Zhen found the pilot budget file in the archive annex, behind a row of central furnace accounts. She brought it to the institute study room with a second clerk and asked Gu to confirm the reference number before she opened it.
The budget memo was brief. The Registry rejected the local regulator pilot because provinces could alter their own feed settings. A second line said the design would cost more to maintain. Nothing in the memo called it unsafe.
Gu read the lines twice. The memo had a space for safety review, but it was blank. “No engineer signed a finding against the design.”
Zhen turned to the appendix. “The budget officer wrote that local regulators would require separate inspections in each province. Central control was easier to audit.”
“Easier for whom?” Yan asked.
“For the Registry,” Gu said. “Not necessarily for the crews who waited when a valve failed.”
He told them that he had believed central control would make repairs faster. “I believed central control would make repairs faster.”
“Did it?” Yan asked.
