Gu laid the broken manual fragments beside the stone inscription. A narrow table had been carried into the antechamber, but no one crossed onto the grooved circle around the pedestal.
“Let’s match them in order,” he said.
Bai examined the rubble with a small brush. He checked beneath the base and behind the stone feet for any page that might have slipped under it. “Nothing hidden here.”
Qinghe compared the breathing intervals in the rubbing with the marks cut into the pedestal. She tapped each interval lightly with her pencil as Gu moved the fragments along the table.
“First cycle,” she said. “Pause. Second cycle. Another pause.”
Gu fitted one fragment to the carved sequence. “This line is the same.”
Bai placed a second. Then a third. Each missing line in the broken manual appeared on the pedestal in the same order as a fragment in Gu’s notes.
“The activation pattern is complete,” Gu said. “The commentary isn’t.”
