The council chamber had been arranged with two tables. The technical papers sat on one, the household records on the other. Muo asked Daro to keep the family pages closed unless a household member requested them. The meeting would examine Yun Cang’s research and the archive process, not reopen anyone’s private contract.
Qinghe began with the transcript. She read the clear words from the cylinder, then showed the bracketed gaps where the recording skipped. The sentence said the conversion happened within the practitioner’s own circulation. It did not name a recipient or explain the catalyst.
Next, she placed the diagram beside the transcript. It showed a harmful feedback loop turning into beneficial refinement. The symbol resembled Yan’s System notices. The transfer index contained a partly matching number for a sealed inert shard, but its digits were uncertain and its destination stopped at a central bureau.
An elder leaned toward the papers. “Does this prove the Registry caused Yan’s awakening?”
“No,” Qinghe said. “It gives us a possible link between a research sample and an Ashfall record. We do not know whether the shard is the catalyst, where it went, or whether it reached Zhao.”
Muo asked Yan whether the notebook identified him as a chosen heir.
