The next clear morning brought the villagers back to the ancestral hall courtyard. The relay test had lasted only a few breaths, but Pema had marked the heated fitting and brought a chalk sketch to show how the current traveled.
“It accepted Yan’s qi,” she said, drawing the path from the pylon to the outer stones. “Then this copper joint warmed. A volunteer source could help in a storm only after we rebuild the line and test it in stages.”
An old fisherman tapped the first marker. “The household share still powers the ward. We don’t shut it off while we test.”
“No one proposed that,” Han said. “We need to know what can carry the load before changing what already works.”
Daro arrived with the corrected roster. He read the three departed households’ entries aloud. Two residents from separate harbor wards checked the names against their own copies. One family had moved mainland after a roof fire; another had left when the ferry trade failed. The last had no living branch remaining on the island.
“Remove these names from the village calculation,” Suyin said. “The people who stayed should not pay for households that are gone.”
A clerk placed a mark beside each entry. “I can correct the current list. The council still needs to review the remaining shares.”
