In the Review Room on the basement level of the Criminal Investigation Division, Lu Yan had been suspended for eleven days, his badge taken away. All he had left was a bundle of old case files his mentor, Shan Hongsheng, had left behind. Han Tiesheng wanted him to sign a suspension confirmation, but he refused. Only after reading all forty-seven pages did he realize that pages forty-one, thirty-eight, and thirty had all been added later. Page forty-one was made from the batch of machine-made laid paper from last year. The cuts all faced the same direction, and a carnelian knife had polished the rough edges of the paper. On the evidence-transfer list on page twenty-nine, the signature line bore his own name, including the little hook at the bottom of the final stroke of the character Yan. But twelve years ago, he had signed those three characters only on the on-site examination report at the Jiangbei sandbar. Lu Shoupu leaned in for a closer look. The paper was made from two pieces, one machine-made and the other hand-laid, with their grain running at right angles. The ink was both carbon ink and the blue-black ink used twelve years ago. The seals across the page had been stamped before the pages were pasted together. The pressure and strokes were his handwriting. Had he really written it? Someone had cut out his signature and pasted it onto new paper to create an evidence-transfer list he supposedly signed. Nineteen pages in the file had been added later. The thickest section, pages thirty to thirty-six, consisted of seven consecutive pages made from the same batch of paper and ink, with the cuts facing the same way. Someone had sat down and carefully forged them. Han Tiesheng went outside to make a call, while Shan Hongsheng, who had identified the added pages twelve years ago, had fallen ill that winter and died.
