Zhang Boyuan followed Ji Tang back along the slope toward the clan residence. Ji Tang's pace was faster than usual, as if some forming idea within him was driving his steps onward. He slowed at the entrance to the residence, then turned toward his own quarters. Zhang Boyuan did not follow him inside. He paused at the door, watched it close behind Ji Tang, then turned and returned to his own room.
After sitting at his desk, Ji Tang pulled a folded sheet of white paper and a fine-tipped writing pen from a drawer. He stared at the paper for a long time before beginning to draw. The pen moved slowly across the page, yet scarcely paused, like a path whose direction had already been confirmed, which he was merely transferring from his mind to the paper. He drew for nearly half an hour, stopping only twice—once to switch to a finer pen, and once to turn the paper around. What finally appeared on the page was a pattern he could not fully identify: at its center was a dense cluster of spiraling lines, rotating outward from the core. Fine short lines linked each turn of the spirals, like bridges crossing between adjacent arms. Even finer scattered dots lay around the pattern's edges, like fragments that had escaped from the main structure.
He set down the pen, held up the paper to examine it for a while, then rose, opened the door, and hurried across the gravel paths of the residence. He stopped outside Zhang Boyuan's door and knocked twice.
Zhang Boyuan was still holding a teacup when he opened the door. Upon seeing the paper in Ji Tang's hands, he set the cup back on the table behind him and stepped aside to let Ji Tang enter. Ji Tang