At dusk, Oran returned with council speaker Vessa. She had agreed to let Han, Qinghe, Yan, and Gu make a short visit. Bai joined them at the hatch with a small supply pack, then waited for Vessa to signal before following.
The corridor opened into an old quarry lit by oil lamps. A narrow stream ran along the stone floor. Homes occupied carved alcoves, with a schoolroom near the pump and a cookfire at the far end.
Yan looked down at his muddy boots. “Where should I leave these?”
The schoolteacher, Iven, laughed. “If you take them off, you’ll step in the stream.”
“Then I’ll keep them on and apologize to the floor.”
The first laugh eased the room. Vessa explained that her people had hidden there after a Registry survey tried to register every household for labor. Their ancestors closed the upper entrance and maintained the water channel themselves. The furnace line appeared later. At first it brought warmth in winter. In recent years, the stream had developed a metallic taste and the roof had grown hot.
Qinghe asked permission to take samples from the pump, stream, and roof runoff. Vessa agreed, but asked to watch each sample sealed. Qinghe showed her the jars and wrote each place on a label before collecting it.
