The case sheet described a cultivator who had developed a cold tremor after taking a circulation pill. The patient’s pulse was slow at the wrist, uneven at the second count, then fast when asked to stand. The printed guide recommended a warming root and a half measure of white bark.
Yan read the case twice before touching the brush.
At the bottom of the page, beneath a rule, the examiners had attached a batch ledger. It listed the preparation lot, the ingredient source, the date of drying, and the names of the two people who had checked the mixture. The warming root carried the same batch code as the case. But the attached ledger said the root had been replaced with frost reed after the first measure ran short. Frost reed cooled the channels. It was not a subtle difference.
He glanced at the other candidates. The room held the hush of concentrated work: paper sliding over wood, a throat clearing, the faint scratch of brushes. A girl across from him had already written half a page. Wei sat two tables away with his sleeves rolled back and his brush held lightly. He was looking at the back sheet too.
Yan raised his hand.
Examiner Luo came over. “What is it?”
“The case says warming root. The batch ledger says frost reed replaced it.”
Luo bent over the page. He checked the batch code, then the case card. His face tightened. He went to the head table and called the clerk over. They compared two ledgers while the candidates waited.
“Continue writing,” another examiner said. “Do not discuss the case.”
Yan lowered his hand. A boy at the next table whispered, “You had to say something.”
“The label was wrong.”
“Maybe that was the trick.”
“Then they can score the trick.”
The boy muttered and returned to his paper. Yan considered writing both possibilities, but the question asked for a treatment, not a list of guesses. He could state what followed from each ingredient and identify the condition that decided between them. That was safer than choosing an answer based on a code the examiners might have meant to test.
Luo came back to the front. “Candidates, stop writing for a moment. The batch ledger has the correct ingredient. The case sheet carries an outdated code. The right answer will follow the case notes and frost reed. I will correct the printed key now, and the clock will stop until I finish.”
A groan came from the front row. Someone else laughed under his breath. One of the clan candidates had already filled his page and now had to cross out several lines.
Luo corrected the board in clear characters. “You will receive six additional minutes. Everyone receives the same time.”
Yan heard the irritated boy behind him whisper, “Some of us had it right the first time.”
He did not turn. He had spent too many days at work watching people protect a mistake because correcting it would cost them face. If the key stayed wrong, every candidate would have to decide whether to obey the printed line or trust the evidence. That might have been a useful test if the contradiction were deliberate. The examiners had not said it was deliberate. Now the room could proceed on one shared set of facts.
The clock restarted. Yan wrote that the tremor could come from the cooling ingredient, then recommended a reduced dose of warming root only after the patient’s pulse was checked at rest. He added that the standing pulse suggested the body was compensating for a weak circulation. A full warming measure could turn a correction into a fever. He gave the examiner a simpler option: warm broth, rest, and a second pulse reading before any pill.
The bell rang with two minutes left. Yan finished the last line and put down the brush. He rubbed his fingers. The handle had left a shallow line across his middle finger.
Wei finished before the bell. As the papers were collected, he leaned close enough to keep his voice low.
“I wrote both paths,” Wei said. “I thought they wanted us to catch the conflict.”
“You might still get credit for the reasoning.”
“I hope so. I chose the wrong one first.”
“Then write why you changed.”
Wei nodded and added a sentence before Luo took his paper. “You asked the examiner to settle it.”
“The back page had a batch ledger. It was a fact we could check.”
“You could have kept quiet and scored the correction later.”
“If the key stayed wrong, someone would lose marks for trusting the attached record.”
Wei studied him, not quite smiling. “You dislike a disputed count.”
“I dislike paying for another person’s bad count.”
The examiners posted a corrected key on the side board. Candidates drifted toward it, trying to see the changed ingredient. Luo spoke to those at the door. “The correction applies to everyone. No one receives a bonus for noticing it. No one loses marks for the six minutes we stopped.”
Yan expected some candidates to complain. Instead, a few hurried back to compare their answers. The ones who had caught the mismatch did not look especially pleased. The ones who had not looked embarrassed, then annoyed that the embarrassment had been public. Yan knew the feeling. It was hard to find a mistake without feeling that the mistake had found you first.
Bai waited outside the hall with a paper bag under one arm. “The front desk is selling sweet buns at twice the market price,” he said.
“Then why are you holding one?”
“I am demonstrating the fraud.”
“A noble service.”
“I bought two. One to prove the price, one to prove the filling is still good.” He opened the bag. The warm smell of sesame and sugar escaped into the courtyard. “You can’t take them into the kit station, but you can eat before they call you.”
Yan looked at the bun, then at his coin purse. The examination had already taken its fee. He could still feel the subtraction when he pressed the purse through his pocket.
“I’ll buy one,” he said. “Not two.”
Bai tore the bun in half and held out the larger piece. “The market price is only if you buy from the desk.”
“You want me to pay you?”
“I want you to take the half before the candidates see me eat both.”
Yan accepted it. The crust was crisp and the filling soft. He gave the other half to Wei, who had followed them into the yard. Wei took it without asking who had paid.
“What do you think the kit task will be?” Wei asked.
“Something with a label,” Yan said.
“That would be fitting.”
“A sealed case, maybe. If they let us open it, there’s nothing to test.”
Wei considered the bun. “You think the seal is part of the question.”
“I think they will tell us what we’re allowed to touch.”
Bai folded the empty bag and put it in his sleeve. “You two can discuss the nature of seals after you pass.”
“I don’t know that I’ll pass,” Yan said.
“You noticed the error and asked them to fix it. If that isn’t passing, they need a better test.”
“That’s not how marks work.”
“You keep saying that, and yet you keep arriving with more marks.”
Yan smiled despite himself. The joke settled the tightness in his stomach. He drank from the water jar at the courtyard edge, rinsed a trace of sugar from his thumb, and watched candidates gather around the side board. A narrow strip of paper had been pasted beneath the corrected key. The original entry was crossed through, not hidden; the amended one carried Luo’s seal and the time of correction.
“They left the wrong mark visible,” Wei said.
“So everyone can see what changed.”
“Or so no one can pretend the first version was always right.”
Yan wiped his thumb on his trouser seam. The examiners called the kit pairs in order. His number was among the next three. He tucked the remainder of his bun into its wrapper and set it on the ledge beside Bai’s box, where it would not be taken into the annex.
Luo checked each candidate’s number and gave a brief explanation of the next station. “One test strip per pair. You may read every label. You may not open the waxed case. You have twelve minutes once the seal is inspected.”
Yan’s name was called. He picked up the pair card and stepped toward the annex. Wei stayed in the yard to await his own group.
“Good answer,” Wei called after him.
“You too.”
Yan entered the annex with the corrected key still visible through the open hall doors. On the table ahead, four labeled ingredients sat behind a wax seal. Beside them lay one narrow strip of pale paper.