"Two days ago," Judge Fang continued, "you returned to Shanghai in a 
riverboat badly overloaded with several dozen passengers, most of them peasants 
fleeing from famine and strife in the interior." He was now reading from a 
Shanghai Harbormaster document detailing the inspection of the boat in 
question. "I note that several of the passengers were women carrying female 
infants under three months of age. The vessel was searched for contraband and 
admitted into the harbor." Judge Fang did not need to point out that this 
meant practically nothing; such inspectors were notoriously unobservant, 
especially when in the presence of distractions
such as envelopes full of money, fresh cartons of cigarettes, or conspicuously 
amorous young passengers. But the more corrupt a society was, the more apt its 
officials were to brandish pathetic internal documents such as this one as if 
they were holy writ, and Judge Fang was no exception to this rule when it 
served a higher purpose. "All of the passengers, including the infants, were 
processed in the usual way, records taken of retinal patterns, fingerprints, 
etc. I regret to say that my esteemed colleagues in the Harbormaster's Office 
did not examine these records with their wonted diligence, for if they had, 
they might have noticed large discrepancies between the biological 
characteristics of the young women and their alleged daughters, suggesting that 
none of them were actually related to each other. But perhaps more pressing 
matters prevented them from noticing this." Judge Fang let the unspoken 
accusation hang in the air: that the Shanghai authorities were themselves not 
out of reach of CryptNet influence. PhyrePhox visibly tried to look 
ingenuous.