Austin spent the next two days turning the cave into a safe workshop.
He left four thick granite pillars to carry the roof. Steel bolts and mesh held loose stone in place. Glass tubes filled with red alcohol sat on each pillar to show any movement. Wide aisles separated the racks, and every exit had a lamp above it.
The display approved the structure.
Austin read the last line twice. The display said nothing about the water or the ley line.
He called Xiaoyao down and handed him an iron clipboard.
“You are the logistics and storage foreman. Count the blocks, mark the racks, and keep the aisles clear.”
Xiaoyao stared at the glassy pillars and glowing blue crystals. “I am to guard the Dragon Vault?”
“You are to stop people from tripping over inventory.”
Austin showed him how to lift with his legs, not his back. “Bend wrong and you pop an L4 disc.” He also showed him how to stack no more than sixty-four blocks on a shelf. “Put a sixty-fifth on there and the whole stack glitches through the floor.” Xiaoyao solemnly connected the number to the sixty-four hexagrams. Austin decided that any memory aid was fine if it kept the rack standing.
Then the boy opened a second sheet.
It held six columns: stream depth, lower outflow, pillar movement, water taste, and readings from two surface springs. Xiaoyao had added times and small sketches where he did not know the right technical words.
“The east spring was clear yesterday,” he said. “Today it is cloudy. The west spring has risen. Your green display still says stable.”
“Machines measure what we tell them to measure.”
Austin looked at the automated chisel. “Its job is to cut ore. Its safety readout watches the roof and motor. It may not know anything about groundwater.”
For a moment, he seemed ready to inspect the channels. Then a full hopper rolled past, and the production counter climbed again.
“One more shift,” he said. “We need stock for the foundry. Double the readings and tell me if a pillar gauge moves.”
Xiaoyao did not look satisfied, but he wrote down the order.
That afternoon, Gu Qing came up from the lower village. Mud marked the hem of his robe.
“The east well has dropped by three feet,” he said. “A field channel has gone dry. On the western slope, water is coming through a farmer’s floor. His house was dry for sixty years.”
Austin folded his arms. “Heavy rain upstream?”
“There has been no rain.”
“The chisel passes its structural checks.”
Gu Qing looked at Xiaoyao’s sheet rather than the machine. “I do not understand your checks. I understand that two water systems changed at the same time your new engine started.”
Austin’s expression hardened, not at Gu Qing but at the problem. Still, the foundry quota filled his mind. He had promised himself thirty crates before building the furnace.
“Run one final controlled test tomorrow,” he said. “Short cycle. We compare every gauge before and after.”
Gu Qing bowed and left.
Xiaoyao added the village readings to his sheet. Under them, he wrote one plain sentence.
The workshop says nothing is wrong. The water says otherwise.