Ena found a second notebook on the Yun Cang shelf after the council extended the reading order. It had been filed under the same research mark as the first volume. The cover was intact, but several pages had stuck together at the edges. She opened it only as far as the order allowed and set a weight near the binding to keep it flat.
The first diagram compared an original injury with a later cultivation gain. A practitioner’s meridian narrowed under an art’s ordinary cost. A second drawing showed the flow turning back through the same channel and ending in a stronger line. The notes described repeated observation of individual outcomes, not a medicine that could be given to anyone.
Qinghe read through the table. It listed three methods: life-burning, joint strain, and meridian corrosion. The examples were incomplete, but the ordinary costs were written beside each one. In the next column, Yun Cang had recorded a corresponding cultivation result.
“The format resembles Yan’s System notices,” she said. “The labels are different, but the direction is close.”
She opened her own copy of Yan’s Ashen Marrow records. One notice described a dangerous method whose normal injury would corrode a practitioner’s channels. Yan’s result had been a corresponding gain. The record did not use Yun Cang’s exact phrase, but the structure looked familiar.
