On the third morning after the decoding was complete, Jiang lifted his head from the workbench, entered the last few sets of data into the system archive, then switched off the Data Pad. He sat quietly at the desk for a while, letting his eyes recover from staring at the screen, then got up and walked to the window. Dawn had only recently broken. Early-rising members of the Rootline were already moving through the streets of the Forging District, and a few people sat in morning meditation on the grass to the east. After a few moments at the window, he turned, lifted the Metal Box off the workbench, and placed it inside a dedicated carrying case.
Li Yuan came into the hall from his temporary quarters. He wore a short, dark gray jacket instead of the flight suit he had worn when he arrived in the territory, as though he had already obtained everyday clothes through its supply system. Carrying a Data Pad, he walked over to Jiang, set it on the workbench, and brought up an annotated spatial navigation chart.
"I've recalibrated the exact position of the coordinate anchor," Li Yuan said. "The margin of error is now negligible. If you decide to go there, this route will get you there in a few days."
Jiang studied the chart for a while, ran through the route in his head, then nodded to Li Yuan. "I'm leaving today. The Metal Box will stay here. If any new structural changes appear in the decoded data, you can keep tracking them with this Data Pad."
He paused at the hall entrance and glanced toward the control console. Xu Wuyi was not in the hall. The console stood empty, with only Zero One's projection on standby in a side display.
Jiang did