By midday, a line had formed beside the market notice board. Someone had copied only the first line of the council’s message: “One shipment batch remains quarantined.” Under it, in a different hand, were the words: “White Orchard refuses medicine while its people are sick.”
A seller named Daro stood beside the board with a basket of onions. “People will read that and think the refuge sent every crate back,” he said. “I heard it from a woman who heard it at the south gate.”
Ning read the false line once, then turned to the rest of the notice. The verified fever medicine and bandages had been listed farther down. The grain appeared under a separate heading. But someone could stop after the first line, just as the writer had.
“Let’s make the distinction visible at the top,” she said. She took a clean board and wrote: “Verified grain, bandages, and fever medicine are in use. One numbered medicine batch remains under test.” She added the batch number and the current finding: high qi uptake and a dependency additive. “We don’t know who added it.”
Daro watched her. “If I put that up, people will ask whether Wuchen sent it on purpose.”
