Physician He’s waiting room smelled of boiled roots and wet wool. Yan stood beside Ning while she studied the treatment bill, letting her read each line twice before he said anything. He had brought the paper himself, but she held it now, flattening its curled edge against her palm.
The physician came out with a jar tucked under one arm. He was short and grey-haired, with the quick hands of someone who had learned to keep appointments moving. “You’re here about the lung course?”
Ning nodded. “I want to know which parts we have to pay for now, and which parts can wait.”
He glanced at Yan. Yan stepped aside from the door. “She has the questions.”
That earned him a small look from Ning, neither praise nor irritation. She went in first. The physician set his jar on the table and opened the bill beside it. He pointed to the long inhalation course, the strengthening supplement, and the follow-up examination. Each had a price. Added together, the sum came to more than both siblings could put aside in a season.
“The full course gives you the best chance of clearing most of the refinery residue,” He said. “It is also expensive. The broth may ease your breathing, but it won’t clear the damage by itself.”
“How much easier?” Ning asked. “And how long would I need to take it?”
“That depends on whether you can reduce the smoke you breathe. If you stay on the furnace line every night, the broth will be fighting the same injury over and over.”
“Can you move her to a cleaner shift?” Yan asked.
The physician’s mouth tightened. “I can write a recommendation. The work steward decides the assignment.”
Ning tapped the table with one finger. “If I take the broth and keep working there, will it make the cough worse?”
“It may help you sleep. It will not undo the exposure.” He studied her face. “You’ve had two years of this?”
“Longer, if you count the sorting line beside the vent.”
“I do.” He pulled a fresh sheet from a drawer and began writing. “I’ll put down that the smoke aggravates your breathing and that a shift away from the furnace is part of treatment. I can’t promise the steward will approve it.”
“Write it plainly,” Ning said. “Then I can ask him.”
Yan looked at the paper. The broth was affordable if they stopped buying anything beyond rice and salt. The full course was beyond them. He wanted to argue for the fastest treatment, but Ning had asked what it would do, not which price made him feel useful.
The physician finished the note and handed it to her. “Start with the broth for two weeks. If you can get the shift changed, we’ll measure your breathing again. If it gets worse, come back at once.”
Ning read the plan before signing. “I want the medicine charge separate from the consultation fee.”
He checked the bill and frowned. “It’s listed twice.”
“I thought so.”
He drew a line through one fee and initialed the correction. Yan watched the total fall by a small amount. It was not enough to change their lives, but it was money they would not have to earn twice.
On the walk back, Ning carried the physician’s note and Yan carried the medicine jar. She set the pace. They stopped once beneath a patch of shade, then again where the steps rose to the labor quarters. Yan waited without offering to lift her. She had told him she could walk, and she was walking.
“You looked ready to tell He I needed the full course,” she said.
“I was ready to ask if there was a cheaper one.”
“You were ready to pay for the whole thing.”
“I would have tried.”
“That’s not the same as having the money.” She shifted the note under her arm. “I want the best treatment we can manage. I also want to know what I’m choosing.”
Yan rolled the jar carefully so it would not knock against his belt. “I’ll help with the questions.”
“And you’ll let me ask them.”
“Yes.”
She gave him a satisfied nod and continued toward the quarters.
A woman named Suli was waiting outside their room. Her hair was tied back with a strip of faded blue cloth, and she held a folded wage slip in one fist. She had come before dawn the previous day with Ren, asking whether the sect would release his brother’s final pay. Now she looked from the medicine jar to Ning’s note.
“Did the physician say anything about the transfer list?” Suli asked.
“He hasn’t seen it,” Yan said. “We’re still checking the dates.”
Suli glanced toward the yard. “Ren wants to go to the office and demand an answer.”
Ning took the folded slip from her hand, careful not to open it. “What do you want to happen if you complain?”
“I want the wages his family earned. I want to know if he was sent to another furnace or if they buried him.” Suli swallowed and looked at the paper. “I don’t want to lose the salvage claim because I made an accusation I can’t prove.”
“That makes sense,” Ning said. “Ask for the transfer record before you make it public. If the date is wrong, we can show that without guessing what happened.”
Yan felt the scrap in his boot against his heel. He could show the date, but not the two bodies on the slope. “I’ll compare it with your slip in the morning.”
Suli unfolded the wage paper. “His pay stopped on the fourth. I saw him leave with the furnace crew after that. He worked the trial shift too.”
“Do you want your name on the first request?” Ning asked.
Suli considered. “Not until I’ve talked to the other families. For now, just check the dates.”
Ning handed the wage slip back without looking at the figures. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Suli tucked the paper into her sleeve. She looked relieved to have a next step, though not relieved enough to smile. “Tell Ren that. He’ll listen to you.”
“I’ll tell him you want to wait until we compare the records,” Yan said.
“No. Tell him I want the record first. He’ll hear the difference.”
Ning nodded. “You should tell him yourself if he’s still at the yard.”
Suli left for the work lane. Yan watched her disappear between the drying racks, then glanced at his sister. The medicine jar was warm from his hand.
“Was that the right answer?” he asked.
“About her family?”
“About waiting.”
“She made the choice. I only asked what she wanted.” Ning placed the physician’s note beside the folded bill. “You can compare the papers tomorrow. Today, please find those two jars the clerk says are missing.”
Yan blinked. “How did you know about the jars?”
“You told me the clerk found a short count while you were here.”
“I said that?”
“You said, ‘He blamed me for two jars that were probably under a cart.’ You say a lot when you’re trying not to worry about something.”
Yan grinned. “Then I’ll find them and make the clerk apologize.”
“Find them first.”
The missing jars were on his mind when he went back to the yard. He checked the cart that had hauled Furnace Three’s morning load, then the low shelf where cracked glass went before sorting. Nothing. He asked two workers whether they had seen a pair of clean jars. One had carried a basket to the wash court and remembered hearing glass knock beneath the handcart as he pushed it over a rut.
Yan crouched and lifted the cart’s canvas cover. Two jars had rolled into a fold in the bottom. They were chipped at the rim but whole. He carried them to the tally bench and set them beside the ledger.
The clerk looked at the jars, then at Yan. “You found them.”
“Under the cart. They’re chipped, so they go to salvage, not the clean rack.”
The clerk marked the tally without apology. Yan did not ask for one. The count was corrected, the jars had a place, and the next cart would not roll them into the drain.
Before the afternoon bell, Yan set aside the scraps from the jars for Ren’s family to use as salvage. The work had taken him away from the furnace for half a shift, but the tally was settled. Ning’s bill still had a long column of numbers, and the question of the missing worker remained open. He checked that the copied transfer date was still tucked into his boot, where the clerk would not find it, and returned to his post.