Chapter 5: Green Ink

The team room beside the pool had forty plastic chairs, a whiteboard of split times, and no heater.

By five to seven every chair was full.

Coach stood at the front with the printed complaint in one hand.

The professor sat beside him in his white coat and cardigan, with his glasses on his nose and his arms folded.

Tang took the chair at the end of the second row, and Fu sat beside him with the green notebook on his knee.

Across the aisle, Cen Mingyu sat with the captain and looked concerned.

On the back of his left hand, in fresh black marker, he had written 200 FR and a number.

"I'll keep this short," said Coach. "I got an email yesterday."

"It says our physio practises without a licence, treats my national swimmers unsupervised, and is hiding something in a notebook."

A murmur ran around the room.

"Professor?"

"I am the supervising physician of the department's student physio programme," said the professor.

"Mr. Fu works under my licence. I have co-signed his treatment record every Friday for two years."

"I would like to see the record read aloud, because I suspect the person who wrote this email has not."

He turned his head.

"Mr. Fu."

Fu stood up.

He opened the notebook to the first page, and he did not hurry.

"Two years, three weeks," he said. "Eight hundred and forty-one treatments."

"Every one has a date, an athlete, an injury, the product and the lot number, and the minutes."

"Every Friday, the professor signs the week in green ink."

He held the book up and turned it slowly, so the whole room saw the green signatures running down the margin.

Someone near the back whistled.

"Can I ask a question?" said Cen, raising his hand.

Everyone looked at him.

He smiled apologetically.

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