The systematic survey of the leftover ten workstations took two full hours of measured, disciplined labor. Qiao Ming refused to rush. A water mapper who had spent his life verifying soundings fathom by fathom. Then, he knew that panic was the main cause of navigational ruin. When a land-mapper encounters an impossible reading—a reef rising where the charts show sixty deep-water lengths of open blue water—he doesn’t drop his instruments in hysteria. He casts the lead line a second time, checks the animal fat cup, and records the bottom substrate.
He moved clockwise around the eight-sided dais, his bare feet pacing the white marble flags with steady, rhythmic strides. Yan Zhiqiu followed two paces behind. He carried the horn lantern and a clean sheet of ledger paper, recording each physical characteristic as Qiao Ming called it out.
At Desk Two, the leather metal tube rested in its carved recess with its bronze hasp pinned by an eight-sided whale-tooth peg. The branded numeral on the cap read TWO. The green beeswax wafer on the internal silk ribbon bore the matching circular seal of the Chief Water-scribe.
“Case Two intact,” Qiao Ming reported, his voice flat and skilled. “Bronze hoops free of active rusting. Shark-skin supple, cured in walnut oil. Wax seal undamaged. Stone carving visible through the ribbon: THE SECOND CHRONICLE OF THE DROWNED DAO: THE COLLAPSE OF THE HOLLOW WIND. Signed by Qiao Ming, Surveyor of the Nadir.”
