The Cloud-Threading Sect records hall stretches upward in warm lantern light: lacquered shelves, bamboo-slip bundles, stitched booklets, ink stones, rolling ladders, and clerks at low desks. Tao Yi stands at the entrance in oversized grey r

Top panel: an elderly unnamed senior clerk sleeps with his cheek on an intake register, drool near an ink stone. Bottom panel: Tao Yi stands beside a shelf with a bundle of spirit-stone ledgers accidentally upside down, his expression calm

Top panel: Mei Qing appears briskly from between shelves, face fully visible to camera, plump cheeks, two red-string side braids, snatching the bamboo slips from Tao Yi's hands. Bottom panel: close on Mei Qing's mild eye-roll and ink-smudge

Panel 1: Mei Qing slaps vein-source labels onto a shelf. Panel 2: she uses a ruler to point at elder authorization seals. Panel 3: she drops three bundles labeled Elegant Lies, Ugly Lies, and Lies with Missing Seals into separate baskets wh

Top panel: Tao Yi kneels at a low desk copying names onto bamboo slips, small fingers stiff, warm lantern light on ink. Bottom panel: Mei Qing leans over and adjusts his brush angle with the authority of a general correcting a spear grip.

Panel 1: dawn light over intake forms stacked taller than Tao Yi. Panel 2: midday Tao Yi and Mei Qing passing bamboo slips down a shelf aisle. Panel 3: afternoon Senior Clerk Guan asleep again while a drooping paper tag on his hat reads Do

Top panel: a neat bamboo-slip ledger lists spirit-stone allocations, elder seals, and contribution columns. Bottom panel: Tao Yi's ink-stained finger pauses where the total does not balance; his face is partially visible, eyes narrowing sli

Top panel: Mei Qing returns with a chipped cup and a paper packet of dried plums, looking suspicious. Bottom panel: Tao Yi calmly slides the allocation ledger beneath a boring roof-repair register before she reaches the desk.

A brittle founder's genealogy scroll lies open under stone weights. Tao Yi leans over it in warm lamplight, face visible from above, white temple streak clear. Three names are circled lightly in removable ash, with empty space around them o

Top panel: Tao Yi unrolls an old disciple oath, edges water-stained but legible, beside a plain oil lamp. Bottom panel: close on the characters for covenant written in formal old script, with Tao Yi's brush hovering over a scrap paper.

Top panel: Tao Yi pulls small dusty bundles labeled boundary stones and water rights from a lower shelf. Bottom panel: Mei Qing balances a stack on one hip, glancing sideways at him with practical suspicion.

Tao Yi's small hand writes the word covenant in tiny characters on a scrap meant for testing ink. His fingers are stained black; the black cord bracelet peeks from his oversized cuff. The rest of the desk is crowded with innocent-looking le

Top panel: From deep between archive shelves, Tao Yi looks across the hall toward a narrow side door marked Rare Documents, his face calm and too still. Bottom panel: close on a lacquered wooden sign and a simple iron lock, practical rather