du sign an acknowledgment of responsibility and repay the full cargo value of 468,000 within thirty days. But from the gantry crane's load records, Qi Du discovered that the container weighed 1.8 tons less than the manifest stated. Then, in the mud on the ramp, he found a hand-stamped steel seal numbered 774201. It was seventy-three numbers away from the 774128 listed on the exit slip. Using the brass folding ruler his father had left him, he measured the seal lines on the three containers in the same shipment. Two were straight; one was off by four millimeters. The crooked one bore seal number 774131, and its body had no factory roller imprint.
