The infirmary yard had become a triage line. Apprentices and clerks sat on low benches while Nurse Mei sorted them by injury. She sent the coughing workers inside first, then those with bleeding cuts. Qinghe walked the row and asked each person whether they had breathed smoke, been struck, or been burned.
“Yan, sit at the end,” she said.
He lowered himself onto the bench. His back tightened beneath the dressing, and his shoulder complained when he shifted. The new sting at his wrist had begun as a strip of ash beneath his sleeve. Qinghe pulled the fabric back and saw the red mark across the inside of his wrist.
“You were supposed to come out.”
“I did.”
“After going back toward the hot wall.”
“To get the girl.”
Qinghe gave him a look, then asked Nurse Mei for cool water. “Hold your hand above the basin.”
The water ran over the ash, turning it into gray streaks. Yan flinched when the first current touched the skin. Qinghe worked gently with clean cloth until the grit was gone. The mark had blistered in two places but was shallow. She placed a cool dressing over it and tied the strip loosely enough not to press the swelling.
“Keep it dry and clean after this,” she said. “The back needs a fresh cover too.”
Nurse Mei brought the dressing tray. She wrote patient names on cloth strips and tied one to each stretcher. Qinghe checked the names against the apprentice list as she sent patients inside. The junior disciple with the cut palm went after the coughing clerk. The girl Yan had freed sat near the water trough, answering Nurse Mei in short phrases while her lungs were checked.
Yan watched the line. “Are the others badly hurt?”
“Not badly,” Qinghe said. “But not all the same.” She turned to the next patient, a clerk with a raw patch on one forearm. “Tell me when you first noticed the burn.”
The clerk answered, and Qinghe wrote the time on the tag. No one was dismissed because the injury looked small. Nurse Mei checked the two glass cuts for splinters, washed the blood from their hands, and replaced the quick wraps with clean gauze.
Bai arrived from the workers’ kitchen with a bowl of broth. “I was told the rescue crew gets supper.”
“Did Lu promise it?” Yan asked.
“He said yes, in front of witnesses. That is binding.” Bai set the bowl in Yan’s hands. “Drink before it cools.”
Yan took three swallows and emptied it. The broth was hot, salty, and full of rice. His body felt full of returning vigor after Blood Ignition, not spent; the plain food still tasted good. “Is there more?”
Qinghe glanced at the empty bowl. “The life-burning art seems to have left you hungry.”
“I was hungry before the art.”
Bai took the bowl. “No one has ever asked for a second serving while still covered in furnace ash.”
“You haven’t been watching the right people.”
Bai went for another bowl. Qinghe shook her head, but a smile touched the corner of her mouth. She moved behind Yan to remove the old dressing from his back. The cloth had stuck at one edge. She dampened it until it loosened instead of pulling it away.
The burn looked red and angry but not deep. She washed soot from the skin and put on a fresh cool pad. When her fingers moved near the blister, pain shot across Yan’s back. He kept still until she finished.
“Your channels are clear,” she said, “but this is a skin burn. The technique didn’t protect you from the furnace.”
“I know.”
“Tell me how many times you used Blood Ignition.”
“Once, under the beam.”
She checked his pulse and compared it with the earlier reading from the day. The beat was steady. “You don’t feel weak?”
“No. The method gave me more strength. The beam was still heavy.”
Qinghe wrote the answer down, then set the notebook aside. “I’m recording what you say. I’m not calling the art safe for anyone else.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
Bai returned with another bowl. Yan took it more carefully this time, keeping his wrist level so the dressing would not slip. The broth warmed him from the inside. He ate the rice at the bottom with a spoon and asked for a piece of bread to wipe the last of it clean.
The apprentice he had freed came to the bench, her robe torn at the shoulder. “I didn’t get to thank you.”
“You’re standing. That’s enough.”
She held out a piece of sweet rice cake from her lunch. “Take it anyway.”
Yan accepted it, broke it in half, and gave one piece to Bai. “For the kitchen delivery.”
Bai bit into it. “I thought I was paid in broth.”
“Now you’re paid twice.”
The girl smiled and sat beside the trough. Qinghe asked her name for the treatment record, then listened to her breathing again. Nurse Mei called that no one else needed urgent care. The panic in the yard eased. People began asking about missing coats, tools, and shifts instead of shouting for exits.
Yan finished the sweet cake. His back hurt where the burn had been dressed; the wrist throbbed under the cool cloth. The internal warmth of his two arts remained pleasant and steady. He could feel both truths at once without confusing one for the other.
“Tomorrow’s dressing change,” Qinghe said. “And no furnace work until I see the burn again.”
“Can I carry the broth pot?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll carry a spoon.”
“That is still an unnecessary risk.”
Bai lifted the empty bowls. “I’ll carry both. Yan can sit and count.”
Yan leaned back against the wall. Outside the yard, workers were already telling the story with the furnace twice as large and the beam twice as long. In the triage line, every person had a name strip, a clean wrap, and someone checking whether they could breathe.