Ning carried the shelter and casualty books to the witness table. She showed the clerk which counts came from direct registration, which came by runner, and which remained uncertain because roads had closed.
The figures included people who survived, people still missing after the mountain slide, and families whose homes were lost despite the barrier network. Ning kept the uncertain names out of the confirmed total. She would not let a missing report become a death or a safe shelter list become proof that a family had not suffered.
A shelter representative asked her to remove a child’s name from the public copy. The family wanted the child’s treatment details kept private.
Ning marked the entry with an anonymous household number. “The casualty count remains in the public total. The medical page stays sealed.”
The representative checked the number and agreed. The clerk put the public page in the main file and the private page in a separate sleeve.
Bai presented supply receipts showing where blankets, purification tablets, and replacement medicine had gone. One cart had never reached the north school because the bridge flooded. Its goods were recovered the next morning. Bai listed the merchant who paid for the damaged axle and marked the delay separately from a loss.
