Examiner Luo asked the elders to hear Ke before the next pause. Ke stood near the courtyard gate, hands clasped behind his back. He wore the plain gray shirt of a laboratory attendant, and a narrow strip of fresh cloth circled one wrist. The guard who had been injured in the corridor sat several paces away with Qinghe nearby.
“Do I have to speak in front of Zhao?” Ke asked.
“You may ask that he be moved,” the chair said. “But the accused may hear the testimony.”
Ke looked once at Zhao, then shook his head. “I’ll speak here.”
“Tell us what happened in the experimental wing,” Luo said.
Ke described the contract refusal. Yan had declined to sign and asked to leave. Zhao told the attendants to tighten the bands. Ke said the order came directly from Zhao. When Gu began calling the remembered sequence, the formation’s force increased.
Zhao leaned forward. “Choose your words carefully.”
Ke’s eyes dropped. “That was the order I heard.”
