Qiu returned to the ring after speaking with the arena officials. He announced that Yan had survived all three arts. The Registry would call the result inconclusive until it inspected him further.
The words contradicted the physicians’ completed examinations and the crowd’s own view. A murmur spread from the lower rows to the upper seats. The clerk held up the signed measurements, but attendants took the original slates before he could read them aloud.
The guild representative stood and asked why the Registry had displayed “danger” before the test and “inconclusive” after it. Qiu said the posted judgment had been preliminary. The representative pointed to the date at the bottom: it had been printed before the first gong.
A clerk in the balcony began reading his own notes aloud. He had copied the baseline and each result. The audience quieted to hear the numbers, and the apprentices compared them against their sheets. The Registry attendants told him to stop, but Qiu held up a hand.
“Let him finish,” the champion said. “The public heard the readings.”
The clerk read the three outcomes, then named the physicians who had signed them. The attendants did not take his notes.
Qinghe stepped toward the physicians’ table. “The examination is finished. You have the signed results.”
