Zhen secured half an hour in the Registry map room for the field request. The maintenance map covered the main border routes, but the old furnace site was marked in a blank corner.
“Was the location removed?” Gu asked.
An attendant searched the index. “There was a landslide report. I can’t find the report number.”
“Does the blank mean the site is closed?”
Zhen shook his head. “I can’t tell from this map.”
Min brought a duplicate engineering chart from the institute’s older collection. She spread it across the table, anchoring the corners with the map weights. The site appeared in a faint square in the lower margin, with the service road running south to the old station.
“Where did this copy come from?” Yan asked.
“The institute’s furnace files. It was made before the landslide report.” Min lined the landmarks up with Qiao’s measurements. “The bridge and the ridge match. The road is the same one.” It showed the furnace and a service road approaching from the south. Qiao’s field measurements used the same landmarks. The charts aligned, confirming the route still existed, though neither showed the current road condition.
