Registry clerk Zhen arrived at the warehouse with a written inspection request and a second clerk to witness the inventory. Keeper Du unlocked the outer door, then waited while Zhen read the transfer rules aloud.
“No crate leaves the room. We record each number before it is moved, and each person who touches the ledger signs the page.”
Yan looked toward the empty shelves. “If the crate is gone, can we still find where it went?”
“We’ll find what the records and the room can tell us,” Zhen said. “We won’t fill the gaps ourselves.”
Du opened the storage room. He pointed to the marked row where the seized supplements had been kept. The batch slot was empty. A pale scrape ran across the shelf, as if a box had been dragged toward the aisle recently.
“Could it have been dusted during the last inventory?” Gu asked.
“Maybe,” Du said. “But I cleaned this shelf after the inspection.”
Du checked the ledger while Zhen compared the count. He remembered the annual audit because the inspector had asked him to sweep the drain channel twice. “I thought the crate had gone for destruction,” he said. “The team came through the main door, counted each row, and signed. If someone moved one later, I never saw the cart.”
