Ena opened a separate shelf of confiscated manuals after the council approved the request. She checked the title against the order before lifting the book free. Its cover read Forgetting River Sutra in faded ink.
“Is this a method from the same research group?” Bai asked.
“The catalog does not say,” Ena replied. “It was stored with privacy techniques because the Registry considered them difficult to police.”
She showed them the old intake mark. The manual had been separated from its original collection and placed among books on concealment and private thought. A clerk had written “no practice record received,” then left the rest of the line blank.
“That does not tell us whether people used it,” Daro said. “Only that the Registry had no log with the book when it was taken.”
Yan traced the title with his eyes. “A private thought can be a plan, a memory, or something you simply do not wish to explain. I can see why officials would dislike a method that hides it.”
“They may have had other reasons,” Qinghe said. “The catalog gives their concern, not the full story.”
Ena agreed. The manual could have been seized because it interfered with examinations, or because it belonged to a banned group. The intake record named no author or owner. The book itself did not say.
