The inspection party met the next morning along the ruin’s outer wall. Gu had not found the missing reply in his box, but he had located the old maintenance route on a separate plan. Luo brought the rope boundary and a ring of keys. Pei carried a brush hook to clear the hedge without cutting the old stones.
Wei counted the candidates into pairs. He kept the youngest group beside him and assigned himself the rear position. “If anyone moves past the rope, I call it,” he said. “No one goes ahead alone.”
Yan took his place beside Gu. “We only look at the outer junction.”
“Right,” Luo said. “The inspection ended yesterday.”
Gu pointed to the hedge. “The route is here. We can check the threshold from outside.”
Pei pushed the brush hook between the branches and lifted a mat of dry leaves. Beneath it, a narrow stone door stood ajar by the width of a finger. Its edge was hidden in the wall, almost flush with the surface.
Luo stopped. “No one entered since the last examination cycle.”
“Then who left the door open?” Yan asked.
