# Story Ledger Example

## Fixed Facts

- Protagonist: Lin Qiao, a junior archivist who can hear the last sentence written on destroyed paper.
- Setting: Port city of Yanxi, late autumn, three months after the river quarantine.
- Rule: the ability works only once per destroyed document and causes temporary hearing loss.
- Antagonistic pressure: the Salt Office is erasing shipping records tied to missing families.

## Active Threads

- Lin Qiao found a burned ledger page that whispered: "The ferry left without lanterns."
- Her brother disappeared during the quarantine.
- Captain Wei knows more than he admits, but he has protected Lin Qiao twice.
- The next scene begins outside the shuttered customs hall at dawn.

## Relationship Stance and Information Permissions

- Current audience: Lin Qiao and Captain Wei are alone outside the customs hall;
  dock workers may arrive and overhear them.

| From | To | Public stance | Private stance | Knowledge | Mention policy | Exposure risk | Leverage |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lin Qiao | Captain Wei | cautious cooperation | suspicious dependence | suspects he knows the cover-up | question indirectly; no accusation without proof | medium | burned-page clue |
| Captain Wei | Salt Office | official compliance | concealed conflict | knows patrol routes and missing records | avoid direct disclosure in public; coded warning only | high | access and patrol knowledge |

| Speaker | Audience | Referenced person/group | Allowed tone | Forbidden leak | Exception motive |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Captain Wei | Lin Qiao, with workers nearby | Salt Office | neutral or coded warning | his source inside the office | emergency warning or deliberate trust test |

## Beat Bridge

- Previous residue: the burned page left ash under Lin Qiao's fingernails and one
  incomplete ferry clue.
- Entry pressure: dawn workers will arrive soon, so she cannot search the customs hall
  slowly.
- Required micro-turn: Lin Qiao should gain one fragile inference, not certainty.
- Open interaction debt: Captain Wei's coded warning requires Lin Qiao to test,
  resist, or visibly defer it before either character leaves.
- Exit pressure: the scene should leave Captain Wei's protection feeling useful and
  suspicious at the same time.

## Voice Anchors

- Third person limited, close to Lin Qiao.
- Concrete, tense, lightly lyrical.
- Yanxi common speech; no dialect or foreign phrase is established.

## Speaker Models

| Speaker | Stable baseline | Default tactic/disclosure | Knowledge and role limits | Audience shifts | Change gates |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lin Qiao | short concrete questions, then silence | tests a claim; implies suspicion | knows archives, not patrol procedure | formal with officials, clipped with Captain Wei | direct accusation only after proof or immediate danger |
| Captain Wei | complete sentences that omit the source | redirects, warns, rarely denies | knows patrols; cannot expose his source | official in public, quieter when alone | plain disclosure only after trust, threat, or loss of cover |

## Current Dialogue Contract

| Speaker | Listener/audience | Immediate goal | Topic and constraint | Likely tactic | Intended state change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Lin Qiao | Captain Wei; workers may arrive | gain one verifiable lead | missing ferry; lacks proof | concrete question, then silence | increase his disclosure risk |
| Captain Wei | Lin Qiao; workers may overhear | stop an unsafe search without exposing his source | patrol route and customs hall | coded warning, partial answer | change her next action while preserving doubt |

## Live Carryovers For The Next Chapter

- Ash under Lin Qiao's fingernails should recall the burned page without a recap.
- Captain Wei's polite final line remains socially unresolved.
- Do not restate the full quarantine history until a present decision needs it.

## Newly True

- Lin Qiao has one use of her ability left before she loses hearing for the day.