The records hall sits in unusually tense morning quiet. Warm lanterns glow over lacquered shelves and bamboo slips. Tao Yi, now nine and a little taller in the same grey clerk robes, sits at a low desk writing. Other unnamed clerks face she

Top panel: Lin Daoyuan enters the records hall without attendants, indigo robes brushing the floorboards, face visible in profile and controlled. Bottom panel: unnamed clerks suddenly study shelves, ledgers, and blank walls; Tao Yi continue

Top panel: Lin Daoyuan lowers himself onto a simple clerk stool across from Tao Yi's desk, posture formal but humbled. Bottom panel: close on Tao Yi's brush completing a neat character before he acknowledges the sect master; his black cord

Top panel: Lin Daoyuan's hands rest on his knees, jade thumb ring visible, face calm but strained. Bottom panel: Tao Yi finally looks up from the ledger; his nine-year-old round cheeks contrast with dark jade eyes that do not look childish.

Close on Lin Daoyuan's face, fully visible, as relief flickers only in the loosening of his jaw and the slight turn of the jade thumb ring. Behind him, archive shelves blur into warm lantern light.

Top panel: Tao Yi sits very still, face fully visible, hands folded over the ledger, black cord bracelet dark against pale wrist. Bottom panel: Lin Daoyuan inclines his head once, relief making the gesture too quick for a sect master.

A plain wrapped stitched booklet is placed on Tao Yi's desk by an unnamed attendant's hands. The label reads Heaven-Splitting Sword Manual. It is not glowing, not ornate; just a worn booklet with a formal evidence wrap and sect seal.

Top panel: Tao Yi unties the evidence wrap carefully, small ink-stained fingers steady. Bottom panel: a narrow dream-flashback strip of adult Tao Yi's dark blue robes pierced by a sword, no full scene, just blood, steel, and the black cord

Top panel: Tao Yi writes a small label with precise brushwork: Pending Evidence — Case 002. Bottom panel: he slides the Heaven-Splitting Sword Manual into a narrow empty shelf slot behind his desk, separate from public indexes.

Top panel: Mei Qing peeks from behind a shelf with a stack of intake forms, face visible and suspicious, eyes landing on the private shelf. Bottom panel: Tao Yi slides a plain wooden panel closed over the shelf slot before she can read more

Tao Yi opens a fresh blank ledger on his desk. He is nine, small in grey clerk robes that fit slightly better now, face fully visible and calm. The black cord bracelet rests beside the page; ink stone, brush, and ruler are arranged like rit

Extreme close-up of the fresh ledger page as Tao Yi writes in tiny neat characters: Celestial Bureau Resource Allocation Review. His ink-stained fingers hold the brush perfectly still between strokes; the edge of the Heaven-Splitting Sword