Daro unrolled the transfer index on a clean table in the catalog chamber. The paper had been folded into four sections and repaired along one edge. Ena held the corners flat while Muo read the shelf order aloud. They would follow the old number through its entries without opening a shelf that was not named.
The first line listed a sealed shard among items cataloged as inert alchemical material. Its inventory number partly matched the mark on the Yun Cang cylinder. The later digits were gone, worn away by repeated handling. Daro put the two numbers side by side on a copy sheet.
“They could be the same record,” he said. “They could also be two items with similar prefixes.”
Muo asked the archivists not to announce a conclusion before they found a second entry. The catalog was not a verdict; the missing digits mattered.
The transfer line recorded a confiscation date and movement to a central bureau. It gave no original owner and no reason for the seizure. The following section named a receiving office, but the next destination had been left blank. The ink ended where a clerk’s signature should have appeared.
Daro followed the ruled columns with a thin pointer. The first stamp matched the archive’s confiscation mark; the second had a different shape, though its letters had faded. The entry recorded a date two months later and a central bureau code. Beneath it, a line for onward transfer remained empty.
