Rain pattered against the shutters of the guest room above the harbor. The four travelers sat around a small table. Qinghe had sorted the Ashfall pages, the island transfer number, and Yan’s early cultivation notes by date. The presumed inert shard appeared in the disposal record, then in Zhao’s list of ordinary ingredients.
The copies made a strong case for the route. They did not identify the fragment with certainty, name the person who handled it, or show the original cup. No document called Yan a recipient before the draught was mixed.
Bai set a cup of tea beside the papers. “Do you want to send Gu the connection now, or wait for the complete batch sheet?”
“Send the likely route,” Yan said. “Keep the missing steps in the same note.”
Qinghe placed the central-bureau transfer date beside Zhao’s entry. “The dates fit. The batch label matches. But we lack the original container and the full measurement record. We can say the shard likely entered the draught as a presumed inert additive. We cannot call it confirmed.”
Han watched the rain track down the window. “If the Registry sees this, it may claim the System was a government weapon or that Yan owes them its power.”
