Information Integration

Early the next morning, before his morning run, Lin Chen went to the tool shed and cleaned the stone slab he had brought back from the outpost yesterday. He placed it in the light by the window and examined it closely. Its surface was slightly lighter in color than it had appeared indoors yesterday. A long, narrow groove ran along its edge, as if it had been deliberately worked. The line faded after extending into the middle of the slab, disappearing beneath a layer of pale gray sediment. He ran his fingers over the groove. Its edges were smooth, not the result of natural weathering.

[ Ding! Ancient Information Fragment Analysis Progress: 0.3%. ]

The system panel displayed only a progress bar, with no further explanation. He watched it for a few seconds, set the slab on the windowsill, and left the tool shed.

After finishing his morning run, Krillin did not immediately head to the beach for a swim. He stood in the yard for a while, then entered the tool shed and spotted the slab on the windowsill. "You brought it back?"

"I left it there to take a look. The markings seem deeper than they did at the outpost."

Krillin walked over and lowered his head to inspect the grooves on the slab. "The depth of these markings is uneven. The middle part looks like it was worn down, and the edges aren't worn evenly either." He straightened up. "If this slab was originally embedded in the wall foundation, the people at the outpost might not have moved it here. It could be something even older."

"Something older?" Lin Chen asked.

"Master Roshi said there used to be older buildings in those woods. The outpost was built later. They may have used old materials when they built it." Krillin glanced at the slab again before turning toward the door. "Let's go back this afternoon. Bring a shovel and dig around the base of the wall."

That afternoon, the two crossed the forest again. The ground was drier than it had been yesterday, and the fallen leaves had curled up and turned brittle beneath the sun, cracking clearly underfoot. The air smelled of pine resin and dry grass, mixed with the faint earthiness of soil. Krillin walked ahead with a short-handled shovel in hand. Lin Chen followed behind, carrying water, bandages, and an old cloth for wrapping things in his backpack.

The outpost was as quiet as it had been yesterday. Sunlight slanted in through a gap in the roof, casting a bright patch onto the floor. Krillin crouched by the base of the wall and began digging down along the edge of the square stone. The soil was harder than expected, as though it had not been disturbed for a long time. The shovel blade made dull sounds as it cut in. After digging roughly two palm-depths down, the blade struck something hard with a sharp clang.

"There's something here." Krillin slowed down and brushed away the surrounding clumps of dirt, exposing a thinner slab beneath. It was darker than the one on the surface, and its face was coated in a crust that looked like dried soil mixed with some kind of mineral. He carefully scraped away the coating with the edge of his shovel, revealing a row of engraved characters—not Earth writing. Their strokes were straighter, their spacing more even.

Lin Chen crouched down to look at the engravings. He had never seen the characters before, but their arrangement reminded him of something similar he had encountered somewhere. After searching his memory, his gaze returned to the slab. "It might have been used to record something. It was buried under the wall foundation, not used for reinforcement."

Krillin set aside the shovel, cleared the loose dirt from around the slab's edge with his hands, and tried lifting it. The slab moved, revealing a narrow gap once it loosened. Lin Chen reached out to help, and together they lifted it and leaned it against the nearby wall. Beneath it was a shallow pit, with a clay jar resting at the bottom. Its mouth had been sealed with a layer of dried mud.

Krillin gently lifted out the jar. It was heavier than it looked, as though there was still something inside. He gave it a slight shake, and a faint sound came from within, like small objects shifting and knocking together. He wiped away the dried mud sealing the opening, revealing a folded piece of animal hide. He pulled it out and unfolded it. Lines and symbols had been drawn across its surface. The lines were orderly, some thick and some thin, resembling a map. There were no written labels, only several intersecting lines and locations marked with dots.

Standing beside him, Lin Chen noticed that one crease near the edge of the map was much deeper than the rest, as though it had been unfolded repeatedly. He took the map and adjusted its orientation. The concentrated creases lay slightly left of the center, where there was a small circle painted in dark pigment, neat in shape with clear edges.

Krillin placed the clay jar back into the shallow pit. "Let's take this back and let Master Roshi have a look first." He carefully rolled up the map and put it into his backpack, then returned the slab to its original position. Using the shovel, he filled in the dug-up soil and patted down the surface, restoring it as closely as possible.

Neither of them spoke much on the way back. The sun had already tilted westward, and the light in the forest was growing dim. The shadows of the trees stretched long. Behind them, their footprints were being drawn into longer outlines by the slanting sunlight, as though the ground were slowly closing up behind them as they walked away.

When they returned to Kame House, Master Roshi was sitting beneath the porch, shaving down a fresh wooden stick. A pile of thin wood shavings had already gathered by his feet. Krillin handed him the map. "We dug it out from beneath the base of the wall. It should have been buried there a long time ago."

Master Roshi put down the stick, took the map, and unfolded it across his lap. He smoothed its creases, bent closer, and studied the lines and symbols. After a while, he tapped the small circle slightly left of the map's center. "This location is probably in the direction of the western desert." He rolled up the map and handed it back to Krillin. "Keep it safe. It'll be useful later."

After dinner, Lin Chen spread the map across the table in his room and studied it once more beneath the lamp. He had already roughly memorized the arrangement of the lines and dots, running through them in his mind several times. Near the circle marker, he noticed that one thin line became fainter just before reaching the circle, as though the ink had run out while it was being drawn—or as though it had been deliberately made less noticeable.

He folded the map and set it by the table, then blew out the lamp. In the darkness, he traced the outline of the entire map in his mind again, comparing the positions of its intersections and lines over and over before slowly lying down. The starlight beyond the window was a little brighter than it had been last night. The wind stirred the edge of the curtain, casting a slowly shifting patch of shadow across the wall.